Our lives continue to be a mix of change and sameness. We're happy to be releasing a new CD, The Distance Remaining.

Here are some highlights from our musical lives.

We spent a solid month in the recording studio and are proud of the outcome. We were blessed by the presence of guest vocalist Reggie Harris, and stellar jazz pianist Miro Sprague, as well as other musicians. You can order our new CD here.

The Journey of Hope from Violence to Healing is made up of murder victim family members, people who have been exonerated from death row, and people who have loved ones on death row. It's one of the most inspiring groups we travel with. In October of 2010 we returned to Texas, the state responsible for one third of our country's executions since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976.

We brought our varied skills to the U.S. Social Forum in Detroit in June of 2010.

Charlie was the troubadour of the alternative seminary program, Word and World, while Karen served as Spanish/English interpreter for some of the 1000 workshops offered during that week. Karen also co-led a workshop called "Caring for Ourselves and the World" with Sarah Weintraub, the new director of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship. Charlie sang for the march and rally at Chase Bank, supporting farm workers and opposing foreclosures,

We've been getting to do our musical/historical performance pieces in more schools. Ted Warmbrand in Tucson has done a great job booking these workshops in AZ in high schools

We began 2010 by doing our annual "Duopalooza" concerts with Kim and Reggie Harris.

Charlie traveled to Philadelphia at the invitation of theologian and author Ched Myers, to act as an "elder" at a gathering of mostly young people devoted to living more in harmony with the earth and addressing issues of economic and racial inequality.

Charlie won an award from the International Labor Communications Association (AFL-CIO) for an article he wrote about music in labor history for Allegro magazine of Local 802 of the American Federation of Musicians. The honor was shared with fellow musician Anne Feeney.

Karen has been getting together with several other women, exploring a cappella harmony singing and healing songs, so there may be a different kind of performance or two in her future!

We finished the year performing with three of our favorites. Reggie Harris organized with us a four performance tourlette,

We'll be doing tours of the Southwest and Midwest in February and March, so please check our touring schedule to find out where we'll be, join us, and tell your friends.

People keep asking me "Didn't you retire?" Well, sorta. The truth is, living off retirement income from my musicians' union pension and social security allows me to settle into a comfortable routine of doing the work I want to do without worrying about how to pay the bills. I get to pick and choose the gigs that have been best attended and most enjoyable over the past 32 years of active touring, and the ones that are easy to book. Nice work if you can get it. More and more Karen and I are working for causes we believe in rather than venues that can pay us. It means working more locally, something we've always wanted but could rarely get hired to do. And as any retiree will tell you, I've never been so busy!

One of the things that keeps us traveling is the chance to see the friends we've made all over the country (or hemisphere, in Karen's case). So a regular rhythm to the year is visiting Ted & Jacky (and now Izeah!) in AZ;

And speaking of the SOA Watch annual demo, the thing that draws me back year after year (12 & counting) is the remarkable way this determined movement to end the training of assassins and torturers at the US Army's Fort Benning school has integrated culture (especially music) at every level of their organizing strategy. Being a singer at an SOA Watch event is to be exhaustively exploited and wonderfully affirmed. It's a rare opportunity to share the stage with a wide diversity of performers

And a wonderful chance to reunite with old friends

This year we made some new friends when we stumbled into a party on the balcony outside our motel room. Mexican workers, housed 4 to a room, are brought to Fort Benning as guest workers by private contractors. The army pays the contractor who deducts his estimate of "expenses" and pays them a small fraction of what he collects while the Army looks the other way. It was wonderful to watch and listen as Colleen Kattau, Karen & Elise Witt serenaded these men for over an hour,

The trip to Ireland was a total windfall gratefully received from Anne Feeney when she was unable to take the trip herself. Not only did Anne gift me with the trip, she friended me with a gang of new friends, activists all and fans of Anne

On the at-home front, I continue to do a lot of reading. My contacts over the years with Ched Myers and the Word & World gatherings have deepened my interest in biblical studies (a primary focus in my college days, nurtured by my on-going links to the Catholic Worker movement). I've been getting together regularly with local friends Bob Rottenberg and Pam Porter to read and discuss scripture studies and I pursue quite a bit on my own. Recent research on the history and archeology of first century Palestine and the Jewish resistance to Empire reflected in the writings of that time and place are good models of analysis and action for resistance to Empire here in the belly of the beast. I spent a week at the Maryknoll Institute with theologian and Capuchin priest Michael Crosby studying economic justice and the gospels. I've been encouraged further by groups like Spiritus Christi parish in Rochester NY and the Progressive Catholic Coalition, who invite Karen & me each year at the SOA Watch weekend to sing at their liturgies celebrated by a women priest, Janice Sevre-Duszynska.

And oh, yes. Although we lack a television, I discovered I can find live streaming Boston Celtics games on my trusty laptop. Uh oh.

Family news includes daughter Nell completing her Masters in Art Therapy and landing a demanding but rewarding job working with dually diagnosed clients with mental illness and substance abuse. And down in Brooklyn son Jamie and his partner Jessica are expecting the arrival of their first child in April, the grandchild I've been hoping for for quite a while. You may expect pictures.

The year 2009 ended by bringing me into another period of mourning. My beloved close friend, Genie Zeiger

I still revel in the role of "homemaker,"

Spurred by an interview with Tim Wise in the Sun Magazine, I was reminded of how important it is for me to explore and address issues of white privilege and racism. I formed a local study group that met for seven weeks, each week reading and discussing a chapter in Tim's book, White Like Me. It can be challenging to figure out how to address racism when living in such a predominantly white town, and I'm still sorting that out.

After talking about it for years, I finally joined a gym in order to get resistance training to keep my bones happy. I'm not sure if it's something to celebrate or not, but I ordered my first "senior meal" at a restaurant that starts that privilege at age 55.

Having missed a year due to my mom's passing, I went back to Florida's death row to visit Omar Blanco for the fourth time and will be going again in January 2011.

In September of 2009 as the Jewish High Holidays approached, I did some honest soul searching and acknowledged that Judaism is my cultural home but not my spiritual one. I am more and more drawn to Buddhism. In the past year I've participated in a 12 week study group based on the Zen precepts (Buddhist guidelines for ethical behavior), attended a weekend workshop offered by inspiring Buddhist elder Joanna Macy, and helped to coordinate volunteers during a weeklong symposium on Socially Engaged Buddhism that took place 40 minutes from my home. I'm involved in an effort to revive a local chapter of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship, where I have found a group of social justice activists who practice Buddhism with whom I will meet regularly to explore the intersection of these aspects of our lives.

In October of 2010, I spent 10 days in rural Mexico being a Spanish interpreter at a conference. It was my first time in a Spanish speaking country since my 2000 trip to Cuba. I loved being in a place that felt familiar, even though I'd never been there. Over 300 people from 60 countries gathered to discuss the negative impacts of dam construction in their communities.

Inspired by my experience with the interpreters' team at the U.S. Social Forum, I connected with another interpreter with whom I'm forming a local social justice interpreters' collective to serve Western MA political and social service organizations. We have over a dozen people interested and access to interpreting equipment for up to 200! It's exciting to be part of this effort, and to explore the political aspects of language access, equality and empowerment, in addition to providing a service.

Finally, I got to attend a reunion of my 6th grade class from Pennypacker Elementary school in Philadelphia, getting together with people I hadn't seen for 45 years. It was fun to match up the photos with the people, and to see the man who gave me my big push in performing, Mr. Ronald Schultz, who directed "The Wizard of Oz" with me as the scarecrow. He went on to bigger and better things, starring as the Hebrew school teacher in the Coen brothers' film, "A Serious Man."

So long! Stay warm!