Archive for March, 2012
Former president Jimmy Carter, after 60 years membership in the Southern Baptist Church, has left with the following message:
“At its most repugnant, the belief that women must be subjugated to the wishes of men excuses slavery, violence, forced prostitution, genital mutilation and national laws that omit rape as a crime. But it also costs many millions of girls and women control over their own bodies and lives, and continues to deny them fair access to education, health, employment and influence within their own communities . . .
“The truth is that male religious leaders have had — and still have —an option to interpret holy teachings either to exalt or subjugate women. They have, for their own selfish ends, overwhelmingly chosen the latter. Their continuing choice provides the foundation or justification for much of the pervasive persecution and abuse of women throughout the world.”
~ thanks to poet Margaret Randall for sharing these words.
United States first lady Michelle Obama, (C) along with Yoriko Fujisaki, (2R) wife of the Ambassador of Japan to the United States, and local school children, commemorate the centennial anniversary of the 1912 gift of cherry blossom trees from the city of Tokyo to Washington, D.C. by planting a cherry blossom tree near the Tidal Basin in Washington March 27, 2012. REUTERS/Gary Cameron
Poem for Japan by Matthew Zapruder |
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all day staying inside listening to a podcast discuss how particles over the Pacific might drift I knew thinking whenever cloud scares me I am not alone my umbrella slept in the closet I placed a few nouns in beautiful cages then let them out touched with my mind the lucky cat asleep in the deli I always scratch his head he slightly raises to meet my hand all over the remains contaminated shadowmen in blue suits that seem ecclesiastical now that science is a religion crawl the emperor everyone has forgotten is speaking no one knows how to be loving and also hope the wind in a certain and not another direction will blow |