OMNI Blog


Changes in a Good Direction

Changes in a Good DirectionIntroducing Alex and Rachel Alex Tripodi has been a member of Omni Board of Directors for over two years now. Maybe you remember the story of how his workplace closed down when covid started and he founded MayDay Community Kitchen for his own sanity and to feed others who were struggling. At the time, Alex told us “Peace will look different in the world my generation is facing. We need to think about how we do our work differently because if my generation is going to be part of this, they’ll want to see practical results.” […]


Birthing Omni 20 Years Ago – some of the people who did it

The story’s been told before about how Dick Bennett and his friend Dana Copp retired in 1999 and wondered what they should do next with their passion for peace.  Around somebody’s kitchen table they pondered the idea of a peace center like the old Peace Center on Dickson Street that organized protests about the Vietnam War and subsequent social issues. Dick started an email newsletter and scheduled public talks and Dana went to visit the United Campus Ministries chaplain on Maple street and convinced him to allow them office space in their big basement. He also scrounged office furniture and an already-ancient […]


Update on the Tiffany property after the first hearing

Gladys Tiffany, Director Omni Center for Peace Justice & Ecology Dec 20 2024 The first real hearing on the first lawsuit – the SZ Apartments against us – about the fate of the old white house and the people living in it, happened Tuesday before last. We worked very hard to prepare for it and felt like we had solid evidence to support our claims that the house is not the source of crime and mess it may have seemed to be before the homeless camp closed. But at the hearing, the charges had shifted to it being a potential fire […]


OMNI WAR WATCH WEDNESDAYS, #208, DECEMBER 18, 2024

Compiled by Dick Bennett     https://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2024/12/omni-war-watch-wednesdays-208-december.html WARRINGMatthew Ehret Insights.  “Which Foreign Policy Paradigm for the USA? Hegemony and Annihilation or Restoration of Sanity?”  TRANSCEND Media Service.  10 Dec 2024. Compared to the great initiatives of the past 260 years, the USA of the past several decades is a strange and foolish creature running roughshod over the dignity of people and nations in a race for mass nuclear extermination. PREVENTING WARSTHE NUCLEAR RESISTER (Nov. 12, 2024). This number reports on resisters jailed from California to New Hampshire.  A day- by- day record of the US and Canadian protesters of the genocide in Gaza […]


OMNI CLIMATE MEMO MONDAYS #209, DECEMBER 16, 2024

Compiled by Dick Bennett  https://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2024/12/omni-climate-memo-mondays-209-december.html PLANET OVER PROFITPOP is a youth-led climate justice group building people power and using direct action to take on the fossil fuel industry and put Planet Over Profit. Fossil fuel companies – and the banks and asset managers that finance them – are driving us off the cliff of climate collapse.    The wealthiest 1%, with their dirty investments and private jets and yachts, rob us of a livable future while ordinary people struggle to make ends meet and survive.   If our so-called “leaders” won’t act on climate, it’s on us to hold them accountable and reclaim […]


OMNI WAR WATCH WEDNESDAYS, #207, DECEMBER 11, 2024

Compiled by Dick Bennett  https://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2024/12/omni-war-watch-wednesdays-207-december.html  Resisting Militarism, Wars, and Empire GEORGE ORWELL AWARDS from the NATIONAL COUNCIL OF TEACHERS OF ENGLISH [Everyone should read Orwell’s 1984, and everyone connected professionally or indirectly to the study of LANGUAGE and POLITICS should be promoting the NCTE awards.   Maybe I’m talking about everybody.–Dick]This award recognizes people who have made notable contributions to the critical analysis of public discourse. The National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) has given out this award since 1975. Wars and other dysfunctions are planned,  started, and sustained by deception by language manipulation.  The award is given to an author, editor, […]


OMNI CLIMATE MEMO MONDAYS #208, DECEMBER 9, 2024

Compiled by Dick Bennett https://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2024/12/omni-climate-memo-mondays-208-december.html More Books from “Ecosocialist Bookshelf”Articles from Climate and Capitalism MORE BOOKS FROM “Ecosocialist Bookshelf, September 2024.”  September 2, 2024.   Climate change silently accumulates a thousand tiny conflagrations, increasing health risks for billions of people, reducing productivity and amplifying inequality in a host of ways. Rob Jackson.  INTO THE CLEAR BLUE SKY: The Path to Restoring Our Atmosphere.  Simon & Schuster.  Jackson, chair of the Global Carbon Project, argues that we must not only slash emissions, but also repair the damage by removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.  Restoring the atmosphere means reducing the amount of greenhouse […]


OMNI SOVIET/RUSSOPHOBIA ANTHOLOGY #5

COMPILED BY DICK BENNETT FOR A CULTURE OF PEACE, JUSTICE, AND ECOLOGY https://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2024/12/omni-sovietrussophobia-anthology-5.html What’s at Stake:  The search for the truth.   I watch detective mysteries on PBS especially for their appreciation of the human intellect and scrupulous ethics.  All present the search,  not for an alternative reality, as the W. Bush administration claimed proudly for itself, but for the truth to be discovered.  The latest Hercule Poirot drama, “Sad Cypress,” recounted the story of a young woman accused of premediated murder.  Under British law, she was innocent until proven guilty, and had been permitted to hire a skilled lawyer to […]