Michael Piazza; President of Hope for Peace & Justice

Fact: Texas spends $17 million a year - more than any other state - on abstinence-only sex education.

Fact:52.9% of Texas high school students have sex compared to a 47.8% average for the rest of the country.

Enough said.

Lynn Walters: Director of Programming

I read an excellent article today in PeaceSigns (http://peace.mennolink.org/cgi-bin/m.pl?a=505) by Susan Mark Landis, called Word Matters. She writes that if we ask children to draw a picture of war, they can do so in detail and even with sound effects! But, if we ask them to draw peace, that they might draw “a rainbow and a few animals at a stream…They can’t imagine what peace looks like–they haven’t been taught.”

Do we know what a culture of Peace would be? Could we draw a meaningful picture?

Here’s an attempt: old fashioned farms, gardens, clean streams of water…having enough time to walk to where I need to go and safe and beautiful pathways to get there…encouraging children (and maybe even adults) in pursuing art: painting, sculpture, dance, music.

That’s not nearly enough. There is more to it. What part of the picture can you imagine?

Peace,
Lynn
But, it’s more than that, isn’t it?

Michael Bell: Blog Contributor

Fascinating article in the NY Times today regarding the federal government placing a moratorium on new solar projects on public land until it studies their environmental impact. The moratorium is expected to take about two years. The government agency imposing the moratorium is the Bureau of Land Management, an agency of the Department of the Interior (an Executive Branch agency).

Link to article

I’m okay with environmental studies, but waiting until 2008 to start when we already need more alternative energy? The incompetence continues …

Michael

Lynn Walters: H4PJ Director of Programming

There was yet another senseless, violent murder in Dallas last week. Two young men who ran a Christian music recording studio were killed and robbed as they left the studio after a late night of work.

The young men who were later arrested for their murders had other outstanding warrants. This week, they gave interviews to the media about the murders. Both were upset they only got $2 in the robbery, they blamed the victims for being in the wrong place at the wrong time and the one who admitted to killing them, when asked whether he was sorry, responded: “Do it look like I got remorse?” he said.

I admit that my first thought was that he deserves the death penalty. I could find so many ways to justify it: they had outstanding warrants, killed two people who likely would have given them any cash they had and probably the car too, and who demonstrated no remorse for taking two lives.

But in the last few years I’ve come to oppose the death penalty, those things are common to most capital crimes. Killing two more young men is not going to resolve the problems that lead to these senseless murders, it will not stop future murders, nor will it bring back the two who were killed.

However, life in prison seems an appropriate minimum punishment. It is also one which allows for the possibility of repentance and redemption, though that seems a very far off possibility right now.

I admit this isn’t easy. There is a part of me that thinks we should wash our hands of these two criminals…but the part of me who is open to the teachings of Jesus believes in miraculous possibilities and is humble enough to know that I am not the final arbiter of justice or life.

Peace,
Lynn