Rev. Danny Fisher

Would you like to contribute to efforts “toward the establishment and protection of a thriving Theravada bhikkhuni sangha in the U.S. and abroad?” Then the Alliance for Bhikkhunis might be an organization for you to check out.

Also, the Women in American Buddhism Conference ends today in Denver. I meant to blog about this sooner, but dropped the ball. If talks or transcripts are posted, I’ll be sure to get links here. In the meantime, here’s a good article about Buddhist women in America, the conference, and its organizer Carol Gansho O’Dowd–an old and dear friend of mine from Naropa days.

The Independent‘s Peter Popham considers Buddhism, politics, and the future of Burma as the one year anniversary of the “Saffron Revolution” arrives this month.

At his blog Shadow Tibet, Jamyang Norbu has posted a new poem by dissident Tibetan writer Woeser, entitled “The Fear in Lhasa.”

This via Amnesty International:

In August 2005, Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast and caused widespread devastation. The United States government was not prepared to respond to the magnitude of this disaster and Gulf Coast residents were forced to flee their homes. International human rights standards, including the UN Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement, guarantee the rights of every person displaced by a disaster like Hurricane Katrina, including the right to return. Amnesty International USA calls upon the federal government to uphold the right of all Katrina survivors to return to their homes. We urge officials to provide access to affordable, safe and habitable housing so that survivors can exercise their right to return.

Survivors should be able to genuinely and effectively participate in their return, resettlement and reintegration into their communities. The U.S. government must ensure that the principles of equality and non-discrimination are applied to the return or resettlement of all internally displaced persons.

To send letters to your members of Congress with this message, follow this link.

The International Herald Tribune is reporting that Burma’s National League for Democracy, the political party of Nobel Peace laureate and Prime Minister-elect Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, has issued a statement “lashing out” at the United Nations on the heels of Special Envoy Ibrahim Gambari’s visit to the country. The choicest sound-bite from the party’s statement is this: “No positive developments regarding Mr Gambari’s missions to call for the release of political prisoners, to start talks between the junta and democratic forces and to promote democratic process can be seen…”

Suu Kyi and the N.L.D. appear to have reached a breaking point with the U.N. Earlier this month, Suu Kyi recently refused to meet with Gambari during his visit to Burma. And her even more recent failure to pick-up food at her home, where she has spent 13 of the last 19 years under house arrest, has fueled speculation that she may have begun a hunger strike.