CARING & CONNECTED
To sustain our community during uncertain times, let's share ways to
stay connected &
show compassion to others
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GET OUT THE VOTE
We all understand how very important it is to vote, to secure voting rights for all citizens and to get out the vote later this year.
Here are some suggestions...
GET READY TO VOTE
- Due to COVID-19, all FL voters are encouraged to request an absentee ballot for the August 18 primary by Aug 8. Click here to make your request or call the Pinellas Co. Supervisor of Elections at 727.464.VOTE. You can also track your ballot and sign-up to become an election worker from their website.
GET INFORMED
- Educate yourself about the issues and the candidates by visiting the League of Women Voters of the St. Petersburg Area's Voter Guide which is updated for each election, just click here. The League also hosts a series of candidate forums in the months prior to each election.
GET INVOLVED
- The Unitarian Universalist Association has mounted a UU the Vote initiative. Click here to learn more and to view a number of UUA webinars including "UU the Vote Campaign Launch," "UU the Vote for LGBTQ + Equity," & "How We Thrive."
- Our Social Justice team is discussing a local, collaborative initiative with like-minded organizations. Stay tuned.
- Ms. Trish Harding, the RE Teacher for grades K-3rd, has written 23 postcards to urge her neighbors to vote by mail. Go Trish!
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HOW CAN I STAY CONNECTED?
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PLAY READING
The Calandra's are organizing another play reading for 10 readers in early July. We have several slots remaining,
email Denis
to get involved.
Sean O'Casey's
Juno and the Paycock
is set in 1922 Dublin during the Irish civil war. In a tenement house, "Captain" Boyle's wife, Juno, struggles to support her family while her work-shy husband goes 'strutting about town like a paycock' with his sycophantic crony, Joxer Daly. Daughter Mary is on strike for her principles (learnt from her friend, Jerry Devine, a Labor Party man), while the son, Johnny, who fought and lost his arm in the 1916 Easter Rising, broods in his room fearful of some unnamed threat. Several reversals of fortune and a good dose of simple folk song fill out this
working class tragicomedy
. The play premiered in 1924 Ireland, but is not without relevance today. The curtain slowly descends as the 'Captain' and Joxer drunkenly grope about for missing (repossessed) furniture. The Paycock reflects grandilo- quently: 'The whole world is in a terr...ible state o' chassis.'
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ONGOING ACTIVITIES:
For the latest, check out
our webpage
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from Sharon Winters:
Bishop William Barber II delivered a powerful sermon at Washington's National Cathedral yesterday,
"America, Accepting Death is Not an Option Anymore!"
It provides context for this moment in our history and is a compelling call to action.
Click
here
to view the livestream; Barber starts speaking at 49:30.
Reading List
For a number of years, I've been trying to educate myself about the realities of the Black experience. Here are some of my favorites:
- 12 Years a Slave by Solomon Northrup (one of the rare extant slave narratives, powerful writing)
- Native Son by Richard Wright (novel, the story of a Black man living in utter poverty in Chicago's south side in the 1930s)
- Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly (Black female NASA mathematicians during the Space Race; see also the excellent 2016 film)
- Third Reconstruction: How a Moral Movement is Overcoming the Politics of Division & Fear by Rev. Dr. William Barber
- Coming of Age in Mississippi by Anne Moody (rural MS in mid-20th c.)
- Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates (letter to the author's teenage son about feelings, symbolism and realities of being Black in the U.S.)
- Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys & the Dawn of a New America by Gilbert King (Pulitzer Prize, set in central FL)
- The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead (Pulitzer Prize, set in FL)
- Walking with the Wind: Memoir of the Movement by John Lewis
- The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead (Pulitzer Prize)
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HOW ARE...
Carol Ulmer and
Ken Degen?
Carol writes:
Ken and I have developed a coronavirus routine walking our dog, Riley, in the morning along the bay and through our neighborhood in the evening. Ken is way ahead of me when it comes to exercise. Ken plays golf twice a week and resumed tennis after a 6-week hiatus.
My volunteer work for UU St. Pete and Kiwimbi keeps me going—all of it possible online. I love our Zoom convocations at UU St. Pete. What I miss most is my weekly watercolor class at the Morean. I stay busy and possibly productive reading, painting, practicing piano, and doing the NYT crossword puzzle. Cooking has become a necessary passion for us both. Generally, we are very content and glad to be in St. Pete.
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Silence in the face of injustice, is injustice in action.
- C. JoyBell C.
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Email
your announcements, photos and ideas on
"how I can help" and "how I can stay connected" to
Sharon Winters, editor & Communications Team lead
by NOON on Sundays.
Last issue of Caring & Connected is June 22nd.
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