Well, maybe not quite.
But you might need to rub your eyes just a bit when you read that King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia - which has as its official state religion the anti-western Wahhabi form of Islam - is currently holding an interfaith conference in Madrid.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on the conference:
There have been few periods in history when the need for dialogue among world religions has been greater. At a time of increasing divisions along cultural and confessional lines, faith communities have a crucial role to play in fostering mutual understanding and in promoting consensus on common values and aspirations.
Apparently the Saudis aren’t exactly experts in such things, so there is understandably some skepticism:
“If this is a public relations stunt,” said [Rabbi Marc] Schneier [of the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding and the World Jewish Congress], “we’re back in the same place, nothing gained and nothing lost. But if there’s a way to help Muslims strengthen the voices of moderation, we need to be joining this fight.”
Clearly worth watching.
Also of interest, watch for this:
Schneier is also at the conference to announce new Jewish-Muslim initiatives to take place later in the year, including a series of television commercials in time for Ramadan and Rosh Hashana in which rabbis and imams are shown together calling for tolerance, and an effort in November to pair synagogues and mosques for dialogue at the grassroots level.
July 17th, 2008
Literally, we sat in the sun for quite a while on saturday afternoon waiting to see someone very special…
But it was worth it.
Early one Friday morning we got an invitation from the WHITE HOUSE to be President Bush’s “special friends” at Furman University on Saturday night. Furman is where my husband and I went to college (in case anyone didn’t know that we are proud purple paladins).
It all began because I had emailed a friend of mine a little note about how George W. (I can call him that now because I am his “special friend”) was speaking at Furman’s graduation and how some of the faculty was protesting and would NOT attend the graduation ceremony and how incredibly PROUD we were that he was coming to present the graduation speech. And next thing you know she has emailed that to her friend Jeb (Bush) and then the little email it is going on to the White House and then I received an email from the White House asking us if we wanted to attend graduation as “the President’s special friends”.
And to that I sent an email saying “HELL YEAH!”, just kidding, it said “hell, yeah (in all lower case), just kidding some more. But we did accept the kind offer.
So we packed up friday afternoon right after the kids came home from their last day of school and headed up to Greenville, S.C.
The WHITE HOUSE contact guy had told us to be there no later than 5 p.m. (so they could “manage our comfort level” which I think means in political speak, “so we can have the bomb dog sniff you all over”.)
We arrived at 4:30 (we are early birds when the president is involved) and they found our names on the V.I.P. list (which was a short list with the Governor and all the state Congress people, Mayor, and other political figures in South Carolina…. and our family)…
We were seated in a little section with chairs with names on them… Mayor, Senator, Representative, Chairman, Governor, and Adam, Lea, Millie, Maxx, Rosalea. Everyone was very nice to us and greeted us warmly. Though after we would introduce ourselves the inevitable “Ummm and you are…..?” would be forthcoming from them shortly. I answered, “we are Furman grads, we live in Florida, and I wrote an email to a friend that was sent to the White House and now we are here as special guests.”
I know I should have mentioned The Village Square.
There were 14 faculty members who were allowed to stand in protest durning his speech wearing white t-shirts that said “WE OBJECT” in large black letters. It was very Furman, conservative with a bit of deviation, all in a nice friendly font on a t-shirt.
Click here to see a really great you-tube video of the motocade of cars through Greenville narrated in a lovely South Carolina accent… I especially like it in the you tube video when the kids says, “ITS THE PRESIDENT” when one limo goes by and then shouts out “ANOTHER PRESIDENT” when another limo goes by. Oh, I do miss South Carolina…
Anyway, the whole event was GREAT. We had been sitting in the HOT South Carolina sun for about almost two hours when suddenly everyone saw the motorcade coming down the mall through the middle of the Furman campus. The whole stadium became united as one group. There were gasps, claps, cheers, and shouts coming from all around. My children sat up straighter (and so did i). The President of the United States, the head of OUR country, the foremost of THE finest country in the world, the leader of the FREEST country in the world was coming to us.
For a moment, I don’t think it mattered whether you supported him or not. We were all Americans there and we supported the fact that we HAVE a president. A person that WE choose to lead us, to guide us, to symbolize what we are as a country, who we are and who we want and need to be. We were a small group representing the whole of America. There were protestors, supporters, students, parents, guests and we were all there together ready to hear what President Bush had to say to the graduates and to us.
To be continued…
–Lea
July 15th, 2008
Since the Village Square is all about building bridges, and because I just happen to be in France visiting my sister…
I hadn’t thought in a while about some of the parallels between their revolution and ours.
Just a thought as you gaze upon the Arc de Triomphe.
July 11th, 2008
Bob Schieffer’s special comment on today’s Face the Nation:
Some thoughts on this July 4th weekend …
In his wonderful book, “Founding Brothers,” historian Joe Ellis says of the American Revolution that “no event in American history, which was so improbable at the time, has seemed so inevitable in retrospect.”
As we think back on the rightness of America’s cause, we find it hard to believe that it could have come out any other way.
Yet, as Ellis writes, when the Declaration of Independence was signed, the signers had no idea how the revolution would end. The most likely outcome was failure.
No matter the rightness of the cause, the signers were defying the most powerful nation in the world, and no colony had ever successfully broken away from a mother country.
Revolution after revolution against imperialist powers followed ours, but until ours, none had succeeded.
All the signers of our declaration knew for certain was that if it failed, they would hang. Somehow, they won.
On the Fourth of July, we celebrate (as we should) the wisdom and the vision of the founders and the way, in one document, that Thomas Jefferson summarized the aspirations of all people: the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
But let us never forget the one thing that made all the rest of it and what came after it possible: courage - the courage of those who bet their very lives on a project that all signs suggested would fail.
There was nothing inevitable about the American Revolution.
July 6th, 2008
Tell us if you have thoughts from tonight’s dinner. Anything in our draft recommendations you think needs to be added? Deleted? Fact-checked?
If you get a chance read the Shell 50 year energy forecast referred to tonight. Find it here.
July 1st, 2008
Anyone else annoyed and confused with the partisan yap-fest about what we can - and should - do about the high gas prices? Will drilling solve the problem or is there really nothing there? Are speculators raising the price of gas or is that a red herring?
I’m rolling up my sleeves and trying to delve into FACT beyond partisanship on the mucho dinero YOU have to pay for a tank of gas. Give me a few days and I’ll let you know what I’ve found out…
Feel free to let me know what you know.
June 25th, 2008
“History at its best is about telling stories. Stories about people who lived before, about events in the past that create the contours of the present. By studying the lives of others, we hope that we - the living - can learn from their struggles and their triumphs… We have lost the art of letter writing, the discipline of keeping a diary, but as Tim showed, we have not lost the capacity for talking; for sitting around a simple table and conversing - in a civil and illuminating fashion about the most important issues of the day… ”
–Doris Kearns Goodwin, Historian, author of Team of Rivals, as delivered at the memorial service for Tim Russert
June 18th, 2008
The nicest young man rang my doorbell in hopes of obtaining a
signature from me on a petition to make congress look at alternate
forms of energy (wind, solar, tidal) to reduce of dependance on fossil
fuels. He got so much more than he bargained for once I opened the door.
I stood in the doorway and gave him my best synopsis of all our energy
dinners (who knew i was listening so well?). I went over the facts I
had gleaned about nuclear energy being very clean energy. We discussed
the storage and transfer of energy and how solar, wind, and tidal
energy is strictly good for local use and doesn’t store or move over
long distances well. I also pointed out the LARGE land needed for wind
energy and how renewables don’t produce nearly enough power. And i
touched a bit on the fact that the his point was that we used too many
fossil fuels and foreign oil and that would not be helped by tidal,
wind, or solar power (unless a solar car is invented).
Really, I was a font of energy knowledge. I even amazed myself. Seems
that you can teach an old dog new tricks.
The young man was very polite and listened very well. I don’t think I
changed his mind and i didn’t sign his petition. But it was one small
step for civility… all politics is local, all politics involves
beginning at our front doorstep and having a lively and civil
conversation.
He even wrote down the web address for tothevillagesquare.org. Perhaps
he is reading this blog entry today…
June 16th, 2008
There are moments when you hear news that knocks the breathe out of you. The death today of NBC’s Tim Russert took mine. He’s nearly a member of my family, joining me as he does on Sunday mornings for bagels and coffee for as long as I can remember.
It’s not that I haven’t whined at times when in his company. Some question he could have asked differently or didn’t ask at all.
But I offer a yardstick by which I think Mr. Russert can be judged, one of our very American DNA poetically offered by Dr. David Abshire of The Center for the Study of the Presidency:
I argue that in the great historical accomplishments of America,
these apparent opposites—commitment and tolerance—are bridged
by civility. Civility, as used here, is not simply following rules of etiquette
and decorum for the sake of tradition or in order to coat over
any differences. In its deepest sense, civility means respect, listening,
and dialogue. It does not mean watering down or giving up cherished
principles. Indeed, civility has often been exercised in the American
experience in order to move to the higher, common ground.
Commitment and tolerance as our great American traditions. Bridged by civility. By that measure - and I suspect many others - Russert was a giant.
June 13th, 2008
Yesterday my Uncle Tom died. He was 90.
My Uncle Tom was something special. He’s the kind of guy who just by being himself makes his great niece walk just a little taller, aim just a little higher.
Tom was the last of four brothers, who grew up to be - in order of their birth - a Methodist minister (as was their father), a pediatrician, another pediatrician and an obstetrician (Tom).
Uncle Tom was a son of the South, as was my grandpa - though long since transplanted to care for the children in an Ohio mill town, an Ohio mill town which has long since died.
Tom was the last brother. He was the most amazing husband, steadily loving and caring for his aging wife with Alzheimer’s.
Miriam.
Even with Alzheimer’s, Miriam is such an amazing lady. Warm, welcoming, even though she forgets who you are.
Miriam and Tom were the beautiful people - you know… the kind who would rightfully sit a bit above the rest of us regular folks… well-educated, well-heeled, well-paid. Gorgeous.
They didn’t. They were the salt of the earth.
Uncle Tom, as far as I know, was a lifelong Republican. So was my grandpa, who died long before Republicans and Democrats seemed to so hate each other.
My grandpa would have never hated me.
I believe my grandpa and his doctor-brothers all felt that they were taking care of the children and babies in their towns just-fine-thank-you-no-need-for-government-here.
Knowing Tom, Ken (brother 3) and my grandpa, I’m betting they were right.
I’m a lifelong Democrat.
I never talked to Tom about politics. Frankly, it just didn’t matter. Lots of things mattered a whole lot more.
About a zillion years ago my boyfriend-almost-husband found himself with a dead car on the top of a suspension bridge two states away from me. We called Uncle Tom who, obstetric practice and all, drove to the top of the bridge and rescued my husband.
You know how busy obstetricians are?
In his last letter to me, Great Uncle Tom thanked my husband for “taking my nephew fishing all the time… and bringing him back again.”
So, if you’re a Democrat like me and you’re inclined to hate Republicans, you’re going to have to do it without me.
Because the Republican you hate might just be like my Uncle Tom, whose absence today makes the world more than just a little bit less.
June 12th, 2008
Next Posts
Previous Posts
