Kansan Cathy Smith, the mother of Tomas Young, a soldier who received a gunshot wound to his cervical spine in Iraq and is now a paraplegic said, “My son and I were in Grant Park celebrating with thousands of others here in Chicago on election night. But then I remembered how I felt in 2006 when we put in a new Congress that was supposed to stop the war…that can’t be allowed to happen again.”

December 29, 2008

By Joshua Brollier

I recently witnessed the arrest of a young black male by the Chicago Police Department for doing nothing more than sitting on a bike on the sidewalk. As a member of Northside Action for Justice’s CopWatch program, I have often seen and grown to expect such unwarranted arrests in our neighborhood of Uptown, but this incident struck me as particularly aggressive, uncalled for, and just plain stupid.

December 17, 2008

By Najlaa A. Al-Nashi, with Noah Baker Merrill

It was only a few seconds - the shoes were flying toward President Bush, and with them a huge insult in Iraqi tradition.

You may have heard the news that an Iraqi journalist threw his shoes at the American president, but as an Iraqi I’d like to share with you a few details about the journalist, and why he did that.

Affectionate greetings to you all. I arrived four days ago from the Middle East and find myself caught as it were between two worlds. I feel like I left one family there in order to return to family here. Despite the starkly different realities, both places seem equally familiar. In ways hard to describe, life there seems easier.

Amman, Jordan
October 22, 2008

I learned that among the things he was forced to leave behind was a large feather pillow his mother had made about seventy years ago. She had gathered the feathers herself. Also left behind were some embroidery pieces she had made as well as a couple of books and other items. When his wife died of cancer over 28 years ago, this gentle man had raised his three children alone. I met his only daughter recently in Syria. She and her husband are among the refugee population there longing to join family in a safe place where they can work and raise their two small daughters. I thought of an embroidered pillow case cover my mother gave me some years back. It is something I cherish imagining how she had laid her head on it as a child. Maybe, I told him, I could retrieve some of the things left behind with a neighbor.

Peace activists from across the US gathered at The Heartland Speaks, a conference organized by Salina People for Peace members Janie M. Stein and Martin Bates of Salina, KS. The conference concluded with a nonviolent direct action in response to Hawgsmoke 2008.