The Traprock Center for Peace and Justice in Greenfield awarded $1,000 to the Friends of the Orange Public Libraries this summer to purchase fiction and nonfiction books for children on subjects including world peace, empathy, friendship, diversity, tolerance, community, and humans’ place in the natural environment.
We face so many problems, issues and challenges, both personal and in the larger society, all at the same time. But let us not forget the situation in Korea. Just as Donald Trump finds it difficult to condemn outright right-wing hate and violence at home, so he keeps the fires of hatred burning against a […]
I am looking at the faces of 10-year-old girls from across the world—faces brimming with expectancy. The U.N. report, “The State of World Population 2016,” opens with their photos, and these words are part of the introduction to Chapter 4, “The Face of the Future”: With support from family, community and nation, and the full realization of […]
Against all odds, 122 countries agreed in July to ban nuclear weapons. At the heart of the United Nations treaty is an explicit ethical goal: to protect peoples of the world from the humanitarian catastrophe that would ensue if nuclear weapons were employed. Once 50 states ratify the treaty, it will enter into international law. […]
In late June 2017, the Traprock Center for Peace and Justice board of directors approved grants for members’ projects ranging from identifying and addressing sexism at home and in our communities, to planting trees in a reforestation project in an area of Vietnam devastated by Agent Orange defoliants during the Vietnam War. “These projects have […]
On this day, June 18th, 565 years ago, Pope Nicholas V signed a papal bull, Dum Diversas, which led to the Doctrine of Discovery. The Doctrine is used to justify today’s laws which justifies the taking of lands and rights from American Indians. Please sign the Romero Institution’s Letter to Pope Francis asking that he […]
The first women were assigned to a Marine infantry unit on Jan. 5, fulfilling the 2015 Department of Defense mandate that all military service jobs, including combat, be open to women. By late January, a Google Drive link with photos of nude and barely dressed Marine servicewomen was posted to the Marines United Facebook page […]
In these times of climate change denial, macho military chest-beating, stagnant wages, and soulless extremes of wealth and poverty, light-bearing cracks are all that we have. The northern Great Plains, likely the richest wind regime in the world, the potential of tribal wind power exceeds 300 gigawatts across six states, according to the Department of […]
At the the 17th annual Peacemaker Awards Thursday night, four students expressed the importance of listening to others — even the youth. “There’s a strong idea that the ideas and thoughts and drives that young people have are not as useful and important,” award-winner Larkin Christie said. “It’s really important that we recognize the wisdom […]
Oil is indispensable for war and militarism. Think of it as the lifeblood coursing through our foreign policy veins — a policy based on maintaining superpower status through force. The 1980 Carter Doctrine, which stated that the United States would use military force if necessary to defend its national interests in the Persian Gulf, formalized […]
