Archive for March, 2008
March 19th, 2008 by Progressive Wednesday
Problem:
We aren’t at war in Iraq and Afghanistan. Our soldiers are.
Both wars individually have gone on longer than the U.S. involvement in the War of 1812, Mexican War, Civil War, Spanish-American War, World War I, World War II, Korean War, and Persian Gulf War. There doesn’t seem to be an end in sight for either.
Our fellow Americans are sweating and dodging, not just bullets, but bombs in the desert and on our behalves.
We know some of them personally. We miss them. We want them home.
You might be thinking: There’s nothing I can do to help stop the wars. That’s too big for me to tackle. We respectfully disagree, but that’s not the problem we’re talking about this Wednesday.
We owe our soldiers more than we can repay them. That’s the problem.
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Make Progress:
Diane was a student of mine at Ohio State. During the autumn quarter, Diane asked to be excused one Friday. Why? Because she was going to marry her boyfriend before he was shipped off to Iraq. Most of my students asked for time off because their friends needed to be bailed out of jail or because their Great Aunt conveniently died for the seventh time right before a paper was due. So, Diane’s request couldn’t possibly be refused. And she and her one-and-only did indeed wed.
After winter break, Diane signed up to be in another of my writing courses. This quarter, she seemed transformed. Some days she’d be filled with a kind of bubbly hope, the kind you see in people truly in love. Other days, she’d snap at fellow students, fall asleep in class (surprising since it started at 2 pm), and miss office hours appointments she’d scheduled with me. While discussing one of her papers, she started crying, dropped the paper in the trash can, and slowly walked out of the room backwards.
Come spring, I could tell Diane was a wreck. She pulled me aside on the second day of course to ask if it was okay if she left class every once and a while. I thought this was strange because my students never had to ask to go to the restroom, grab a snack, or get a drink of water. Hell, they could even take off for a minute or two to stretch if they needed to. “I need to leave sometimes,” she said, “to go outside and cry.”
And she did. Often. I’d say at least twice a week. Of course, she also missed at least one class a week. As the quarter moved along, Diane would forget to turn in assignments completely or would just turn in one page for a five-page essay. She’d pop by my office hours just to talk about the latest letter she’d received from her husband. She’d ask me to read them. Over the course of the year, I watched her weight dramatically drop to unhealthy levels.
Summer came and went, and the next autumn I saw Diane on campus the first day of classes. She smiled at me with her lips. I assumed her husband had returned. He hadn’t.
“I got divorced,” she told me. “I just couldn’t take it any more. I love him. But it stopped being worth it. The love, I mean.”
This is a cost of war. This is one side of war.
But this Wednesday, five year anniversary of the War in Iraq, we’re going to look closely at war from the other side. Please, we know it’s easier to do, but don’t look away.
March 12th, 2008 by Progressive Wednesday
Problem:
One of the places that I desperately want to visit before I “become one with nature”is the Great Barrier Reef. A series of over 3,400 individual reefs and 900 islands along the east coast of Australia, it covers a distance longer than the west coast of the United States. That’s over 2,000 kilometers for those of you keeping score at home. It’s the world’s largest coral reef system. You can see it from space. Even “outer space.”It’s big, and beautiful. It’s one of the seven natural wonders of the world. And it’s dying.
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Make Progress:
Coral reefs all over the world are disappearing at an alarming rate. Over a quarter of the worlds reef systems have died or been severely damaged, and many scientists say that the remaining 75% will be gone in the next 30-50 years. Most of this destruction is human-related. That’s the bad news. The good news is that we can do something about it.
- Learn
- Watch
- Write
- Join and Donate
- Change
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Learn:
A bit of “founding fatherly”wisdom from James Madison:
Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.
In that spirit we’ve compiled a list of facts (the cold, hard kind) about what corals are and how they are beneficial. So arm yourselves with this good knowledge:
- Contrary to popular belief, corals are actually animals. They are made up of tiny polyps that live symbiotically with zooxanthellae algae that grow within the coral’s own tissue. This algae provides the coral with food and is what gives it color. These individual corals reproduce both sexually and asexually to form reefs.
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And here are some of the not-so-smiley causes of destruction:
- Overfishing: The loss of a particular type of fish to the seafood trade can harm the ecological balance and be devastating to a coral reef.
- Runoff: Sediment from nearby development can get into the water and quickly destroy entire reef systems.
- Collection: Fish are caught and corals are harvested for the aquarium trade, calcium supplements, mortar and souvenirs.
- Global warming: A biggie. While many coral species are physically very hardy, a rise in ocean temperatures of only one or two degrees can cause massive coral bleaching, a condition where the algae dies off and the corals turn white and often die. In addition, warmer waters mean bigger hurricanes, which can pound coastal regions and do enormous damage to reefs.
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So now you know a little about these underwater paradises and their frailty, but to quote Goethe: “Knowing is not enough; we must apply!”
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Watch:
If you can tear yourself away from Wife Swap or the 43rd season of Survivor (maybe it only seems like that many) try turning the channel to PBS or The Discovery Channel. They quite frequently have documentaries about our underwater world and coral reefs in particular. For those able to get them in high definition, you’ll get a more realistic idea of how beautiful and unusual these animals are. But for those still using “rabbit ears”we’ll help you out.
If you want a “soft-polyp quicky,”the Planetary Coral Reef Foundation has put together this seven minute video that touches on the importance of coral reefs as well as dangers to reef systems and what is being done to prevent their destruction. Give it a look.
Coral Reef Adventure is an IMAX film that follows a husband and wife duo for ten months traveling from the Great Barrier Reef to the islands of Fiji and many other reefs. They concentrate on currently endangered reefs and the actions taken by ordinary people to save them. Narrated by Liam Neeson, this film has won much acclaim for its breathtaking cinematography and powerful message. You can rent it online or buy it here.
Jean-Michel Cousteau, son of the late ocean explorer Jacques Cousteau, has created a series with our friends at PBS called Ocean Adventures. One of these grabbed our attention (and someone else’s too), and we recommend it highly. Voyage to Kure takes Cousteau and his team to the Northwestern Hawaiian Island archipelago where they take a look at all of the marine life and the decline of many species and inspires the viewer to take action. How inspiring is it you ask? We’ll tell you in the next section. But first, buy it here from PBS or rent it online. It’s worth a look.
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Write:
A few years ago year Jean-Michel Cousteau was invited to the White House for a private screening of the aforementioned Ocean Adventures: Voyage to Kure with the President and First Lady. They were so moved by the urgency of the crisis in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands that President Bush immediately upgraded the 140,000 square miles of ocean landscape that contains 70% of the United States’ coral reefs from a reserve to a National Monument. National Monuments are not subject to approval by congress and therefore, the protections implied took effect immediately.
This was a huge step, which the President should be applauded for taking. But what about the other 30% of the coral reefs in the country, mainly located in the Florida Keys? We would like you to write a letter to the President showing your support for his action in Hawaii and asking him to take it a step further.
Below you’ll find an example. Feel free to edit it in any way before you sign and mail it. Or, since you are using one of those new-fangled computers, you could just copy, paste, and email it here with your name attached.
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Subject: Praise for action in Hawaii and calling for more.
Dear Mr. President,
I would like to take a moment to thank you for your quick and decisive action in declaring the Northwest Hawaiian Islands and the surrounding marine environment a National Monument. This was a huge step in preserving the beauty and magnificence of this vital region and animals that live there.
I am writing, however, to ask you to take similar action with the rest of our nation’s endangered coral reefs, which are located in the Florida Keys. The reefs surrounding the Keys are home to more than 100 species of corals and more than 400 species of fish. Both are a vital part of Florida’s economy as well, attracting over 4 million tourists annually. But they are threatened by pollution, overuse, and overfishing. They need more protection.
Please declare the Florida Keys’ coral reefs a National Monument so they will be there for our children and our grandchildren to enjoy and profit from in the years ahead.
Sincerely,
Your Name
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Join and Donate:
In doing research for this Wednesday’s topic I came across the websites of about 17 million organizations dedicated to this issue. Okay, that may be a slight exaggeration, but there are a lot. And that’s great news. But for those who want to get involved, how do they know which would be the most effective organization to donate their time, effort and money to? Well, I’ve visited all 17 million and here are the three that I most recommend along with their mission statements and links for you to lend a helping fin.
Reef Relief is a nonprofit membership organization dedicated to preserve and Protect Living Coral Reef Ecosystems through local, regional and global efforts.
Donate and join.
The Reef Check Foundation is an international non-profit organization dedicated to conservation of two ecosystems: tropical coral reefs and California rocky reefs.
Donate and join.
The Coral Reef Alliance (CORAL) is a member-supported, non-profit organization, dedicated to protecting the health of coral reefs by integrating ecosystem management, sustainable tourism, and community partnerships.
Donate and Join
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Change:
It’s the little things we do, the small actions we take as citizens, consumers, and stewards of our great green and blue orb that make the biggest differences, the most progress. It’s what the Progressive Wednesday community is all about, the little things that each of us can do. It might be hard to imagine, but there are everyday things that even the most landlocked Nebraskans can do to help solve this crisis. So here’s a list-behind-the-list of the everyday variety:
- For you reef-keepers like me out there, buy aquacultured animals. The Geothermal Aquaculture Research Foundation (GARF), located in Idaho, is a non-profit committed to coral propagation. They sell their corals online at very reasonable prices. Make sure your next “Nemo”and corals are “aquacultured”and lessen the burden on our natural reefs to supply our own indulgences.
- When you buy cement, brick or concrete, make sure it is not made from crushed coral.
- Do not buy bleached coral skeletons. Ever.
- Take care when diving. If you are one of the millions of divers that visit coral reefs each year, be sure to follow the rules and respect the reef. And don’t take anything!
- Eat fish that are in abundance. The Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch Program provides information on which fish are good to eat, what to avoid and good alternatives. They even break it down by region.
- Last but certainly not least, do your part to help fight global warming. You knew before how it affects you, now you know how it affects those below sea level. Renewable home energy, efficient driving, carpool… you know the drill, but it can’t be said enough.
Picture credit to this reef diver.
March 5th, 2008 by Charles Lamb
The other night on PBS I enjoyed watching a 90 minute special about Pete Seeger. Maybe you saw it too.
Some of you will remember Pete Seeger as a great folk singer and war protester. He wrote or modified or sang such songs as, “Where Have All the Flowers Gone”and “If I Had a Hammer” and “We Shall Overcome Someday.”
Pete is still alive, but 88 years old now and still as active as he can be. He never drank or smoked. He once resigned from The Weavers because they accepted an advertisement from a tobacco company.
He sang everywhere, to support the civil rights movement, to protest the Vietnam War, and to demand an end of pollution in the Hudson River.
He was called before the House Un-American Activities Committee and questioned about his patriotism and attitude toward communism. He refused to answer. He didn’t think it was American for him to be subjected to that; he was free to think what he pleased in this country. His career suffered, and he was black-listed as a communist sympathizer, but he stood up for what he believed.
As I watched the show, I thought how much we need another Pete Seeger today.
We were told, at the time of the Viet Nam war, that if Viet Nam fell, then Thailand would fall, and one by one other nations would fall to communism like a row of dominoes. We were told that North Vietnamese ships fired on one of our vessels in the Gulf of Tonkin. Now we know that even though the whole Vietnamese nation is united and communist, it is our trading partner. And it has been admitted that the incident in the Gulf of Tonkin never happened. The fears that we were fed were untrue and never happened.
When I think of how many people died for a war that accomplished nothing, it fills me with anguish. Of course I admire the heroism of our troops who fought bravely, but they were led into a war we should never have fought. If you have ever been to the Memorial for that war in Washington D.C., and seen the wall with tens of thousands of names on it, you were moved to the depth of your being. I’m sure of that.
Now, in my opinion, we are in an even worse situation today in Iraq. They never had weapons of mass destruction. Saddam’s supporters have said he wouldn’t admit that because of fear that Iran would invade again, as they did in the past. Again, I want to be clear that I admire the heroism of our brave soldiers who go there at our government’s orders. But, as Pete Seeger used to sing, “When will they ever learn? When will they ever learn?”
When I hear how many of our troops have died, I want to add how many people overall have died. Many people in Iraq have died too, most of whom were never terrorists. They are God’s children too.
When people say “Support the troops,” I want to say “Support efforts for peace and an end to war.”
And when people say, “God bless the U.S.A.” I want to remind us that “He’s got the whole world in his hands.” And may God bless us every one.
When I was serving my first church in Oklahoma, a man in the congregation used to ask me when the churches were ever going to speak up against war? That question still preys on my mind. At least there was a strong anti-war movement during the Viet Nam conflict. There isn’t much protest today.
I never thought I would see the day when our government allowed, and even defended, torture! I think we should act out of who we are, what our principles are, not react against what someone else has done.
Can you imagine Jesus saying “Persecute your enemies, water board those who hate you?”
We are followers of the Prince of Peace. He said that those who take the sword will perish by the sword. He called upon his followers not to be peace hopers, or peace wishers, but peace makers. Are we answering that call?
Some of you who read this may not agree with me, but I would feel unfaithful to my calling as a minister if I didn’t speak out and say these things. In my judgment, it is time for followers of Christ to say “No!” to war.
Picture credit goes here.
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