The Progressive Democrat Newsletter grew out of the frustration of the 2004 election. So I have bene doing this almost exactly three years. And boy are my arms tired! (sorry!) Having organized protests against the Republican Convention, I found I had a core of activists who needed some encouragement after Bush "won" re-"election". My carefully thought out suggestions as to where we could go from that defeat led to this more-or-less weekly newsletter.

This week I discuss Global Warming (mainly with references to Daily Kos diaries) and a neat little way you can help feed people while building vocabulary. I also do a roundup of local progressive events for places where I have the most readers over the last couple of weeks. Don't forget to visit an advertiser or two and if you want more, please visit Culture Kitchen.

Hamatika School

Gwembe valley

October 4, 2002

Dear Aunty Grace

Thank you very much for the food that arrived yesterday. Mother was thrilled to see

it. She cried because she had not seen so much mealie meal for months.

Straightaway she cooked a really big meal of nshima. We ate really well last night

and I still feel full today.

Some days when I'm unable to write at home, too lazy to make breakfast, or just need a better cup of coffe than I make around here, I head for a local Internet Cafe. Java Street is a very pleasant spot run by a gracious friend named Stacy and habituated by a generally interesting and diverse group of people.

Yesterday as I settled in, plugged in the laptop and ordered breakfast I spoke to a couple of the regulars who play chess most mornings trading quick coffee house greetings. As I opened the morning paper I noticed at the next table a very pretty young woman (I'm a professional, a trained observer, it's my job) wearing a headset, engrossed in her work and seemingly oblivious to the coffee aromas mixed with the lingering memory of burnt toast and the low murmur of breakfast banter wafting in her vicinity.

by Jason Miller

Pelted by a perpetual hail of electrons fired through a cathode ray tube, the pixels on my PC monitor feed me a generous intellectual bounty of words and images emanating from virtually infinite points dotting the globe. Enabling me to interface with the Internet at will, my computer serves as my window to the world and as a portal through which I can unleash my writings upon the unsuspecting.

Earlier this week as I peered into cyberspace through my ostensibly one-way aperture, I happened upon a picture that my imperialist indoctrination had conditioned me to reflexively dismiss or ignore. However, I've grown increasingly resistant to the "charms" of the pathological delusions of American superiority, invulnerability, impunity, and entitlement to decadence. Something about this particular assemblage of glowing pixels left me flailing in a raging river of emotion. As I negotiated the tempestuous feelings surging within me, I made the conscious decision to forgo the American Way of dismissal and distraction. Instead, I connected and contemplated.

Staring me in the face was the tragic image of a Kenyan child condemned to the abject suffering of death by starvation. A massive tear confirmed the depth of his misery, yet his angelic eyes still beamed with the radiance of his life force. Not even the brutal assault of famine could extinguish the persistent flame of the human spirit.