veterans

IVAW Denver march 8/27/08: Photo: Rocky Mountain NewsSeptember is just hours away. The new school year is just around the corner (or has already begun, for some), and the attention of the country is turned to the presidential race, during this brief weekend "respite" between the Democratic and Republican national conventions.

On Monday evening, I was interviewed on a web-based radio station about the Fellowship of Reconciliation and especially our upcoming fourth annual Festival of Peace. The program, called "The Screaming Woman" radio show, hosted by Toni Quest (who I didn't find to be a screamer at all), is produced weekly on Passionate Internet Voices Radio.

Quest will be one of the featured artists in this year's art exhibit and auction being held at the Festival, and we had a lively conversation about the intersections between art and activism for peace and justice. She also invited me to talk about this year's peace prize winners, one of which is the Rockland Coalition for Peace & Justice (RCPJ).

Speaking of veterans, I just received an e-mail about Courage to Resist, a group working to support troops who refuse to fight. They are asking people to sign on to a letter asking Canadian government officials to allow resisters to stay there.

Visit www.couragetoresist.org/canada to send a letter.

In honor of the holiday, I want shout out to my two personal favorite veterans - Jonathan Kuniholm: Iraq veteran, engineer, co-founder of the Open Prosthetics Project; and Stan Goff: veteran of numerous conflicts from Vietnam to Haiti, author, blogger, founder of Insurgent American, and co-founder of Bring Them Home Now.

In what is probably my favorite blog, "Happening Here?" by Jan Adams, earlier this week (9/12) the author discussed the inability/unwillingness of the Democratic Party leadership to work effectively to end the war.