The Open Shelter still has a few spots available next week for volunteers to help us get ready to make Christmas bright for those we serve; homeless and marginally housed men, women, and families.

We still could use volunteers on Wednesday, December 20th from 12-approximately 4p to help families with picking out gifts and with clean-up.

If you would like to sign up or have any questions, feel free to call Harry at 614-222-2885 or 614-562-2169. Thanks and Happy Holidays!

We are dismayed by the silence of so many churches. Here is an Open Letter
from Palestinian Christians to Western Church Leaders and Theologians

http://www.defenddemocracy.press/an-open-letter-from-palestinian-christians-to-western-church-leaders-and-theologians/


And my message for Christmas again (since then hundreds more were
murdered):

Young Men Die 

Detective Richardson stood in the front lobby of We Get You There cab company. The secretary, Mrs. Hanson, had offered him a chair, however, he preferred to stand rather than sit on the dirty seats. There was a large blackboard against the right wall with names of six cab drivers and their cab numbers. It appeared that only four of the drivers had checked in today. On the large brown oak desk was a picture of Mrs. Hanson and three children, two boys and a girl. Nice looking kids. Richardson flipped through his notebook, underlining a few notes with his pencil. His investigation of Booker T. had brought him to this place.

Booker T. was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. Went to private schools, honor roll, basketball star, and ladies’ man. Graduated top ten of his high school class. Against his mother’s wishes, he joined the Army and ended up in Vietnam. Found out quickly that he was just another “darkie” in the Army to both the white and Black officers. Nobody cared about his mother being a prominent judge in hick town Columbus, Ohio. 

Top American officials in the “national security” establishment are notably good at smooth rhetoric and convenient silences. Their scant regard for truth or human life has changed remarkably little since 1971 when Daniel Ellsberg risked decades in prison to leak the Pentagon Papers to the world. During the years between then and his death six months ago, he was a tireless writer, speaker, and activist.

Most people remember him, of course, as the whistleblower who exposed voluminous official lies about the Vietnam War by providing 7,000 top-secret pages of classified documents to the New York Times and other newspapers. But throughout his adult life, he was transfixed above all by the imperative of preventing nuclear war.

One day in 1995, I called Dan and suggested he run for president. His reply was instant: “I’d rather be in prison.” He explained that, unlike typical candidates, he couldn’t stand to offer opinions on subjects he really knew little or nothing about.