What a Difference a Year Makes

In August I wrote a blog post about my friend Tim and how my friend Catherine found him after we had been searching for years. The story still amazes me as does Tim and all that he has accomplished over the past year since he was helped off the street.

I'm happy to report that he is working, has his own place, and is 11 months sober. Things can be tough for him emotionally now and again but that can be expected. Other exciting Tim news settles around a new documentary about Pimp this Bum and Tim's journey. I only hope I can see it in my area. If not, I've heard it might be available to watch online.

Go Tim!

In Honor...

Somehow this madness must cease. We must stop now. I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam.
I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are being destroyed, whose culture is being subverted. I speak
for the poor in America who are paying the double price of smashed hopes at home and death and corruption in Vietnam. I
speak as a citizen of the world, for the world as it stands aghast at the path we have taken. I speak as an American to the
leaders of my own nation. The great initiative in this war is ours. The initiative to stop it must be ours.

Martin Luther King, Jr., The Trumpet of Conscience, 1967.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies
hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction....The chain reaction
of evil--hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars--must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of
annihilation.

Martin Luther King, Jr., Strength To Love, 1963.

I Have a Dream

Today my students watched The Children's March about the black children of Montgomery Alabama who marched in order to get arrested. It was hard for some of them. A couple of the girls cried. At the end they realized just a little bit more than before how important it is for kids to be activists and to change the negatives they see around them. They are already fired up after watching An Inconvenient Truth so tomorrow we will be writting letters to our government officials (the kids idea) and hoping their voices are heard.