Arnold: Losing Our Religion
Johann Christoph Arnold has an interesting piece on the intersection of peace activism and religion [originally published on Nonviolence.org]. Here’s a taste: The day before Martin Luther King was...
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Taxes then and now
Every year as April’s tax deadlines comes near, the War Resisters League produces a pie chart showing military spending as a percentage of the federal budget. This year Ed Hedemann went back in time...
View ArticleArmy of None
I’ve always found U.S. Army recruiting advertising fascinating. It’s not just that the ads are well-produced. They catch onto basic human yearnings in a way that’s the teen equivalent of self-help...
View ArticleNo More Coincidences: Big Bill’s Zipper Strikes Again
Back in February, I concluded my “Stop the Zipper War Before it Starts” with the following: Nothing’s really changed now except U.S. political interests. Hussein is still a tyrant. He’s still...
View ArticleWho Lied About Weapons of Mass Destruction?
It’s time to state the obvious: there weren’t any “weapons of mass destruction” in Iraq. The stated rationale for this war was “simply wrong” (see below). Either U.S. Intelligence agencies made the...
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The Quaker Wars?
Over on Quora, a question that is more fascinating than it might at first appear: What wars in history were fought in the name of Quakerism (Society of Friends)?: This question is neither sarcastic nor...
View ArticleNo More Coincidences: Big Bill’s Zipper Strikes Again
Back in February, I concluded my “Stop the Zipper War Before it Starts” with the following: Nothing’s really changed now except U.S. political interests. Hussein is still a tyrant. He’s still...
View ArticleStop the Zipper War Before It Starts
Why is President Clinton talking about a reprise of the 1991 Persian Gulf War? We’re told it’s because U.N. inspectors believe that Iraq has hidden “weapons of mass destruction.” But of course so does...
View ArticleThe not-so-ancient Quaker clearness committee
I could probably start a column of Quaker pet peeve of the day. I especially get bent out of shape with misremembered history. One peeve is the myth that Quaker clearness committees are ancient. These...
View ArticleThe Quaker who lived with the CIA
I usually find stories of Friends by tracking a list of a hundred-plus Quaker-related RSS feeds. I’ll also find them being shared on Facebook or in the Reddit Quakers group. For the first time ever I...
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Hometown Heroes
Josh Talbot is back looking at public recognitions that imply that patriotism is exclusive to military service: Within the last month I became aware of the “Hometown Heroes” program. Hanging from...
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In the New Yorker, an article on atheism leads with a Daniel Seeger’s 1965...
A review of two books on atheism starts with the take of Dan Seeger, who’s landmark Supreme Court case extended the right to conscientious objector status to agnostics and atheists: Daniel Seeger was...
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Quakerspeisungen and an Oscar Schindler connection
This week marks the hundred-year anniversary of the end of the “Great War,” World War I, branded as the war to end all wars. Our annual commemoration of the armistice in the U.S. largely went by the...
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