OMNI NEWSLETTER: EVENTS, ACTIONS, COMMENT


BUILDING A CULTURE OF PEACE

May 25, 2005

Building a peaceful and just culture is about building peaceful and just personal, gender, national, and ethnic relationships. We can help do that. As we take ownership of peace and justice by establishing them in permanent structures (countering commercial and military), others will follow – because it will be uplifting and empowering, it will be infectious, and lead to cultural change.

MAY 25, NOW MEETING, 6PM, FPL

WHERE: Blair Public Library, Corner of School and Mountain, Fayetteville

Promise Keepers: Equality Bashers produced by the National Organization for Women featuring Patricia Ireland, former National President of NOW. What are the myths and facts about the Promise Keepers, the Christian Men's Organization that will hold its National Rally in Razorback Stadium on June 11? Get information about an alternative event, Promise Us Equality, A Celebration of Diversity and Equality. This will be a family event at the Greek Theater on the U of A Campus on Saturday, June 11. For Info: Melanie Dietzel 442-8600 or melaniesd@sbcglobal.net

MAY 25 SIERRA CLUB The Ozark Headwaters Group OHG will meet this month on Wednesday, 25 May, 7:00 p.m., Powerhouse Seafood Restaurant . Frances Hime of West Fork will bring us up to date on their battle to keep a landfill off the White River.

MAY 31, 6pm, PATRIOT ACT MEETING

Local citizens question the Patriot Act.

– Patriots for Civil Liberties is preparing to present a Resolution to the Fayetteville City Council that expresses concern for certain provisions of the Patriot Act. Of over 1000 sections of the Act, a few sections are alarming limitations on the civil liberties of American citizens and other human beings. The framers of our Constitution understood well that centralized authority possesses a great danger to individual civil liberties. Portions of the Patriot Act have altered carefully balanced systems that have guarded American liberties for 226 years. The Coalition has decided to band together to inform Arkansans of these dangers, to encourage Congress to sunset those provisions that will expire in December, and also to talk about other provisions that endanger civil rights and liberties. Nationally, partners in this coalition represent a diverse spectrum of political thought, but all are deeply concerned at the erosion of American freedoms that the Act represents. Locally Coalition partners hope to encourage Fayetteville to join the 379 cities and 7 states who have already passed resolutions similar to the one we wish our City Council to consider.

On May 31 at 6:00 pm, PFCL invites other Fayetteville citizens, who are concerned about the limitations on our freedom, to a meeting at Blair Library. Information about the Patriot Act, and plans for the Fayetteville Resolution will be discussed. The Resolution and other information is on our website at northwest-ark.com/pfcl.

Patriots for Civil Liberties is a coalition that currently includes the Northwest Arkansas American Civil Liberties Union, OMNI Center for Peace Justice & Ecology, and the Arkansas National Organization for Women.


JUNE 1, WEDNESDAY, PROMISE KEEPERS PLANNING, OMNI, 6:30?

Contact Melanie Dietzel.


JUNE 4, Saturday, Janis Ian in Concert in Ft. Smith - 8pm
At the Performing Arts Center. A portion of the show proceeds will benefit the Ft. Smith Crisis Center for Women. From the release of her 1966 song "Society's Child" at age 15, a song of interracial love that was banned by radio stations, to her 1975 song "At Seventeen" that sold over a million copies, to her 2000 release "God and the FBI", Janis Ian has maintained an integrity and honesty in her music spanning across five decades and earning her 9 Grammy nominations. (from Martha Lindsay)


JUNE 11, DIVERSITY AND EQUALITY FAIR

JUNE 11 Diversity and Equality Fair, June 11th, 10am-3pm- Save the date! Promise Me Equality is proud to sponsor this multi-cultural gathering to celebrate diversity and equality. Come out for live music, performances, and other family friendly activities. If you or your group would like to participate, please email liviap@prodigy.net by June 1st. Bring your own table or we can provide for $5.


JUNE 27-JULY 1, ONE-WEEK workshop at Indiana U, "Hiroshima and Nagasaki for College Teachers." Workshop details at http://titan.iwu.edu/~physics/Hiroshima.html This year, 2005, is the 60th year after 1945.


FILM AND MUSIC ABOUT THE OCCUPATION OF IRAQ

http://www.bushflash.com/y2.html


OMNI’S PEACEWRITING AWARDS

Winner David Krieger’s collection of poetry, “Today Is Not a Good Day for War,” received high praise in a review published by Tacenda Literary Publications.


OMNI’S NEW FRONT LICENSE PLATE

Our new, very attractive license plate (using Gregs design for our brochure) has arrived and is for sale for $12. For those of you whose lives are too busy to actively work for peace and justice, this is a way that takes not more time than attaching the plate. Contact Pippin Lowe.


OMNI’S NEW CRITICAL THINKING AWARDS BROCHURE

From Judy Horne, who designed the brochure: “ I delivered printed brochures to Carolyn Griffith at FHS on Wednesday morning [5-18]. She was going to get them into teacher mailboxes. Hopefully, they are now in the teachers' hands! I have a few left and will get them to you soon.… I am looking for some thicker paper so I can print them on an "as needed" basis and save LOTS of money.” The brochures are very handsome (using Greg’s design from OMNI’s brochure). And Judy paid for the entire printing cost. Thank you!


VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN

The NAT May 14 “Court Briefs” gave accounts of at least 6 attacks on women (some of the violent events were not specified): domestic battery, brandishing a knife, kill his girlfriend, etc. Perhaps OMNI has a mission to create a coalition of all organizations opposing violence: identify all, make a directory, organize a summit. You?


FBI/PATRIOT ACT WATCH

Don’t miss the essay by Dan Thomasson in TMN 5-25, “Fearsome Proposals Boost FBI Power.” “…the most frightening prospect for Americans is an unfettered national police force….” Thank TMN. Send copy to city councilmembers, the police chiefs, and other civic leaders. Combined with portions of the Patriot Act, “the over-reactive proposals are as fearsome as the threat of another al Qaeda attack.”


BOOZMAN WATCH (202-225-4301)

John Boozman, R, Congressman Ark 3rd District received $15,000 from Tom Delay's Pac for Republican Majority, and voted with DeLay 96.54 % of the time. However, he made no contributions to DeLay's defense fund.

http://www.pcactionfund.org/delayspocket/ (from Larry Woodall)

Oppose Politicizing Houses of Worship
Keep houses of worship from becoming partisan political rally halls! H.R. 235, sponsored by Rep. Walter Jones (R-NC), would turn the inner sanctuaries and pulpits of America’s houses of worship into partisan
political rally halls. (from Wanda Stephens and Adella Gray)

MEDIA WATCH

NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO, PBS STILL TURNING RIGHTWARD

A former student of mine forwarded me an article on “A Battle Over Programming at National Public Radio” (NYT May 16). The battle began at the creation of the public system. My “The Public Broadcasting System” ( Journal of Popular Film & Television, Summer 1987) described the promise and failures of public broadcasting since the publication in 1979 of A Public Trust by the Carnegie Commission on the Future of Public Broadcasting. Then the battle was mainly over TV, now it’s radio. The right wing controllers have connived, worked, and spent far more than did those who wanted a public broadcasting in the public interest, marshaled in the interest of human development. But it is not too late to challenge the rightists and turn back to the Carnegie Commission’s democratic, public service public broadcasting. Contact Boozman, Lincoln, Prior.


May 17 on C-SPAN Bill Moyers gave a powerful speech entitled "Politics and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting" at the National Conference for Media Reform in St. Louis. On right-wing take-over of the media.

www.freepress.net/news/8120; www.C-SPAN.org.

MEDIA ACTION: NPR

From Carl Barnwell: Everyone please sign this Free Press petition calling for the resignation of Corporation for Public Broadcasting Chairman Kenneth Tomlinson and the creation of town hall meetings nationwide to put the 'public' back into public broadcasting. www.freepress.net/action/pbs

To learn more about building a public broadcasting system that deserves public support, read "A New Standard," the recent report from Free Press, Common Cause, Consumer Federation of America, Consumers Union, and Media Access Project at www.freepress.net/docs/pbs_report.pdf.

MEDIA WATCH: Bill of Media Rights

The Bill of Media Rights was conceived and drafted collaboratively by a number of national and local media reform organizations around the United States during the winter of 2004-2005. The document provides a foundational list of key principles and values--consistent with the First Amendment and the regulatory concept of the "public interest"--which must underlie all contemporary debates concerning media and communications policy. Organizations are invited to sign on as supporters of the bill before its official launch this spring. The full text of the Bill of Media Rights can be found at the following website: http://www.reclaimthemedia.org/pages.php?node=05/03/09/6383734 from Carl


MEDIA WATCH: DTV

(also from Carl) The Media Policy Program of the Campaign Legal Center today released groundbreaking new research detailing how digital television broadcasters are failing to live up to their promises to serve the public interest, despite having received additional spectra (aka “airwaves”) for free. The new study is titled “Broken Promises: How Digital Broadcasters Are Failing to Serve the Public Interest”:

http://www.campaignlegalcenter.org/attachment.html/Broken+Promises.pdf?id=1379.)

Congress is currently considering digital television (DTV) legislation that will determine the rules for how the transition from analog to digital spectrum will proceed. Now is the time to let House Commerce Committee Chairman Joe Barton (R-TX) and Ranking Member John Dingell (D-MI) know that they should include provisions in the DTV bill to ensure that broadcasters live up to their statutory public interest obligations. Specifically, urge Chairman Barton and Representative Dingell to include a quantifiable, minimum number of hours of programming on local civic and electoral affairs in their DTV legislation. This minimum number of hours should at least meet the current statutory standards for children's programming which is three hours per week. The bill should also make clear that broadcasters do not have the right to require cable stations to carry their new digital signals if they don't commit to these minimum standards.

Visit http://capwiz.com/bettercampaigns/issues/alert/?alertid=7634826&type=CA today to tell Congress to make sure broadcasters keep their promises!


EXTRA! Published by FAIR. FAIR publishes a magazine and a newsletter about media bias and censorship. Well worth the price, and supporting such magazines supports investigative journalists.


THEOCRACY WATCH: CHURCH STATE SEPARATION, FIRST AMENDMENT

Mark Lilla. “Church Meets State.” NYT BOOK REVIEW(May 15, 2005), p. 39: “The leading thinkers of the…Enlightenments hoped that life in a modern democratic order would shift the focus of Christianity from a faith-based reality to a reality-based faith. American religion is moving the opposite direction today….If there is anything David Hume and John Adams understood, it is that you cannot sustain liberal democracy without cultivating liberal habits of mind among religious believers. That remains true today, both in Baghdad and in Baton Rouge.”


2005 BARBARA MANDIGO KELLY PEACE POETRY AWARDS

To encourage poets to explore visions of Peace and the Human Spirit. Deadline July 1. www.wagingpeace.org


TACENDA LITERARY PUBLICATIONS

Helps “promote writers that aare dedicated to social justice issues, peace, abolishing the nuclear weapons programs, the environment, and the concept of ‘environment for the arts, and afdts for the environment.’” Editor, Penny Lynn Dunn, welldunn77@yahoo.com


Published on Monday, May 16, 2005 by CommonDreams.org

BUY YOUR GAS AT CITGO

Buy Your Gas at Citgo: Join the BUY-cott! by Jeff Cohen

Looking for an easy way to protest Bush foreign policy week after week? And an easy way to help alleviate global poverty? Buy your gasoline at Citgo stations. And tell your friends.

Of the top oil producing countries in the world, only one is a democracy with a president who was elected on a platform of using his nation's oil revenue to benefit the poor. The country is Venezuela. The President is Hugo

Chavez. Citgo is a U.S. refining and marketing firm that is a wholly owned subsidiary of Venezuela's state-owned oil company. Money you pay to Citgo goes primarily to Venezuela -- not Saudi Arabia or the Middle East. There are 14,000 Citgo gas stations in the US. (Click here http://www.citgo.com/CITGOLocator/StoreLocator.jsp to find one near you.) By buying your gasoline at Citgo, you are contributing to the billions of dollars that Venezuela's democratic government is using to provide health care, literacy and education, and subsidized food for the majority of Venezuelans.


YOUTH ASSISTING OMNI: ARCHIVES

Christopher Mikkelson is helping organize Dick’s OMNI’s archives at Dick’s home. Christopher has performed at Open Mic several times; he is preparing a cartoon display on toleration and on sympathy for animals for our BB at UCM; and he is one of OMNI’s Young Video Producers.


CORPORATE/WAL-MART WATCH: WHISTLEBLOWERS

You and I are the front line of an honest democracy. Investigative reporters and whistleblowers offer important support. Follow the case of Jared Bowen vs. Wal-Mart, whistleblower on fired former Vice Chairman Tom Coughlin (see Wed. May 25 TMN 1D). Bowen was also fired, and is suing Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart denies he was the whistleblower and accuses him of helping Coughlin.


OMNI SEEKS A WORLD FREE OF WAR AND THE THREAT OF WAR, A SOCIETY WITH LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL, A COMMUNITY WHERE EVERY PERSON’S POTENTIAL MAY BE FULFILLED, AN EARTH RESTORED. WORLD PEACE, HUMAN RIGHTS, SOCIAL JUSTICE, ENVIRONMENTAL STEWARDSHIP. Thanks to FCNL and AFSC.