Janis Kliphardt (Emery)

Fifty years ago today we joined together as a country to celebrate and cheer USA as we watched splashdown after cheering the successful launch of Columbia and the moon walk of Apollo 11 astronauts - a triumph of the human spirit.

Today, sadly, the fragility of our great republic is on display:

“The disrespect / contempt the Republicans showed Robert Mueller is an alarming testament to Trump’s total conquest of the party and is entirely antithetical to the checks and balances enshrined in the Constitution.” 

"Any other president would have been impeached by the end of the day."

Democratic members of Congress rose to defend the sovereignity of our nation and the rule of law as Republican members of Congress countered to protect a president who is abusing Article II and threatening our national security. 

One thing is certain: Robert Mueller is urgently concerned about Russia (and other countries) meddling in our elections -

thus far Republicans, Trump, and Mitch McConnell show no concern about election interference.

Note: Mueller's report did NOT exonerate Trump.  Today Robert Mueller acknowledged that Trump could be indicted after leaving office and the danger of unethical and unpatriotic behavior of the U.S. president.  Asked about Trump’s praise of WikiLeaks in 2016, Mueller said “problematic is an understatement in terms of what it displays, in terms of giving some hope, or some boost, to what is and should be illegal activity.”

Day 916 of the Trump presidency - a day that would be remarkable in any presidency.

***The Governor of Puerto Rico has resigned effective August 2, 2019

Janis Kliphardt (Emery)

At an EAA* WWII exhibit, simulation was set up for kids to pilot a plane and drop a bomb over a city in Japan.

Sad that an organization devoted to the spirit of aviation and outreach activity undermines the value of human life for “fun”(?) in a simulator dehumanizing a nation of people we call our allies.

*Experimental Aircraft Association, Oshkosh, WI 

Janis Kliphardt (Emery)

Thank goodness for music and people who make it -

UW Green Bay Summer Music Camps for High School Band, Orchestra, and Choir had their final concert this evening.  

The band conductor announced their fourth selection, written by a composer the students had not heard of, sure to be a favorite of parents and grandparents in the audience: a medley of Duke Ellington; The Seal Lullaby with piano soloist was also on their program.

The orchestra’s final selections were Pizzicato Polka and Music from Pirates of the Caribbean.  

The jazz lab band played God Bless the Child and Gringo.

Among the choir selections: Nella Fantasia, Bonse Aba with soloist,

and Bridge Over Troubled Water: at  “oh, when darkness comes”  the auditorium went dark 

and at  “your time has come to shine" ... "see how they shine”  lighted cell phones were everywhere ... (specifically to shine on the accompanist’s musical score, she was playing a Bosendorfer).

It was / seemed beautiful(ly choreographed)  - the audience was awestruck - as the choral part of the concert came to a close, the director was prepared to caution the audience to exit carefully: there was a power outage across the campus

when voila! the house lights came on -

amazing! a power outage that lasted for the duration of “darkness” in the lyrics...

a beautiful evening of music and serendipity. 

Janis Kliphardt (Emery)

Plant trees, save bees.  

Grow the climate movement, elect climate champions.  

Elected representatives willing to lead on climate will drive progress from the local level.

Janis Kliphardt (Emery)

GO CUBS GO! ! !

SCHWARBS hit a grand slam in the 2nd 

              a three run homer in the 4th

   Let’s be done with the slides, guys, hang onto this one --

Cubs’  7-0  lead is shrinking -

Time to break the streak of homestand sweeps by Cubs and Brewers.

Yes! Caratini pinch hit a 3 run homer!  

GO CUBS GO! ! !    

Cubs win  11 - 4

Cubs will be in St Louis Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday this week -

then on the weekend Cubs welcome Brewers to Wrigley.

GO CUBS GO! ! !

Janis Kliphardt (Emery)

Arms are for hugging.

Breaking News: ATF is responding to scene of mass shooting reported at Garlic Festival in Gilroy, California.  

“Long time passing... When will (we) ever learn?”

Janis Kliphardt (Emery)

I was back in DuPage County today for the memorial service of a retired EPA director.  There were about 20 EPA employees in the congregation.  At lunch following the service I hunted down EPA attendees - I wanted to greet Bill's EPA colleagues, and also to find a connection with our classmate, Steve Rothblatt.  I found three men who had ventured on to commune with family and friends.  They (and their colleagues not at the lunch) had attended because of their connection to and to pay their respects to Bill, AND they remembered and honored Steve Rothblatt.  We talked at length... to tell you there is depression in the ranks of the EPA is putting it mildly - and to be reminded that these public servants care about clean air and clean water and are more acutely aware than we about the serious breach of responsibility and the irreversible impact of neglect on our environment is understatement.

Janis Kliphardt (Emery)

George Washington: "I cannot tell a lie."

Donald Trump: "I cannot tell the truth."

Trump Supporters: "I cannot tell the difference."

Shame on us.

Stewart Myrent

Janis, I really enjoyed the George Washington/Donald Trump counterpoint.  I was laughing my ass off.  A few days ago, I picked up a a biography of Lizzie Borden.  It's a new release.  But then I remembered I had read another Lizzie Borden biography - 20 or 30 years ago.  It's not that I have an obsession with Lizzie Borden, but it's a fascinating story, that was very reflective of the time in which it took place.  I am over halfway through the book & will fill you in later.

Janis Kliphardt (Emery)

Three alerts from CNN’s 2-night debate:

Rather than bicker about what happened 50 years ago, Michael Bennet challenged his competitors and voters to wrestle with the inequality in our educational system today.  

Andrew Yang challenges us to recognize the impact of artificial intelligence and robotics and the necessary changes in our societal structures to adapt to the technological revolution we are in the midst of.  

Marianne Williamson alerts us to the reality that we need more than policy changes in America, the soul of our country is sick: we need to return to the idea of who we are as a people.

Janis Kliphardt (Emery)

I was sitting on a bench on Wisconsin shoreline of Lake Michigan - a 50 something man asked if he could sit with me.  “Sure,” I said.  

“Where are you from?” he asked.  

“Chicago,” I answered, “though I now live in Oshkosh.”  

“Where in Chicago?” and when he pushed for more specificity than a western suburb, I answered, “Lombard.”  

“I live in Wheaton,” he said proudly... (DuPage County seat 

small world...

We agreed the water is beautiful - though I was in more awe than he... (the water in and around Oshkosh is nothing like Lake Michigan, though Herrick Lake near Wheaton is way murkier than either Lake Butte des Morts or Lake Winnebago).  Feeling his eagerness to talk and understanding his pride about owning a home on Wisconsin shoreline of Lake Michigan I wondered how conservative a Wheatie he is...

I recalled the memorial service I had attended earlier in the week and shared the despair of public servants devoted to the EPA about the irreversible damage to clean air and clean water due to Trump (and Pruitt and whoever else) blighting their work.  

By now his 40 something wife (and their very young children) were around us on the bench.  “Look at this water,” I repeated as I stood to give them my place on the bench.  “I was a Republican leaning independent ‘til I became a Democratic leaning independent.”

The man reminded me the EPA began during Nixon’s presidency.  “I know that,” I said, “That’s what’s so sad - in today’s Republican Party he would not be accepted as a Republican.”

The man sat in disbelief, his wife and I stood nodding in agreement.

Stewart Myrent

Just finished "The Trial of Lizzie Borden: A True Story", by Cara Robertson.  From the book, "The 150 prospective jurors, all men, were solid New England characters...(Women did not have the right to serve, and would not become jurors until 1951 in Massachusetts.)"  "There was at least one African American among the prospective jurors - African American jurors had served on Massachusetts juries since 1860."  Imagine that, women could not be jurors in MA for another 30+ years, after getting suffrage in 1920.  The most interesting thing in the book to me is that local people were apoplectic & downright pissed-off that a WOMAN was being charge with such a heinous & dastardly crime, as a double murder.  In case you're not aware, Lizzie was found innocent of the double murder, and was a life-long member of a local church & donated much time to charities that helped the less fortunate in society.  After her acquittal, her fellow church members kind of froze her out & were not very welcoming.

Janis Kliphardt (Emery)

Lizzie Borden's story reminds me of a bizarre (for me) (though maybe not in the US) experience here on Lake Michigan.

A man drove up to the beach on his Harley and parked behind me as I was gathering gear from the car - he was not wearing a helmet but considering the temp took off an unseasonably warm leather jacket... I love t-shirts, noticed lots of words on his - he was eager for me to read them...

I was surprised to see it was a verse from the New Testament: "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." 

Ironic (to me) that this man - out on a bike without a helmet to protect his own life - certain I would not recognize a biblical passage, clarified he'd lay down his life, but not his gun...

(he’d lay down his life, but not his AR-15 to curtail mass carnage in America.

Janis Kliphardt (Emery)

"...he'd lay down his life, but not his gun /

"...lay down his life, but not his AK-47

"to curtail mass carnage in America..."

Today during a sales tax holiday in Texas -

a mass shooting at Walmart in El Paso.  

Texas has both conceal and open carry -

more guns increase death by gun violence

and it's being fueled by a culture of hatred and racism.

Beto flew home to be with his family and neighbors to stand with his community.

Thoughts and prayers are NOT sufficient to eradicate gun violence -

We would not be satisfied with thoughts and prayers if this were international terrorism -

or if members of our family had been massacred;

we are suffering domestic terrorism at the hands of white males - it’s white terrorism -

with the assistance of weak gun laws and corrupted politicians. 

The FBI does not have legal authority to deal with domestic terrorism like it has to deal with international terrorism.

"Prayer Without Works is Dead: We are using prayer as a way of ignoring the need for action."  

 -- Clint Jackson

Janis Kliphardt (Emery)

Within hours of mass shooting in El Paso - a “long gun” with multiple rounds was fired outside at 1:05 a.m. in historic night life neighborhood in downtown Dayton, Ohio. The incident could have been more deadly (estimates in the hundreds) than it was were officers not already patrolling in the vicinity when the gunshots broke out.  

“Prayer Without Works is Dead”  -- Clint Jackson

“Let us not use prayer as a way of ignoring the need for action.”

We have hate and gun epidemics in America

and no leadership from the White House or Mitch McConnell.

Marvin Irving Blusteln

Where is the Clergy.  Silent.  Where are the repubs.  Silent.  Where is Mitch the weasel.  Silent.  Shame on them.

Shame on all who are silent.

They are not patriots.

Janis Kliphardt (Emery)

Shame on all who are silent.  

They are not patriots; they do not put country before party.

“Moscow Mitch” (McConnell) is worse than a weasel.

Repubs who have not drunk the Kool-Aid, who have not sold their soul are either not in office or are retiring from office - many of them are speaking out with urgency.

Clergy selected by the media for air time are a very small percentage of the total number of religious leaders and overall those selected are not representative of the vast majority of clergy.  By and large, clergy of the three Abrahamic faith traditions strongly oppose Trump administration’s policies.  (I’m less aware of other faith traditions, but believe Trump administration’s policies are antithetical to most faith leaders’ values.)

Trump has a transactional relationship with white evangelicals: he supports opposition to abortion, homosexuality, and recognizes Jerusalem as the capital of Israel - which is all about the second coming.  The rest of the world, including world peace, racism and gun violence, clean air and clean water, ...  be damned.

David Steinberg (Noel)

SLOTHUS SPEAKETH SOOTH

Janis Kliphardt (Emery)

If easy access to guns was a means of protection we’d be the safest country in the world.  

No way would our founders condone carnage in our streets to protect the 2nd Amendment

or be pleased with our gun fetish. 

Our myth of what makes America great is destroying our country -

we seem unable to acknowledge the great pain and suffering we inflicted on whole populations of people to fulfill what we were convicted was manifest destiny.

We are a nation in crisis - living in a "Trump environment"...

We are in a downward spiral that puts each of us and all of us at risk for who we are.

Democrats should get back to D.C. and demand that McConnell bring forward House passed bills in emergency session -

a preponderance of the American public (as does the rest of the first world) supports gun reform - determined to “protect kids, not guns”.

The mass carnage will not stop until assault weapons / high capacity magazines are recognized for what they are -

weapons of war which have no place in a civilian market for use in civil society. 

It is time for us to reckon with our history - much of our country’s success is based on the genocide of Native Americans, and enslavement of Africans.  

We never were a white nation -

there were many more Native Americans in the U.S. until well into the 1800s when the white community through slaughter and land grabbing so diminished their numbers it was no longer true.  

Many areas of our country have been primarily African-American or Hispanic in population for centuries.

We use our greatness as an excuse for the inhumanity manifested in our country on multiple fronts (including dismantling health care coverage). 

Today we have a President who normalizes white supremacy for the people for whom he speaks, and for those others who remain silent, who see white supremacy as their only political hope.  

Would that we let this spate of senseless killing in this time of racial and ethnic hatred be the death knell for the sickness that festers in our nation’s soul that we might like a phoenix rise from the ashes (carnage) and create the "more perfect union" our mortal founders envisioned, E pluribus unum.

David St. Pierre Bantz

2019 Epistle of Alaska Friends Conference to Friends Everywhere

Alaska Friends met in our rustic Dickerson Friends Center in Wasilla, Alaska, located on land long occupied and cared for by Denai’a. We celebrated the strength of new Meeting House foundations that withstood a 7.1 earthquake the past winter with epicenter just 10 miles away.  We were joined by Friends Robert Rader from Sierra Cascades Yearly Meeting and Diane Randall, Executive Secretary of Friends Committee on National Legislation.

“Love, Joy, and Empowerment” was our theme, formulated with and in response to concerns of young Friends for more meaningful and effective integration of youth and young adult Friends into the life of our Meeting. We rejoiced in greater attendance of youth than in previous years. Diane Randall described many aspects of deliberate and successful integration of young Friends into the work of FCNL including Spring Lobby Weekend, Young Fellows program, and, crucially, establishing an endowment for ongoing financial support for young Friends’ work with FCNL. 

We were challenged to focus our work as a Yearly Meeting on inclusion, integration, and financial support of young Friends. We committed to this direction with a new intergenerational committee charged solely with engaging youth and making their concerns a focus of Yearly Meeting work; and we revised our budget to reflect this priority.

Alaska Friends are keenly aware of and concerned about visible and destructive consequences of climate disruption: delayed formation of sea ice resulting in dramatic winter storm damage to our coasts; salmon perishing in unprecedented warm river waters before they reach spawning ground; more and larger wildfires triggered by more frequent lightning and fanned by unseasonable winds. We noted ongoing constructive work of Alaska Friends to raise awareness of and counter climate disruption, including work within broader coalitions, lobbying members of Congress, creating local climate action plans, programs to address climate justice, a carbon offset program, and one young adult Friend’s role as a plaintiff in the Juliana vs US Government Federal lawsuit for a sustainable future. We urge Friends everywhere to join this vital spirit-led work to defend creation.

We renewed our commitment to act in accord with the sacred admonition to “love thy neighbor” with no exceptions. This admonition seems all too pertinent. Alaska Friends name the danger of increasingly violent abusive rhetoric in the public sphere including from the highest office in our nation – rhetoric of hatred that seeks to divide, pit neighbor against neighbor, and dehumanize entire groups of people. Alaska Friends ask all people of good will to join with us in countering racist and divisive words and actions. We have asked ourselves how our own Quaker history has contributed to divisions, intolerance, and white supremacy. We discern a need for healing work that confronts past actions including those of Friends that devalued and damaged indigenous cultures.

David St. Pierre Bantz

Joan Leguard and I celebrated our 50th anniversary at the annual gathering of Alaska Friends Conference at which I drafted the Epistle copied in the prior message.

Alan A. Alop

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—A furious Donald J. Trump has demanded that Facebook investigate why a status update posted by former President Barack Obama on Monday has received so many likes.

Speaking to reporters on Wednesday morning, Trump said that the more than eight hundred and fifty thousand likes that Obama’s post had garnered as of Tuesday night were “phony,” and called the seeming popularity of the post a “rigged hoax.”

“There is absolutely no way that eight hundred and fifty thousand people liked Obama’s post,” he said. “I know a lot of people, and absolutely none of them like Obama.”

Trump said that, in addition to investigating Obama’s likes, he was demanding that Facebook remove several hundred thousand of Obama’s likes and “give them to me instead.”

Calling the former President’s Facebook post “as long and boring as a book,” Trump slammed Obama for being “terrible at social media, which is the most important part of a President’s job.”

“In that post he uses words like ‘motivations,’ ‘proliferate,’ and ‘unequivocally,’ ” Trump said. “How could over eight hundred thousand people like a post full of words that no one has ever heard of?”

Stewart Myrent

Janis, I really liked your post of 08/05.  I thought it was very cogently written & I really liked the tempo & the points you made.  All true!  David, I was fascinated by your stories of the Society of Friends (I presume).  Frankly, I was never aware that you were a Friend, and if anyone had asked me if I had gone to grade school, or high school, with any Quakers, I probably would have said no.  Alan, as usual, loved The Borowitz Report.  I recently picked up a new release at the library, called "First" - it's about Sandra Day O'Connor.  I've seen the book sitting there for about 2 months & finally decided to check it out a few days ago.  I'm enjoying it immensely & I'm almost halfway through it.

Janis Kliphardt (Emery)

Stewart, you show sincere interest and respect for women in leadership -

Dayton Mayor Nan Whaley and TX Congresswoman Veronica Escobar are women you should know.  

Donald Henry Kuehn

Mass murders, ineptitude by 45, fear among Americans of color... what a downer. So, I figured what this page needs is a little golf news! I am in a motel on my way home from North Carolina after a marathon two weeks.

At the end of July I won the over 60 flight of the Kansas City Amateur with rounds of 78, 68, 72. I won by 8 shots! Then I drove to NC for the Golfweek National Senior Match Play at my favorite course: Tobacco Road. I played 5 matches in 3 days scoring wins by margins of 7 holes ahead with 6 to play, 3&2, 5&3, 4&2 and 5&4 in the finals. I only played 73 holes in the 5 matches and had 18 birdies and 1 eagle in my march to the title.

Then I went 20 miles south to Pinehurst for the North & South Senior. You’ve heard the old saying: You can’t win ‘em all (well, actually you can, but of course, no one does). The format for the tournament calls for playing one round on each of three courses. This year we played Pinehurst #5, #8 and #6. Each plays a little different because of the variety of grasses in the fairways, rough and on the greens. Bottom line: I putted poorly the first 2 days and finished 12th. But on my way home this evening, I took the opportunity to stop and have dinner with my soon-to-be 96 year-old uncle and my cousin who live near Ashville, NC (something I do each year on this trip). That visit made the middling performance in the tournament a little easier to take since, at 96, the number of times I will be able to see him are probably limited.