Over the weekend I'd pondered both some news stories and the Paschal Mystery of death and resurrection, and concluded that this is a timely opportunity for my second diary. I submitted my first, "Today We Celebrated Peace in Dubuque," on Dr. Martin Luther King's holiday.
A headline in our local newspaper, The Telegraph Herald, last Thursday caught my attention, "Reading Program Takes a Hit". It's a news report on the status of Title 1 "reading recovery" and the five Dubuque public school teachers who will be "involuntarily transferred" from supplemental reading programs "to elementary classrooms in a cost-savings move that will alter a district reading program."
This personally affects my family and me since eight years ago our son received the services of Title 1, and with expert instruction during the school year learned the skill of reading. He's now an eighth-grader and a successful student. He's my IT man; I consult him when I need any advice on dealing with this computer.
The next day's TH delivered a helpful front-page report, "Alzheimer's Increasing Toll," quoting Mary McNally, program specialist for the Dubuque branch of the Alzheimer's Association. "What surprises people over time is the cost involved. Economically it becomes very expensive for families to pay for adult day care, medication, and in-home care." The feature presented data from "Alzheimers Facts and Figures 2009," with attention to its growing impact on our Tri-States of Iowa, Illinois, and Wisconsin.
With some alarm we view these two isolated yet sequential reports, wondering about the strength of our education and health care systems, our "programs of social uplift," as Dr. King once noted.
It is also with considerable hope that all of us view the potential for the betterment of our human family in our global community. Throughout his lifetime Dr. King kept developing and cultivating this belief, and he left us a powerful inspiration in his "Beyond Vietnam" address delivered at Riverside Church in New York City on April 4, 1967.
Indeed, Dr. King pleaded in that speech for an end to the "madness" of militarism, racism, and poverty. His statements directed at US foreign policy in Vietnam are as applicable today in Afghanistan and Iraq. "Somehow this madness must cease... The great initiative in this war is ours. The initiative to stop must be ours."
Dr. King speaks also of the force of love, "the key that unlocks the door which leads to ultimate reality. This Hindu-Muslim-Christian-Jewish-Buddhist belief about ultimate reality is beautifully summed up in the first epistle of Saint John: 'Let us love one another'... Let us hope that this spirit will become the order of the day." Dr. King's magnificent voice can be heard and this speech viewed here.
http://www.americanrhetoric.com/...
This message was delivered 42 years ago, yet we have implemented so little of his advice nine presidential administrations later. A burgeoning military spending and supplemental spending for our wars top 600 billion dollars per year!
In addition to two endless wars, the previous administration failed to deliver any immigration reform, instead as typical dealt upon this vulnerable faction with fear and raids. Kindly permit this aside for "A Call for Nationwide Awareness and Commemoration of the Postville, Iowa, Immigration Raid." On Tuesday afternoon, May 12, there will be a Gathering, Prayer Vigil, and Solidarity Walk to Agriprocessors Plant in Postville, a small community truly devastated by the horrific raid of one year ago.
"This event is a unified call for comprehensive immigration reform, just labor practices, family unity, and an end to raids."
Read more here.
http://www.arch.pvt.k12.ia.us/...
Give Kos credit for being one of the few national forums to promote urgent Comprehensive Immigration Reform; readers know that he's been advocating it in his blogs during recent weeks.
Education, Health Care, Jobs, Comprehensive Immigration Reform, Renewable Energy; these investments are where our head and heart are.
So why do we commit so much to war?