Progressive Wednesday

Memorial Day Everyday: End

End:

We want this occupation to end. Making a phone call is one way we can make that happen. So, we’d like you to take three minutes out of your day and call your representative in Congress about the aforementioned war-spending bill. They’ve only got a two-year shelf-life so you’re guaranteed that they’ll be a little more concerned about losing their sweet gig than your Senators. If you’re not sure who your representative is, first go to the U.S. Postal Service to find your full 9-digit zip code, then head on over to Project Vote Smart and find out the name of your lucky representative. If you click on their name, you’ll find their contact information.

Before you call, you’ll want to first check this list to see how your rep voted to know which of the following to read when you call.

If they vote to continue funding without a timetable, you can read this when you dial their digits:

I’m a registered voter in Representative [Congressperson's Last Name] district, and I’m disgusted with their recent vote on the Iraq spending bill. By not mandating a timetable for withdrawal, Representative [Congressperson's Last Name] essentially is telling me overtly, not tacitly, that [he/she] approves of our occupation of Iraq. This was a so-called “war” built on lies and waged without regard for innocent lives with a staggering price tag to taxpayers like me. Representative [Congressperson's Last Name] has just upped the cost. If [he/she] hopes to receive my vote in two years, [he/she] will promptly propose new legislation that will de-authorize our obscene occupation of Iraq. Congress authorized the invasion under the War Powers Act and that authorization can be revoked. [Congressperson's Name] should not wait and let more American soldiers and innocent Iraqis die.

If your representative, by some small miracle, voted against the bill, use this when you give a concerned pissed-off jingle:

I�m a registered voter in Representative [Congressperson's Last Name] district, and I’m pleased [he/she] voted against the recent war-funding bill. But if [he/she] hopes to receive my vote in two years, [he/she] will promptly propose new legislation that will de-authorize our obscene occupation of Iraq. Congress authorized the invasion under the War Powers Act and that authorization can be revoked. Representative [Congressperson's Last Name] should not wait and let more American soldiers and innocent Iraqis die.

Sometimes dialing 10-digits can make all the difference.

Photo by this phone-lover.

Planet Earth as it’s never been seen

I’m not in the habit of promoting television shows for free, or at all for that matter. Nine times out of ten there is something to do that would be a better use of one’s time than sitting in front of the electronic pendulum watching some mindless blather. But, of course, not all programming falls into this category. So I’m going to against my usual standards and recommend that you watch Planet Earth on the Discovery Channel.

Planet Earth is an eleven-part series shot with state-of-the-art equipment that took over five years to produce. It covers all things “earth”: from mountains to the ocean floor; from 6-foot-long salamanders to snow-dwelling camels; with unique camera shot from outer space to ocean trenches. In their own words, they show:

Never-before-seen animal behaviors, startling views of locations captured by cameras for the first time, and unprecedented high-definition production techniques.

It sounds like a cheesy and obvious tagline, and I suppose it is. Still, it doesn’t even begin to describe the unique views, angles and picture clarity presented in this series. Okay, I’m starting to sound like an infomercial. See for yourself. Here are a couple of clips from the series. They’re not in high definition but you can get a good idea of the quality of the cinematography and how captivating the program is.

This first clip is the first time a snow leopard was ever caught on film. And they were even able to catch it in the act of hunting.

This one is my personal favorite shot. Have you ever seen a great white shark in an inverted leap 20 feet out of the water to catch a fur seal? The high-speed cameras allow the one-second-long attack to be slowed down to 47 seconds, in case you wanted to count the teeth. (Be patient. The most impressive shark attack comes about halfway through the clip, not that the shots before it aren’t breathtaking.)

You�ll have to check your local listings for times. It can be found on the Discovery Channel or Discovery HD Theater. If you have the capability, watch it in HD. If you don’t, watch it anyway. Make sure your bladder is empty when you sit down; you won’t want to get up until it’s over. If you decide you can’t watch it enough, you can purchase the DVD here. It comes in standard, Blu-Ray, and HDDVD formats.

They’ve also got a great website that does the program quality its due justice. Check it out and then meander on over their partner’s website, The Nature Conservancy, to find out what you can do for our beautiful planet Earth.

Flickr, MySpace… next stop, the World, baby.

Howdy Friends,

We just wanted to call to your attention the brand-spanking-newest item on our far-right sidebar: two buttons, one for Flickr and one for MySpace. Each points, go figure, to our new pages on those sites.

If you’ve got a Flickr account, we’d love to have you join our group. We’re always looking for fresh photographs and photographers for our daily photo of our beautiful world — let us know if you’re interested! If you’re a photographer without a Flickr account, please consider signing up. The price is literally picture perfect: it’s free, baby, free! You can also get a “Pro” account for a measly $24.95 a year. Flickr is also a fantastic way to share your photos with amigos, amigas, aunts and grandfathers, sisters and “third cousins once removed” without having to email them large files, and you can use Flickr to create personalized photo books, calendars, and postage stamps.

Our MySpace page includes our favorite photo of the week, a Progressive Wednesday Radio Player, links to our daily and Wednesday content, and a list of our 1,300+ like-minded “friends” on the WWW. If you’ve got a MySpace page, pop on over, and add us as a friend. Are your pals on MySpace? Please pass the word along. You can even click the words “Share This” at the end of this post, and email it to your heart’s content. We think our MySpace page is a great primer for folks who are new to Progressive Wednesday.

We can’t thank you enough for your continued support in getting the word out about Progressive Wednesday, and for participating with us to help get our country over the hump.

Progressively,

Eric and Matt

Restoring the meaning of Memorial Day

Today is Memorial Day. You might think that it’s a bit ridiculous to be reminding everyone like that, but a lot of Americans have no idea why they got to turn off their alarms last night and sleep till 10:00 this morning. And many of those who do know that it’s Memorial Day couldn’t tell you what we are memorializing today.

Memorial Day is more than a time to get together with family and friends, cook hot dogs and hamburgers, and get drunk; it’s a day of mourning, a time to remember those who died to preserve the freedoms that we so often take for granted: the freedom to worship as we so choose; the right to peacefully protest; or even the right for me to post this on our website.

I don�t celebrate war; I celebrate the warriors. I think too often our children learn about the triumphs and glories of the wars of our past and we see too many wars being fought in Dolby 5.1 surround sound with a bucket of popcorn in our hands. We’ve been immunized to the horrors of wars. We don’t learn about Sgt. 1st Class Peter P. Tycz (Iraq), or Pvt. William J. Murray (WWII), or Pfc. Katie M. Soenksen (Iraq), or the 1.1 million other soldiers who have given their lives in service to their country. Or the mothers, fathers, sons, and daughters they’ve left behind, the ones who do every minute of every day, what we are asked to do one day a year.

If you don’t believe me, the United States has spent more than $200 million on memorials for World War II, Vietnam Conflict, and the Oklahoma City bombing. The plans for the September 11th memorial just cracked the $1 billion mark (yes, that’s a “b”). All of this while one million veterans are currently without health care and roughly 200,000 sleep under newspapers on park benches every night. That’s 200,000 homeless vets! My “American Pride” takes a big hit when I read that.

We’ve told you about a couple of things you can do to help our veterans and those still serving in the military. To learn how to donate your air miles to the families of our veterans, click here. To help renovate homes to accommodate disabled veterans coming home from war, click here.

Senator Inouye of Hawaii has introduced a bill every year since 1989 to move Memorial Day back to May 30. That’s where it was before the National Holiday Act of 1971 moved it to the last Monday in May and declared it a national holiday rather than a national day of mourning. If you believe, as I do, that Memorial Day should be used to remember our fallen soldiers, join the 8,000 other who have signed this petition at the official Memorial Day website. (Don’t worry. His bill includes a new holiday on the third Monday in May called Armed Forces Day.)

Let’s make this day less about hamburgers and bonfires and more about honoring those heroes who died to preserve my right to share this opinion with you.

Thanks for the pic goes here.

The only thing we have to fear ain’t: terrorism.

Editor’s note: This is the second entry of an occasional column at Progressive Wednesday. Each post will bust a myth created by fear-mongers, years of tradition, advertisers, the mainstream media, general skittishness, or pandas. I mention pandas because they freak me out. Why do they freak me out? Read this for yourself — and I quote: “ In general, if a female panda produces twins, she raises one and abandons the other.” So, anyway, on to the column. We hope to make FDR happy.

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According to the Global Terrorism Database, which is connected to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, between September 12, 2001 and January 1, 2005, exactly five Americans died on U.S. soil as a result of terrorist attacks.

In other words, my brothers and sisters, terrorism isn’t really something we ought to be fearing during our daily lives. Consider some of these comparative statistics:

• 66 Americans die every year from lightning strikes (Source: The U.S. National Weather Service).
• 17,000 Americans die every year from unintentionally falling. (Source: National Safety Council).
• 36,000 Americans die every year from the flu (Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention).

So put the golf clubs away when the cumulonimbus clouds come calling. Double-check your ladders, and help your octogenarian grandmother down the porch steps. Maybe consider a flu shot, or, I don’t know, washing your hands on occasion. For crying out loud, 11 people died in 2003 because of fireworks.

One last thing on terrorism, because I know folks might be thinking, Well, Mr. Zambito, what about 9/11? First, please, call me Matt. Second, I care deeply about the the tragedy of 9/11, because 2,356 people died, because it filled us with a gut-wrenching feeling of the unknown. That date and the images from that day will always remind us of a huge loss of innocent human life, and what can result from a tremendous act of cowardly, unprovoked violence. But just consider for a moment that about 3,000 people die every month from the flu.

What I’m getting at is that we needn’t fret thinking that the terrorists are going to “follow us home.” Odds are, even if they do (which they don’t seem to be doing), we’ll be safe because the vast majority of terrorist attacks result in zero fatalities. And if we demanded that our government spent more of our money and resources protecting our borders, our ports, our food and water sources, and increasing our global intelligence, well, then we’d be all the safer.

Clergyman Charlie: On helping in Darfur

We live in an incredible world today. Communication is so fast that we know almost immediately what is happening anywhere in the world. As the book, The Earth is Flat, indicates, the Internet, television, etc. have leveled the playing field.

One result of this is that there is no excuse anymore for not knowing what is happening elsewhere.

We are a people who rally around a family in our community in any time of need. If someone’s house burns, or they suffer a serious accident, we hold fund raisers, prepare food, send hundreds of cards.

So why is it that we don’t respond in like manner if the person is a little farther away� For instance, we know today about the refugees from Darfur, the people there who have run for their lives, who are living in shelters, who are short on food and medical supplies.

Maybe the problem seems overwhelming to us. Perhaps we fear that money we send will not be wisely used.

Well as the old story goes about the boy who found the star fish washed up on the beach and threw it back into the sea, he made a difference in the life of one starfish!� He couldn’t save them all but he saved one.

And there are organizations that you can trust to administer funds carefully and prudently.

You can usually do this through your church or other religious institution if you designate the funds. Protestant churches often will cooperate through Church World Service or the One Great Hour of Sharing.

A secular organization that has great credibility is Oxfam. Even though I am a clergyman and give through my church, I also send money to:

(617) 728-2400

Or if making things easier is your thing, you can do it all at the Oxfam America Advocacy Fund website. Check it out.

How can we know what is happening and do nothing? Yes, the United Nations, or our own government, should do more to solve the problem. But in the meantime people are hungry every day.

Here’s a Biblical passage for you to think about: If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,” and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that (James 2:16)� And don’t forget that Jesus said, “…just as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.” (Matthew 25:40)

It is an amazing thing that many people in our culture don’t believe, but when you share, help others, give sacrificially, your heart is filled with joy more than when you buy more things you don’t really need for yourself. Bill and Melinda Gates are finding that out!� So is Warren Buffet. So can you.

Do what you can, and know that you are part of the people of good will who don’t limit your outreach to the neighbors in your village but who extend your love to the people in need around the world.

How hard it must be for people who are absolutely in desperation to think about all of us Americans who have so much.� But how touched they must be when they see us doing all that we can to help them in their need.

Please take this seriously and do what you can for the people of Darfur.

Going ape.

As a born-again omnivore[1], I can’t claim the high road in terms of animal rights, you know, since I eat some of them. But at least there’s some utilitarian reasoning, if a bit flawed, behind the way I gobble.

But keeping animals trapped for our curious awe (at best) or our sick amusement (at worst), makes little sense to me.

I’ve heard the argument before: “When people see unusual animals in a zoo, they become more aware and concerned for the animals living in the wild.” This logic, of course, seems strongly flawed since becoming more aware of the animals makes me want them trapped in zoos even less. For my money, Animal Planet, Discovery Channel, and National Geographic have essentially debunked the “become more aware” argument and have beaten that tired horse to…. Okay, poor choice of words. They’ve eliminated our “need” for zoos, which is, of course, just a fancy euphemism for “animal jail.”

Others might say: “Well, zoos help scientists better understand animals, and so we learn new ways to protect them.” Besides the irony of injuring animals to help other animals, it’s hard to understand how much we can learn from animals caged instead of in their natural environments. And to read about the problems with trying to breed nearly extinct animals in captivity, just click here.

But if we need more evidence that even the folks running zoos know there’s something amiss about them, we needn’t look any farther than this tasty tidbit:

A zoo has hired a clown to keep its chimps, gorillas, orangutans and baboons busy. Boredom can make the animals ill or aggressive, so the zoo in Krefeld, near Cologne, hired Christina Peters to entertain them.

Chimps, gorillas, monkeys, orangutans and baboons belong in (wait for it…) the wild. If any living beings need a clown to keep them entertained, then those living beings have serious problems. And if any of you professional clowns out there are offended, well, good. That was half of my idea. The other half goes like this: undomesticated animals deserve to live and, yes, die where they naturally call home.

I’m sure there are some zoos where the environment or space conditions keep them fairly protected and possibly even happy. But if we’re to be true stewards of the environment, we need to keep in mind that the majority of zoos are in the business, tacitly or not, of harming the animals we ought to be protecting.

Photo clicked by this dude who digs animals.

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[1] I was vegan for two years until I had to change my diet for health reasons.