OMNI NEWSLETTER: EVENTS AND ACTIONS JULY 8, 2004 OMNI CENTER FOR PEACE, JUSTICE, AND ECOLOGY Corner of Maple and Storer in Fayetteville in Presbyterian and Disciples Student Center OMNI contact Dick Bennett jbennet@uark.edu 442-4600)(website: www.omnicenter.org) Changing Society for a Culture of Peace. Since peace is not the absence of war, but is the active presence of justice and compassion, a Culture of Peace is created by countering the War System in all of its manifestations. U. S. Capitol Switchboard: 202-224-3121. JULY 2 I forgot to celebrate the Civil Rights Act of July 2, 1964, which ended Jim Crow, and is one of our country’s great achievements. See: MN "Still Civil Rights Work to Be Done" (7-1). JULY 8, THURSDAY, NOON, RAPID RESPONSE WRITERS Join RR at Ozark Mt. Smokehouse on Dickson at 12 today. Focus on regime change, but other topics. Share ideas, tactics, draft and published letters. JULY 9, NOW with Bill Moyers on AETN, 9pm (Fridays) Outstanding critical analysis of aspects of power. The right wing is trying to reduce his program from an hour to half hour, and to initiate two new right-wing programs. See: www.mediachannel.org/views/dissector/affalert206.shtml If you also think highly of Moyers, tell AETN in Conway you want his program to continue…..and be expanded!: 501-682-4198. JULY 10, SATURDAY, WORLD PEACE GARDEN PREPARATION The west area of the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship property will become a World Peace Garden. A work party begins this Saturday at 9 and ends at 4, and will continue Saturdays throughout the summer, until we celebrate Dedication Day in late August. Contact Nana Mejia if you wish to help: nanam@ncat.org, 236-9569. JULY 10, SATURDAY, VIDEO WORKSHIP AT CAT Sky Blaylock, Manager of Community Access TV, will hold a workshop for filmmakers this Saturday 12 to 3. OMNI needs filmmakers. Call CAT. JULY 11, SUNDAY, VIDEO UNDERGROUND (NOTE: VU NOW ON SUNDAYS). Sunday, July 11 at 7:00 at the Omni Center for Peace, Justice and Ecology Video Underground Presents: Bread and Roses, Starring Adrian Brody (of The Pianist) and Pilar Padilla. From acclaimed director Ken Loach comes the engrossing story of a group of immigrant workers who take a stand against the million dollar corporations that employ them. Run time: 105 . www.omnicenter.org JULY 12 AND 13, SHORT TAKES AT CAT Express your thoughts on peace, justice, and ecology, or read something. Mondays 5:30, Tuesdays noon to 1:30. Ask someone to join you. Write a dialog. Read a children’s story that has attractive illustrations. CAT is extremely under-used by peace and justice advocates. JULY 13, TUESDAY, NOW 6:30 National Organization of Women video party: Killing Us Softly III by Jean Kilbourne. Refreshments. Helen Jane Brown of Arkansas Coalition v. Sexual Assault will speak also. At home of Melanie Dietzel, 442-8600. JULY 15, THURSDAY, OMNI STEERING COMMITTEE Potluck 5:30, business 6:00. Written nominations for new SC members are solicited. Send to Marion Orton for nomination committee. Officers (who serve annually) will be chosen by the SC in the fall. JULY 15-18, SISTERS OF EARTH CONFERENCE, Mount Sequoyah Panels, song, poetry, ceremony about the ecological and spiritual crises of the times. Panelists include Julia Sampson, Melissa Terry, Barbara Harmony. www.sistersofearth.org Kaye Bernard, 582-4722. BE AN OMNI VOLUNTEER OMNI will soon be included in the list of "Volunteer Opportunities" published in the Northwest Arkansas Times. We now have many weekly, monthly, semi-monthly, and annual events arranged by volunteers committed to peace, justice, and ecology. And we already know what additional actions we might do if we had more volunteers. We invite your creative ideas and leadership. The Pentagon, with over $400 billion dollars for next year, never sleeps. Call Dick 442-4600. GREEN CONSUMING For information on being a "Green Consumer" go to www.responsible shopper.com or www.greenpages.org POLLUTION: www.scorecard.org for local pollution information. WHAT OUR WORLD COULD BE WITH THOUGHTFUL, HUMANE LEADERS The estimated cost of the war in Iraq is now $120 billion. This money could have supported an additional 2,132,486 Peace Corps volunteers; provided 10,122,571 families of four with a year of groceries; or, paid for an additional 2,109,501 four-year scholarships at public universities (from Hope magazine July-Aug. 2004). COST OF IRAQ WAR For an up-to-the-second accounting of the actual dollar cost of the war in Iraq, go to http://costofwar.com/ You can check out the cost by state and you can compare the cost of the war to the cost of Pre-School, Kid's Health Care, Public Education, College Scholarships, Public Housing, World Hunger, Aids Epidemic, World Immunization. The cost as of a few days ago is $120,895,730,800 with the cost increasing at a rate of approximately $2,000 per second. NEW BOOKS AND WEB SITE ON PEACE Professor R.J. Rummel (Emeritus) has written an alternative history series, Never Again, in which he dramatizes the power of democratic freedom to create a world free of war, democide, and famine. A description of the novels in the series (two of which are recently published, with the third coming out in weeks), and links to the publisher's store and Amazon.com are available on his web page at www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/NH.HTM. His associated web site has tons of data, statistics, analyses, articles, and books providing the theoretical and empirical support for his alternative history. It is at: www.hawaii.edu/powerkills. NEWSPAPERS AND MAGAZINES FOR PEACE, JUSTICE, AND ECOLOGY The Little Way: Dorothy Day Catholic Worker: Summer 2004 articles include an appeal to U. S. military to refuse to kill; on Mordechai Vanunu, great Israeli nuclear whistleblower; the US coup in Haiti, resistants in jails with addresses if you wish to write to them; 3 essays on the Enola Gay; Catholic Workers against Israel’s Wall in Palestine; and more. Catholics out there? NWA needs a Catholic parish committed to its tradition of peace, justice, and ecology. Where is Pax Christi? Amnesty Now by Amnesty International, Spring 2004 articles include health in Haiti; Liberian prison brutality; politics of oil and human rights in central Asia (US supports some of world’s worst human rights abusers, for oil); sexual violence in the military; and more. PETE SEEGER Seeger was 85 May 3. The great banjo musician and stalwart in struggles against exploitation, witch-hunts, white supremacy, imperialism, nuclear weapons, the destruction of the environment, union-busters, and militarism continues active for peace, justice, and the environment. Hey Guy, let’s celebrate next May 3. OMNI’S MISSION Nonviolence/World Peace Human Rights Social Justice Environmental Stewardship