Author: Kenneth Sutton

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Today at the State House

Working beside the Massachusetts State House, it is not uncommon to see (and hear!) protests, demonstrations, award ceremonies, commemorations, and leafletters. My colleagues and I have in the past joked about starting a blog: Today at the State House.

Well, idealistic young supporters of Lyndon LaRouche have moved in lately. Today they are actually across the street in front of the local Fox affiliate. What makes them blog-worthy is their sign today:

Bush Performs Monetary Masturbation
Pelosi Supports The Jerk.

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Unique expression

I’ve recently started following Old Girl of the North Country’s blog. Today she has a wonderful quote from Martha Graham (go there to read the whole passage):

There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique.

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Making the big time?

Who knew the Utne site had blogs? They do, including one on spirituality, and we made it with a story I put in our Winter 2007 “Reflections” section: Suicide, Faith, and Compassion

Kate Braestrup encountered this sad reality in her work as a chaplain for game wardens, an experience she recounts in an excerpt from her memoir, Here If You Need Me, published in the UU World, a publication of the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations.

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I Met John Scalvi!

It was so exciting, the day I met John Scalvi! It was quite by accident. Literally. I was minding my own business when a car came crashing across the sidewalk in front of me and through the window of a convenience store. I’d always heard about those elderly drivers who step on the gas instead of the brake, and here one was. And it was none other than John Scalvi.

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Politics

Last week I did something I’ve never done before. I made a contribution to a political candidate’s campaign: Senator Barack Obama.

When November comes, I will vote for the Democratic candidate. I cannot imagine that anyone running, no matter their faults, could possibly be worse than the war criminals currently in office. But of the three major primary candidates, Senator Obama’s campaign seems to me to have the right focus: the future, and how to bring Americans together around our shared future. We surely do not have the same vision for the future, all of us Americans, but we just as surely will share the same actuality. I’d like someone in office who wants to help us shape that future in a productive way.

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Biased media coverage of Kenya

David Zarembka critiques a few news reports on the situation in his Report 17 — Hoodwinked: International Coverage of the Crisis in Kenya

If this story had been true, it would have been one of the biggest massacres in the current violence in Kenya. Even though the story was fabricated, it was passed on by at least CNN and Time. I have never seen any reference to it in the Kenyan media.

This ought to be a red flag not only for coverage of the recent events in Kenya, but overall coverage by the international media in Africa.