Dear Editor:
Please consider this short plea for a drawdown of hypersensitivity, of backing off so much labeling. For PeaceVoice, thank you,
Tom Hastings
~~~~~~~~`
The United States of Overreaction
by Matthew Johnson
379 words
On July 4, at a Starbucks in Tempe, Arizona, six police officers were asked to either move out of a customer’s line of sight or leave the establishment because they were making a patron uncomfortable—for being police.
As a progressive-minded American who believes certain (unjust) laws are meant to be broken and who strongly opposes any manner of police abuse or overreach, I am not particularly comfortable around police myself (although, admittedly, I am white and tend to get the benefit of the doubt during confrontations). However, I am equally uncomfortable with an uncanny overreaction to what amounted to uniformed police officers having a cup of coffee, which they paid for, at a public location.
I also scoff at the idea of a #boycottstarbucks (hashtag) for what amounted to the actions of one misguided barista. Twitter is akin to a lightning strike in an otherwise quiet, flame-free forest. It doesn’t seem to matter what the issue is anymore or whether it stirs up the Right or the Left. There should be a rule that states: No one, in the name of support or solidarity, should be allowed to be more outraged than the victim of the mistreatment/offense/injustice.At no point did the Tempe Police Department or the officers who were asked to move-it-or-leave-it call for a boycott, so their so-called supporters are nothing more than digital grandstanders.
It’s to the credit of the involved parties that they did not join in the overreaction. Apologies were made and accepted. Increased understanding should always be the first objective in situations of low-level conflict. After all, mistakes will inevitably be made in a pluralistic society that suffers from a strong case of oversensitivity. We’re afraid of everything except our own shadows, which we seem to worship. We should instead be happy that our many cleavages exist in a relative state of equilibrium. It’s a minor miracle that we haven’t descended into civil war post-November 8, 2016. Yet.
I’m not sure why we can’t continue to build a nation that includes lingering lawmen, craven customers, crafty corporate owners, and even tumultuous tweeters. There’s room for all of us—along with the scores of ill-treated immigrants about whom we should be far more concerned than those who can easily defend themselves.
–end–
Matt Johnson, syndicated by PeaceVoice, is co-author of Trumpism.
~~~~~~~
Distributed July 12, 2019 - View Web Version
One Month Countdown for
2019 Larry H. Miller Tour of Utah
TJ Eisenhart Among Pro Riders at Millcreek Cycling Festival
On July 15 to Launch Pre-Race Events
The 15th edition of the Larry H. Miller Tour of Utah will take place in one month on Aug. 12-18. The Tour of Utah will challenge the professional athletes with seven heart-pounding days of racing, covering 477 miles and 37,882 feet of elevation gain. It is the sixth year for the Tour to be sanctioned as a 2.HC-rated stage race by the Union Cycliste Internationale, making it one of the premier events for professional cycling teams in North America.
Millcreek Cycling Festival:
On Monday, July 15, Utah’s own TJ Eisenhart of the Arapahoe l Hincapie p/b BMC Racing Team will lead a free 15-mile public bicycle ride in Millcreek Canyon. He will be joined by Aevolo Pro Cycling teammates Lance Haidet and Gage Hecht. The ride will be followed by an autograph session. Other activities for families and children begin at 6 p.m. with food from 8th Street Tacos and interactive vendor area. The event is hosted by the Tour of Utah as part of the Summer of Cycling.
More Pre-Race and Special Events:
Race Week:
Resources and Recent News:
We have some resources to help you file advance stories, from video footage to background documents. See the list below for updated materials in the online Press Center.
Media Credentials:
Members of the media are asked to apply for media credentials in advance. Visit the “About” section on the Tour’s website to access the form, or use this link - click here. Please allow 5-7 business days for the review process, with confirmations being sent via email each Monday afternoon.
Media Contacts:
Breanne Nalder, Summer of Cycling Jackie Tyson, Tour of Utah
breanne@plan7coaching.com TourofUtahPR@pelotonsports.net
801-550-0434 678-362-6228
-- tourofutah.com –
==============================
Oh, Sleeper
Releases New Album
Bloodied/Unbowed
via Solid State Records
Available Now at
http://solidstate.lnk.to/sleeper
Ft. Worth, TX - July 12, 2019 - American metalcore band, Oh, Sleeper, is back and more powerful than ever with today's release of their highly anticipated fourth full-length album Bloodied/Unbowed via Solid State Records. This includes singles "Decimation & Burial," "Fissure," and "The Island," and is now available across streaming services including Spotify, Apple Music, and more:
http://solidstate.lnk.to/sleeper. Physical copies are available for purchase at https://ohsleeper.merchnow.com/.
Bloodied/Unbowed is the band's first full-length record in almost a decade. The album follows the concept of their previous release, The Titan, and is laid out like a book - every song a chapter in the story from start to finish. It follows two characters as they suffer cataclysmic changes, forcing them apart and through their own personal crucibles before finding their way back to each other bloodied, but unbowed, determined to grow to be what they were born to be.
On the album, lead vocalist Micah Kinard shares, "Bloodied/Unbowed is our most mature effort yet, encapsulating the turbulence of the last six years and near-break-up of the band. We've never spent more time writing, scrapping, re-writing, and perfecting an album in our history as a band and we couldn't be more proud of it. This is proof that we can and will continue, not just as we were, but better than we've ever been."
In support of the upcoming record, the band will be hitting the road for a headlining tour with support from Famous Last Words, Convictions and Empty, running from July 16th to August 13th. Following that, Oh, Sleeper will be supporting Hawthorne Heights on their upcoming 15th anniversary tour, from August 15th to August 28th. For a full list of dates, please see below or here.
Oh, Sleeper is an American metalcore band that forged themselves in 2006, creating a dark tech-metal sound that would define the genre for years to come with pioneering guitar work, captivating lyrics, soaring vocals, and devastating breakdowns. In over a decade's span, Oh, Sleeper has released three full-length albums (Solid State Records), 2 EPs, and toured world-wide alongside genre giants Bring Me The Horizon, Underoath, August Burns Red, Every Time I Die, The Devil Wears Prada and many more. After independently releasing their EP The Titan and being featured on the full Vans Warped Tour in 2013, Oh, Sleeper took a step back to allow clean vocalist and lead guitarist Shane Blay to form California based rock/metal band Wovenwar with members of fellow American metalcore act, As I Lay Dying.
Bloodied/Unbowed is available now. For more information, please visit https://www.facebook.com/ohsleeper.
Bloodied/Unbowed Tracklisting:
01. Let It Wave
02. Decimation & Burial
03. Fissure
04. Of Bane & Disease
05. Two Ships
06. The Island
07. Mutinous
08. Pulse Over Throne
09. Oxygen
10. The Summit
Upcoming Tour Dates:
*supporting Hawthorne Heights
###
Oh Sleeper is Micah Kinard (vocals), Shane Bay (guitar/vocals), and Zac Mayfield (drums).
For more information on Oh, Sleeper:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ohsleeper
Twitter: https://twitter.com/weareohsleeper
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ohsleepertx/
==========================
I the Mighty
Surprises Fans with
Watch the Live Videos,
Here: http://bit.ly/2JCRcNp
Currently On Tour with Anberlin
San Francisco, CA - July 12, 2019 - Alternative rock band I the Mighty have surprised fans with the release of their new live EP, Unplugged in LA, out now on Equal Vision Records. Filmed at the YouTube Space in Los Angeles, CA, Unplugged in LA is out now and available here. Watch the exclusive videos here.
I the Mighty is currently touring North America in support of rock legends Anberlin, and will be performing at the Vans Warped Tour in Mountain View later this month. For a full list of all remaining tour dates, please see below or visit: www.ithemighty.com.
Since the band's inception in 2008, I the Mighty have come to be recognized as one of the most progressive voices in alternative rock. Over the course of the past decade, the band has built a cult-like international following largely through their explosive live show - which has seen the band touring with such notable acts as Coheed & Cambria, Say Anything and Glassjaw, slots at England's Download Festival and Reading & Leeds festival, and a 2017 national headline run that culminated in back-to-back sold out shows in Los Angeles.
I the Mighty have released four full-lengths and an equal number of EPs to date. Their most recent effort was the critically-beloved Where the Mind Wants to Go / Where You Let it Go full-length, which came out in October of 2017 on Equal Vision Records. Though the band has exhibited incredible growth with each release in the past, Where the Mind Wants to Go / Where You Let it Go represented a particularly bold step forward in the band's creative journey. Musically, the album is bolstered by the intricate layerings of guitarwork from Walsh and Ian Pedigo, coupled with the fierce rhythms of Chris Hinkley on bass and Blake Dahlinger on drums. The diverse deliveries of vocals are further highlighted with exceptional framing of impressive multi-layered harmonies and dramatic yet balanced instrumentations.
The acclaimed album is a collection of eleven artistically mature, meticulously crafted rock anthems that sees Walsh, tackling the topics that have shaped his own personal growth since the release of their last album; both in terms of life experience and in regards to more abstract topics. The lead single, "Chaos In Motion," premiered world-wide on BBC1 Radio Rock and also featured the ultimate "unsatisfying" video that was picked up by Viral Thread where it amassed over a million plays in 24 hours. "Chaos In Motion" opened the band to a new demographic of fans that have eagerly sought out the rest of their catalog and seem to have joined the ranks of the band's already large and dedicated following.
"Cave In," I the Mighty's latest single, continues the band's standard of maintaining disarming honesty lyrically, coupled with expansive instrumentals that elevate the song from emotional to heartrending. It's a fluid movement from the sound of Where the Mind Wants to Go / Where You Let it Go that promises a future of even more growth and complexity from the band. For a group whose goal is to continuously evolve and leave their mark on the music scene by creating a sound and identity all their own, I the Mighty is unquestionably up to the task.
For More Information, please visit:
Website: www.ithemighty.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/ithemighty
Twitter: www.twitter.com/ithemighty
Instagram: www.instagram.com/ithemighty
Unplugged in LA tracklisting:
1. Chaos In Motion
2. Pet Names
3. Cave In
4. Slow Dancing Forever
Upcoming Tour Dates w/Anberlin:
7/12 - Silver Spring, MD @ The Fillmore
7/13 - Raleigh, NC @ The Ritz
7/14 - Atlanta, GA @ Buckhead Theatre
7/17 - Oklahoma City, OK @ 89th St **
7/20-7/21 - Mountain View, CA @ Vans Warped Tour 25 Years **
** - I the Mighty only
Remnants of War
by Kathy Kelly
897 words
Intense fighting and hideous attacks battered Afghans throughout their country last week as negotiators in Qatar weighed the benefits and costs of a peace agreement that might stop the bloodshed.
In Kabul at least 40 people, including one child, were killed in a complex Taliban attack. Dozens of children whose school was partially collapsed by a massive car bomb were injured. Of these, 21 were hospitalized with serious injuries.
New York Times correspondent Mujib Mashal posted (on Twitter) a photo of an elementary school child being carried into the Italian Emergency Surgical Center for Victims of War in Kabul. “Blood on his face,” Mashal writes, describing the child. “Still in shock. Still clutching that pencil.”
The same attack damaged a television station, a government facility and an adjoining private war museum.
Operated by OMAR (Organization for Mine Clearance and Afghan Rehabilitation), a group dedicated to the never-ending and often dangerous work of mine-clearance and disposal, the war museum houses ordnance and land mines used in Afghanistan during four decades of warfare. In 2012, young Afghan Peace Volunteers took me to see the museum.
I recall a small exhibit showing remnants of a United States anti-personnel cluster bomb. The remnants are called bomblets, and each cluster bomb consists of 202 bomblets. They resemble children’s playthings, items that could be stepped on, driven over or picked up by curious children. They are sometimes lethal, sometimes “only” inflict hideous wounds.
The U.S. dropped 1,228 cluster bombs in Afghanistan between October 2001 and March 2002 alone. The Afghan landscape is now littered by anti-personnel and anti-tank mines which OMAR is striving to remove, where permitted, before more Afghan civilians are killed. Research by the Mine Action Program of Afghanistan indicates, in the first three months of the current year, 130 Afghan boys and girls were casualties of “ERW:” "Explosive Remnants of War."
As negotiations inched forward, two Afghan government airstrikes, possibly using United States assistance, hit civilians, killing seven members of a family in the Baghlan province and four civilians in a clinic in Maidan Wardak province.
The Taliban, U.S. Government, and every other warring party in Afghanistan must be asked: “How many more civilians, including children, are you willing to kill and maim?”
The second time I visited the OMAR museum was with my friend Martha Hennessy. We were asked not to take photos, but Martha had already snapped a picture of a carpet carefully woven to illustrate several types of land mines Afghans should watch out for. The carpet was hung on a wall, but actual mines lie in the paths to be traversed by innocent Afghans. On the phone with me discussing the recent Kabul attack, Martha mentioned that carpet and reflected on the terrible carpeting of Afghanistan with barbarous ordnance.
Martha now faces up to 20 years in prison for protesting the most barbarous and inhumane weaponry ever invented.
Martha, a granddaughter of the Catholic Worker Movement's founder Dorothy Day, is one of seven activists, the "King’s Bay Plowshares 7," whose April 4, 2018 action was in accord with their deeply held beliefs that life is sacred, and must not be taken in war. The U.S. naval base at King’s Bay, Georgia houses nuclear-missile-armed Trident submarines, enough to kill every human on Earth many times over. Entering without permission, they hung banners, displayed crime scene tape and poured their own blood on the base grounds. They protested the U.S. preparations, far exceeding those of any other nation, to commit “omnicide,” to carpet the world in in fire, in fallout, in the snows of a deadly "nuclear winter," in ash.
For the past 15 months, they’ve awaited trial on charges of conspiracy, destruction of property on a naval station, depredation of government property, and trespass. They feel that U.S. readiness for war must be put on trial now, or potentially never.
Another of Martha's co-defendants has been a guest, like us, of the Afghan Peace Volunteers. Our friend Carmen Trotta recalls a visit to the Emergency Surgical Center for Victims of War, an Italy-based hospital that treated many victims of the recent Kabul attacks. In 2014 we had visited the hospital to donate blood, and met Jamshaid and Farshaid, young teens who had survived a suicide bomb attack on the United States military base in Bagram. They had been standing outside their school outside the base when the attack happened. Farshaid’s leg had been amputated. Jamshaid had lost much of his vision. We asked Michaela Paschetto, a young Italian nurse, how they were faring.
“Today was a bad day for them,” she said. “Really, I don’t ask so many questions,” she continued. “It becomes too much.”
“I didn’t know what to say,” Carmen recalls. “I honestly couldn’t think of a word to say.”
Carmen, Martha and each of the Kings Bay Plowshares 7 will have their say, however brief, in a Brunswick County federal court on August 7. Oral arguments will be heard including several motions as well as their belief they opposed the U.S. nuclear arsenal in accord with their religious faith. They have consistently opposed weapons and wars and just as steadfastly served, as members of Dorothy Day's movement, their impoverished neighbors. They understand the wars, the omnicidal weapons awaiting their use at King's Bay, and the suffering of the U.S. poor as, in some sense, all part of a global war on the poor.
Depending on whether we resist or acquiesce, grieve or complacently ignore, we ourselves risk becoming the tragic, perpetually dangerous remnants of war.
-end-
Kathy Kelly, syndicated by PeaceVoice, co-coordinates Voices for Creative Nonviolence.
