Category Archives: Nonviolence

Royal Song of the Day: Sunday 8/7/2011

Do you have friends who busk? We do. Buskers play music on sidewalks for free, and for the occasional compliment or tip. It’s raining on Long Island. It seems like the kind of day where people should share music for free, and try to entertain each other. So…

The Royal Song of the Day is “He Played Real Good For Free” by Joni Mitchell. You can find it in the Rise Up Singing songbook on page 24. Video below of Joni Mitchell singing her song:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=StugAUy7hsc] Continue reading Royal Song of the Day: Sunday 8/7/2011

Royal Song of the Day: Saturday 8/6/2011

Merging two stories in the news — the S&P downgrading and the loss of 38 US personnel in a helicopter crash in Afghanistan — the song for the day is “We Hate To See Them Go” by Malvina Reynolds. The song is on  Rise Up Singing., page 187. It is about a dream that “the bankers & the diplomats” would be the ones to go to war.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdOQESKGenY] Continue reading Royal Song of the Day: Saturday 8/6/2011

Our Culture, Our Economy

The Duke and Duchess of Peace started this blog to highlight the values we all share, values that are not represented in the military-industrial media. The ideas in the article Win the Culture War describe the values we are talking about, but Duke Augustus does take issue with the name of the article.  The idea of a “war” is not part of the positive values described in the article.  It is not a “war”, not a competition, not destructive.  It is a creative act, a sharing, a coming together, a seeking of unity:

  • The human brain is wired to support creativity, cooperation and life in community. That is our nature. The prevalence of materialism, greed, competition and violence common in modern society is a symptom of severe cultural and institutional dysfunction.
  • We humans inhabit a wondrous but finite living planet with a self-organizing biosphere to which we must adapt our lives and economies.
  • Life, not money, is the true measure of value; money’s only legitimate use is in life’s service. An obsession with making money is a sign of psychological and social dysfunction.
  • Markets are essential to the function of a healthy democratic society. Their proper function, however, depends on proper rules implemented by democratic governments under the watchful eye of a strong and dynamic civil society.
As much as Duke Augustus agrees with these values, he takes issue with the name of the series where they are discussed:  New Economy 2.0.  These are not new values nor the updated version of values.  These are very old values They are basic to humanity.  they underpin every major religious tradition .

Royal Song of the Day: Sunday, July 31, 2011

Easy AnthemsGo Back To Pittsburgh by Easy Anthems is the Royal Song of the Day.   Like the lives of the Duke and Duchess of Peace, this is a song that mixes the personal and the political. Unlike the relationship of Duke Augustus and Duchess Susanna, this is a  break-up song. (Duke Augustus has often said that their marriage is forever.) The song voices the feeling of an activist who is leaving a personal relationship and the activism bound up with it, but is struggling not to leave his moral convictions.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsiWxclW4PI]

Listen to the whole song for the pay-off. The video features a stripped-down, acoustic version of the band.  Is that the Duchess’ voice at the end? Continue reading Royal Song of the Day: Sunday, July 31, 2011

Got royal wedding fever?: Alternative eye candy…

The Duke and Duchess of Peace have devoted their lives to working for nonviolence and a world without war. They believe that the nature of other royal systems is ultimately to glamorize the military and/or to distract people from politics and real life with visions of celebrity.

So, Duke Augustus and Duchess Susanna would ask people to turn their attention away from the wedding of Zara Phillip’s (Queen Elizabeth’s granddaughter) and Mike Tindall, and turn their attention towards their own families, their own cultural excitement, and/or political problems in their own communities. Continue reading Got royal wedding fever?: Alternative eye candy…

Am Intl: Top 10 Summer 2011 Books

This is an excerpt from Top 10 Summer Book List for Human Rights Advocates | Human Rights Now – Amnesty International USA Blog.

Here at Amnesty, our staffers have put together a list of books on our summer reading list for human rights. We invite you to read with us as we look to books, non-fiction and fiction alike, on issues in today’s world. Here are our top 10 summer must-reads!

 

1.) Anil’s Ghost by: Michael Ondaatje
Summary: With his first novel since the internationally acclaimed The English Patient, Booker Prize—winning author Michael Ondaatje gives us a work displaying all the richness of imagery and language and the piercing emotional truth that we have come to know as the hallmarks of his writing. Anil’s Ghost transports us to Sri Lanka, a country steeped in centuries of tradition, now forced into the late twentieth century by the ravages of civil war. Into this maelstrom steps Anil Tissera, a young woman born in Sri Lanka, educated in England and America, who returns to her homeland as a forensic anthropologist sent by an international human rights group to discover the source of the organized campaigns of murder engulfing the island. What follows is a story about love, about family, about identity, about the unknown enemy, about the quest to unlock the hidden past–a story propelled by a riveting mystery. Unfolding against the deeply evocative background of Sri Lanka’s landscape and ancient civilization, Anil’s Ghost is a literary spellbinder–Michael Ondaatje’s most powerful novel yet.*

 

2.) Chasing the Flame: One Man’s Fight to Save the World by: Samantha Power

The rest  of the AI post can be read at Top 10 Summer Book List for Human Rights Advocates | Human Rights Now – Amnesty International USA Blog.

Royal Song of the Day: Thursday 7/28/11

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIsO1O8bOPQ]

Duchess Susanna writes: With a lot of bad, sad news in the headlines, I wanted to find a hopeful song. The video above shows the Eugene Peace Choir, from Oregon, performing “Peace Is” by Fred Small.

If you want to sing the song, yourself, you can find the lyrics in Rise Up Singing, on page 163. A sample of the lyrics: Continue reading Royal Song of the Day: Thursday 7/28/11