OMNI NEWSLETTER: EVENTS, ACTIONS, COMMENT
MARCH 17, 2005

OMNI IS LOCATED IN THE PRESBYTERIAN CAMPUS CENTER CORNER OF MAPLE AND STORER IN FAYETTEVILLE

Urge your friends who wear the t-shirt “if you are not outraged…” (or think it) to take the next step into action by joining OMNI.

Let no meeting end without action.

If you no longer wish to receive this newsletter, reply “please remove.”

MARCH 13-19 SUNSHINE WEEK
Celebrating the importance of open government, the Freedom of Information Act, and sunshine laws. www.sunshineweek.org; www.asne.org; www.ire.org/foi; www.cjog.net Support your newspapers. Brenda Blagg TMN 3-16 wrote a splendid defense of FOI, which is under attack by Ark. Legislators. Thank Brenda. And let your local legislators hear from you for freedom of information. People in power who are corrupt, little or big, want secrecy. They fear the truth. Advocate freedom of information.

BLOGS, FREEDOM OF INFORMATION, AND DICTATORS
See the excellent defense of blogs as powerful dissent for freedom of expression in TMN 3-16, Curt Hopkins, “Fight Rages For Freedom of Keyboard.” “Blogs are a provocative and corrective voice everywhere…” In contrast, many hospital administrators dislike mandatory reporting of medical errors (TMN 3-16), to cite one of a thousand examples.



MARCH 17 OMNI STEERING COMMITTEE

Potluck 5:30, business 6:00. All OMNI members and friends are welcome.



MARCH 19, SATURDAY, STAND FOR PEACE, INVASION OF IRAQ 2ND ANNIVERSARY, 3PM AT FULBRIGHT PEACE FOUNTAIN, UOF A
Contact Melanie Dietzel.

MARCH 19, DANCES

“Due to some scheduling conflicts, the Fayetteville Dances of Universal Peace will be held this

coming Saturday, March 19, instead of our usual 4th Saturday.” From Jamila.



MARCH 20, DRUMMING CIRCLE, 5:30, UNITY OF FAYETTEVILLE

4880 Wedington Dr., 1.5 miles west of I-540.



MARCH 20, SUNDAY, 1:00 PM, Legislative Update Session V

Citizens First Congress, OHG Sierra Club Office, 110 W. Meadow, Fayetteville

OMNI co-sponsors, please attend.



MARCH 21, PATRIOT ACT COMMITTEE, OMNI, 7PM
Come help us plan tactics for persuading City of Fayetteville to go on record against the Patriot Act(s).

MARCH 23, WEDNESDAY, 6PM, OMNI, SPRINGFEST COMMITTEE

MARCH 26, 2 & 7pm, Unity Church of Fayetteville
Showing "What the Bleep Do We Know!?" on Sat. March 26th at 2pm & 7pm. www.whatthebleep.com The protagonist finds herself in aN Alice in Wonderland experience when her daily, uninspired life literally begins to unravel, revealing the uncertain world of the quantum field hidden behind what we consider to be our normal, waking reality.

MARCH 27, 2005, 7:00pm VIDEO UNDERGROUND Presents:“Romero”
Showing at the OMNI Center for Peace, Justice & Ecology, Free Admission.
ROMERO is based on the life of Father Oscar Romero, a Salvadoran priest who transformed himself from a humble clergyman into a powerful political leader. Romero passionately pursued the eradication of human rights violations in his country and became a hero to the Salvadoran people. In a powerful and moving performance, Raul Julia portrays the revolutionary priest as he struggles to fight for peace against the violent oppression of his people. Romero became a voice of thousands who were forced into silence by torture and grave injustices, inspiring the people of a poverty-stricken nation to fight for their basic rights under the penalty of imprisonment and murder. The film is an insightful and disturbing look at one man's spiritual journey to greatness amidst a homeland torn apart by civil upheaval and political oppression.
Show Time: 105 Minutes
Video Underground shows political, fictional, and current event videos
every second and fourth Sunday of the month at 7:00pm. These videos are shown at the OMNI CENTER FOR PEACE, JUSTICE, AND ECOLOGY located at 902 W. Maple in Fayetteville, in the basement of the Presbyterian and Disciples
Student Center. To see a listing of upcoming shows, please visit our
website: www.northwest-ark.com/vu.

MARCH 28 OMNI/VEGETARIAN/RAW FOODS HUNGER AWARENESS DINNER
6pm St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, potluck. T. Fuller will speak about local hunger; John Ray about global and connection with local. Contact Karen Kimrey or Dick Bennett. Let us join these two visions for a better world.

MARCH 29 Marshall Islands Nuclear Victims Day
Jones Center, 4p.m. film, then talks by Marshallese, and dinner. Contact Carmen Chong Gum( carmenchonggum@sbcglobal.net) or Dick Bennett. What was done to the Marshallese is an outrage against a people. Join us to protest and demand justice.

MIDDLE EAST DISCUSSIONS

Diwan Baghdad - New Forum on Middle East Affairs - a weekly informal gathering, open to all, to discuss current affairs in the Middle East and related issues. Hosts: Professors Ted Swedenburg (Anthropology), Najib Ghadbian (Political Science) Joel Gordon (History). Time: Most Wednesdays throughout the Spring semester from 12:30-1: March 30, April 13, April 20, April 27, May 4. Place: Arkansas Union 308 (Food Court SW Meeting Room)

(diwan [dee-waan]: A gathering place/salon for literary or political discussion. Baghdad: Seat of the Abbasid Caliphate c. 750-1258 AD, capital of modern Iraq and cosmopolitan cultural center for much of 20th Century.)



APRIL 2, SATURDAY, CAT’S 25TH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION
Workshops during day, Awards Banquet 7pm www.catfayetteville.com CAT offers the people of NWA a mode of democratic speech. Support it with your money and your participation. Speak at Short Takes. Arrange a roundtable.

APRIL 2, Diversity Weekend Outdoor Festival in Eureka Springs. For the first time in Diversity Weekend history a festival will be open to EVERYONE, to include those couples with children. www.eurekapride.com



MEDIA WATCH

LINCOLN / PRYOR WATCH
Thank our senators for voting to raise the minimum wage from $5.15 to $7.25, which the Republicans voted down.

PRES. BUSH PICKS UN-HATER TO BE UN. AMBASSADOR

Report on John R. Bolton in TMN 3-9. You may wish to write our Senators.



PRYOR AND SAFETY

Our Senator Pryor has been named the top Democrat to a congressional panel that oversees consumer safety. Does he know his job? Does he have high safety standards, or only business norms based on the bottom line? Here’s something we can ask him about (among a hundred others):

Chemical Soup and Federal Loopholes
By Kelly Hearn, AlterNet. Posted March 11, 2005.
Toxic cosmetics ingredients were recently banned in the European Union. Here in the U.S., the $35 billion cosmetics industry is fighting a similar ban tooth and nail. Phthalates, the chemicals used in some cosmetics, may keep your nail polish hard and shiny and your tresses thick and glossy, but in animal tests they cause birth defects, disrupt hormone systems and lead to reproductive problems. Those are just a few of the reasons the European Union recently banned them. Now, despite a huge outcry from the $35 billion cosmetics industry, some California lawmakers are trying to ban phthalates in the U.S.



BOOZMAN WATCH AND CHURCH/STATE SEPARATION

The House approved a job-training bill that allows faith-based groups receiving federal funds to use religious beliefs as a basis for hiring—i.e. to discriminate on the basis of religion. Give the Congressman a call.



MILITARISM

See Common Dreams March 8 report on Senator Byrd equating Pres. Bush with Hitler.

And see: fascism 101, not a pretty picture

http://www.oldamericancentury.org/14pts.htm



GRASSROOTS MILITARISM

TMN 3-6: Photo and text on completion of the Veterans Wall of Honor—glorifying or at least accepting all veterans and ALL US WARS. Bella Vista now a center of monumental war-advocacy.

TMN 3-6: NWA Chapter of Sonsof the American Revolution meeting at Clarion Inn, which supports the National Cemetery and necessarily its constant enlargement. (It also helps enlarge and renovated the Confederate Cemetery. If militarism is like a body, then militarism is like capillaries in the US system.

TMN’S obsessive advocacy of war re-enactments continue (latest: 2 photos of “heroes” 3-6). One more facet of the military conditioning of our nation.

TMN 3-8 reported on Siloam Springs schools requiring Pledge of Allegiance during first class period each day. Another small drop of the toxin.

And another from TMN 3-11: new National Anthem Project has been launched to get the people of the US to learn "The Star Spangled Banner." And the National Association for Music Education is "leading the effort"!

TMN 3-9 Rep. John Boozman given another photo op by the newspaper for presenting another vet with another medal.

OMNI along with other supporters of liberty will meet soon on the escalation of zealous patriotic nationalism with its hardening toward dictatorship, to discuss our strategy for NWA.



FREE SPEECH TV ON CAT 3 to 9 am. Amy Goodman’s “Democracy Now” 7am.

Recent program from Canada’s National Film Board a global analysis of the unhealthy disposal of human wastes, including the USA. “Crapshoot: The Gamble with Our Wastes.”



A DEFENSE OF THE SOCIAL SECURITY TRUST FUND AND ARGUMENT AGAINST THE INVASION OF IRAQ
If the AARP wanted to fight fire with fire, it might respond with an ad showing Bush himself pledging to protect the Social Security Trust Fund during the 2000 campaign, vowing in 2001 to devote the entire $2.6 trillion budget surplus to shoring it up, then recently telling one of his captive, GOP-only "town-hall" audiences, in characteristically ungrammatical fashion, that no trust fund exists. "The money, payroll taxes going into the Social Security, are spent," Bush said. "They're spent on benefits and they're spent on government programs. There is no trust." Geezers being geezers, many also know that they've paid sharply increased payroll taxes since 1983 specifically to pay for the Baby Boomers' retirement. So if the money was spent, Bush himself spent it. Howard Dean puts it bluntly: "The truth is not one Republican president has balanced the budget
in almost 40 years. You cannot trust Republicans with your money."(excerpt from a Gene Lyons column in ADG)

FREE SPEECH TV (brought to you and paid for by OMNI)
Recent programs include two powerful programs on the environment and democracy: One a follow-up of the UN’s great Rio Earth Summit, the Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development. And “The Democratic Promise,” tracing the work of Saul Alinsky, political organizer for change, and author of Rules for Radicals and other books, and people influenced by his ideas and example. Also 2 videos on voting: “17” on the successful efforts of one community to lower voting age to 17, and a video on glbt electoral power, “Out of the Closet, Into the Booth.” A particularly powerful documentary was “Ramundo,” a bio of Ramundo Gleyzer, Argentinian filmmaker for social and political change. Only a few of the fine alternative views on FSTV shown 3 to 9 am.

“MILITARY MYTHS” A FILM ON MILITARY RECRUITING This is a powerful attack on US militarism, the lies of recruiting for US wars, and the training to kill in military basic training. Shown over FSTV. References: STAMP (Servicemenbers Legal Defense Network, www.rootsnet.org), Military Out of Our Schools, www.freespeech.org OMNI ought to have a vigorous NWA campaign on this. Volunteer to lead?

WHY PEOPLE HATE THE US GOVERNMENT
TMN 3-9: “The filing by Acting Solicitor General Paul Clement argues that it is President Bush’s decision, not the court’s, to determine whether the United States should comply with international law.”

THANKS FOR THE UN’S UNICEF
UNICEP is sponsoring a contest for the design of its holiday greeting cards, for children age 13 or younger, in pencil, pen, crayon, markers, or paints. The theme is “Happy Holidays.” Deadline is April 11. www.unicefusa.org

AETN FILM ON KAMINSKY’S PEACE FOUNTAIN April 14.
The film is called "Sphere of Influence" and is about Hank Kaminsky's process of making the Fayetteville Peace Prayer Fountain, located in front of the Fayetteville Town Center.