Need for a Personal Connection
So enjoy your website; just have a "small" idea for you. I DO keep up with daily news; read all your stories; just have a "worry" for ME. Sometimes, I feel I do not "hear" all your concerns -- -not stupid-just -- "A WORLD AWAY" from me. Yes it is. I sympathize; but, what would HELP me more is hearing things happening here, Chicago, Milwaukee, or LaCrosse.

Plenty of SAD situations I could GET more involved into helping. Need to know "at home" things I can do: "saving the land, air??" Personal things.

Read about the people suffering FAR away; help me "help" those near me. Do you have a place, where clothes would help?? Food items for your website???

Do enjoy the "aha moments!! " Keep up the super work.

Catherine Yeager
Genoa, Wisconsin

A Call for Young People to Rise Up and Rebel
Given the fact that: the war in Iraq is illegal; it has destroyed the social fabric of our people; the economic infrastructure of our nation; it has nothing whatsoever to do with the spreading of peace and democracy around the world; the president lied in regards to why we went to war; the conflict in Iraq has created a world of greater danger; our warring posture has given the world even more reasons to hate us; I am proposing that it is time for young folks to tell the military establishment that they will not go to war! Our youth need to understand the tremendous power they have, that war is simply not possible if they refuse to take up arms. Because our nation has become the world’s primary advocate for war our children need no longer presume that they have a moral responsibility to support our country’s military efforts.

I realize that the military draft has yet to become a reality. But when forced conscription becomes inevasible, I am counting on young people to take a stand against the tyranny of war. I am calling upon the youth of this country to say no to war, to tell their leaders that they will not obey the government’s request to take up arms, that they will not go to war.

I beg the young people of this nation to consider the ominous proposition that as it was in the days of Nuremberg when the leaders of the German nation chose to dress their children “in brown shirts” reminding that they had a moral obligation (a national duty) to fight for the Fatherland, it will be the same for those who blindly allow themselves to be coerced into fighting for our country, a nation having come under the nefarious control of malefactors convinced that our nation has been given the right, the God-ordained responsibility, to oversee the planet, to, in fact, rule the world.

So someday when you become old like me, realize that no one (at least no one of any significance) will ask if you were loyal to your country, if you wore a uniform with distinction. The only thing for which you will be held responsible is that of having chosen to become a decent human being, that of having chosen to live your life according to the laws of humanity (the principles of justice, peace, and love), the Law of God, which demands but one, and only one, thing.. that we love one another.

Doug Soderstrom
Wharton, Texas