mishkan shalom in the news

This story made me proud to be a member of Mishkan Shalom and of the human race...
Isn't this what it is all about?


Back to New Orleans for a Restored Gabriel
From: The Philadelphia Inquirer Date: 5/20/2007

May 20--Strangest of all was the silence.
"No people. No dogs. Not even birds," the Rev. Doug Doussan recalled the other day. "Just gray mud, everywhere."
The floods of Hurricane Katrina had destroyed the interior of his New Orleans church, buried his parishioners' homes under water, and claimed little Gabriel, their angelic trumpet player.
Doussan, a Catholic priest, found Gabriel facedown in the sanctuary, swollen and discolored after weeks floating in the floodwater.
But thanks to the members of a Manayunk synagogue and their friends who took him under their wing -- and then lost his wings -- Gabriel is on his feet again.
Trumpet in hands, new wings in place, he's cleaned up and heading home to New Orleans.
"This statue was a treasure to us," said Doussan, pastor of St. Gabriel the Archangel parish in that city's devastated Ninth Ward.
Today, Doussan is due to step before Congregation Mishkan Shalom at 4101 Freeland St. to see for the first time what his Philadelphia friends have wrought on his young trumpeter, the herald of good news.
"The statue coming back to us restored is like the parish being restored, like the homes and the lives of our people being restored," Doussan said.
"That's the good news."
Today's 1 p.m. event is open to the public and will solicit funds for home repairs in and around St. Gabriel's parish. Doussan will also deliver today's homily at St. Vincent's 9 a.m. Mass.
Gabriel's improbable journey began last summer, a few weeks after 27 volunteers from Philadelphia's Interfaith Community Building Group headed south to clean out the rot and mold left by Katrina (no saint, she) and hang doors and install drywall in New Orleans' middle-class, African American neighborhood of Gentilly.
A volunteer force formed in 1996 to rebuild arson-damaged churches in Mississippi, ICBG's members hail largely from Mishkan Shalom and St. Vincent's R.C. parish in Germantown. They have been doing summer construction projects for worthy causes ever since.
On arriving in Gentilly in July, some congregants began cleaning and restoring houses. Others turned their attention to St. Gabriel's church, and by week's end had restored much of its sanctuary walls.
That should have been the end of it: a farewell supper, hugs and handshakes, and home to Philadelphia.
But no.
"Do you think you could fix Gabriel?" asked Doussan.
Carved 40 years ago in Ortesi, Italy, Gabriel's serene, adolescent face and slender torso showed half-inch splits along multiple joints. His hands were separated from his wrists. His trumpet was broken and copper-green. Paint was faded and flaked across the front.
It was a sorry state for the divine messenger, who in Jewish tradition told Daniel of a coming messiah, in Christian lore told Mary she was pregnant with Jesus, and in Islamic tradition dictated the Koran to Muhammad.
"We had no idea what it would take," recalled furniture-maker Peter Handler, a member of Mishkan Shalom and builder of the synagogue's Torah ark. "But we said, 'If you can get him up to us, we'll restore it.' "
Hugs and handshakes followed, the ICBG people headed home, and a month later the parish handed five-foot Gabriel over to a moving truck bound, they thought, for Philadelphia.
But the truck turned west, stopping many times before lumbering into Dallas. Then, Handler got "the call."
"It was the trucking company, very embarrassed, saying they had lost the wings," he recalled last week.
Arched dramatically above the shoulders and flaring out at the waist, each wing was removable and had been packed separately from the torso.
Handler, who had recommended the movers, was aghast, but told them to ship the statue to Philadelphia anyway. After the insurance claim settled in December, he called on Leon Zakurdayev, a Russian-born (and Russian Orthodox) sculptor and antiques restorer in the Northeast, to return their saint to glory.
Zakurdayev showed Handler and Brenman how to fill Gabriel's cracks with basswood strips and sawdust glue, and then turned to making new wings.
It would take two months.
"Each wing has to have its own personality," he explained last week. "If you make them mirrorlike, it would appear like machine work."
Working with color photos and an angel statuette, he and his wife, Svetlana, modeled the new wings on the originals while adding much more detail, carving hundreds of individual feathers and making the effect "more feminine," like the long-haired archangel.
After Haddonfield woodworker Philip Hauser made them a new trumpet, Handler and Brenman reattached the hands, and on April 20 turned young Gabriel over to Chestnut Hill artist Kathy Winter for painting.
"He looked like he had scars on him" from the filled-in cracks, Winter said last week, as she stepped into her studio on West Meade Lane. There, on a cream-colored cloud, stood the chestnut-haired angel, gazing Earthward, horn to lips, wings flared.
Winter chose a reddish ochre for the wings "for a stained-wood look," she said, and olive-gold for the robe "to harmonize with the horn."
Her husband, Joseph Winter, a retired sculptor-engraver for the U.S. Mint, had leafed the new trumpet in 24-karat gold.
"It's going to be hard to give him back," said Handler, who retrieved Gabriel from the Winters' studio Thursday.
"But we have a shared community now, relationships that will endure" across the 1,200 miles separating Manayunk from Chantilly.
"We're even thinking of asking Father Doug," he joked, "to be our rabbi."
Contact staff writer David O'Reilly at 215-854-5723 or doreilly@phillynews.com.
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The Freedom Writers

Our daughter suggested that we view the film The Freedom Writers, the true story of an idealistic young teacher who helped "at risk" high school kids to find their voices through reading The Diary of Anne Frank, learning about the holocaust, keeping diaries of their own lives and, of course, entering into meaningful relationship with someone who believed in them. The film was inspiring, especially because it was true. As usual, the special features on the dvd were in some ways the best part. There one can see the actual Erin Gruwell(as opposed to Hilary Shank who plays Erin in the film--photo on the left shows them together) and the actual students. The most amazing part is that the making of the film with the young people of color, often first time actors, replicated the process that went on in Gruwell's classroom. Thank you, Rena, for this great recommendation.

kudos to the rabbinical assembly!

It is not so often you will see a post with that title on this blog. So I can't resist posting this story.Rabbi Allen and the rabbinical assembly truly deserve kudos for this one. It is my pleasure to give credit where it is due.

THE NEW YORK TIMES
May 19, 2007
On Religion
Rabbi’s Campaign for Kosher Standards Expands to Include Call for Social Justice
By SAMUEL G. FREEDMAN
MENDOTA HEIGHTS, Minn.

A dozen years ago, Rabbi Morris Allen stood before his congregation in this Twin Cities suburb to announce a program called Chew by Choice. As Conservative Jews, the members of his synagogue were bound by religious law to eat only kosher food, but as typical Americans, relatively few did so. So the rabbi asked them just to stop eating flagrantly impermissible foods like pork and shellfish as the first step toward fuller observance of the dietary strictures.

The campaign at his synagogue, Beth Jacob Congregation, ultimately won Rabbi Allen an invitation to lecture at an Orthodox yeshiva in New York. Closer to home, he served alongside Orthodox rabbis on a kosher-certification panel for the Twin Cities area and collaborated with a local Hasidic rabbi in encouraging supermarkets to stock kosher meat after the last kosher butcher in St. Paul went out of business.

In the last year, however, Rabbi Allen has extended his concern with kosher standards from adherence to religious ritual to commitment to social justice. His drive to create a “hechsher tzedek,” a justice certification, on the basis of how kosher food companies treat their workers, has brought him into intense conflict with the Orthodox authorities who traditionally have dominated the certification process.

Last month, the hechsher tzedek received formal endorsement from the Rabbinical Assembly, the national association of Conservative rabbis. In voting to support Rabbi Allen’s initiative with an unspecified amount of “volunteer and financial support,” the assembly invoked a verse from Deuteronomy declaring, “You shall not abuse a needy and destitute laborer, whether a fellow countryman or a stranger.”

The biblical reference fit with Rabbi Allen’s own line of argument. With kosher meatpacking plants heavily dependent on Latino immigrant labor, he has maintained, it is no longer sufficient for kosher certification to be granted solely on the basis of proper Jewish methods of inspecting and slaughtering animals.

“As concerned as we are about how an animal gets killed, we need to be equally concerned about how a worker lives,” Rabbi Allen said in an interview several weeks ago at his synagogue. “We need to be certain that the food we are obligated to eat is produced in a way that demonstrates concern with those who produce it.”

While the catalyst for Rabbi Allen’s action was a series of articles in The Forward weekly newspaper about accusations that workers at a large kosher slaughterhouse in Iowa are exploited, the resulting conflict has far wider import. The kosher-food industry accounts for annual sales of $11.5 billion, much of it to 1.1 million steady consumers, according to the Lubicom marketing firm. Such major corporations as ConAgra and Cargill have kosher subsidiaries.

By religious tradition, and in some cases state law as well, kosher certification generally rests with Orthodox boards. Each council, or “vaad,” will put its insignia on an approved product, allowing a consumer to know which products are meat, which are dairy and which are neutral. The Orthodox Union, the largest force in certification, oversees more than half the kosher items in circulation.

So the entrance of the Conservative movement into the field represents a challenge to the Orthodox authorities not only on ethical grounds but also on market share.

Even before activity began on the hechsher tzedek, Conservative Jews tended not to follow the Orthodox model in insisting that meat be not just kosher but “glatt” as well. The term means “smooth” and refers to the fact that a slaughtered animal’s lungs had no defect. In practice, glatt meat has been perceived as somehow more kosher than kosher, and it is invariably more expensive, too.

Still, the current friction might never have emerged had it not been for a lengthy investigative report by Nathaniel Popper in The Forward last May. Quoting union activists, a local Roman Catholic priest and several workers who were cloaked by pseudonyms, Mr. Popper accused the AgriProcessors packing plant in Postville, Iowa, of paying substandard wages and offering minimal safety instruction and health care to its 800 employees, many of them immigrants from Mexico and Guatemala.

The owners of AgriProcessors disputed the portrayal, even taking out a full-page ad in The Forward to rebut it. But Rabbi Allen, who had been involved in getting Twin Cities stores to buy kosher meat from the Iowa plant, took up the issue with leaders of both the Rabbinical Assembly and the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, the movement’s congregational arm. Last August, he went as part of a five-member team to visit Postville, meeting with owners, senior managers and about 60 current or former workers.

“We weren’t able to verify everything Popper wrote,” Rabbi Allen recalled, “but what we did find was equally painful and filled with indignities.”

His study group specifically criticized AgriProcessors, which has been resisting efforts at unionization, in three areas. Its starting wage of $6.25 an hour came to about $3 less than unionized kosher slaughterhouses pay. It gave workers safety training in English, even though many were fluent only in Spanish. And it provided only one option for health-care coverage at a cost of $50 per week for a family.

By the time the United Synagogue threw its support behind the hechsher tzedek last December, both the concept and Rabbi Allen had come under widespread attack from Orthodox figures. Rabbi Asher Zeilingold of St. Paul, who had collaborated with Rabbi Allen in the past, emerged as a very public defender of AgriProcessors, issuing a report that characterized The Forward’s accusations as “completely unfounded, without any basis in fact.”

In an arrangement that is relatively common in kosher certification, Rabbi Zeilingold is paid by AgriProcessors to oversee the plant.

The trade magazine Kosher Today quoted Rabbi Zeilingold decrying Rabbi Allen’s “deceptive behavior.” A certification council tied to the Satmar Hasidic sect denounced the hechsher tzedek. A prominent rabbi writing an opinion column in The Jewish Press, a weekly newspaper with a largely Orthodox readership, described the social justice certification as an “alien imposition.”

Rabbi Menachem Genack, the chief executive of the Orthodox Union’s kosher division, has taken a more carefully modulated stance.

“The issues raised — workers’ rights, safety, environmental issues — are not mundane issues,” Rabbi Genack said last week in a telephone interview. “The question is one of implementation. These issues are best dealt with within the mandate of other agencies — federal and state. We believe they’re handling it properly and have the expertise and the authority to handle it.”

Such arguments have plainly not swayed the Conservative movement. Now that the Rabbinical Assembly has endorsed the hechsher tzedek in principle, Rabbi Allen said, the next step is to formulate the specific standards each workplace would be required to meet. His goal is to have that list drafted by Rosh Hashanah in early September, the holiday that begins Judaism’s period of reflection and atonement.

Michael Nutter for Mayor

I wasn't sure who to vote for next week for Mayor of Philadelphia(the democratic party primary is essentially the election.) After reading up on the candidates, albeit not as extensively as I might if I had more time, I am going to vote for Michael Nutter. I was very impressed by some of his statements. Here is one I found refreshing.

Two hundred and ninety-six black men were killed in Philadelphia last year. If the Ku Klux Klan came to town and killed 296 black men, the town would be in an uproar, we’d be in total lockdown, the FBI, CIA and three agencies you’ve never heard of would be here, trying to figure this problem out. The fact is, since 72 percent of the victims have a criminal record and 81 percent of the perpetrators have a criminal record, and it’s happening “out there,” people are like, “Why do I have to worry about it?” You need to worry about it. It’s damaging our reputation. It is literally tearing the heart out of this city. In this current environment, no one can say anything, because there’s a black mayor and a black police commissioner and 85 percent of the people killed last year were black. You can’t really say anything because, oh God, you’re criticizing a black mayor. I wouldn’t care if the guy was polka-dotted. Four hundred and six people dead? We need to be saying something. Whether it’s someone with a criminal record or a five-year-old girl in her mother’s car, citizens of this city are being killed, and we have a moral obligation to do something and not get caught up in this race stuff. If you live in one of these neighborhoods, if you’re ducking and dodging bullets every day, what you’re trying to figure out is: “What in the world are the police doing? And where are they?” If you don’t live in one of these neighborhoods, you’re talking about “martial law” and how “Stop, Ask and Frisk” means “People’s rights are going to be abused.” We will not abuse people’s rights. But it is more dangerous for a black man in this city between 18 and 40 than it is to be in Iraq. I want to stop the killing in this city. Somebody got a better idea? I’m all ears. Otherwise, we can just continue to do what we’ve been doing. I don’t think it’s been working.

RRC Student Steve Goldstein in the News

RRC Steven Goldstein has once again made news on an issue dear to his heart. Steven and his partner were the first gay couple to have their union announced in The New York Times. They have been married under a huppah and also joined in civil union in Vermont and now in New Jersey, a legal right that Steve led the fight for in his home state. I think they may have done some kind of unioin in Montreal as well. Within two years they hope to be legally married in New Jersey. I look forward to the day.


New Jersey gays make midnight dash for civil unions
Mon Feb 19, 2007 1:40 AM ET



TEANECK, New Jersey (Reuters) - Steven Goldstein and Daniel Gross were among the first gay couples in New Jersey to be joined together in a civil union on Monday as a state law granting marriage rights to same-sex partners took effect at midnight.

"It's exciting to know that in the coming days and weeks so many couples in New Jersey will get additional rights and protection that they couldn't have had 15 minutes ago," Gross said. "It's not enough but it's a step in the right direction."

New Jersey became the third U.S. state in December 2006 to provide equal rights for same-sex couples in committed relationships known as civil unions. The state Supreme Court deferred to the legislature a decision on whether to call their relationships "marriage" and lawmakers opted to call them "civil unions."

"Marriage is the only currency of commitment the world understands," said Goldstein, chairman of Garden State Equality, a gay rights advocacy group, as he and Gross vowed to fight for actual marriage rights in the state instead of just civil unions.

Massachusetts is the only U.S. state to have legalized same-sex marriage, which supporters say is necessary to establish true equality for homosexual partnerships. Connecticut and Vermont have civil union laws.

Under the New Jersey law, couples must wait three days after applying before being granted a civil union license. Goldstein and Gross, however, took advantage of an exemption to the waiting period for couples who already have registered their civil union in another state.

Goldstein, 44, and Gross, 36, have been together for more then 14 years and hope to be legally married in New Jersey within the next two years.

The AJC, Jewish Progressives and Philadelphian Ted Mann

The American Jewish Committee recently stirred up an emotional debate across the organized Jewish community when it featured on its Web site an essay titled "'Progressive' Jewish Thought and the New
Anti-Semitism" by Alvin H. Rosenfeld, an English professor at Indiana University.
Rosenfeld's essay claims that public criticism of Israel is detrimental, even comparing it to the prelude to the Holocaust. He labels named and unnamed prominent Jewish academics, writers and individuals, "anti-Semites" contributing to the growth of a new virulent anti-Semitism in this country. Rosenfeld conflates criticism
of Israel and "progressive" (always in quotes in the Rosenfeld article). (To access the Rosenfeld essay in its entirety, go to the AJ Committee web site
Theodore Mann, a nationally-recognized Jewish communal leader for five decades,former president of the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations,wrote the following open letter to David Harris, AJ Committee Executive Director:

David: I read somewhere a month or two ago your comment about the title to Jimmy Carter's book. I think you called it a case of false advertising. That's exactly how I felt about the title to Alvin Rosenfeld's essay, "'Progressive' Jewish Thought and the New Anti-Semitism". Yet you wrote the foreword to the essay, and praised it.Throughout the essay he seeks to make the label "progressive" a derogatory term, just as three decades ago, neo-conservatives made the "l" word, "liberal", a derogatory term. Yet today, isn't it obvious that if there is any sub-set of Jews that has caused an increase in anti-Semitism in America, it is the neo-cons who served the Bush Administration and who, rightly or wrongly, are regarded by countless Americans as largely responsible for dragging America into an unwinnable war in Iraq.
David, it's one thing to write an essay about Jewish anti-Semites and strongly condemning them. There have always been some of those and they deserve all the condemnation they get. It's quite another thing to suggest that they are "progressives", a label that most American Jews use to describe one's "liberal" views on social justice, poverty, civil rights and liberties, separation of powers, and separation of religion and government issues. As you know so well, those "progressive" Jews comprise the great bulk of American Jewish supporters of Israel. It is to them that the American Jewish Committee, and you yourself, and Mr. Rosenfeld owe an apology.
Warmest regards,
Ted Mann

You tell'em, Ted!

Way to Go, Dad!

A fellow blogger, Rabbi Daniel Brenner, recently posted something about his dad, proving that children can shep naches from their parents.

This inspired me to put on line a recent Washington Post Op Ed by my dad. I am proud not only because I am related to Victor, but also because I happen to think this is good, clear thinking about a really important topic. Way to go, Dad!

Beyond Health-Care Band-Aids
By Ezekiel J. Emanuel and Victor R. Fuchs

Wednesday, February 7, 2007; A17

The Washington Post

It seems everyone has ideas for health-care reform. President Bush has proposed tax breaks to encourage the uninsured to buy coverage. Massachusetts has approved and California has proposed individual mandates with state subsidies to allow people with low incomes to buy coverage. Maryland wants to raise cigarette taxes to pay for coverage for the working uninsured. John Edwards wants to require employers to provide insurance or pay into a fund that would help individuals buy insurance. Sen. Hillary Clinton has proposed increasing the income eligibility limits for the State Children's Health Insurance Program. And the list goes on.
This profusion of proposals means that health care is getting more attention, and this makes reform more likely. But these proposals are like band-aids and fall far short of what our sick health-care system needs.
They build on what everyone agrees is a broken system. Ultimately, they prop up the sagging employment-based insurance system, with all its inefficiencies and inequities, and preserve the second-class income-tested programs such as Medicaid. By focusing on covering the uninsured, they fail to address either administrative inefficiency or long-term cost control. Consequently, in the short run they require ever more money to cover the uninsured, and in the long run the unabated rise in health costs will quickly revive the problem of the uninsured.
At $2 trillion per year, the U.S. health-care system suffers much more from inefficiency than lack of funds. The system wastes money on administration, unnecessary tests and marginal medicines that cost a lot for little health benefit. It also provides strong financial incentives to preserve such inefficiency.
By building on the existing health-care system, these reform proposals entrench the perverse incentives.
Moreover, even plans that reduce the number of uninsured today may find that those gains will disappear in a few years if costs continue to grow much faster than gross domestic product. As costs rise, many companies will drop insurance and pay the modest taxes or fees that have been proposed. States will find that costs exceed revenue and that cuts will have to be made.
The State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) provides a good example of the toxic interactions between public and private coverage. When it was enacted in 1997, SCHIP filled a hole, offering insurance to children whose parents earned too much to be covered by Medicaid but not enough to buy private health insurance. By 2005, 6 million children received health coverage through SCHIP. But SCHIP has had only a small impact on the overall number of uninsured children. In 2006, there were nearly 9 million uninsured children, compared with 10 million uninsured in 1997. Why? As costs rose, some companies stopped offering insurance, others dropped coverage for dependents, and others raised employee contributions to the point where some workers preferred covering their children through SCHIP.
Band-aids are not enough. The country needs comprehensive reform. Here are five essential changes:
· Get businesses out of health care. Health care is not part of their core competencies but something they use as a part of labor relations. It creates job lock and distorts employers' hiring and firing decisions.
· Guarantee every American an essential benefits package. This package -- modeled on what members of Congress get -- should be provided by qualified plans that would receive a risk-adjusted payment for each enrollee. Americans could choose their health plans, with guaranteed enrollment and renewability; "cherry-picking" and "lemon-dropping" would be minimized.
· The universal basic package should be financed by a dedicated tax that everyone pays, such as a value-added tax.
· Administer the program through an independent National Health Board and regional boards modeled on the Federal Reserve System. They would oversee health plans, define the benefits packages and, through strong incentives, facilitate adoption of patient safety measures and electronic management of medical records.
· Establish an independent Institute for Technology and Outcomes Assessment to systematically evaluate new technologies and quantify their health benefits in relation to their costs. These evaluations would be used by the National Health Board and health plans.
Reform based on these measures would eliminate job lock, increase workers' wages and make labor markets more efficient. It would also give Americans -- rather than their employers -- their choice of health plans, doctors and hospitals. And it would eliminate the $200 billion business tax deduction for providing health coverage.
Most important, such measures would improve efficiency and provide cost control for the health-care system. Eliminating employers' vetting of insurance companies and all associated costs would save tens of billions of dollars. Since all Americans would be guaranteed coverage, means testing and determination of subsidies necessary for Medicaid and SCHIP would be eliminated. Finally, the expected consolidation of the health insurance industry would also increase efficiency.
Only comprehensive change of our broken system can provide universal, portable coverage, reduce inefficiency, control costs and secure health care for all Americans long into the future.

Ezekiel J. Emanuel, chairman of the Department of Clinical Bioethics at the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center, is a co-author of "No Margin, No Mission." The views expressed here are his own.

Victor R. Fuchs is a former president of the American Economics Association and the author of "Who Shall Live? Health, Economics, and Social Choice."

A Blog about Money

check out betsy's blog

Philadelphia Peace Walk 2007

This is a 30 minute video of the Third Annual Philadelphia Interfaith Walk for Peace and Reconciliation. I have been involved with the group that plans this walk for the last two years.

There is hope for America

This is a short clip of the original campaign video for Barack Obama. It is under six minutes long and it is well worth watching.

A film in Zulu

I saw an excellent film tonight, "Yesterday." It was the first film ever made for an international audience in Zulu. It has been nominated for an Acadamy Award for best foreign film. The movie deals with the life of a South African woman named "Yesterday" who learns that she and her husband are infected with HIV. I was moved by the starkly gorgeous scenery, the heart breaking depiction of illness in the context of poverty and, most compelling, the strength, dignity and compassion of the heroine. Definitely worth renting.

A just cup of coffee

Recently, a rabbi friend from California visited and brought with her a house gift--a pound of Mirembe Kawomera coffee beans. Before even tasting it, I knew this would be the one and only coffee served in my house from now on. When you read the story behind the coffee, you will understand why.(By the way, it also tasted great.)

Here is the story from the website of Thanksgiving Coffee, the company from whom I have ordered my supply(they now have my credit card on file.)

Mirembe Kawomera means "delicious peace" in the Ugandan language Luganda. It is the name of a Ugandan cooperative of Jewish, Muslim, and Christian coffee farmers.
. Mirembe Kawomera Coffee is Fair Trade Certified, guaranteeing the farmers a fair price for their coffee and supporting the 558 family farmers of the Mirembe Kawomera Cooperative. We encourage you to join us - together we can support peace and the beautiful example of the Mirembe Kawomera Cooperative.
Only from Thanksgiving Coffee Co.(www.thanksgivingcoffee.com) Mirembe Kawomera Coffee is not just a cup, but a just cup.

Tzedakah

A young person whom I know well recently blogged (divinityisinthedetails.blogspot.com) that he makes certain to tithe each year, checking a spread sheet at the end of december to see if he has reached his ten percent goal. We have done the same for years. using Christmas Day as our ritual tzedakah check writing day. I found his discussion of the matter wonderfully inspiring. Although I had been doing this for thirty years, ZT offered me a new insight into the issue. He pointed out that if you have set an annual plan to tithe in advance, it changes your experience of giving during the year. Each time someone approaches you for a donation, they are not asking for something so much as offering you an opportunity to help you meet your goal. Thanks, ZT! If you are a midlifer and want to feel good about the next generation, check out his blog.

AIDS Orphans in Africa

I finally got around to watching a video about a 23 year old girl who grew up in my neighborhood and who now works in, raises money for and helps to establish orphanages for kids in Africa. I had given money to this cause, via her mom, so I thought I did not need to watch the video. I was wrong. It is truly one of the most moving things I have seen in a long time. PLEASE watch it!
http://www.current.tv/watch/13601934