Living with HIV, blogging about Da Vinci, and more
Town split on troop recall
A community member at a Needham, Mass., Town Meeting on May 15 proposed that the town join others across the United States that are demanding the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq. The resolution was defeated, but there were strong supporters on both sides of the argument. The Rev. John Buehrens, minister of the First Parish in Needham and former UUA president, clearly endorsed the resolution. ''There have been relatively few times in American history where American society feels so frustrated by the inattention of the national government to their moral concerns," he said. (Boston Globe - 5.18.06)
The Da Vinci blog
Bruce Deachman, one of the few people left on the planet who hadn't read The Da Vinci Code, has been blogging his way through the novel for the Ottawa Citizen. In the third of four installments Deachman comes to the realization that his Unitarian upbringing has left him "ill-equipped to share the anger many Christians seem to feel toward Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code. After all, I picked my copy up in the fiction section, not religious studies." (Ottawa Citizen - Ottawa, Canada 5.18.06)
Living with HIV
I first met Jennifer Jako at a YRUU youth conference in the early '90s. My clearest memory is of her bravely announcing to the collected group of sleep-deprived high schoolers that she was HIV-positive. Her story had roughly the same effect as dropping a bomb in the room. She and I weren't close—she was my older brother's age—but I have never forgotten her or that moment. So imagine my surprise when I picked up the May 15 issue of Newsweek and saw her staring back at me from the cover. The cover story, a special report on AIDS at 25 and the changing face of HIV, features profiles on people young and old who are living with the disease, and chronicles its history. (Newsweek - 5.15.06)
The Newsweek cover also prompted an article about Jako in The Oregonian, an update to one they ran in 1993. (The Oregonian - Portland, OR 5.14.06)
And you can read the original 1993 article here. (The Oregonian - Portland, OR 4.11.93)
The life of Lion
The Goldstream News Gazette profiles Felix Lion, a 91-year-old human rights activist and UU minister living in British Columbia. Lion, a native of Massachusetts, recalls working with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Pete Seeger to register black voters in the racially charged Mississippi of the 1960s. "It was a scary summer down there," he said. "It scared me to death being in the middle of that." (Goldstream News Gazette - Langford, British Columbia, Canada 5.12.06)
Brooklyn church hopes for new steeple
The Unitarian Universalist Society in Brooklyn, Conn., is raising money to replace the steeple on their 235-year-old building. Five years ago the steeple had to be removed for structural reasons. Since then it has waited on the church's lawn next to the six-story belltower it once sat atop. (Norwich Bulletin - Norwich, CT 5.15.06)
A community member at a Needham, Mass., Town Meeting on May 15 proposed that the town join others across the United States that are demanding the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq. The resolution was defeated, but there were strong supporters on both sides of the argument. The Rev. John Buehrens, minister of the First Parish in Needham and former UUA president, clearly endorsed the resolution. ''There have been relatively few times in American history where American society feels so frustrated by the inattention of the national government to their moral concerns," he said. (Boston Globe - 5.18.06)
The Da Vinci blog
Bruce Deachman, one of the few people left on the planet who hadn't read The Da Vinci Code, has been blogging his way through the novel for the Ottawa Citizen. In the third of four installments Deachman comes to the realization that his Unitarian upbringing has left him "ill-equipped to share the anger many Christians seem to feel toward Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code. After all, I picked my copy up in the fiction section, not religious studies." (Ottawa Citizen - Ottawa, Canada 5.18.06)
Living with HIV
I first met Jennifer Jako at a YRUU youth conference in the early '90s. My clearest memory is of her bravely announcing to the collected group of sleep-deprived high schoolers that she was HIV-positive. Her story had roughly the same effect as dropping a bomb in the room. She and I weren't close—she was my older brother's age—but I have never forgotten her or that moment. So imagine my surprise when I picked up the May 15 issue of Newsweek and saw her staring back at me from the cover. The cover story, a special report on AIDS at 25 and the changing face of HIV, features profiles on people young and old who are living with the disease, and chronicles its history. (Newsweek - 5.15.06)
The Newsweek cover also prompted an article about Jako in The Oregonian, an update to one they ran in 1993. (The Oregonian - Portland, OR 5.14.06)
And you can read the original 1993 article here. (The Oregonian - Portland, OR 4.11.93)
The life of Lion
The Goldstream News Gazette profiles Felix Lion, a 91-year-old human rights activist and UU minister living in British Columbia. Lion, a native of Massachusetts, recalls working with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Pete Seeger to register black voters in the racially charged Mississippi of the 1960s. "It was a scary summer down there," he said. "It scared me to death being in the middle of that." (Goldstream News Gazette - Langford, British Columbia, Canada 5.12.06)
Brooklyn church hopes for new steeple
The Unitarian Universalist Society in Brooklyn, Conn., is raising money to replace the steeple on their 235-year-old building. Five years ago the steeple had to be removed for structural reasons. Since then it has waited on the church's lawn next to the six-story belltower it once sat atop. (Norwich Bulletin - Norwich, CT 5.15.06)
posted by Sonja L. Cohen at
4:23 PM
