What ways are we already diverse? Where do our strengths and weaknesses lie in terms of inclusion? Both these questions need to be answered if we are to understand the nature and make up of this old and important faith community that has a history of significant contributions to British and international equality.

This intro document leaves me little unsure what kinds of diversity they’re looking for. Demographic? Spiritual? Geographic? The one quote suggests that someone hopes the results might help advance their agenda. Is this just a one-off SurveyMonkey or will there be more to it?

Diversity: where are we now?

​Quakers in Britain are taking part in a survey to map the diversity of their faith and influence…

Quakers

I must admit that the world of YouTube stars is foreign to me. This is essentially a webcam vlog post but the lighting and hair and costuming is meticulous. Her notes include affiliate links for the dress she’s wearing ($89 and yes, they ship internationally), a 8 1/2 minute video tutorial about curling you hair in her vintage style (it has over 33,000 views). If you follow her on Instagram and Twitter you’ll soon have enough details on  lipstick and shoe choices to be able to fully cosplay her.

But don’t laugh too much, because in between the self presentation tips, Kellgren-Fozard tackles really hard subjects–growing up gay in school, living with disabilities–in ways that are approachable and intimate, funny and instructive. And with a quarter million YouTube followers, she’s reaching people with a message of kindness and inclusion and understanding that feels pretty Quakerly to me. Margaret Fell liked herself a red dress sometimes and it’s easy to argue George Fox would be a YouTuber today.

Bonus:  Jessica Kellgren-Fozard will host a live Q&A chat on her Quakerism this coming Monday. If I’m calculating my timezones correctly, it’ll be noon here on the U.S. East Coast. I plan to tune in.

But wait. The President also defends CIA director Tenet who gave him bad information. So Tenet covered Bush’s bottom and now Bush is covering Tenet’s so now we can move on. How convenient.

In a TV studio a few blocks away Donald Rumsfeld has the balls to continue defending the inclusion of the obvious forgery in the State of the Union address. On a political talk show, he said the Niger uranium claim was “technically correct” since the President just said British Intelligence thought it was true. Of course, the Brits have said they said it because American intelligence had told them it was true. Again, how convenient. I almost expect someone to say the inclusion of the forgery was okay because the President had his fingers crossed behind his back as he read that part of the speech.

I think we could go too far in the who-said-what department with this speech. It was one speech, granted the most important of the year, but still the big issue is that Bush repeatedly fed the American people dubious claims about Iraq’s programs to build weapons of mass destruction. Whenever a reporter asked a hard question about these claims, the Bush Administration essentially told us there was more intelligence that they couldn’t share and that we should all trust them. Well it’s turned out the Administration was wrong. This is a colossal failure and this is the big scandal of the Bush Administration and the biggest source of shame for the American and British peoples.