Not staying silent in the face of injustice
From this week's news: Nun killed while protecting the rain forest destruction, Ozzie Davis remembered, Baseball begins hitting the news and the anniversary of the discovery of Pluto.

Dorothy Stang was a naturalized Brazilian originally from Dayton, Ohio, who helped develop projects to sustain the poor in the area of Anapu, a town of 7,000 on the Amazon's southern edge. She died last Saturday at the age of 73.
Stang spoke out against the destruction of the forest, which has lost as much as 20 percent of its 1.6 million square miles to development, logging and farming. Although she received death threats, she got little response or protection from the government.

Last Saturday she was working at a settlement 30 miles from Anapu when two gunmen approached her. A witness said she pulled out a Bible and began to read. Her killers listened for a moment, took a few steps back and fired.. Coroners said she was shot six times at close range.

1. Artisan - Curapay Frejo 325
Breathing Space - Festival Records

Injustice scales are tipped by monetary realities. Its up to people not allowing it when the stakes become very high.  This song by James Gordon illustrates the difficult choices and pain felt by workers pursuing life even though they are aware of the toxic part they play in ultimately destroying it.

2. James Gordon - Coke Oven Brook 4
Pipe Street Dreams - Wind River

Nun Stang wrote last year, a letter to the federal government and Congress saying: "Gunmen loose! Loggers cutting! ... The federal police is nowhere to be seen in Anapu," How could they remain silent in the face of injustice.

3. Burns Sisters - No More Silence214
In This World - Philo

4. Si Kahn/John McCutcheon - No Mas 351
Sign of the Times  - Rounder
A historic look at how silence feuls more injustice. Written before Rwanda...and the ongoing crisis in Darfur that has killed more than 335,000

"First they came for the Communists, but I was not a Communist, so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Socialists and the trade unionists, but I was neither, so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Jews, but I was not a Jew, so I did not speak out. And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me.  "            – Martin Niemoeller (1892-1984)

5. Dick Gaughan - (Peggy Seeger) Song of Choice 309
Different Kind of Love Song

Clayoquot Sound is one of the largest and richest lowland coastal temperate rainforest known on the planet
1993 International campaign takes off with ad in New York Times and Friends of Clayquot Sound trip to Europe. FOCS and allied environment groups call for boycott of logging by MacMillan Bloedel and other companies.
Largest peaceful civil disobedience in Canadian history is sparked by BC government’s decision to log 74% of Clayoquot Sound’s ancient forest. FOCS opens Peace Camp at "Black Hole”. Daily blockades and arrests begin at Kennedy River Bridge. 856 arrested and 12,000 participate during “Clayoquot Summer ‘93”.

6. Weird Sisters - Farewell to Clayoquot Sound 4
Inside the Dreaming - www.threeweirdsisters.com/

More profits versus long range good decisions, ... consider the impact of our decisions on the next seven generations." — From the Great Law of the Iroquois

7. Eileen McGann - Requiem for the Giants 515
Turn It Around - DragonWing Music

8. Bruce Cockburn - If A Tree Falls 543
Big Circumstance - True North
If a tree falls in the forest does anybody hear?

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed
people can change the world.  Indeed, it is the only thing
that ever has."   - Margaret Mead

9. Dave Van Ronk (Ochs) Outside of a small circle of Friends
Whats That I Hear - Sliced Bread

Its hard to stand up and speak up against injustice but here are some songs with stories of people who did.

10. David Roth - Another Day at Moses Brown 723
Twice - Wind River

11. Patti Larkin - Metal Drums416
In the Sqaure - Rounder

I continue to be amazed at the lack of anger in the face of unethical behavior. Not only nationally or internationally, but locally.

12. Terri Allard - Never ceases to Amaze me  5
Terri Allard - www.terriallard.com/

13. Kasey Chambers - Ignorance 540
Barricades and Brickwalls - www.kaseychambers.com/
If you are not outraged you are not paying attention.

14. Pat Humphries - I'll Be There407
Hands - Appleseed

15. From last Satuday: Ozzie Davis grandson Brian Day speaking about the great and humble man that was his grandfather. He asks that we keep his legacy alive, tell someone who doesnt know about him, not keep silent.

Also in the news McDonalds
In the face of lies that the company used unhealthy transfats yet advertized otherwise. In the face of this unethical behavior I wonder how any organization will continue to use the chain as a popular fundraiser. You know, buy here and it gives a percentage of its profits to the sports team or school band etc. Dorothys death is not unrelated. Perhaps in future we can just give money straight out in what we believe without including companies to profits from our good will toward our causes.

16. Mankita - They Lied 435
Dogs Are Watching Us - jaymankita.com

Lying seems so daily universal and almost expected to be inevitable. They affect the population in different degrees of course, depending on the lie.
Democracy can only work with an educated population, otherwise the loud, the self centered  and the ignorant thrill seekers rule. Here Rod MacDonald addresses the difficulty of standing for something against the ignorance of the crowd.

17. Rod MacDonald - Man on the Ledge510
Man on the Ledge -Shanachie

Bridging the theme of not following the crowd and moving to the beginning of spring training:

18. Chuck Brodsky - Letters in the Dirt 5
Baseball  ballads - chuckbrodsky.com

19. Christine Lavin - Ballad of a Ballgame 741
Sometime Mother Really Does Know Best - Appleseed

20. Erik Balkey -Baseball
While The Paint Dries - erikbalkey.com 3

21. Michael McNevin - Pride of Niles-Centerville Little League330
Secondhand Story - www.michaelmcnevin.com
 

Also in the news:

PLUTO: Discovered February 18, in 1930 by American astronomer Clyde W. Tombaugh at Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, AZ during a systematic search for a trans-Neptune planet predicted by Percival Lowell and William H. Pickering. Named after Roman god of the under- world who was able to render himself invisible

22. Christine lavin - Planet X 735
Shinging My Flashlight - Shanachie

Coming back to the murdered Ms. Stang, Mary Alice McCabe, a nun from Connecticut who has lived in Brazil for 34 years, said Stang was dedicated to "the whole of the Amazon and what the Amazon is - nature, people looking for the right to sustain themselves on the last frontier."

23. Magpie - We Belong to the Earth 450
Seed on the Praire - www.magpiemusic.com/

 And Hockey News? Its on, off, on...250
Read under the weather report of upcoming storms for tomorrow night, faded the show with:
24.  Lynn Miles - Hockey Night in Canada
Chalk This One Up to the Moon - www.lynnmiles.com/

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