OMNI NEWSLETTER: EVENTS, ACTIONS, COMMENT
BUILDING A CULTURE OF PEACE April 25, 2005

APRIL 25, MONDAY, OMNI PATRIOT ACT(S) COMMITTEE MEETING

OMNI/UCM Sanctuary, 7 pm.



APRIL 25-26 SHORT TAKES AT CAT



APRIL 26, TUESDAY, OMNI FORUM ON BUSH ADMINISTRATION VERSUS SCIENCE. Giffels Auditorium, UofA, 7p.m. Prof. William Harter, Physics Dept., Moderator. Panelists include: Prof. Art Hobson, Darrell Henschell, Doug Krueger, and others. The Bush Admin. is subverting the scientific method and process.



APRIL 26, RALLY IN OPPOSITION TO THE PRIVATIZATION OF SOCIAL SECURITY

WHERE: The Federal Building at the corner of Mountain and College, Fayetteville

WHEN: 5:00p.m., Tuesday April 26, 2005

Please join others across the country on Tuesday, April 26 for events set to coincide with the Senate Finance Committee's first official hearings on Social Security privatization. The events also mark the close of the President's unprecedented, 60-day, multi-million dollar taxpayer financed tour to sell his privatization scam that ensures that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, and our country's deficit gets even larger. Melanie Dietzel NW Arkansas NOW



APRIL 27, NOW/OMNI PROMISE KEEPERS PLANNING MEETING

At Unitarian Fellowship 7pm



APRIL 28, 5pm, Fayetteville School Board Meeting on Censorship

Administration Bldng.



April 30 PEACE POLE PAINTING Party POSTPONED TO MAY 15 (International Conscientious Objectors Day)



APRIL 30, 11A.M., 13th Annual DOGWOOD WALK, GULLEY PARK

To benefit the Humane Society of the Ozarks. Registration begins 9a.m. Contact the Society at 413 N. College, 444-PETS.



REDFORD, WEDNESDAY, MAY 5, 8PM, BARNHILL ARENA, UA STADIUM DRIVE

Robert Redford Named Distinguished Lecturer for Spring 2005 Semester
Parking: Parking for the general public will be available in Lot 44, located at the corner of Razorback Road and Maple Street. Additional general parking will also be available in Lots 72 and 73, located on the west side of
Razorback Road.



MAY 7, OMNI’S 2ND ANNUAL JULIA WARD HOWE’S MOTHER’S DAY LUNCHEON

At Emilia’s on Dickson at 12 noon Saturday. All men and women attending are invited to give their thoughts about mothers and war and to tell about their mother’s views.



MAY 7, RAPID RESPONSE WRITERS, 12 NOON at Ozark Mt. Smokehouse on Dickson

Fran Free will speak.



JULY, MEETING TO PLAN CONGRESSIONAL ELECTIONS CAMPAIGN



FREE SPEECH TV

Recent documentaries: indigenous peoples, “Faces of Culture” (1994) from Venezuela’s biosphere preserve to a native group to U. S. fiddlers; “Western Eyes” from Nat. Film Bd. of Canada on Asian women’s efforts to assimilate into Western culture by changing their appearance; powerful indictment of WTO destructive of workers’ quality of life, from Activist Media Project (I missed the title); “Crapshoot: The Gamble with Our Wastes,” another important film about increasing global sewage pollution.



AETN on ENVIRONMENTAL VICTIMS

Has some good documentaries (as it was supposed to do when constituted by the Carnegie Commission back in the 1960s). “Journey to Planet Earth ‘Future Conditional,’” a future conditional on how we cope with toxic pollution. This doc. traces toxic pollution from the Arctic Inuit, to Mexican and San Diego communities, to Palm Springs and the Salton Sea (shrinking), and the Aral Sea (no more) in Uzbekistan, “the world greatest ecological disaster.”



OMNI INTERNS

Rachel Townsend-Moore, our first intern, worked on many projects in significant ways. Now Christopher Mikkleson is helping Dick organize his files, and has started making displays for our display board at UCM of comic strips on various subjects (e.g., treatment of animals). Related: Rachel Markham is helping organize on campus, and coordinated our volunteers for this SpringFest. Help recruit other interns.



OMNI CHAPTER AT UA

Prof. John King (jking@uark.edu ) student Kristen Blanch (arswtheart1985@aol.com) will organize a chapter of OMNI beginning this fall. Contact them or Dick.



BOOZMAN, LINCOLN, PRYOR WATCH

The Morning News every Sunday has a “Washington Roundup.” Congressman Boozman voted for the big oil and gas energy bill at the expense of renewable energy; voted to shield businesses that manufacture methyltertiary butyl ether from lawsuits (polluting groundwater in 29 states); voted for oil drilling in Alaska; voted against higher fuel economy standards which would have reduced the present average of 25 miles per gallon to 35 miles per gallon by 2015.



MEDIA WATCH: PBS

via Society of Professional Journalists: PBS scrutiny raises political antennas. Liberal commentator Bill Moyers is out of PBS stations. Buster the animated rabbit is under a cloud of suspicion. And right-wing yakkers from
the Wall Street Journal editorial page have been handed their own public-television chat show….Bush appointees currently control the majority of seats on CPB's eight-member board. Each board member serves a six-year term. Source: Paul Farhi, The Washington Post http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A8067-2005Apr21.html

INTERNATIONAL LAWS FOR PEACE/BOOZMAN, LINCOLN, PRYOR WATCH

Last year OMNI brought Ann Fagan Ginger here, from the Meiklejohn Civil Liberties Institute. Ginger strongly advocated the use of law for peace and justice. Here is an example—the application of the 1925 Geneva Convention on Chemical Weapons to oppose Depleted Uranium weapons. Tell our representatives Boozman, Lincoln, and Pryor your thoughts.
A Global Pact Against Depleted Uranium by Francis Boyle
During September of 2004 I launched an international campaign to conclude a global pact against depleted uranium (DU) munitions by having every state in the world officially and publicly take the position that the Geneva
Protocol of 1925 already includes within itself a flat-out prohibition on the use of DU in wartime, which they have no yet done. So far the United States is the only government in the world that uses DU munitions during
wartime. In addition to prohibiting "the use of bacteriological methods of warfare," the 1925 Geneva Protocol also prohibits "the use in war of asphyxiating, poisonous or other gases, and of all analogous liquids,
materials, or devices." Clearly DU is "analogous" to poison gas.[i] But we need every government in the world to legally and openly take that position. Then the entire world can pressure the United States to remove DU munitions from its arsenal.