for my friends in palestine

one of the members of our church family is currently working in the west bank with christian peacemaker teams.  he recently sent us the above photo and a bit of his story is below.  why is this being posted on a blog about pasadena?  well, aside from the fact that pasadena is john's home community, the conflict he and his teammates are in the midst of is something that ALL of us - regardless of where we live - need to be aware of.  certainly the tension between israel and palestine has been going on for a long time.  and certainly there is much blame that could be passed around to the people of this region.

yet when injustice like this happens it breaks my heart. 

here are john's words...

My first full day with CPT was blurred with the very presence of evil.  Our group awoke to a telephone call summoning us to Beqa’a Valley, an agricultural area right at the edge of the city of Hebron.  “The soldiers have come and they are cutting down our plants.”

When CPT arrived, Palestinian farmers were watching as Israeli soldiers were commanding the dismantlement of a Palestinian farm.  Israeli soldiers kept Palestinian farming families at gunpoint as hired workers cut up the ropes that supported vegetable plants.  The workers would continue by removing the water piping from the ground and eventually dumping the piping into a garbage truck.

One Palestinian farmer exclaimed, “"These tomatoes are for the kids, for the babies, to feed the kids and to sell them to buy other food for the kids." 

For the Palestinian farmers, their troubles lie with their Jewish neighbors.  While this area is miles within the boundaries of what is commonly known as Palestine, Israeli “settlers” have come to live.  Among the goals of the Israeli settlers is to drive the local Palestinians away to make room for more settlers.  This is at the heart of what happened that day.

cd saturday: cake's comfort eagle

this weekend, we continue the rundown of my favorite 20 albums of all time.  today and tomorrow features albums that almost instantly make me think of my summers picking sweet corn with rouge river farms (hence today's picture).

i'm not sure who introduced me to the band cake, or why i became such a fan.  their music is odd, but in a good way.  their music is weird, but in a good way.  odd, weird, but good.

right from the get-go, this album transports me to a different time.  a time where one of my fellow corn pickers would pop this in to my crappy discman (which was connected to the car stereo through a cassette addapter) and we'd all sing, clap, and harmonize along with john mcrae and the rest of the band.  loudly.  and as often as we could.  we'd listen to it in the morning on the way to the corn field.  we'd listen to it on the way to lunch or dinner, and then we'd listen to it in the car on the way home.

we had no idea what the lyrics meant (and still don't?), but that wasn't the point.  the music was fun - and completely different than anything playing on the radio.  oh sure, the big hit from this album, "short skirt/long jacket", got plenty of airplay, but nothing else really ever made a dent in the mainstream audience.  and we loved it anyway.

for this list of my favorite albums i tried to pick those that i can listen do no matter what mood i'm in.  i don't have to be in any particular mood to put this on, and i rarely get tired of it.  it has peppy upbeat songs like "opera singer" or "pretty pink ribbon", darker songs like the title track "comfort eagle", and to further push the fact that this is an odd album, jay-z sampled the track "arco arena" in his song "guns and roses".  weird.

those of you following along will remember that i started this album countdown because i was inspired by my good friend (and fellow corn picker) mike's current album review blog.  apparently the next album he will be reviewing is this very one.

1. u2 - the joshua tree
2. dave matthews band - crash