Tag Archives ⇒ news

AI’s Quaker answers are old news

April 27, 2023
· Martin Kelley

Some­times I high­light respons­es that have come into Quak­er Ranter. Elaine Leet wrote a nice email that about my post on the AI chat­bots using Friends Jour­nal as a source for mate­r­i­al for their Quak­er respons­es. Here’s part of her message:

The most impor­tant thing to keep in mind about Chat­G­PT and AI, IMO, is that it’s from the past and about the past, all his­to­ry and estab­lished pat­terns… Friends Jour­nal is about the present and the future, espe­cial­ly those won­der­ful videos fea­tur­ing real present-day Friends. The Now and Tomor­row need to be our focus.

Read her full response in the com­ment sec­tion.

Getting meeting minutes in the news

March 17, 2021
· Martin Kelley

Nice opin­ion piece in a pub­li­ca­tion called CT Mir­ror from “Twelve Con­necti­cut Quak­ers,” Quak­ers and soli­tary con­fine­ment: We thought it was a good idea. Now we don’t!

It starts with the well-known sto­ry of nine­teenth cen­tu­ry Quak­er prison reform­ers who with good inten­tions invent­ed soli­tary con­fine­ment at the East­ern State Pen­i­ten­tiary in Philadel­phia. It then goes on to talk about mod­ern prison-reform advo­cates. It namechecks Michelle Alexan­der, talks about the U.S. Soli­tary Con­fine­ment Study and Reform Act of 2019 and sim­i­lar leg­is­la­tion in states.

Almost two cen­turies after the East­ern State Pen­i­ten­tiary opened, Quak­ers and their orga­ni­za­tions (e.g. local and region­al Meet­ings, Amer­i­can Friends Ser­vice Com­mit­tee, Friends Com­mit­tee on Nation­al Leg­is­la­tion) are work­ing to end the prac­tice that we had a hand in cre­at­ing. We urge you to join us! 

Toward the end they quote a minute from the meet­ing. I’m some­times a lit­tle weary of polit­i­cal min­utes that nev­er see the light of day out­side of the busi­ness meet­ing but this arti­cle is a great exam­ple of inte­grat­ing that into a strong arti­cle in a local news out­let. Kudos to the twelve Con­necti­cuters (yes I had to look up that denonym).

Poking pigs?

February 6, 2019
· Martin Kelley

Bucks Coun­ty, Pa., Friend Nor­val Reece has a piece on fake and real news, with a great line from his mother:

Polls and ana­lysts con­firm a grow­ing trend for peo­ple to tune in almost exclu­sive­ly to those news sources which rein­force their own opin­ions and con­demn the oth­ers — regard­less of qual­i­ty, the use of facts, opin­ion, bias, and mis­in­for­ma­tion. Experts call this “source bias.” My straight-talking Quak­er moth­er referred to it as “peo­ple try­ing to sell you a pig in a poke” — peo­ple try­ing to con­vince you of a point of view by giv­ing you lim­it­ed or false infor­ma­tion, try­ing to sell you a pig in a bag when you can’t see it or exam­ine it. Com­mu­nist coun­tries and dic­ta­tor­ships are mas­ters at this. 

https://​www​.buckscoun​ty​couri​er​times​.com/​n​e​w​s​/​2​0​1​9​0​2​0​3​/​f​a​i​t​h​-​f​r​e​e​d​o​m​-​o​f​-​p​r​e​s​s​-​e​s​s​e​n​t​i​a​l​-​t​o​-​d​e​m​o​c​r​acy

Friend Jocelyn Bell Burnell gets Breakthrough Prize

September 7, 2018
· Martin Kelley

Famous­ly over­looked for a Nobel, the Quak­er sci­en­tist has won an award that she will put toward diver­si­fy­ing future researchers:

She’s being giv­en the award for her “fun­da­men­tal con­tri­bu­tions to the dis­cov­ery of pul­sars, and a life­time of inspir­ing lead­er­ship in the sci­en­tif­ic com­mu­ni­ty,” accord­ing to a state­ment from the prize board. Bell Bur­nell told the BBC she plans to give all of her prize mon­ey to women, eth­nic minori­ties and refugee stu­dents aim­ing to become physics researchers. 

You can read more about Bell Bur­nell on her Quak­ers in the World page.

https://​www​.usato​day​.com/​s​t​o​r​y​/​n​e​w​s​/​n​a​t​i​o​n​-​n​o​w​/​2​0​1​8​/​0​9​/​0​7​/​j​o​c​e​l​y​n​-​b​e​l​l​-​b​u​r​n​e​l​l​s​-​1​9​6​7​-​n​o​b​e​l​-​p​u​l​s​a​r​s​-​b​r​e​a​k​t​h​r​o​u​g​h​-​p​r​i​z​e​-​s​c​i​e​n​c​e​/​1​2​2​0​9​3​6​0​02/

Tip of the hat to Doug Ben­nett for the sug­ges­tion and links.

Isaac Smith: Good soil

August 23, 2018
· Martin Kelley

An obser­va­tion on the soil of God’s work — us:

For many of us, our predica­ment today seems most like the soil with the thorns: We want to draw clos­er to God and walk in God’s ways, but there is so much bad news, so many oblig­a­tions, so many dis­trac­tions. We can be led astray, some­times with­out even know­ing it. The founder of our move­ment, George Fox, once said that “what­ev­er ye are addict­ed to, the Tempter will come in that thing; and when he can trou­ble you, then he gets advan­tage over you, and then ye are gone.” We can be addict­ed to many things: not just, say, alco­hol or gam­bling, but ideas, both about the world and about ourselves. 

Alone, none of us can do much to change the world. But we can allow our­selves to be instru­ments of peace, rec­on­cil­i­a­tion, love. It’s easy to get stuck and tempt­ing in those times to get defen­sive or look toward oth­ers. I’ve found the old Quak­er take on “The Tempter” to be per­son­al­ly very use­ful. I’ve learned to ques­tion and go inward when­ev­er I feel too much pride in some­thing or find myself part of a group that seems self-satisfied with its work. 

Good soil

Skeletons (not even) in the closet

May 22, 2018
· Martin Kelley

This is a bit a gru­some sto­ry, though not as shock­ing at it should be. Louellen White, a researcher look­ing for bur­ial records of Native Amer­i­can chil­dren stum­bled on a Native Amer­i­can skull just sit­ting in a dis­play case of a old Philadel­phia meeting.

As White searched for grave­yard ledgers in the library — crammed with stuffed birds, cloth­ing, shells and books — she came upon the skull. Her legs wob­bled. And her stom­ach dropped. Arsenault-Cote offered advice and reas­sur­ance. “You’re out there look­ing for them, and now they’re show­ing them­selves to you,” she told White. “He’s been wait­ing a long time.” His­tor­i­cal­ly, Philadel­phia Quak­ers were “incon­sis­tent friends” to Indi­ans, engaged in the same col­o­niz­ing projects as oth­er faiths while see­ing them­selves as unique­ly able to edu­cate natives.

Incon­sis­tent is an apt word. Paula Palmer has been trac­ing the his­to­ry of Quak­er Indi­an Board­ing Schools: high-minded enter­pris­es that often for­ca­bly stripped her­itage from their pupils in ways that were as cul­tur­al­ly impe­r­i­al as they were unaware.

Byber­ry Meet­ing dates to the 1690s and the meet­ing­house grounds are full of abo­li­tion­ist his­to­ry. The skull was appar­ent­ly dug up in the mid-nineteenth cen­tu­ry as part of a near­by canal project and is thought to have come to the meet­ing­house as part of a col­lec­tion from a shut­tered his­tor­i­cal soci­ety. Its pres­ence on the shelf rep­re­sents the atti­tudes of Friends many decades ago who thought noth­ing of plac­ing a Lenape skull in a case. There’s also the sad sub­text that the meet­ing library is said to be so unused that most of the meet­ing’s con­tem­po­rary mem­bers had no idea it was there. It’s a shame that it took an out­side researcher to notice the skele­tons in our dis­play case.

https://​www​.philly​.com/​p​h​i​l​l​y​/​n​e​w​s​/​4​8​3​0​7​2​5​7​1​.​h​tml

President of Southern Baptist Theological Seminiary on Simon Jenkins article

May 15, 2018
· Martin Kelley

Chalk this one up as anoth­er whisper-down-the-lane. As read­ers will prob­a­bly remem­ber, a few weeks ago, non-Friend Simon Jenk­ins wrote an opin­ion piece in The Guardian about the pos­si­bil­i­ty of British Friends drop­ping God from their Faith and Prac­tice. There were a lot of exag­ger­a­tions in it; the year­ly meet­ing ses­sion was most­ly decid­ing whether it it felt led to start the long process of revis­ing the doc­u­ment of Friends’ belief and prac­tice. Many year­ly meet­ings do this every gen­er­a­tion or so. AFAIK, there was no sub­stan­tive dis­cus­sion on what the revi­sions might bring. At the time, I spec­u­lat­ed that “Jenk­ins is chas­ing the head­line to advance his own argu­ment with­out regard to how his state­ment might polar­ize Friends.”

Now we have anoth­er head­line chas­er. The pres­i­dent of the South­ern Bap­tist The­o­log­i­cal Sem­i­nary more or less reads Jenk­in­s’s piece aloud on his radio show (hat-tip havedan­son on the Quak­ers sub­red­dit). He light­ly skips over the fact that Jenk­ins isn’t Quak­er and admits to lim­it­ed expe­ri­ence of Quak­er wor­ship. The SBTS pres­i­dent, Albert Mohler, repeat­ed­ly calls the Guardian arti­cle a “news report” even though it is clear­ly labeled as an opin­ion piece. If any pub­lic­i­ty is good pub­lic­i­ty then it’s good that non-Friends like Jenk­ins and now Mohler are talk­ing about the decision-making process of a Quak­er year­ly meet­ing, but this is stu­pid piled on stupid.

From a media per­spec­tive, I get it: Mohler has a dai­ly 24-minute pod­cast to fill. He has interns who scan buzzy news items. They rearrange the text with inter­sti­tials like “he con­tin­ues, and I quote” and “he goes on to say” so that Mohler can spend five min­utes read­ing an arti­cle with­out sound­ing like he’s just read­ing an arti­cle. But seri­ous­ly, how does the pres­i­dent of a major sem­i­nary have such dis­re­gard for any­thing approach­ing aca­d­e­m­ic rig­or? Also: how much regur­gi­tat­ed junk is on the inter­net sim­ply because peo­ple need to fill time? The Quak­er cau­tion about giv­ing min­istry just because you’re paid to give min­istry and it’s time to give min­istry seems apt in this case.

Mon­day, May 14, 2018