[NOTE: I admit, that after all the years of defeat for serious gun safety and gun violence protection efforts, it’s hard for me to shake those Rotten Old Gun-Violence-Is-Inevitable Blues. Even Joe Biden’s striking success last summer seems more like a blip than an actual inflection point. But maybe, hopefully I’m wrong about that. Maybe … Continue reading Gun Safety: Has the Political/Cultural Tide Begun to Turn?
[NOTE: i’m somewhat slow on the uptake, but numerous shocks of 2022 have pounded home the sense that the principal architect of our increasingly dominant regime of minority rule is the Supreme Court. To get more up to speed on this process, I’m reading Senator Sheldon Whitehouse’s fine new book, The Scheme. Whitehouse has been … Continue reading The Big Read: Supreme Beings — Taking on the Architects of Our Emerging Judicially-Spawned Authoritarian Order
[Note: the headline above needs some clarification: actually it’s liberal Quakers who aren’t likely to welcome Penn’s comeback; many others may cheer. More on that below.] May I have your attention, liberal Quakers? The effort among some of you to expunge William Penn from our Friendly pantheon because he owned slaves has in many ways … Continue reading William Penn Is Making a comeback — And Quakers Aren’t Going to Like It
Was William Penn Punished Enough? (Partial List) Jailed: Cork Ireland, Sept. 1668, for attending meeting. Tower of London, Nov or Dec-1668 – 8 months; accused (but not tried) of blasphemy, wrote No Cross, No Crown. Again in August 1670, for preaching, tried with Quaker William Mead in Mead-Bushell case: established the right of juries to … Continue reading Heads Up: Willian Penn Followup Coming Soon
Staughton Lynd, a historian and lawyer who over a long and varied career organized schools for Black children in Mississippi, led antiwar protests in Washington and fought for labor rights in the industrial Midwest, died on Thursday in the town of Warren, in northeast Ohio. He was 92.