Category Archives: Jews & Judaism

Ecumenical & Interfaith, Jews & Judaism, Quaker History, Quakers, Religious Issues & Conflicts, Sacred, Spirit

Exploring Why & How More Americans Are Losing Their Religion

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[NOTE: The data is, I think, irrefutable: measured by the “Three Bs” of religion — Belief, Behavior & Belonging — the USA is steadily “losing” its religion(s), and becoming a more secular, nonreligious place.

I’m a good example of this, yet also a bad one. Good, in that I “lost” the religion I was raised with (Catholicism); and bad, in that I didn’t really “lose,” but left it. And I didn’t then turn secular; instead I took up a new one (new to me), Quakerism. Continue reading Exploring Why & How More Americans Are Losing Their Religion →

Accountability?, Civil War, Corruption, Crime & Punishment, Current Affairs, Israel, Jews & Judaism, Justice?, Religious Issues & Conflicts, Resistance, Signs of the Times, The Law — Inside & Outside it

Dyer: Israel and its Democracy Hang in the Balance

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[NOTE: In Israel, there’s a brief timeout. Can the resistance maintain its readiness and its remarkable, unlikely coalition to mount another general strike if needed? Or will Netanyahu outlast them, as he has his other opponents for so long?]

Gwynne Dyer. — Apr 01 2023

Gwynne Dyer is a UK-based Canadian journalist and historian who writes about international affairs.

OPINION: Imagine that Donald Trump had been the president of the United States, in office and out and in and out and in yet again, for more than half of the past 25 years. What would the US look like today? Continue reading Dyer: Israel and its Democracy Hang in the Balance →

Bible Study, Current Affairs, Doing Good, Ecumenical & Interfaith, Israel, Jews & Judaism, Palestine, Politics—U. S., Religious Issues & Conflicts, Remarkable People, Selma & Civil Rights, The Greats, Uncategorized, War & Peace

An Ode to Jimmy

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Jimmy Carter in church, at Plains Georgia.

 

I didn’t vote for Jimmy Carter in 1976. In fact, I didn’t vote at all that year.

I’m not proud of that, but there it is. It happened mostly because I was away from home on election day, and because I wasn’t scared.

That autumn I was trying to write a novel about Quakers on Nantucket island off Massachusetts, who were caught in the riptides of the American Revolution.

The novel was a good idea. Still is, if I had an extra ten years or so to put into it.

Continue reading An Ode to Jimmy →

“New Normal”, Biden, Current Affairs, Ecumenical & Interfaith, Jail & Incarceration, Jews & Judaism, Justice?, Minority Rule, Palestine, Religious Issues & Conflicts, Resistance, Signs of the Times, Supreme & Other Courts, To Save Democracy, Torture & Human Rights, War & Peace

Dyer & Friedman on Netanyahu’s Impending Victory & Israel’s Loss of Democracy

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[NOTE: I recall a year ago when Gwynne Dyer confidently predicted that Vladimir Putin would not be so irrational and foolish  as to launch a war against Ukraine. Dyer was right about the war’s folly, but not alone in badly misjudging Putin’s state of mind and resolve. Still, I respect Dyer’s experience, breadth of strategic/historic knowledge,  perspicacity and independence. So his list of predictions for another longtime item on his news “beat”, namely Israel in the Netanyahu era, is included here. We’ll see how he does with this rather gloomy set of forecasts, and compare it to work by another noted “seer.” Continue reading Dyer & Friedman on Netanyahu’s Impending Victory & Israel’s Loss of Democracy →