It's time to lift America's spirit, by Maya Angelou

One of my heroes, Maya Angelou, is interviewed by CNN today - "It's time to lift America's spirit"! Absolutely, isn't it time to bind us together? It may, indeed, be such an important time to work to heal divides, and care for one another. Read an excerpt below, or read it all HERE.

~ Rev. Peter M. Carey

It's time to lift America's spirit, by Maya Angelou

NEW YORK (CNN) -- At 80, Maya Angelou says her "knees are not all that swift and my lungs need some extra help but other than that, my desire to learn and to share, that has not abated."

Maya Angelou urges politicians to "aim for the high ground" in her new book, "Letter to My Daughter."

She shares what she's learned in an eventful life in her best-selling new book, "Letter to My Daughter." Angelou achieved fame for her autobiographical writing, including "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" and her poetry.

She read her poem "On the Pulse of Morning" at President Clinton's first inauguration. She was only the second poet invited to read at the swearing in of a new president.

But her career has had many facets -- Angelou has been a singer, dancer, playwright, director and teacher.

In 166 pages, "Letter to My Daughter" distills stories from Angelou's life into universal lessons. She writes about birth, life and death, about the ways people misunderstand each other and then transcend their conflict. She calls on national leaders to raise the country's spirit and on Americans to remember that this is the nation that defeated the Nazis and expanded people's freedom through the civil rights movement.

"Politicians must set their aims for the high ground and according to our various leanings, Democratic, Republican, Independent, we will follow," she writes. "Politicians must be told if they continue to sink into the mud of obscenity, they will proceed alone."

Read the rest HERE.

Are we about to go to war against Iran?

Wow, is this really going to happen .... what is GWB doing?

Report: U.S. "Preparing the Battlefield in Iran"

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Bush administration has launched a "significant escalation" of covert operations in Iran, sending U.S. commandos to spy on the country's nuclear facilities and undermine the Islamic republic's government, journalist Seymour Hersh said Sunday.

An Iranian flag flies outside the building containing the reactor of Bushehr nuclear power plant, south of Tehran.

White House, CIA and State Department officials declined comment on Hersh's report, which appears in this week's issue of The New Yorker.

Hersh told CNN's "Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer" that Congress has authorized up to $400 million to fund the secret campaign, which involves U.S. special operations troops and Iranian dissidents.

President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have rejected findings from U.S. intelligence agencies that Iran has halted a clandestine effort to build a nuclear bomb and "do not want to leave Iran in place with a nuclear program," Hersh said.

"They believe that their mission is to make sure that before they get out of office next year, either Iran is attacked or it stops its weapons program," Hersh said.

The new article, "Preparing the Battlefield," is the latest in a series of articles accusing the Bush administration of preparing for war with Iran.

He based the report on accounts from current and former military, intelligence, and congressional sources. Watch Hersh discuss what he says are the administration's plans for Iran

"As usual with his quarterly pieces, we'll decline to comment," White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe told CNN.

Sydney Pollack

Two of my favorite movies are Tootsie and Out of Africa, so I was saddened to hear of the death of Sydney Pollack, the director of both of these fine films...may he rest in peace,

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From the New York Times...

LOS ANGELES — Sydney Pollack, a Hollywood mainstay as director, producer and sometime actor whose star-laden movies like “The Way We Were,” “Tootsie” and “Out of Africa” were among the most successful of the 1970s and ’80s, died Monday at home here. He was 73.

The cause was cancer, said the publicist Leslee Dart, who spoke for his family.

Mr. Pollack’s career defined an era in which big stars (Robert Redford, Barbra Streisand, Warren Beatty) and the filmmakers who knew how to wrangle them (Barry Levinson, Mike Nichols) retooled the Hollywood system. Savvy operators, they played studio against studio, staking their fortunes on pictures that served commerce without wholly abandoning art.

Hollywood honored Mr. Pollack in return. His movies received multiple Academy Award nominations, and as a director he won an Oscar for his work on the 1985 film “Out of Africa” as well as nominations for directing “They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?” (1969) and “Tootsie” (1982).

“Michael Clayton,” of which Mr. Pollack was a producer and a member of the cast, was nominated for a best picture Oscar earlier this year. He delivered a trademark performance as an old-bull lawyer who demands dark deeds from a subordinate, played by George Clooney. (“This is news? This case has reeked from Day 1!” snaps Mr. Pollack’s Marty Bach.) Most recently, Mr. Pollack portrayed the father of Patrick Dempsey’s character in “Made of Honor.”

Mr. Pollack became a prolific producer of independent films in the latter part of his career. ...

read more HERE....

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From CNN....

(CNN) -- Academy Award-winning director Sydney Pollack, who achieved critical acclaim with the period drama "Out of Africa" and the romantic comedy "Tootsie," died of cancer Monday, his agent told CNN.

Sydney Pollack's notable films include "Out of Africa," "Tootsie" and "The Way We Were."

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Pollack, 73, died at his home in Los Angeles. He was surrounded by his wife of nearly 50 years, Claire Griswold, their two daughters, Rebecca and Rachel, and his brother, Bernie, agent Leslee Dart said. the Pollacks' only son, Steven, died in a plane crash in 1993.

Pollack, who often appeared on the screen himself, worked with and gained the respect of Hollywood's best actors in a long career that reached prominence in the 1970s and 1980s, according to the Associated Press.

"Sydney made the world a little better, movies a little better and even dinner a little better. A tip of the hat to a class act," actor George Clooney said in a statement issued by his publicist, the Associated Press reported.

Last fall, Pollack played Marty Bach opposite Clooney in "Michael Clayton," a drama that examines the life of a fixer for lawyers. The film, which Pollack co-produced, received seven Oscar nominations, including best picture and a best actor nod for Clooney.

Pollack was no stranger to the Academy Awards. His 1985 film "Out of Africa," a romantic epic of a woman's passion set against the landscape of colonial Kenya, captured seven Oscars, including best director and best picture.

Read more HERE...

Edmund Hllary, Rest in Peace

(CNN) -- Sir Edmund Hillary, who gained worldwide fame after he and guide Tenzing Norgay became the first people to reach the summit of Mount Everest, has died, according to New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark.

Sir Edmund Hillary took his fame in stride and considered himself just an ordinary beekeeper.

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He was 88.

"Sir Ed described himself as an average New Zealander with modest abilities," Clark said. "In reality, he was a colossus. He was an heroic figure who not only 'knocked off' Everest but lived a life of determination, humility and generosity."

On May 29, 1953, Hillary and Tenzing became the first men known to have climbed the 29,035 feet to the top of Everest and safely return.

A beekeeper who served during World War II in the Royal New Zealand Air Force, Hillary began climbing while in high school and traveled to the central Himalayas to join a British party exploring the southern face of Everest in 1951.

He returned in 1953, when he and Tenzing made their ascent -- spending 15-30 minutes at the summit. Hillary left a crucifix at the top of the mountain and Tenzing, in keeping with his Buddhist beliefs, left an offering of food.

Hillary took a picture of Tenzing at the peak but, because the Sherpa guide did not know how to use a camera, there are no pictures of Hillary there.

Read it all HERE.

Edmund Hillary, First Atop Everest, Dies

By RAY LILLEY (AP)–

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — Sir Edmund Hillary, the unassuming beekeeper who conquered Mount Everest to win renown as one of the 20th century's greatest adventurers, died Friday. He was 88.

The gangling New Zealander devoted much of his life to aiding the mountain people of Nepal and took his fame in stride, preferring to be called Ed and considering himself an "ordinary person with ordinary qualities."

Hillary died at Auckland Hospital about 9 a.m. Friday from a heart attack, said a statement from the Auckland District Health Board. Though ailing in his later years, he remained active.

His life was marked by grand achievements, high adventure, discovery, excitement — but he was especially pround of his decades-long campaign to set up schools and health clinics in Nepal, the homeland of Tenzing Norgay, the mountain guide with whom he stood arm in arm on the summit of Everest on May 29, 1953. Read the rest HERE

I am praying for the people of Kenya

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From CNN...read it all HERE.

MOLO, Kenya (CNN) -- Lying in a hospital bed in this rural hub of Kenya's Rift Valley, a man describes surviving two machete wounds to his head and multiple slashes to his hands. He says he was attacked by people who now live by the rules of tribalism.

Witnesses say attackers are living by the rules of tribalism, often using the machete to inflict punishment.

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"They have to be stopped," he said. "It is the work of the devil."

Nearby, another machete-attack survivor, John Machana, said he thought he was a dead man when he was attacked.

"I was sure they would kill me," he said, nursing slashes to his backside and still lying in his bloodstained clothes.

"They told me the blood in Kenya now had to be pure and clean, and they accused me of being of mixed tribal blood."

Both men are among the hundreds of thousands of Kenyans victimized by a weeklong spate of violence that has left nearly 500 people dead after the nation's disputed presidential election. Witnesses and victims have said in some regions gangs of men are terrorizing people with machetes.

The Kenyan Red Cross says it is trying to meet the needs of more than a half-million affected Kenyans, including more than 250,000 people who have been driven from their homes. Thousands are escaping ethnic violence and, while they are lucky to leave with their lives, they now have little else.

Read the rest HERE.

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NAIROBI, Kenya (CNN) -- Kenya's president and opposition leader will meet to address vote-counting irregularities and the ensuing violence in which nearly 500 people have been killed, U.S. envoy Jendayi Frazer said on Monday.

African Union chairman John Kufuor will try to mediate between Kenya's warring factions.

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Frazer, the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Africa, said the election was "rigged" and Kenyans had been "cheated" by their political leaders and institutions.

She told CNN she was able to get President Mwai Kibaki and bitter rival Raila Odinga to agree to talk under the mediation of the African Union's chairman by relaying the concerns of the Kenyan people.

Frazer said: "They both have to acknowledge certain key issues -- for instance that there were irregularities in the counting of the vote and that violence is not the answer to these problems.

"I think that both are prepared to move the country forward on an understanding of that basis."

Ghanaian President John Kufuor is expected to arrive in Kenya on Tuesday evening to mediate talks between the two, Frazer said, which has led Odinga's party to cancel a planned rally earlier that day.

Read it all HERE.

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from the UPI

Tutu in Kenya to broker peace

Published: Jan. 3, 2008 at 3:53 AM

NAIROBI, Kenya, Jan. 3 (UPI) -- Archbishop Desmond Tutu arrived in Kenya Thursday to begin an attempt to restore calm to the African nation torn apart by post-election violence.

Tutu, a Nobel laureate heading up a delegation from the All Africa Conference of Churches, said he would meet with Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki and opposition leader Raila Odina of the Orange Democratic Movement, SABC News reported. After arriving in Nairobi, Tutu said the group had hopes of reaching an acceptable agreement to save the country and its people, the news service reported on its Web site.

An estimated 300 people have died in wanton violence across the country since the closely contested elections Dec. 27 in which Kibaki won re-election by a slim margin.

The Orange Democratic Movement reportedly was planning a demonstration at Uhuru Park in Nairobi. A large contingent of police and army soldiers had been deployed, SABC said.