Colombia’s civil war continues as 30,000 die each year and over 3.6 millions persons are displaced. Some 6,000 children are enrolled in non-State armed groups. UNICEF is working for the demobilization of children in armed groups and they need our help.

War is a terrible way of life in Colombia, it’s even worse for children who are conscripted in this internal conflict. Donate now and help stop the recruitment of children as soldiers.

From Newsvine and the A.P:

Since 1999, the number of people struggling with hunger has risen from 31 million to 38 million in 2004. The Agriculture Department report has generally been released in October, a month after annual poverty figures are released by the Census Department.

Democrats said the delay appears political. Competitive elections across the country will decide next Tuesday whether President Bush’s party keeps control of Congress.

Ugh. This is horrible, and right before this weekend’s Hunger Walk here in Louisville.

This weekend is the 28th Annual Hunger Walk in Louisville. This event raises thousands of dollars that go directly to feed people who are hungry here in Louisville and around the world. If you can’t walk, be sure to find a way to donate. Most likely your local place of worship is participating.

Another group that works to end hunger is Bread for the World. They seek justice for the world’s hungry people by lobbying our nation’s decision makers. This month’s action focuses on making sure our members of Congress do everything in their power to ensure that poverty-focused development assistance levels are set in the foreign assistance spending for 2007 and include at a minimum the $2 billion increase requested by the president. A letter to the editor that coincides with the Hunger Walk would be a great way to make your voice heard.

Welcome to dolovewalk, a peacemaking studio (digital edition). We take our name from Micah 6:8, “And what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God.”

In an age where social networking and web 2.0 are the buzzwords of the internet and communications in general, a web presence whose focus is creating peace in the world has found its time. Peacemaking is a participatory endeavor, we need to do this work, this art, together.

dolovewalk.org is about action. We will attempt to do justice by working together to change the systems of oppression in the world. We will attempt to love kindness by sharing our resources (namely time and money) with others. We will attempt to walk humbly by using a variety of means to broaden and deepen our awareness of the world we live in and all who inhabit it.

I use the word attempt because sometimes our best efforts may miss their mark. I’m glad you’ve taken the time to meet us. I hope you’ll stick around and join us.

From Reporters Without Borders:

The United States (53rd) has fallen nine places since last year, after being in 17th position in the first year of the Index, in 2002. Relations between the media and the Bush administration sharply deteriorated after the president used the pretext of “national security” to regard as suspicious any journalist who questioned his “war on terrorism.” The zeal of federal courts which, unlike those in 33 US states, refuse to recognise the media’s right not to reveal its sources, even threatens journalists whose investigations have no connection at all with terrorism.

Freelance journalist and blogger Josh Wolf was imprisoned when he refused to hand over his video archives. Sudanese cameraman Sami al-Haj, who works for the pan-Arab broadcaster Al-Jazeera, has been held without trial since June 2002 at the US military base at Guantanamo, and Associated Press photographer Bilal Hussein has been held by US authorities in Iraq since April this year.

This so disgusts and saddens me. Another of our freedoms has become a casualty of “The Long War”. When will we declare enough is enough?

Spider-Man!

Click here to take the Superhero Personality Quiz

From the September issue of Atlantic Monthly:

Robert Kaplan writes,

“Yet despite their part in directing warfare, Predator pilots face absolutely no danger. In fact, as one pilot told me, the Predator raises a moral issue, by enabling you to kill someone without ever putting yourself at risk. Inside the trailers, crews don’t get even the sensation of flying that one gets in a flight simulator. The real tension for these pilots comes from the clash with everything outside the trailers.

Nellis Air Force Base is full of the same stuffy regulations—on driving, dress codes, inspections, saluting, and so forth—that are common to other bases far removed from war zones. (In war zones—inside those trailers—informality reigns because the mission is everything.) But beyond Nellis is the banal world of spouses, kids, homework, and soccer games—not to mention the absurdity of a city where even the gas stations have slot machines. Simply entering or leaving one of the trailers is tremendously disorienting.”

This raises chilling moral questions. The pilots themselves are raising them. They have the power to kill, and do, and yet are never at risk. What does it mean to be 7,500 miles from the battlefield, kill someone with the push of a button while watching a video screen, then pick up your kid from soccer practice minutes later?

I am not naive enough to believe that we will be able to create a world where war and aggression do not exist. But I can hope that we will not become so detached from our aggression that we will accept its consequences as commonplace or somehow deceive ourselves into thinking that they really didn’t happen at all.

We don’t know the horror of war in this country because we have not seen it in our streets. Those who serve in the military do know. At least they used to. Now we are creating a new generation of veterans who can not only kill the enemy from a few thousnad yards away with push of a button while sharing the battlefield with them, but who can now do that from the safety of the Nevada desert, far away from the perils of war and continue to lead their normal lives.

This desensitization to the risks and tragedies of war makes the lessons of war harder to learn and the choice to go to war easier than it should be.

When war becomes a 9-5 job, something has gone amiss. A part of what makes us human has died.

Time to listen to Adam Brodsky’s Uncivil Rights again.

Transcript of Olbermann’s commentary at truthout.org.
[youtube]ZXofTYFTH7A[/youtube]

That’s the name of John Reed’s book about the Russian Revolution of 1917. Warren Beatty’s Reds tells his story. This week the movie was released for the first time ever on DVD in a 25th Anniversary Special Edition. This is one of my all time favorite movies.

In many ways it is more relevant today than it was when released in 1981. Below are two clips that will serve as discussion starters for tonight’s CCC’s ToT at Molly Malones.

We’ll use them to talk about the politics of the Iraq War and morals, government and the “faith-based” posturing that goes with them.

An essay entitled “How Would Jesus Vote in 2006?” and a profile of Sen. Sam Brownback are good reads as the election nears and can also inform our discussion.

Today, Bangladeshi economist Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank he founded won the Nobel Peace Prize.

Essentially, this award is testimony to the impact of microcredit.

Tiny, microloans can make a world of difference to those who receive them, and are a wonderful, no risk way for others to use their wealth to change the world. Check out OikoCredit where 71% of their financing goes through Grameen Banks and change the world by where you deposit a little (as small as $1,000) or a lot of your money.