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Signs of the Times  •  6 September 2017 •  No. 135

Special issue
Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA)

Above: Display of backpacks left by migrants attempting to cross the Sonoran Desert in Arizona, displayed at the Parson School of Design. The backpacks were exhibited in the show “State of Exception/Estado de Excepción.” Photo by Richard Barnes

¶ Processional. “Ice El Hielo,” La Santa Cecilia [Lyrics in English translation: “ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] is loose over those streets. / We never know when it will be our turn. / They cry, the children cry at the doorway, / They cry when they see that their mother will not come back.”]

¶ Invocation. “Clandestino,” Manu Ahao, [English translation: “I come only with my punishment / There comes only my conviction / Running is my fate / In order to deceive the law / Lost in the heart / Of the great Babylon / They call me the Clandestine / 'cause I don't carry any identity papers.”

¶ Call to worship. “Gracious One, who jealously guards the lives of those at every edge, we lift our heavy hearts to your Mercy. / We live in a fretful land, anxious over the ebbing away of privilege, fearful that strangers are stealing our birthright. / Aliens breaching our borders. / Refugees threatening our security. / Loud, insistent voices demand a return to ‘the rule of law.’ / Speak to us of the Rule of your law, the terms of your Reign. Incline our hearts to your command.” —continue reading “You shall also love the stranger: A litany for worship, using texts on immigration”

¶ Hymn of praise. “Livin' in a city where the dreams of men / Reach up to touch the sky and then / Tumble back down to earth again / Livin' in a city that never quits / Livin' in a city where the streets are paved / With good intentions and a people's faith / In the sacred promise a statue made / Livin' in a city of immigrants.” —Steve Earle, “City of Immigrants”

¶ And a child shall lead. “At least two high schools in Denver, Colo., allowed students to collectively walk out of class Tuesday (see photo at right) to protest the Trump administration’s termination of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. Students at North High School and West High School walked out of school mid-morning to ‘protest’ in support of DACA, an Obama-era program that unilaterally granted temporary amnesty to hundreds of thousands” of children brought to the US by their parents.  Watch this video of the march. (1:07)

¶ Confession. “Groaning with sighs too deep for words, singing our woebegone songs for the world that is promised from beyond every prediction, / beyond every market forecast, beyond every rule of engagement, beyond—at times—even our own faltering faith. / It is for that Bright Land that we intercede! / Its merciful manna is ours to neither hoard nor dispense. We are not its border guards. / All are immigrants to that Beloved Community into whose citizenship we are invited, for whose establishment we are committed, by whose joyful refrain our tongues cannot be restrained.” —continue reading “For that Bright Land: A litany for worship inspired by Romans 8:18-27”

¶ Take this brief (2:18) animated video tour with Robert Reich on the topic “The Facts About Immigration.”

¶ Hymn of assurance. “And I’ll rise up / I'll rise like the day / I’ll rise up / I'll rise unafraid / I'll rise up / And I’ll do it a thousand times again / And I’ll rise up / High like the waves / I’ll rise up / In spite of the ache / I'll rise up / And I’ll do it a thousands times again / For you.” —Andra Day, “Rise Up”

¶ The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) background. “In the 1990s to mid-2000s, the US started building up enforcement on the US-Mexico border, with a huge unintended consequence: Many unauthorized immigrants avoided repeated risky border crossings by settling in the US with their families. (Previously, unauthorized immigrants had mostly been working-age men who crossed back and forth to the US for work while their families stayed in their home countries.)
      “Around the same time, changes to US law made it nearly impossible for an immigrant to get legal status if they’d lived in the country illegally. So the children who crossed illegally into the US with their parents were growing up in a country where they could never become legal residents or citizens.

        “These children became known as DREAMers, after the DREAM [Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors] Act, a piece of legislation meant to give them a path to citizenship first introduced in 2001. But with that legislation stalled in Congress, President Barack Obama in 2012 created the DACA program. While it didn’t give them a path to citizenship, DACA offered DREAMers a temporary grant of protection from deportation and a permit to work legally in the US.” —Dana Lind, “9 facts that explain DACA, the immigration program Trump is threatening to end: How DACA works, who it protects, and what will happen to immigrants if Trump shuts it down”  Also see Julia Glum, “DACA by the Numbers: 15 Facts About the Youth Immigration Program Trump Could Soon Shut Down,” Newsweek

        • Some 800,000 people, average age of 25, are now registered in the DACA program, though 1.3 million are eligible.

        • On average, these children were 6.5 year old when they arrived.

        • They must have come to the U.S. before turning 16. They must have lived in the U.S. since June 15, 2007.

        • Their average hourly wage is $17.46 an hour, up from $10.29 before receiving DACA. About 72% of respondents were in higher education.

        • More than 1,800 governors, attorneys general, mayors, state representatives, judges, police chiefs and other leaders signed onto a letter supporting Dreamers and DACA recipients.

        • Nearly 80% said they got driver's licenses. About half became organ donors.

        • Because DACA recipients gave extensive personal information to the government when they applied, many of them could easily be tracked down.

        • The cost to apply for DACA status is $495. Once granted, it must be renewed every two years costing another $495 each time.

        • More than 97% are in school or in the workforce, 5% started their own business, 65% have purchased a vehicle, and 16% have purchased their first home. At least 72% of the top 25 Fortune 500 companies count DACA recipients among their employees.

¶ Hymn of intercession. “Save me from this prison / Lord, help me get away / Cause only you can save me now from this misery / I've been lost in my own place, and I'm gettin' weary / How far is heaven?” —Los Lonely Boys, “Heaven” (Thanks Randy.)

¶ “[Attorney General] Jeff Sessions is wrong. These kids are not taking jobs from American citizens. . . . The compassionate thing to do is to give these kids legal status, let them become citizens, they are all non-felons, they have no other country to go to.” —Republican Senator Lindsay Graham (SC), on NBC’s “Today” show

¶ “A Moody’s Analytics analysis of Trump's proposed economic policies last year showed that removing all undocumented immigrants from the labor force would trigger an economic recession within one year.” —Tracy Jan, “White House claims ‘dreamers’ take jobs away from blacks and Hispanics. Here’s the truth,” Washington Post

¶ Undocumented immigrants paid $13 billion into the retirement trust fund [Social Security] in 2010, and only got about $1 billion in benefits. Also, they paid about $10.6 billion in state and local taxes. —Alexia Fernandez Campbell, “The Truth About Undocumented Immigrants and Taxes”

¶ At last count, more than 400 business executives had signed a letter supporting the DACA program, saying “Our economy would lose $460.3 billion from the national GDP and $24.6 billion in Social Security and Medicare tax contributions.” —“Open Letter From Leaders of American Industry”

¶ “Rescinding DACA Would Impose Massive Costs on Employers,” David Bier, Newsweek.

¶ Only 15% of Americans believe those in the DACA program should be deported. 58% believe the immigrants should be allowed a path to citizenship; 18% believe they should be allowed to become legal residents. —Politico

¶ “The Hamilton Mixtape: Immigrants (We Get The Job Done),” K'naan featuring Residente, Riz MC & Snow Tha Product.

Only Mass Deportation Can Save America

        “In the matter of immigration, mark this conservative columnist down as strongly pro-deportation. The United States has too many people who don’t work hard, don’t believe in God, don’t contribute much to society and don’t appreciate the greatness of the American system. They need to return whence they came."

        Why?

        • “Nonimmigrants are incarcerated at nearly twice the rate of illegal immigrants, and at more than three times the rate of legal ones.”

        • “Just 17 % of the finalists in the 2016 Intel Science Talent Search—often called the ‘Junior Nobel Prize’—were the children of United States-born parents.”

        • “More illegal immigrants identify as Christian (83%) than do Americans (70.6%).”

        • “The rate of out-of-wedlock births for United States-born mothers exceeds the rate for foreign-born moms, 42% to 33%.”

Right: Rosaries confiscated by US border patrol agents.

        • “The rate of delinquency and criminality among nonimmigrant teens considerably exceeds that of their immigrant peers.”

        “So how does America become great again by berating and evicting its most energetic, enterprising, law-abiding, job-creating, idea-generating, self-multiplying and God-fearing people?” —Bret Stephens, New York Times

¶ “What makes a gringo your smart aleck lingo / When he stole this land from the Indian way back when / Don't he remember the big money lender / That put him a lincoln parked where his pinto had been / The almighty peso that gives him the say so / To dry up the river whenever there's crops to bring in / Such a good neighbor to take all his labor / Chase him back over the border till he's needed again.” —Merle Haggard, “The Immigrant”

¶ Listen to a reading of biblical texts on immigrants, read from The Riverside Church in New York City (1:02 video).

¶ Read “Strangers and Aliens: A collection of biblical texts regarding the fate of immigrants”

¶ “The Prayer of the Refugee,” Rise Against.

¶ Analogy. Suppose you are one among the many who lost your home and possessions to Hurricane Harvey. (Some of you many not have to “suppose.”) But now, instead of the awful labor of rebuilding, you are actually deported for something your parents did. That’s the fate Dreamers are currently facing.

Left: Migrants ride on top of a northern bound train in Mexico toward the US-Mexico border.

¶ Between October 2000 to September 2016, the US Border Patrol has documented 6,023 deaths of immigrants attempting to cross into the US from Mexico. “I would say for every one we find, we’re probably missing five,” said Sheriff Urbino Martinez of Brooks County, Texas.
        “If this were any other context, if these were deaths as a result of a mass flood or an earthquake or a major plane crash, people would be talking about this as being a mass disaster,” said Daniel E. Martinez, an assistant professor of sociology at George Washington University. —Manny Fernandez, “A Path to America: Marked by More and More Bodies,” New York Times

¶ Can’t make this sh*t up. The New York Times reported Tuesday that administration officials privately raised concerns as late as one hour before the announcement about Trump's understanding of the effects of rescinding DACA. —Rebecca Savransky, The Hill

¶ “If You’re Outraged By Trump’s DACA Decision, Here’s How You Can Help Recipients Like Me.” —Pierre R. Berastain, HuffPost

¶ Preach it. “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.” —South African Bishop Desmond Tutu

¶ Call to the table. “This Land is Your Land,” Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings.

¶ Altar call. “Todos Somos Ilegales” (“We Are All Illegals”), Residente, Tom Morello & Chad Smith.

¶ The Hymn Society in the United States and Canada is pleased to announce the release of Singing Welcome: Hymns and Songs of Hospitality to Refugees and Immigrants, a collection of 46 hymns and songs available for free download from The Hymn Society’s website.

¶ Benediction. “Love does no wrong to a neighbor.” —Romans 13:10

¶ Recessional. “To dance the Bamba / one needs a bit of grace. / A bit of grace for me, for you, / now come on, come on, / for you I'll be, for you I'll be, for you I'll be. “ —Los Lobos & Gipsy Queens, “La Bamba”

¶ Just for fun. A drone’s-eye-view of a fireworks show. (4:07 video. Thanks Donna.)

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Featured this week on prayer&politiks

• “Out of the house of slavery,” a Bible study on immigration

• “You shall also love the stranger,” a litany for worship, using texts on immigration

• “Strangers and Aliens,” a collection of biblical texts regarding the fate of immigrants
 
Other features

• “Tired of being mean,” a response to the “Nashville Statement” by Nancy Hastings Sehested

• “For that Bright Land,” a litany for worship inspired by Romans 8:18-27

©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org. Language not otherwise indicated above is that of the editor, as are those portions cited as “kls.” Don’t let the “copyright” notice keep you from circulating material you find here (and elsewhere in this site). Reprint permission is hereby granted in advance for noncommercial purposes.

Feel free to copy and post any original art on this site. (The ones with “prayer&politiks.org” at the bottom.) As well as other information you find helpful.

Your comments are always welcomed. If you have news, views, notes or quotes to add to the list above, please do. If you like what you read, pass this along to your friends. You can reach me directly at kensehested@prayerandpolitiks.org.

 

 

Signs of the Times  •  29 August 2017 •  No. 134

¶ Processional. “The Flood Blues,” Louis Armstrong & Hot Seven Band featuring Bertha “Chippie” Hill.

Above: Rescue boats fill a flooded street as people are evacuated as floodwaters from Tropical Storm Harvey rise on Aug. 28, 2017, in Houston. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)

¶ Invocation. “I was hollerin' for mercy, and it weren't no boats around / Hey I was hollerin' for mercy, and it weren't no boats around / Hey that looks like people, I've gotta stay right here and drown.” —Big Bill Broonzy, “Southern Flood Blues”

¶ Call to worship. “Listen, all you who stagger in desert waste, / disgraced by gloom’s unremitting groan, dragged / daily to death’s gate and the sea’s drowning flood. / The Blessed One stands at the gate of plenty. / The Beloved waits by the well of refreshment. / Abandon your beggarly quest for breath beyond / the pale of praise, for sustenance beyond the tie / that binds all hearts as one.” —continue reading “Let gladness swell your heart,” a litany for worship inspired by Psalm 107

¶ Hymn of praise. “Wade in the Water,” Blind Boys of Alabama.

§  §  §

Houston, we have a problem: Hurricanes and nature's disdain

        Currently, “Harvey” ranks at 97 on the top 100 most popular boys’ names in the US for 2017. I doubt it will still be on the list at year’s end.

        Monday morning I heard from two good friends in Houston. Turns out they were safely away during Hurricane Harvey’s crawl across the region. Good neighbors braved flooded streets to get to my friends’ home to check on damage. Flood waters were lapping at the porch but had not yet crossed the threshold. Just in case, the neighbors went in and carted some valuable items upstairs.

        Investing neighbors with a key to your house is testimony to actual neighborliness.

        I was glad for this small bit of news; but the gladness was no match for the sadness of knowing what was occurring on a larger scale throughout much of the Southeast Texas (and, increasingly, in Louisiana, where Harvey seems to be headed next).

        So I spent the morning listening to bluesy music about floods. I’ve noted some of those above and below.

Right: Shardea Harrison looks on at her 3 week old baby Sarai Harrison being held by Dean Mize as he and Jason Legnon used his airboat to rescue them from their home after the area was inundated with flooding from Hurricane Harvey on August 28, 2017 in Houston, Texas.  (Photo: Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

        The extent of this deluge is hard to fathom. It may prove to be the largest flood event in US history. Some 30,000 are homeless and will be for weeks, months, “even years” ahead, according to one emergency response manager. Some 35% of the metropolitan Houston area, home to six million, is totally uninhabitable.

        There already are stories of heroism from both official responders and ordinary citizens who’ve pitched in to help, risking their own convenience and safety. And we will celebrate those stories, like the one below of the owner of a giant mattress and furniture store opening his doors to take in the displaced.

        In one news conference, Texas Senator John Cornyn offered a powerful metaphor, saying the community was “lashed together” in facing this crisis. We should all be encouraging that such traditional—I dare say conservative—cultural values are still available to call on: of people prioritizing the community’s health over personal circumstances. The older name for this is covenant life. As far back as Sinai, standing before God was organically connected to, and reflective of, our standing with each other. Neighborliness and Godliness were irrevocably entwined. Failing either put the other in jeopardy.

        But of course Sen. Cornyn, along with his fellow Texas Senator Ted Cruz, both voted against the federal aid requested by New Jersey and New York after Hurricane Sandy’s devastation in 2012. There’s nothing especially honorable to the idea of being “lashed together” if it only includes me and mine. Such convictions are disturbingly modernist.

        Being lashed together means allocating preventative measures at least as much value as responsive ones. Houston has some of the weakest building codes in the nation; and earlier this month President Trump rolled back provisions that would strengthen those standards in flood-prone areas.

        Hailing acts of personal valor while ignoring, or denigrating, policies supporting the commonweal is among the worst forms of deceit.

        We know that powerful economic forces are arrayed against the truth when it comes to climate issues. For instance, for the second time in as many years—this time, one week prior to Harvey’s mauling—researchers definitively documented the fact that ExxonMobil has known for at least four decades that burning fossil fuels was devastating to the ecosphere, yet they spent googobs of money hiding the facts.

        Market-based truth, like market-based health care, may be profitable in the short run but ruinous in the long.

        We also recently learned, the Trump Administration’s claim notwithstanding, that the federal government’s own “Climate Science Special Report” asserts it is “extremely likely” that more than half the rise in climate temperatures of recent decades is caused by human activity, specifically by greenhouse gas emissions. The report has yet to be formally released by the Trump administration—we only know about because someone among the researchers’ staff leaked it to the press.

        Finally, while it is right and proper that we, here, give devoted attention to Hurricane Harvey’s impact, we mustn’t lose sight of the fact that at about the same time catastrophic flooding ravaged parts of South Asia and West Africa. In both cases, the death toll is nearly 100 times higher than produced by Harvey.

        At the very least, through one of the several larger networks to which we are connected, we must draw into our attention span and response-ability what is happening in the larger world. Even the Pentagon knows that climate change is a threat to global security. We should be at least as aware. —Ken Sehested

§  §  §

¶ Confession.
“When covenant life is eclipsed and no scale of
justice endures save that which we enforce,
might makes right and every moral compass
is reduced to the self’s enthroned appetite. The
commonweal is commandeered by shrewd
maneuvering, willful disinformation,
calculating propaganda, legislative malfeasance,
judicial folly, and political intrigue.”
—continue reading “Another Word is in the wind: A psalm of complaint and avowal”

¶ Good news. “If you live in Houston, you know Jim McIngvale—or rather, "Mattress Mack." As local businessmen go, he's among the most recognizable thanks to the local TV ads for his Gallery Furniture stores. Those stores are now serving a new role—emergency shelters for families in Houston (photo at right) driven from their homes by flood waters. McIngvale's stores are particularly well suited to the situation. They're massive warehouses filled with beds and furniture, the kind that can only exist in a place like Houston, where space is plentiful to the point of excess.” — Jason Abbruzzese, “Mashable”

¶ Hymn of lamentation. “When it thunders and lightnin' and when the wind begins to blow / There's thousands of people ain't got no place to go.” —Bessie Smith, “Back Water Blues”

¶ Stay tuned to this. How flooding in southeast Texas will create additional environmental pollution due to damaged oil refineries and petrochemical plants is uncertain. ExxonMobil has admitted its plant in Baytown has been affected “and said it was taking action to ‘minimize emissions.’”
        “Earlier this year, a Texas court ordered Exxon to pay $20 million in fines for "serious" violations at Baytown that caused the release of about 10 million pounds of pollutants into the atmosphere. A judge ruled that Exxon violated the Clean Air Act 16,386 times between October 2005 and September 2013. Exxon said at the time that it disagreed with the finding.” —Matt Egan, CNN

¶ Hymn of assurance. “On Jordan’s Stormy Banks I Stand,” Pastor Danny R. Hollins & the Greater Fairview Sanctuary Choir. 

¶ Word of warning. “You who live by mighty waters, rich in treasures, your end has come, the thread of your life is cut. “ —Jeremiah 51:13

¶ They knew. “A new study shows how ExxonMobil downplayed climate change when it knew the problem was real.” —Michael Hiltzik, LATimes

¶ In Scripture, water can symbolize deliverance or death, salvation or destruction, healing or harm, prosperity or peril, blessing or curse, assurance or threat. What follows is a selection of such texts. —continue reading “Water texts”

Left: Victims of flooding in Bangladesh, where last week high waters claimed the lives of more than 1200 people. (Photo: Kamrul Hassan / Bangladesh Red Crescent)

¶ At last count, the death toll in Texas from Hurricane Harvey’s wind and flood stands at 14. The day before Harvey’s landfall, monsoon rains in India, Bangladesh and Nepal has killed more than 1,200, as rescue workers scramble to provide aid to millions of people stranded by the worst such disaster in years. And on the same day, floods in Sierra Leone, on Africa’s west coast, created mudslides that have killed “more than 1,000.” Another 600 are missing, which means the death toll will likely climb.

¶ “Climate change did not produce Harvey the Hurricane, but climate change made Harvey worse than it would otherwise be.” —Jean Cole, “Top 5 Ways Man-Made Climate Change Made Hurricane Harvey Much Worse,” CommonDreams

¶ “An executive order issued by Trump earlier this month revoked an Obama-era directive that had established flood-risk standards for federally funded infrastructure projects built in areas prone to flooding or subject to the effects of sea-level rise—like many of those now sinking in Texas. Houston already has some of the laxest building regulations for structures in potential flood zones and the president wants to spread that policy across the US.” —Benjamin Preston, The Guardian

¶ Hymn of intercession. “Well dark clouds are rollin' in / Man I'm standin' out in the rain / Well dark clouds are rollin' in / Man I'm standin' out in the rain / Yeah flood water keep a rollin' / Man it's about to drive poor me insane.” —Stevie Ray Vaughan, “Texas Flood”

¶ Best one-liner. “If you defile the land, it will vomit you out.” —Leviticus 18:28

¶ The state of our disunion. “The wicked are like the tossing sea that cannot keep still; its waters toss up mire and mud.” —Isaiah 57:20

¶ Altar call. “Still I catch myself thinking / One day I'll find my way back here / You'll save me from drowning / Drowning in a river / Feels like I'm drowning / Drowning in the river.” —Eric Clapton, “River of Tears”

¶ Benediction. “The river is waiting, come rise up / A new day is coming, come rise up / They'll be sailing at first light, come gather / Said I force for the crossing, together. . . . / The river is waiting, I'm ready / To step from this island, I'm ready / Gonna leave all my sorrows, behind me / Lift my face to a new day, I'm rising.” —Irma Thomas, “River is Waiting”

¶ Recessional. “Lord, here comes the flood / We'll say goodbye to flesh and blood / If again the seas are silent / in any still alive / It'll be those who gave their island to survive / Drink up, dreamers, you're running dry.” —Peter Gabriel, “Here Comes the Flood”

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©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org. Language not otherwise indicated above is that of the editor, as are those portions cited as “kls.” Don’t let the “copyright” notice keep you from circulating material you find here (and elsewhere in this site). Reprint permission is hereby granted in advance for noncommercial purposes.

Feel free to copy and post any original art on this site. (The ones with “prayer&politiks.org” at the bottom.) As well as other information you find helpful.

Your comments are always welcomed. If you have news, views, notes or quotes to add to the list above, please do. If you like what you read, pass this along to your friends. You can reach me directly at kensehested@prayerandpolitiks.org.

 

Signs of the Times  •  23 August 2017 •  No. 133

Above: Spring in Zibak District, Badakhshan, Afghanistan

Special issue on
THE WAR IN AFGHANISTAN

Abbreviated issue

Afghanistan is "easy to march into, hard to march out of."
—Alexander The Great (4th century BCE)

¶ Invocation. Muslim call to prayer in Afghanistan.

¶ President George W. Bush announced the “war on terror” in a 21 September 2001 speech to a joint session of Congress, saying “this crusade, this war on terrorism, is going to take a while.” On 7 October he launched “Operation Enduring Freedom” by attacking Afghanistan. —see the full text of Bush’s speech at The Guardian

¶“In 2010 the International Council on Security and Development conducted a survey that found that 92% of Afghan men have never heard of 9/11.” —PBS

¶ Babur, founder of the Mughal dynasty that ruled much of central Asia in the 1500s: “Afghanistan has not been and never will be conquered, and will never surrender to anyone.”

¶ The story behind the world’s most famous photo. “Three decades ago, Steve McCurry took arguably the most iconic picture of all time. . . . ‘I knew she had an incredible look, a penetrating gaze,’ he recalls. . . . The striking portrait of 12-year-old Sharbat Gula (at right), a Pashtun orphan in the Nasir Bagh refugee camp on the Afghan-Pakistan border, was taken in December 1984.” It became National Geographic magazine’s most successful cover ever and led the magazine to set up the Afghan Children’s Fund. —Jake Wallis Simons, CNN

¶ “We can’t kill our way to victory.” —Admiral Mike Mullen, chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in September 2008 testimony to the House Armed Serviced Committee. He also told the committee that the US is “running out of time” to win the war in Afghanistan, and sending in more troops will not guarantee victory. President George W. Bush has just announced deployment of 4,500 addition troops to Afghanistan, about the same number President Trump is about to send. —CNN

¶ The busiest single airport runway in the world is on the US military base in Kandahar, southern Afghanistan. It is also the only airport outside the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) member countries controlled by NATO. —“Ten facts you may not know about Afghanistan,” BBC

¶ Ooops. Since 11 September 2001 the Department of Defense has sent 1.4 milion guns to Iraq and Afghanistan but now does not know where half of them went. —Nika Knight, CommonDreams

¶ “The world's first oil paintings were drawn not in Renaissance Europe but in the caves of Bamiyan, in the central highlands of Afghanistan around 650 BCE. Bamiyan boasted a flourishing Buddhist civilisation from the 2nd Century up to the Islamic invasion of the 9th Century. This is where the world's two largest standing Buddhas once stood, until the Taliban destroyed them in 2001 [see below].” —“Ten facts you may not know about Afghanistan,” BBC

¶ The Buddhas of Bamiyan were carved from the sandstone cliffs in the Bamiyan Valley of Central Afghanistan during the 6th-7th centuries, the site of several Buddhist monasteries at the time. Pictured at left is the larger of the two statues, before and after the Taliban destroyed them in 2001.

¶ Theological hubris. "My administration has a job to do and we're going to do it. We will rid the world of the evil-doers." —President George W. Bush, 16 September 2001, CNN

¶ Something shady about this intelligence. Five years ago American military intelligence estimated the Taliban had no more than 20,000 fighters. Yet, recently, one senior American military official estimated 10,000 Taliban fighters are killed every year. —Rod Nordland, “What an Afghan Victory Looks Like Under the Trump Plan,” New York Times

¶ The US has spent at least $1.07 trillion in 16 years of war in Afghanistan. The nation’s population is 34.6 million, and the average annual salary is $410. Which means that instead of going to war with Afghanistan, the US could have paid the average annual salary of every person (including children) for 72 years.  Average life expectancy is Afghans is less than 61 years.

¶ “We kill and bomb / Murder and maim / Target and terrorize mostly / (for high-tech armies) / from great distance / the better not to see actual faces / or severed limbs, or / intestines oozing through / holes where belly buttons used to testify / to being a mother-born child. / But then we apologize / Sorry / So sorry / Deeply regret / Such a tragedy!” —continue reading “Sorry, sorry, sorry: The political meaning of ‘collateral damage’ repentance”

¶ “America has been no different from other imperial powers in finding itself ensnared repeatedly in costly, bloody, and eventually futile overseas wars. From the Roman empire till today, the issue is not whether an imperial army can defeat a local one. It usually can, just as the United States did quickly in Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003.
        “The issue is whether it gains anything by doing so. Following such a 'victory,' the imperial power faces unending heavy costs in terms of policing, political instability, guerilla war, and terrorist blowback. Terrorism is a frequent consequence of imperial wars and imperial rule. Local populations are unable to defeat the imperial powers, so they impose high costs through terror instead.” —Jeffrey D. Sachs, CommonDreams

¶ In April the US Air dropped its 21,600 pound GBU-43 Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb (MOAB) on a suspected ISIS base in northeast Afghanistan, killing 94 combatants. The bomb itself cost a reported $170,000.00. That means each of those ISIS fighters’ death cost over $1,800 (plus shipping and handling).

¶ “Fifteen years after launching a worldwide effort to defeat and destroy terrorist organizations, the United States finds itself locked in a pathologically recursive loop; we fight to prevent attacks and defend our values, only to incite further violence against ourselves and allies while destabilizing already chaotic regions. Our forces are competent, professional, and effective.
        “But, no matter how good our forces are, it is irrelevant for the reasons laid out by historian Williamson Murray: ‘No matter how effective the military institutions might be at the tactical and operational levels, if the strategy and political framework [was] flawed, the result was defeat.’” —Major John Q. Bolton, US Army (veteran of both the Iraq and Afghan Wars),  Foreign Affairs

¶ Commenting on news that US Marines were filmed urinating on the bodies of dead Taliban soldiers in Afghanistan: “Reserve Marine Lt. Col. Paul Hackett, who teaches the law of war to Marines before they are sent off to Afghanistan, made it clear Friday that he was not condoning the Marines’ actions. But he warned against judging them too harshly, saying: ‘When you ask young men to kill people for a living, it takes a whole lot of effort to rein that in.’” —Robert Koehler, “The Dignity of Corpses,” HuffPost

¶ “The Department of Defense procured uniforms for the Afghan Army in a camouflage pattern that is both far more expensive than other options and likely inappropriate for the landscape there, a U.S. government watchdog says.
        “The pattern choice cost U.S. taxpayers as much as $28.2 million extra since 2008, according to a report out Wednesday, and if changed could save up to $72.21 million over the next 10 years.

Right: Doves at the Kart-e Sakhi mosque in Kabul, Afghanistan. Adek Berry/AFP/Getty Images

        “Nearly 1.4 million full uniforms and nearly 90,000 pairs of pants had a camouflage print designed to help military personnel blend in with a forest environment. But according to the report, only 2.1 percent of Afghanistan is comprised of forest.” —Merrit Kennedy, NPR

¶ “The Marine Corps taught Sam Siatta how to shoot. The war in Afghanistan taught him how to kill. Nobody taught him how to come home.” —C.J. Chivers’ New York Times Magazine story, “The Fighter,”  gives a vivid account—the sights, sounds, smells, and moral quandry—of combat, along with the sometimes dystopian results of trying to adjust afterwards.

¶ After 15 years of US war in Afghanistan, and more than $68 billion in military aid to the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces, the Taliban now controls more of the country’s territory than at any time since 2001. —Nadia Prupis, Common Dreams

¶ See an annotated timeline of Afghanistan, beginning with the 1838 British invasion. —Afghanistan profile, BBC

¶ “Concealed within that oft-cited ‘freedom’—the all-purpose justification for deploying American power — were several shades of meaning. The term, in fact, requires decoding. Yet within the upper reaches of the American national security apparatus, one definition takes precedence over all others. In Washington, freedom has become a euphemism for dominion.” —Andrew Bacevich, “Iraq and Afghanistan Have Officially Become Vietnam 2.0,” The Nation

¶ Brutality in defense of Starbucks. “The madness of war is that while this system is in place to kill people, it may actually be necessary for the greater good. We live in a dangerous world for killing and torture exist and where the persecution of the weak by the powerful is closer to the norm than the civil society where we get our Starbucks. Insuring our own safety and the defense of a peaceful world may require training boys and girls to kill, creating technology that allows us to destroy anyone on the planet instantly, dehumanizing large segments of the global population and then claiming there is a moral sanctity in killing. To fathom the system and accept it use for the greater good is to understand that we still live in a state of nature. —Timothy Kudo, former Marine captain and veteran of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, New York Times

¶ Can’t makes this sh*t up. “I can’t guarantee your kids won’t be here in 20 years with another old guy standing in front of them.” —Marine General Robert Neller, responding to a question from his troops about their objective in Halmand Province, Afghanistan, quote in Thomas Gibbons-Neff, “ ‘It’s like everyone forgot’: On a familiar battlefield, Marines prepare for their next chapter in the Forever War,” Washington Post

Right: Children in a refugee camp in Afghanistan. Photo by Chris Fahey.

¶ Confession. There are reasons the Trump Administration provokes more public outrage than any other in memory. But there are a larger trending factors we overlook.
        • President Obama is the only US president to serve two complete terms with the nation at war.
        • In 2016, Obama’s last full year in office, US special forces were active in 70% of the world’s nations, 138 countries, which represented a 130% increase from the George W. Bush years.
        • During the Obama years, the US dropped or launched at least 26,171 bombs and missiles. That averages out to 72 per day, or three per hour. —Medea Benjamin, The Guardian

¶ In a 1 August 2017 polling report, the Pew Research Center announced that the US is again perceived to be the greatest threat to world peace by citizens around the world, and this time the results were worse than the previous poll in 2013.
        In their polling of people in 30 nations, 35% said the US was the greatest threat, following by Russia and China (31% each). Making matters worse, of the 30 countries in the survey, only one, Venezuela, is not an ally of the US. And none of those polled live in nations that are allies of Russia or China.
        This polling data reveals what most of us in the US still are unable to comprehend: President Trump is actually a better reflection of US foreign policy than any of our presidents since the late 19th century, beginning with the Spanish-American war, when the US imperial reach set in motion. It’s just that most of our presidents have been better than Trump in disguising US foreign policy as “making the world safe for democracy.” —kls

¶ Benediction. Muslim call to prayer in Afghanistan. 

¶ Just for fun. When you’re super dope with your cat. (2 second video)

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Featured this week on prayer&politiks

• “Testimony in a time of terror: Standing with the Word of God, for the earth, and against the world,” a litany for worship

• “The taunt of Lamech’s revenge.” Authorization for Use of Military Force: 60 words that bring the US to the edge of a permanent state of war.

• “Sorry, sorry, sorry: The political meaning of ‘collateral damage’ repentance,” a poem

Other features

• “The United States at War.” There have been only 17 years that the US has not been involved in a war since 1776.

• “Boots on the ground and other obfuscations.” On this, my 65th birthday, I’ve made a new vow.

©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org. Language not otherwise indicated above is that of the editor, as are those portions cited as “kls.” Don’t let the “copyright” notice keep you from circulating material you find here (and elsewhere in this site). Reprint permission is hereby granted in advance for noncommercial purposes.

Feel free to copy and post any original art on this site. (The ones with “prayer&politiks.org” at the bottom.) As well as other information you find helpful.

Your comments are always welcomed. If you have news, views, notes or quotes to add to the list above, please do. If you like what you read, pass this along to your friends. You can reach me directly at kensehested@prayerandpolitiks.org.

 

Signs of the Times  •  16 August 2017  •  No. 132

¶ Processional. “O troubled dust concealing / An undivided love / The Heart beneath is teaching / To the broken Heart above.” —Leonard Cohen, “Come Healing”

Above. White light image of the solar corona during totality of a solar eclipse. For viewers in its path, “the Aug. 21, 2017, total solar eclipse will last less than two and half minutes. But for one team of NASA-funded scientists, the eclipse will last over seven minutes. Their secret? Following the shadow of the Moon in two retrofitted jet planes.” —read more in “Chasing the Total Solar Eclipse from NASA’s WB-57F Jets,” NASA

Back to school special edition

¶ Invocation. “The human hand – this bundle of bones, flesh, and nerves – think of all it can do. It can bless or curse. It can draw blood or bind a wound. It is gentle, agitated, vicious; supplicating, ardent, tender. It can weld an iron bridge or caress a child’s head. It possesses the power to both harm and heal.” —Karl Joseph Friedrich

¶ Call to worship. “I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, which is your spiritual worship.” —Romans 12:1

¶ “From the age of six to fourteen I took violin lessons but had no luck with my teachers, for whom music did not transcend mechanical practicing. I really began to learn only after I had fallen in love with Mozart’s sonatas. The attempt to reproduce their singular grace compelled me to improve my technique. I believe, on the whole, that love is a better teacher than sense of duty.” —Albert Einstein

¶ Hymn of praise. “Living below in this old sinful world / Hardly a comfort can afford / Striving alone to face temptation so / Now won't you tell me / Where could I go but to the Lord?” —Elvis Presley (on the anniversary of his death), “Where Could I Go But To the Lord”

Feel free to copy and circulate any of the original artwork (the ones
with “prayerandpolitiks.org” printed at the bottom) used on this site.

¶ Confession. Thomas Merton rightly observed that “The least of the work of learning is done in the classroom.” Is this a disparagement of classroom teachers—or for that matter, pulpit preachers? I don’t think so. Good preachers and teachers know their job is to incite a thirst for learning and for revelation in the world beyond libraries and liturgies. —kls

¶ Reversal of fortunes. What if schools enjoyed pork-barrel largesse and the military depended on corporate charity?

      One recent slow morning in August, the grocery stores’ circulars in the newspaper caught my attention. I began to wonder how things might be different if certain fortunes were reversed. Instead of “back-to-school” it’s “back-to-basic-training” discount offers.

      Imagine, if you will:

      •At Ingles, earn $1,000 for mops for the Navy, boots for the Army, when you use your Advantage™ Card. And keep your eyes out for our “Box Tops for Top Guns” special deals to ensure cockpit decal maintenance.

      •Harris Teeter’s brand purchases maintain a steady supply of camouflage face grease for our special forces. Don’t forget to relink for special deals at Lockheed Martin. Soldiers count!

      •Bi-Lo offers tools for troops. Every one of the more than 800 U.S. military bases outside the U.S. have benefited from this unique program, netting more than $9 million in free equipment for every branch of the service.

      Meanwhile, back in Washington, these headlines from major media outlets:

      •Fox News: “Whining base commanders grousing again about the amount of personal money they have to spend decorating barracks.”

   •NBC: “Congressional leaders unable to round up votes necessary to defeat another multi-million dollar ‘supplemental’ educational appropriation. The Speaker of the House claims Department of Education budget already ‘bloated’ with unnecessary pork.”

      •ABC: “Senate Health, Education and Labor Committee hearings underway for alleged corruption in ‘no-bid’ contracts to fulfill ‘No Child Left Behind’ spending.”

      •CBS: “Pentagon brass say ‘bake sales no way to adequately fund quality national defense.’”

      •Associated Press: “Investigative reporter uncovers widespread complaints by Marine officers that merit pay is tied to low combat injury reports and exaggerated readiness testing.”

      The above written with thanksgiving for the teachers and educational administrators who know that knowledge is more than information, that character is not subject to cost analysis, and that learning potential exceeds the boundaries of test results. Don’t just thank a teacher. Argue for a different definition of national security. —kls

¶ One of the Latin roots of the English word education is educere, which means to bring forth, calling up the image of the midwife.
        Socrates (470-399 B.C.) preferred to describe education by comparing it with his mother’s profession. Education is Midwifery. A teacher, like a midwife, only helps the mother to give birth. The teacher is not the mother. The teacher coaxes out capacities already there.

¶ “There are thousands of students today in classrooms with teachers who are wholly unprepared” in the California school system, according to a new report from the Learning Policy Institute. —Fermin Leal, “Worsening teacher shortage puts more underprepared teachers in classrooms, report says,” EdSource (see graph below)

¶ In Michigan “enrollment in teacher prep programs declined 38% from 2008-09 to 2012-13, according to the most recent federal data available. Nationally, the drop was 30% during the same time period. . . . ‘Teachers are demoralized,’ said Michelle Fecteau, a member of the State Board of Education.” —Lori Higgins, Detroit Free Press

¶ “Enrollment in teacher preparation programs has declined 36% nationwide since the 2009-10 academic year, and a [2016) Center for American Progress report presents several reasons for the decline, finding that state policies can have a big influence over whether students are interested in teaching careers. . . ‘The data are clear: Teacher recruitment is closely related to perceptions of job insecurity and low pay,’ said Christina Baumgardner, co-author of the report.” —Center for American Progress

¶ “The teacher pay penalty is bigger than ever. In 2015, public school teachers’ weekly wages were 17.0 percent lower than those of comparable workers—compared with just 1.8 percent lower in 1994.” —Sylvia Allegretto and Lawrence Mishel, Economic Policy Institute

¶ Yet salaries are “not the end of the story,” according to Sean Corcoran, an associate professor of educational economics at NYU who has conducted extensive research on the U.S. teaching force.
        In a “Quality of Worklife” survey of more than 30,000 educators last year, just 46% said their salaries were a major source of stress in the workplace. Testing fatigue, bloated bureaucracy, little time to reflect and decompress and develop professionally have all taken a significant toll on teachers’ job satisfaction.” —Alia Wong, The Atlantic

¶ Hymn of lamentation. “Sing Me Back Home,” Merle Haggard.

¶ “Thomas Carlyle said the best effect of any book is to excite the reader to self-activity,” said Betty Lou.
        “That man clearly never ran a library. My dear, between you and me, the best effect of any book is that it be returned unmutilated to its shelf,” replied Mrs. Armstrong, her head librarian and boss. —dialogue from the 1992 comedy movie, “The Gun in Betty Lou’s Handbag”

¶ Words of assurance. “Rock of Ages,” Fernando Ortega.

¶ “I remember the same thing was done when I was a boy on the Mississippi River. There was a proposition in a township there to discontinue public schools because they were too expensive. An old farmer spoke up and said if they stopped the schools they would not save anything, because every time a school was closed a jail had to be built.” —Mark Twain, in a November 1900 speech to the Public Education Association

¶ “Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lesson afterwards.” —Vernon Law

¶ Hymn of intercession. “Teach your children well, their father's hell did slowly go by, / And feed them on your dreams, the one they pick's the one you'll know by. / Don't you ever ask them why, if they told you, you would cry, / So just look at them and sigh and know they love you.” —Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, “Teach Your Children”

¶ “I hear and I forget; I see and I remember; I do and I understand.” —source unknown

¶ Preach it. “Something is wrong with the values of a nation that would rather spend [tens of] thousand of dollars to lock a child up after getting into trouble, but won’t invest a few thousand dollars to get kids born healthy, to give them a head start, to give them a decent education. We must changes these priorities.” —Marian Wright Edelman, president of the Children’s Defense Fund

¶ “As each take your leave / now charting your own courses / I pause and ponder your absence / with dreaded joy: / joy that your wings have spread / so far so fast, / dread at the silence filling the air / which your voices once stirred.” —continue reading “On the flow of tears,” a poem on the occasion of my daughters’ transitions

¶ “The cost of imprisoning each of California's 130,000 inmates is expected to reach a record $75,560 in the next year, enough to cover the annual cost of attending Harvard University and still have plenty left over for pizza and beer.” —Don Thompson, Associated Press

¶ “The greatest sign of success for a teacher . . . is to be able to say, ‘The children are now working as if I did not exist.’” —Maria Montessori

¶ Can’t makes this sh*t up. “"Do not use conditioner in your hair because it will bind radioactive material to your hair." —one of the recommendations in a two-page fact sheet issued to citizens of Guam in case of a nuclear strike by North Korea

¶ Call to the table. “This is the mystery of the Christian life, to receive a new self, which depends not on what we can achieve but on what we are willing to receive.” —Esther de Waal

¶ The state of our disunion. “During the 19th century, college education in the United States was offered largely for free. Colleges trained students from middle-class backgrounds as high school teachers, ministers and community leaders who, after graduation, were to serve public needs. This free tuition model had to do with perceptions about the role of higher education: College education was considered a public good. Students who received such an education would put it to use in the betterment of society. . . .
        “The perception of higher education changed dramatically around 1910. Private colleges began to attract more students from upper-class families—students who went to college for the social experience and not necessarily for learning. . . . What was once a public good designed to advance the welfare of society was becoming a private pursuit for self-aggrandizement.” —Thomas Adam, “College Was Once Free and For the Public Good—What Happened?” Yes! magazine

¶ Best one-liner. “Your best teacher is your last mistake.” —Ralph Nader

¶ For the beauty of the earth. “Why you should never miss a total solar eclipse.” —3:09 video [But if you have to travel, beware the traffic jams.]

¶ Altar call. “The purpose of public education in a republic, according to Benjamin Rush, a medical doctor in Philadelphia and signer of the Declaration of Independence: ‘Let our pupil be taught that he does not belong to himself. . . .’” —John Fea, “In Bernie Sanders’ deeply religious message, an echo of the Founding Fathers,” Religion News Service

¶ Benediction. “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that your may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.” —Romans 8:2

¶ Recessional. Lebanese Dabke dancing.

¶ Just for fun. Ten giraffes wend their way up a spiral walkway, to the high diving board above a swimming pool, to perform some acrobatic moves. (5:27 video. Thanks David.)

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Featured this week on prayer&politiks

• “Fire and Fury: Reading Elijah in light of Charlottesville,” by Nancy Hastings Sehested

• “We are Charlottesville.” The fact that we are shocked about today’s news from Emancipation Park is part of our problem

• “Religious liberty, or social mischief?” Understanding the "wall of separation" between church and state
• “On the flow of tears,” a poem on the occasion of my daughters’ transitions

©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org. Language not otherwise indicated above is that of the editor, as are those portions cited as “kls.” Don’t let the “copyright” notice keep you from circulating material you find here (and elsewhere in this site). Reprint permission is hereby granted in advance for noncommercial purposes.

Feel free to copy and post any original art on this site. (The ones with “prayer&politiks.org” at the bottom.) As well as other information you find helpful.

Your comments are always welcomed. If you have news, views, notes or quotes to add to the list above, please do. If you like what you read, pass this along to your friends. You can reach me directly at kensehested@prayerandpolitiks.org.