New GDPR Video – Peace in Action

Decided that I dislike Animoto (which was used in yesterday’s vid); the clips turn out much better if I do all the work myself…

direct action photography: images from peace rallies: Washington, DC (2002) and Boston, MA (2005) photos by: natalie davis and marselle

New Video – Peace in Our World

Finally made a video of my 2005 visit to Boston, which included appearing on panels at the Center for New Words’ Women in Media conference at MIT and a peace protect at Boston Common.  This very short piece, only 30 seconds long, offers a rapid recounting of the anti-Iraq invasion rally. The music and title  come from the Jenn Cleary Band‘s smokin’ blues piece, “Peace in Our World.” Check out her stuff.

Marriage Equality: Couples Line Up for Licenses in Iowa

 

 

 

Andrew Mahoney-Lamb and his partner Grant Lamb were the first in line, but didn’t plan it that way.
 

“No, we figured there’d be a lot of people here, so we figured we’d show up early and try to beat the rush,” Mahoney-Lamb says. Mahoney-Lamb talked his feelings about the wait. “Anxious, I just want to get it over with and have the piece of paper in my hand to show me that it’s actually true,” he says. Lamb says it’s important to them to see the license.

“Definately once that paper is signed, it’s sealed, then the reality will hit. That’s really what we’re waiting for, the seal from the recorder that says it’s all true,” Lamb says. The two say they’ve been a “couple” for three years and had a commitment ceremony a year ago. Ingrid Olson and Reva Evans waited in line with their son Jamison.

“You know walking up the stairs today, I mean, I got a big pit in my stomach,” Olson says. “I got a big smile on my face,” Evans says, “and it was just like, like I didn’t expect it, it was pretty powerful, it was just a great feeling.” Olson and Evans had tried to get a license four years ago, and were one of the couples who challenged Iowa’s gay marriage ban after being denied.

via Radio Iowa: Gay couples line up to get marraige licenses

Marriage: A History Lesson

From the UK’s Guardian, Rev. Candace Chellew-Hodge offers a history lesson to those who claim marriage as a right (or rite) that belongs only to them.

Those who shout, “It’s Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve!” and claim the creation story as their basis for a religious, heterosexuals-only, marriage rite, need to brush up on their history. …

Adam and Eve is but one story of creation – all religions have one and not one of them comes from an eyewitness who was there taking notes. Marriage is read back into the story of Adam and Eve, but marriage was occurring long before the story was finally written down. That means society created marriage – not God. The original purpose of marriage has changed over the millennia. The one thing it didn’t have originally? Religion.

Marriage was invented for the proper distribution of property – meaning land and other chattel which included the women involved in the marriage. … Marriages were arranged to enlarge property holdings – to join two or more families who wanted to enlarge their wealth. Love had little, if anything, to do with these unions. …

The early church knew that marriage was a man-made, civil institution and wanted little to do with it, according to EJ Graff in What is Marriage For? (p 195):

When asked, some priests might come by and say a blessing as a favour, just as they’d say a blessing over a child’s first haircut. No one considered marriage sacred, as celibacy was: marriage was one of those secular and earthbound forms rendered unto Caesar.

It wasn’t until 1215 that the church declared marriage a sacrament and set up a system of canon law around it. So don’t be fooled by those who claim God invented marriage – it took centuries for the church to put its claim on it.

Rev. Chellew-Hodge is associate pastor at Garden of Grace UCC in Columbia, SC and founder/editor of Whosoever: An Online Magazine for GLBT Christians.

Health Alert: Raw Alfalfa Sprouts Salmonella Scare

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have a warning:  Just say no to raw alfalfa sprouts.

via AHN:  FDA: Raw Alfalfa Sprouts Linked To Salmonella Contamination

Consumers are being urged not eat raw alfalfa sprouts, including sprout blends containing alfalfa sprouts, for now because the product has been linked to Salmonella serotype Saintpaul contamination. …

Officials say they think the problem is linked to contaminate alfalfa seeds and it has spread across several states, with 31 cases reported since March in Michigan, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Utah, and West Virginia.

Reports came in to the FDA after people started falling ill after eating sprouts consumed in restaurant and retail settings.