Urban Village of Pasadena

Urban Villagers will rally and engage in civil disobedience at the federal building in downtown L.A. (300 N. Los Angeles St.) on Thusday, Feb 23, from 10:00 a.m. to noon to bring attention to the dire need for meaningful legislation regarding climate change/global warming.

Here is the promotional video for the event (3 UVers are in it): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gPTeYDuS3k

A recent lectionary reading was the passage from Mark about the baptism of Jesus.

The baptism of Jesus has, I think, been woefully under-appreciated. Because we tend to think of Jesus as divine and without sin, we assume that he did not need to be baptized, and so we find some easy and simplistic explanation for why he was baptized, e.g. to be an example for others because that's what a good leader does.

Three of the Republican candidates at a recent debate (the 14th or 15th, I think...these debates are like the latest "reality show," sheer low brow entertainment) were asked what they would be doing that night if they were not running for president.

Seven people carpooled from Pasadena, including two Urban Villagers: Bob and me.

We arrived in Long Beach just before 5:00 a.m. There seemed to be several hundred protesters (when we marched, we looked like a thousand; when we were clumped together, we looked like 250). We gathered at Harry Bridges park and marched to one of the entrances to a terminal of the port.

http://www.pasadenaweekly.com/cms/story/detail/changing_the_conversation...

Tonight I marched with Occupy Pasadena (General Assembly) for the first of our continuing weekly marches on Friday evenings. When we started the march, there were only five of us. Nevertheless, a police officer felt compelled to stop us and put us in check. She asked us if we understood "the rules of engagement." Did we look like a foreign military to her?

I found this video of a debate on CNN between two CNN journalists (one had previously worked in the Bush administration) and Glenn Greenwald. The journalists amazingly show contempt for Wikileaks for doing what journalists are supposed to be doing, and one of them repeatedly states that Wikileaks committed a crime, which is not true. They don't even seem to know the law regarding journalism in this country. Greenwald does a great job of calling them out as phony journalists.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJgnJ_W_5zU

I met a man back in the '90s here in California who believed that the church should work to establish theocracy in America a la ancient Israel, complete with holy war and institutionalized slavery. After all, he reasoned, even the New Testament upholds slavery when it commends slaves to obey their masters, and nowhere does the Bible call for the abolition of slavery.

We got back from Georgia yesterday. One thing that jumped out at me on this trip is how much disposable stuff, especially plastic and Styrofoam, that we use. I've been aware of this for a long time but had become desensitized to it, and then Joe started talking about it a couple of years ago, so I've been re-sensitized. On this trip I noticed myself and others, especially in the airport, using mounds of stuff that we just casually throw away, much of it toxic to the environment and not at all biodegradable. I had to redouble my efforts to resist and was not completely successful.

First of all, kudos to Anthony Manousos who wrote an excellent blog post about Jesus and our financial crisis (http://laquaker.blogspot.com/2011/10/what-would-jesus-say-about-our-econ...). Remember the parable about the unforgiving servant whose master forgives him an incredibly huge debt, and then this servant goes off and has no mercy on others who owe much smaller debts? Anthony makes the connection that Wall Street, which was bailed out by us only to foreclose on homeowners, is the present day unforgiving servant. Brilliant, Anthony!! I had not made that connection!