Happy New Year & New York Times Op Ed Article worth reading

I managed to make it to the Christmas eve evening service. It was great although I would rather sing in the choir than in the congregation. I am slowly coming back from the reactions to chemo even though I have four more treatments to go, I seem to be tolerating them better.

I would like to point out an Op Ed in today's (December 30, 2007) New York Times about the end of the slave trade in the United states. It is worth reading:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/30/opinion/30foner.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin
Here is a summary of it.:

Forgotten Step Toward Freedom

By ERIC FONER

Published: December 30, 2007

WE Americans live in a society awash in historical celebrations. The last few years have witnessed commemorations of the bicentennial of the Louisiana Purchase (2003) and the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II (2005). Looming on the horizon are the bicentennial of Abraham Lincoln’s birth (2009) and the sesquicentennial of the outbreak of the Civil War (2011). But one significant milestone has gone strangely unnoticed: the 200th anniversary of Jan. 1, 1808, when the importation of slaves into the United States was prohibited.

-----"In the United States, however, slavery not only survived the end of the African trade but embarked on an era of unprecedented expansion. Americans have had to look elsewhere for memories that ameliorate our racial discontents, which helps explain our recent focus on the 19th-century Underground Railroad as an example (widely commemorated and often exaggerated) of blacks and whites working together in a common cause.

Nonetheless, the abolition of the slave trade to the United States is well worth remembering. Only a small fraction (perhaps 5 percent) of the estimated 11 million Africans brought to the New World in the four centuries of the slave trade were destined for the area that became the United States. But in the Colonial era, Southern planters regularly purchased imported slaves, and merchants in New York and New England profited handsomely from the trade."

Note: New York City was a center for the slave trade and our Congregational forefathers were actively engaged in the slave trade.

"From 1803 to 1808, between 75,000 and 100,000 Africans entered the United States.
By this time, the international slave trade was widely recognized as a crime against humanity. In 1807, Congress prohibited the importation of slaves from abroad, to take effect the next New Year’s Day, the first date allowed by the Constitution.

For years thereafter, free African-Americans celebrated Jan. 1 as an alternative to July 4, when, in their view, patriotic orators hypocritically proclaimed the slave-owning United States a land of liberty."

OK. Enough I hope you will read the full article in the newspaper today or in the library some time this week.
Jeannette

A Poem for Christmas

This is taken for "Earth Prayers From Around the Wold 365 Prayers, Poems and Invocations for Honoring the Earth" edited by Elizabeth Robers and Elias Amidon.

This poem is and adapted from the Gaelic. In the choir we have sung a piece with similar words.

Deep peace of the running wave to you,
of water flowing. rising and falling;
Sometime advancing, sometime receding;
Deep peace of the running wave to you!

Deep peace of the flowing air to you,
which fans your face on a sultry day;
the air which you breathe deeply, rhythmically,
which imparts to you energy, consciousness, life;
Deep peace of the flowing air to you!

Deep peace of the quiet earth to you;
who, herself unmoving, harbours the movements
and facilitates the life of the ten thousand creatures
while resting contented, stable, tranquil;
Deep peace of the quiet earth to you!

Deep peace of the shining stars to you;
which stay invisible till darkness falls
and discloses their pure and shining presence
beaming down in compassion on our turning world
Deep peace of the shining stars to you!

Deep peace of the watching shepherds to you;
of unpretentious folk who, watching and waiting,
spend long hours out on the hillside;
expecting in simplicity some Coming of the Lord
Deep peace of the watching shepherds to you!

Deep peace of the Son of Peace to you,
who, swift as the wave and pervasive as the air,
quiet as the earth and shining like a star;
breathes into us His Peace and His Spirit:
Deep peace of the Son of Peace to you!

by Mary Rogers Adapted from the Gaelic

Jeannette Brown

No Child Left Behind Reauthorization Bill

I received two communications about the "No Child Left Behind Reauthorization" which was supposed to happen in 2007 and now has been put off until 2008. This is something which should be of interest to everyone parent, grandparent, and single. How are children are educated reflects on the future of our economy and our political future. How many times have you called someone about a problem and when you finally got a human on the phone, that person was unable to give you any other answer than that which was printed on the sheet in front of him/her. They might have been in a call center in India but even if they were here in the USA students are not being taught to think outside the box. This is the result of standardized testing where teachers spend all their time teaching to the test and not exploring the thoughts of students. Some teachers jobs depend on the students performance on these tests. Schools in New York City are being closed and reorganized because of the "poor" performance of the students.
Science is not one of the subjects being tested and the American Chemical Society's position is that if you can't fight them, join them and want science to be one of the "optional" subjects to be tested. As a chemist I do not agree with this as I would like to do away with the tests and find other ways to "test" student knowledge of a subject. These other methods do exist as I learned them when I took some courses with WestEd in Teacher Leadership, but it involves training the teachers to be able to do this. It is simpler for a teacher to teach by rote to the standardize test.
But enough of my soap box I will copy below the e-mail I received from the Rev Jan Resseger the UCC minister whose sole job is to study Public Education in this country. She is the only minister of any denomination to have this job and as such sits on some important education commissions.
-----------------

On December 5, author Jonathan Kozol finally was able to meet with Senator Ted Kennedy about the reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act.

Kozol has made the overwhelming injustices in the federal education law a primary subject in presentations during a recent national promotion tour for his new book, Letters to a Young Teacher.

He has also spent the summer and fall engaged in a partial fast to protest Senator Kennedy's unwillingness to meet about the No Child Left Behind Act.

Here is a link to Kozol's report about his December 5 meeting with Senator Kennedy: http://ed-action.org/news.php?section=letters .

As you know, the law will not be reauthorized in 2007, as scheduled. Jonathan Kozol's fast was a powerful witness to bring attention to the injustices not just in the law's mechanisms but also in its educational philosophy of test-and-punish, a strategy that has increased pressure to intolerable levels for many teachers and children, and that has increased so many unfunded demands for the most vulnerable schools that there is less funding remaining for instruction.

As we enter 2008, it will be up to all of us who care about public education to reflect on ways we too can witness to keep the focus on the need for reform in the No Child Left Behind Act, even during this presidential election year when politics might push the reauthorization even farther into the future.

Wishing you peace in this Advent season.

--Jan

Jan Resseger, Minister for Public Education and Witness
United Church of Christ Justice and Witness Ministries
700 Prospect Avenue, Cleveland, OH 44115-1100
216-736-3711

----------------------
Not to get political but I also received a letter from Senator Lautenberg in reply to my "form" letter that I sent to him advocating the American Chemical Society's position along with my own. --------------

Dear Ms. Brown :

Thank you for contacting me about the reauthorization of the "No Child Left Behind Act" (NCLB). I appreciate hearing from you on this important issue.

The "No Child Left Behind Act" was enacted in 2002 to increase accountability and raise educational standards in our public schools. While I support the principles upon which NCLB is based, I have concerns about the way this law has been put into practice.

First, I am concerned about the emphasis on standardized testing. The law requires annual math and reading tests in grades three through eight, and once in high school. Schools that miss the set benchmarks face increasingly tough consequences, such as loss of funding or having to replace teachers or principles. While useful in some cases, standardized testing can measure only a small sample of what is learned in school. We should not rely solely on a single test to reflect the achievement of a student or the realities of their school district. I support changes to No Child Left Behind that would grant states flexibility in measuring schools' progress.

I also support implementing a "growth" model when assessing schools. Under this method, changes in test scores are measured over time to determine if students are making strides in their learning. Thus, schools will get credit for student progress. This model is particularly useful when measuring the achievements of schools in poorer districts, which face a more difficult set of circumstances than schools in more affluent areas.

Finally, I believe the reauthorization should place a high priority on a wider number of academic subjects. As it stands, many schools have begun to neglect subjects like science, social studies, and the arts in favor of increased instruction on reading and math - both of which are assessed by standardized tests. While reading and math are important subjects to learn, they should not be taught to the exclusion of other important fields of study. It is imperative that students receive a well-rounded education that will prepare them for a wide variety of professions.

Congress is set to reauthorize the No Child Left Behind law within the next year. Please be assured that I am closely monitoring the progress of this legislation, and will keep your views in mind as this issue comes before the Senate.

Thank you again for writing.
-----------------
This letter appears to be a personal note maybe I am wrong, but we have met because he is also involved with the Amtrak appropriation but that is another soap box.

Merry Christmas
Jeannette

Shawl Ministry

OK. I should be writing my book but when I am sitting having an infusion or bored in a hospital room knitting is fun. So I finished one shawl that I had started. When I took a look at it, I had knitted so much it turned into a blanket and not a shawl. So I remembered that a year ago there was a request from Homeside Hospice in Clark for knitters. I have put a notice about that in the Clarion but I will reproduce that here.

Homeside Hospice

67 Walnut Ave., Suite 205,
Clark, NJ 07066
Phone (732) 381 3444
Fax (732) 381 3445
Email homesidehospice@aol.com

There is a request for volunteer knitters, weavers and sewers to make Lap Blankets, Prayer Shawls and other items. This request came to me a year ago and I finally have something to donate. Please keep this in mind as you are knitting this winter. You can call and contact the volunteer coordinator or just mail the shawls to them. They will give you volunteer hours for your work which might be of interest to teenagers.

I have another shawl to finish and I will start some new ones . I have a lot of yarn left over from other projects.
Anyone is welcome to join the Shawl Ministry. Directions for shawls are on the table in the Atrium or on the web at http://www.shawlministry.com/instructions.html We have virtual meetings although we might meet with the group from Stanely Congregational church in Chatham in the spring. I will try to arrange it.
Jeannette

Christmas Shopping and the UCC

Hi. Because I am mostly confined to my house I am doing my Christmas shopping on line this year. But I notice the ads for Wal Mart and their low prices $15.00 for an I-Pod nano! I was wondering about the UCC position about Wal Mart and their labor relations. I found this most recent post in Justice and Witness Ministries :http://www.ucc.org/ucnews/octnov2005/justice-and-witness.html
I realize this was written in 2005 but I don't beleive the policy has changed.
It starts out by quoting a UCC member"

"I work for Wal-Mart, writes Edward, a UCC member in California.

"If you have studied their practices," he continues, "you will know how unrealistic they are. Unequal pay for men and women, poor insurance for high costs, imported products at about 80 percent of their merchandise. For one of the giants in the retail world, they have not shown any real care and concern for their employees. Please consider looking into this. You will be as distressed as many of us are."

The UCC had a week of action against Wal Mart in 2005, not a boycot because in some markets Wal Mart is the only store in town just an awarness of their employee practices. Here in New Jersey the closest Wal Mart to Summit is on Route 22 in Watchung and there is one in Manville near where I live.

But, as Rasell makes clear, Wal-Mart's low prices come at a high cost to the company's low-wage, non-organized workforce. "The time has come for the UCC to very visibly support the right of [Wal-Mart] workers to organize for a higher standard of pay and benefits," she says.

'The Wal-Mart Movie' This is a documentary film that is available for congregations.

Later in the article they go one to compare the working conditions of Wal Mart employees to those of Costco employess one of Wal Mart's competitiors and they are better.
Here is the end of the article

"Let's give them the credit, but I would also credit the pressure that's been put on Wal-Mart," Smithline says. "Because that's our goal. We know we're not going to put them out of business, but our goal is to make them a better company."

Rasell says, in the end, she's not ready to say whether or not Wal-Mart workers "should" form a union, but she does believe they should be guaranteed their legal rights to organize, if they so choose.

"We simply want Wal-Mart to take care of its employees," she says. "That's the ultimate goal."

"[It is] the responsibility of multinational corporations and international financial institutions to respect and hold themselves accountable to fundamental human rights, particularly with regard to child labor, employment of minorities, and wages that are adequate for local costs of living;

[It is] the responsibility of workers to organize for collective bargaining with employers regarding wages, benefits, and working conditions, and the responsibility of employers to respect not only worker rights but also workers' dignity, and to create and maintain a climate conducive to the workers' autonomous decision to organize… ."

From the 1997 General Synod resolution, "Affirming Democratic Principles in an Emerging Global Economy."

Also on the UCC web are alternative gifts. I know the board of world fellowship takes care of Christ Church giving but if any individual would like to take on a cause there is a list of places around the world that could use money for good purposes.

Alternative Christmas Giving

Looking for a creative way to celebrate Christmas this year? Alternative Christmas gifts are a meaningful way to give a gift that keeps on giving.

With an Alternative Christmas gift, you honor your loved ones and make a difference in the lives of people around the world, all without a trip to the mall. Giving alternative Christmas gifts ensures that your gift won't sit on a shelf gathering dust, leaves no worries about whether you know what size the recipient wears, and won't be part of the next massive product recall. It's perfect for the person who has "everything" and is sure to bring smiles - it can also make all the difference in the world.

List of giving opportunities for individuals http://www.globalministries.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=839&Itemid=32

Just some ideas for the reason for the season.
Jeannette Brown