News & Views of Phillips Since 1976
Thursday December 25th 2025
“I”'m still using my torch!… I”'ll be glad to light your torch!”
In Mpls. 2 years ago, Dr. Dorothy Cotton, former Associate to Martin Martin Luther King, Jr., spoke to a gathering and said,
“There”'s been a lot of talk today about elders passing on the torch to the youth.
“I”'m here to tell you God gave my torch to me and I am still using it!
“I”'ll be glad to light your torch so that together we may light the way and fight the fight!”
Dr Cotton, 84, was the Education Director for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) from 1960 to 1968. Under the Carter Administration, Dr. Cotton served as the Southeastern Regional Director of ACTION, the Federal Government’s agency for volunteer programs from 1978 to 1981. She has been president of a university and many other influential positions as well as her own consulting organization in which she is active today.
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War”'s definition and justification plague individuals and institutions alike
by Frank Erickson
The Catholic Church did a very good thing during the “Gulf War””¦from the New Dictionary of the History of Ideas ”“ “The Catholic Church responded to the Gulf War in a statement that put the very idea of a just war in peril. The theory of just war, they said, “was indefensible and has been abandoned. In reality”“with the sole exception of a purely defensive war against acts of aggression, we can say that there are no ”˜just wars”' and there is no ”˜right”' to wage war.”
Beautiful, without even realizing it, the Catholic Church is moving into a realm of seeing “war”'s” non-existence”“they touch on it, but then contradict themselves”¦and I get it, I see why it happens, how the human mind works and how our fear works.
How else can it be approached, that when you say “there are no ”˜just wars”' and there is no ”˜right”' to wage war,” you are flat out saying there is no way to create “war”-but the backdoor is left open for a “purely defensive war ”“ people have a right to defend themselves.
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Keep citizen journalism alive!
Beyond The Great Bdote
By Peter Molenaar
For the Dakota, a ”˜bdote”' was most frequently the convergence of two rivers (a place where two waters come together). In today”'s world, “great bdote” refers to the ongoing meltdown of the polar ice caps.
Unfortunately, close to 100 million people in Bangladesh stand to be inundated. How many millions of our own people might be reduced to refugee status? Moreover, in what spirit will those with power and guns respond?
Is catastrophe inevitable? Actually, some sectors of the ruling class are behaving accordingly. Yet there is a glimmer which suggests that solar energy will ascend to displace coal via market forces. However, these “forces” tend to be finicky.
Meanwhile, we dare not sleep before the dawn “beyond coal.” To put it mildly, carbon dioxide emissions must be suppressed immediately. It”'s like putting a man on the moon”¦only infinitely more important.
So”¦
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