Healing the Divide promotes understanding, cooperation and innovative solutions to issues that threaten the welfare and prosperity of people and communities around the world.

"Lasting and meaningful change in the world can only happen when people come together to boldly re-imagine what might be and to find creative solutions to the issues affecting them."

-Richard Gere

Healing The Divide

p to 1,000 teenage boys have been separated from their parents and thrown out of their communities by a polygamous sect to make more young women available for older men, Utah officials claim. Many of these "Lost Boys", some as young as 13, have simply been dumped on the side of the road in Arizona and Utah, by the leaders of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (FLDS), and told they will never see their families again or go to heaven.

[ Ugh. Seriously. I wish Jesus would take a more active role in disavowing fools who claim to do hateful, vicious shit in his name. I know he's about turning the other cheek, but couldn't he at least be like "Seriously, guys, you crazy. I mean, I'm not gonna kill ya, but for real, I didn't say any of that stuff. Just saying, you know?" -k]

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | The lost boys, thrown out of US sect so that older men can marry more wives

This op-ed by McSweeny's editor Dave Eggers is something of a follow-up to Tom Friedman's recent Behind Every Grad ... column.

One day they're shaping minds, a moral force in the lives of the young people they teach and know, and in some ways the architects of the future of the nation. The next day they're serving cocktails and selling plasma TV's at the mall.

The authors have written a "punchy, thoughtful" new book, "Teachers Have It Easy": The Big Sacrifices and Small Salaries of America's Teachers, which received a Starred Review by Publishers Weekly.

Reading, Writing, Retailing

"I feel embarassed and angry that Christianity has been used to divide eour country and promote bigotry and war."

I have not read over the whole site but it is nice to see that they are trying to evoke change in a positive way in the name of Christianity.

Christian Alliance for Progress

Were you inspired by a school teacher? Did you thank them?

We are heading into an age in which jobs are likely to be invented and made obsolete faster and faster. The chances of today's college kids working in the same jobs for the same companies for their whole careers are about zero. In such an age, the greatest survival skill you can have is the ability to learn how to learn. The best way to learn how to learn is to love to learn, and the best way to love to learn is to have great teachers who inspire.

Like all the best essayists, Tom Friedman can transform even the most obvious message into a compelling story.

Behind Every Grad ...

] Shortly after three eight-year-old boys were found
] mutilated and murdered in West Memphis, Arkansas, local
] newspapers stated the killers had been caught. The police
] assured the public that the three teenagers in custody
] were definitely responsible for these horrible crimes.
] Evidence?

] The same police officers coerced an error-filled
] "Confession" from Jessie Misskelley Jr., who is
] mentally handicapped. They subjected him to 12 hours of
] questioning without counsel or parental consent,
] audio-taping only two fragments totaling 46 minutes.
] Jessie recanted it that evening, but it was too
] late Misskelley, Jason Baldwin and Damien Echols
] were all arrested on June 3, 1993, and convicted of
] murder in early 1994.

] Although there was no physical evidence, murder weapon,
] motive, or connection to the victims, the prosecution
] pathetically resorted to presenting black hair and
] clothing, heavy metal t-shirts, and Stephen King novels
] as proof that the boys were sacrificed in a satanic cult
] ritual. Unfathomably, Echols was sentenced to death,
] Baldwin received life without parole, and Misskelley got
] life plus 40.

] For over 11 years, The West Memphis Three have been
] imprisoned for crimes they didn't commit. Echols
] waits in solitary confinement for the lethal injection
] our tax dollars will pay for. They were all condemned by
] their poverty, incompetent defense, satanic panic and a
] rush to judgment.

The West Memphis 3

] (CNN) -- A student on Monday killed two of his
] grandparents, then went on a shooting rampage at his
] Minnesota high school, killing seven people and wounding
] as many as 13 others before killing himself, officials
] said.

Not again. Where is the handbasket.

CNN.com - Officials: Student's rampage leaves 10 dead - Mar 22, 2005

Some of you probably missed nano's meme here. This is the most substantive scientific data I've seen about this case. Cat scan pictures are fairly telling. As for the ins and outs, I don't know them all. Politically this case is not particularly compelling, mostly because of this data. But the religious people want to believe that a miracle can happen here and they are fighting for it. I could save 10 lives a year with the money spent keeping this woman alive, but its too easy. There is no divinity in addressing the problems men can solve. To pick your fights is to accept that the omnipotent is limited. What is the point of saving people if there is no God to reward you for it?

Schiavo case

I watched the debate. I could not believe how some members of congress struggled with the word AUTONOMOUS. Half looked like they were reading something - and couldn't read.

It was so very political. They were so transparent. Our country is clearly in trouble.

Congress Condemns Schiavo to Undeath!

Recent Blogads survey. Nothing too surprising. The audience in the blog world is educated, mostly students and teachers. Lots of managers, computer professionals, and people in the legal field.

Blogads: reader survey for blog advertising.