OMNI NEWSLETTER: EVENTS AND ACTIONS OCTOBER 27, 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. A friend sent me this as descriptive of OMNI’s Culture of Peace program: "…peace is a positive task to work on. Although arms control is useful, peace is not built merely by doing away with some number of weapons…. Peace is built through the positive incentives and institutions that cause people to prefer it to war." OCT. 28, THURSDAY, TEMPORARY CHANGE of DATE: OMNI STEERING COMMITTEE OCTOBER 28, same place and time, OMNI 5:30 potluck, 6:00 business. In November we will return to our regular date of every third Thursday. OMNI SC meetings are open to all members and friends. OCT. 28, 5:30, PLANNED PARENTHOOD FUNDRAISER: The Bank of Fayetteville, on the square, on Thursday, the 28th of October, you are invited to drop by the fundraiser/friendraiser Planned Parenthood of Arkansas and Eastern Oklahoma is having. We will be honoring Dr. Joycelyn Elders. Wine and hors d'oeuvres will be served. OCT. 28 FAHRENHEIT 9/11 SHOWING: The Young Women's Collective will be hosting a showing of Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11," on Thursday, October 28. Show times are 6pm and again at 8:30pm in the Alltel Ballroom in the Arkansas Union on the UofA campus. Refreshments and snacks will be served. OCT. 28, NEXT CLASS in Mastery of Consciousness: 7:30 - 10:30 p.m., $15/week + $5 for first book at the School of Metaphysics. Class meets weekly. CALL 479/527-6804 OCTOBER 29, FRIDAY, 8PM, STEVE BROOKS PLAYING AT OMNI AND HALLOWEEN DRESS-UP. Admission $8. Steve Brooks in Concert At the OMNI CENTER, PRE-ELECTION/Halloween Bash FREE CD FOR SCARIEST COSTUME WITH A POLITICAL THEME. Cross two famous guys named Brooks-Garth and Mel, and you get Austin folk singer Steve Brooks. His songs range from comic commentaries on current events to lyrical love ballads to poetic snapshots of the people and places of Texas. Best known as the man who wrote a song-a-week for Jim Hightower’s radio show, his songs have been recorded by the likes of Kevin So, Emily Kaitz, and Slaid Cleaves, who calls him, "A great unsung songwriter of Austin." A master of words as well as music, he was featured on TV’s "I’ve Got A Secret" as six-time World Pun Champion. Says Songwriter’s Circle Magazine" "The man is Steve Brooks and his mission most of the time: to be the poet, protester, songwriter, activist, political satirist, humorist that he is. No doubt Brooks is one of the most authentically colorful characters in the Kerrville gathering of colorful characters…His color comes out in what he says and what he does--his talk and his walk." Give Steve a listen, check out his website at www.stevebrooks.net. If there’s a common thread to his songs, it’s about looking at the world from a slightly different angle than the one you’re used to-or from several angles at once. As Steve puts it-a bit more poetically- "A single new star rearranges a whole constellation. "Steve Brooks writes with the kind of dry wit that makes you chuckle and spit sand, yet he has the same sense of commentary and observation that made the likes of Woody Guthrie a national hero." -Ellis Paul, Rounder recording artist. Admission $8 (kids 12 and under free). Steve Brooks performed at our open mic last year when he was passing through the area and was a huge HIT!!! Everyone begged for him to come back, so HERE YOU GO! NOVEMBER 1, MONDAY, 7 p. m., FORUM ON HUMANITARIAN INTERVENTION University of Arkansas, Giffels Auditorium. Professor Steve Sheppard, Law School, and Visiting Professor the Right Honourable Henry McLeish. The power of a government to persuade an uninformed public to believe a lie by repeating it Goebbels well understood. Now we witness half of the public believing the lie that Saddam Hussein allied with bin Ladin to destroy the World Trade Center. At the Draft Forum last week, a student repeated another but more complicated lie, that the invasion of Iraq was justified because "the world is better place without Saddam Hussein." That is, the invasion was humanitarian, as Pres. Bush and all of his administration have declared endlessly. Our speakers will EXAMINE this and many other issues as they and we try to distinguish between Humanitarian and Imperial Interventions and whether and how nations can, under the U. N. Charter, intervene in the affairs of other nations. NOVEMBER 5-7 ZEN MEDITATION RETREAT: The Morning Star Zen Center will sponsor a Zen meditation retreat in Fayetteville, all day November 6 and until noon November 7, with a brief orientation the evening of November 5. The retreat will be led by Thom Pastor, who is founder and abbot of the Great Brightness Zen Center in Las Vegas. Thom is a former professional musician who began formal study in the Kwan Um School of Zen in the late 1980s with Zen master Ji Bong and was given inka, or teaching authority, in 2002. The retreat will include sitting and walking meditation, chanting practice, vegetarian meals in a traditional four-bowl style, and interviews with Thom Pastor. For more information, e-mail btaylor@uark.edu or call 521-6925. The registration deadline is November 1, 2004. NOVEMBER CALENDAR: As announced earlier, OMNI’s monthly calendars will no longer be sent to you directly but will be available in our web site (www.omnicenter.org). CHRISTMAS ALTERNATIVES: To help promote "Whose Birthday Is It, Anyway?" 2004 For FREE PROMOTIONAL MATERIAL: Alternatives@SimpleLiving.org; www.SimpleLiving.org US MILITARISM: A good brief essay explaining the U.S. as a militaristic nation (a permanent war economy, too many people dependent on war for their livelihoods) is "Militarism: A Way of Life" by Michael Fitzgerald, The Humanist (Nov.-Dec. 2004, 26-31). SPECIES EXTINCTION: A good very brief essay on the enormous species extinctions now occurring is "The Sixth Great Extinction: A Status Report" by Janet Larsen in The Humanist (Nov.-Dec. 2004). MORE ON HUMANITARIAN INTERVENTIONS: The Darfur region of the Sudan, where perhaps 30,000 people have been slaughtered and an estimated 2 million are in desperate need from hunger, thirst, and disease, and perhaps 350,000 could die by the end of the year. Secretary of State Powell visited the region, but so far the U. S. has done nothing. Alenandra Zavis, "Fears, Tears Flow in Sudan," TMN (July 11, 2004), 3B. James Traub, "Never Again, No Longer?" NYT Magazine (July 18, 2004), 17-18: Unwillingness of nations now to intervene in humanitarian disasters. There's a book on the issues: David Rieff, A Bed for the Night: Humanitarianism in Crisis (Simon and Schuster, 2002). AND IRAQ? The Tufts paper entitled Ambiguity and Change: Humanitarian NGOs Prepare for the Future was commissioned and supported by CARE, Catholic Relief Services, Oxfam UK, Oxfam International, Mercy Corps, Save the Children US, and World Vision. The 121 page report can be viewed or downloaded at http://famine.tufts.edu/pdf/ambiguity_and_change.pdf