| Progressive Calendar 05.03.09 | <– Date –> <– Thread –> |
From: David Shove (shove001 tc.umn.edu)
|
|
| Date: Sun, 3 May 2009 11:40:31 -0700 (PDT) | |
P R O G R E S S I V E C A L E N D A R 05.03.09
my server down for maintenance from 5am till now
1. Earth music 5.03 10:30am
2. Mayday parade/fest 5.03 12noon WAMM Bicking AWC RNC
3. Stillwater vigil 5.03 1pm
4. Peace vigil 5.03 3pm
5. Peace walk 5.04 6pm RiverFalls WI
6. Sustain 5.04 6:30pm
7. Colombia 5.04 7pm
8. Health vs HMO 5.04 7pm
9. The Guardian UK - France: May Day warning
10. Nadia Hijab - The Israel boycott is biting
11. Richard Rhames - Swine flu and the industrial meat gulags
12. ed - Swine flew over the cookoo's nest (religious haiku)
--------1 of 12--------
From: Carole Rydberg <carydberg [at] comcast.net>
Subject: Earth music 5.03 10:30am
On Sunday May 3, 10:30 a.m., the First Unitarian Society Orchestra,
Chorus, and Community Chorus,will both honor and mourn our relationship to
mother earth. From the beauty of Beethoven's "Pastoral" symphony, to the
heartbreak of Steve Heitzig's "The Wounded Fields," we will explore music
that depicts both the healing and destruction of our earth. The Chorus
will sing the beautiful St. Francis of Assisi prayer, "The Promise of
Living" from Copland's opera, "The Tenderland", and be joined by the FUS
Community Chorus for a rousing song of thanksgiving. Located at 900 Mt.
Curve, Minneapolis 55403. For more information, 612.377.6608. All are
welcome.
--------2 of 12--------
From: Women Against Military Madness <wamm [at] mtn.org>
Subject: Mayday parade fest 5.03 12noon
-1-
MayDay Parade and Festival: Walk with WAMM
Sunday, May 3, 1:00 to 8:00 p.m. Powderhorn Park, 15th Avenue and 35th
Street, Minneapolis. Join fellow members, volunteers, interns, and staff,
and walk with WAMM in the annual MayDay Parade. Gather at Cedar Field,
18th Avenue and 25th Street, Minneapolis (look for the yellow WAMM signs)
at Noon.
The parade will begin at 1:00 p.m. and end approximately two hours later
at Powderhorn Park, where a short ceremony will follow. Please be
respectful of participating organizations as well as this year's MayDay
theme "Our Common Treasury - Dig It." As we experience the failure of our
economic systems built on debt, consumer waste, the theft and sickening of
earth resources, we gather to rebuild an economic system that protects and
sustains our Earth as a "Common Treasury for All. Don't miss the WAMM
information booth at Powderhorn Park. Sponsored by: In the Heart of the
Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre. FFI: Visit www.hobt.org.
-2-
From: Dave Bicking <dave [at] colorstudy.com>
Subject: [M5DGP] Join Bicking campaign in May Day Parade!
I would love to have you join me in this Sunday's May Day Parade!
The Green Party will be having a contingent in the "free speech" section
of the annual parade. That is the section where groups of all types can
join in after the "story telling" section at the front of the parade,
with the big puppets, etc.
Within the Green Party section, I and supporters of my campaign will be
walking together with signs, stickers, or whatever, indicating our support
of the Bicking for City Council campaign. It would be great to have a
strong showing! This parade takes place entirely within my ward, Ward 9.
A lot of people from the neighborhood will be watching, and for many of
them it will be the first time they find out that I am running for City
Council this year. We would like them to see that our campaign is strong
and viable - which it clearly is. Please come to show YOUR support at one
of the best times of the year for visibility in the ward.
And come also because it is great fun, on a great day for the
neighborhood, for all of us, for the earth, for the celebration of the
inevitable yet marvelous return of Spring! Watching the parade is great,
but if you have never been in it, you haven't fully experienced the joy of
May Day. Please come, have fun, and let the neighbors know who you
support for City Council!
The details:
The May Day parade is an annual event, for over 30 years now, sponsored by
the Heart of the Beast puppet and mask theater. The parade starts at 1:00
from the park at 25th St. and 18th Ave. S. in the Phillips neighborhood of
south Minneapolis. Please come to that park between noon and 1pm to join
in, get a sign, and watch or talk with all the other people lining up.
Enjoy the puppets and the bands. A little after 1pm, we will head west to
Bloomington Ave., and the parade proceeds south to 34th St. and into
Powderhorn Park. It's a pretty easy walk, and it looks as though the
weather will be perfect this year.
Once at the park, there is a pageant to mark the return of the sun, about
3pm. All day at the park, there will be tables or booths for various
groups, as well as several stages for bands, and plenty of food vendors.
The Green Party will have its own table, and my campaign will be sharing
it. We'll have our literature there, and I will be at the table for part
of the afternoon, along with some campaign supporters. The festival
usually goes until 7pm, but could go later if the weather is great.
If you know ahead of time that you can come, and that you would like to
specifically march in support of my campaign, please email or call me to
let me know, so we can get an idea of how many signs we should bring. Not
necessary to reply ahead of time, though. Just come!
Details about the parade and the whole day are at: http://www.hobt.org
with a map of the route at: http://www.hobt.org/mayday/parade/route.html
I look forward to joining you in a celebration of spring and our earth,
and a celebration of a fresh alternative to politics as usual,
Dave Bicking 612-276-1213
-3-
From: Meredith Aby <awcmere [at] gmail.com>
Subject: [AntiWarMN] May Day Parade & upcoming events
Powderhorn Park May Day Parade
Sunday, May 3rd, Parade from 24th & Cedar over to Bloomington Ave and up
to Powderhorn Park, Festival @ Powerhorn Park, S. Minneapolis Want to
march with the Anti-War Committee? Come to Cedar and 24th at 12:30 pm and
look for the Foreclose the War banner. We'd love your help flyering the
crowd. You can also stop by our table in the park after the parade and
get a Don't Enlist, Resist! sticker. We hope to see you there! Date: Mon,
27 Apr 2009 18:51:27 -0700 (PDT)
-4-
From: info [at] rnc8.org
Subject: RNC 8 at the May Day Parade and Festival, May 3
The RNC 8 Defense Committee will be marching in the annual Heart of the Beast
May Day Parade! (Actually Sunday, May 3.) Meet at the parade lineup at Noon
at Cedar Field, 25th and Cedar Ave.; the parade itself begins at 1pm from
Bloomington and 26th Street and concludes at 34th Street and 15th Avenue.
Psst - make sure to get there in time to see who's at the front of the parade!
All day until 7pm, come visit the RNC 8 Defense Committee, CRASS and North Star
Health Collective at our tables in the park.
Powderhorn Park is roughly located between 31st and 35th Street and Bloomington
and Chicago Avenues in Minneapolis (look for the throngs of people!).
--------3 of 12--------
From: scot b <earthmannow [at] comcast.net>
Subject: Stillwater vigil 5.03 1pm
A weekly Vigil for Peace Every Sunday, at the Stillwater bridge from 1- 2
p.m. Come after Church or after brunch ! All are invited to join in song
and witness to the human desire for peace in our world. Signs need to be
positive. Sponsored by the St. Croix Valley Peacemakers.
If you have a United Nations flag or a United States flag please bring it.
Be sure to dress for the weather . For more information go to
<http://www.stcroixvalleypeacemakers.com/>http://www.stcroixvalleypeacemakers.com/
For more information you could call 651 275 0247 or 651 999 - 9560
--------4 of 12--------
From: Todd Heintz <proud2liveinjordan [at] yahoo.com>
Subject: Peace vigil 5.03 3pm
Peace Vigil May 3, 2009 3-4PM 3400 Logan Ave. N.
It is with great sadness, but also unwavering resolve to see peace
dominate our streets, that we invite you to take part in a PEACE vigil
held by the PEACE Foundation, MADDADS, neighbors and the family and
friends of Kyle Parker. Parker, a 19-year old, was gunned down in a
drive-by shooting while walking near his home in North Minneapolis on
Tuesday of this week. Kyle's murder was the cities' fourth this year.
Kyle Parker and his mother Janice Jim Gehrz, Parker Family PhotoKyle was
said to be a funny, vibrant young man who adored his 9-month-old baby and
girlfriend. He was a student at Minneapolis Community Technical College
and had dreams of becoming a rapper and businessman.
Tragically Kyle's death by gun violence was not the first his family has
had to endure. His mother's mentally challenged brother was also gunned
down in front of their home in 1995. It seems that his uncle's mistake was
that he didn't know he would be killed by members of a gang because of the
colors of a borrowed shirt he was wearing.
The PEACE Vigil will be held from 3-4PM at the place where Kyle was gunned
down, the 3400 block of Logan Ave. N. Please come and stand side by side
with those living, hoping and working for peace. Together our vision will
be realized!
-Todd Heintz, Jordan
--------5 of 12--------
From: Nancy Holden <d.n.holden [at] comcast.net>
Subject: Peace walk 5.04 6pm RiverFalls WI
River Falls Peace and Justice Walkers. We meet every Monday from 6-7 pm on
the UWRF campus at Cascade Ave. and 2nd Street, immediately across from
"Journey" House. We walk through the downtown of River Falls. Contact:
d.n.holden [at] comcast.net. Douglas H Holden 1004 Morgan Road River Falls,
Wisconsin 54022
--------6 of 12--------
From: Diana McKeown <dmckeown [at] greeninstitute.org>
Subject: Sustain 5.04 6:30pm
Metro Sustainability Roundtables
Join city staff, elected officials, citizens, and the Alliance for
Sustainability for your region's Sustainability Roundtable. Highlight
current initiatives in your city and learn about others' projects.
West Metro - Monday May 4, 6:30pm
Church of St. Patrick
6820 St. Patrick's Lane
Edina, MN 55439
South Metro - Thursday, May 7, 6:30pm
Eagan Community Center
1501 Central Pkwy
Eagan, MN 55121
--------7 of 12--------
From: Women Against Military Madness <wamm [at] mtn.org>
Subject: Colombia 5.04 7pm
Colombian Presentation by Michele Braley and Nils Dybvig
Monday, May 4, 7:00 p.m. Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, Fellowship Hall,
2730 East 31st Street, Minneapolis.
Michele Braley and Nils Dybvig recently returned from two years living and
working in Barrancabermeja, Colombia with Christian Peacemaker Teams
(CPT). Their talk focuses on the work of Colombian community organizers
resisting violence, the history and politics of the armed conflict in
Colombia, the impacts of U.S. foreign policy on Colombia, and changes that
can be made in U.S. foreign policy, particularly with regards to the
School of the Americas (SOA). Their presentation uses photos and stories
from their personal experiences. Endorsed by: WAMM.
--------8 of 12--------
From: Joel Albers <joel [at] uhcan-mn.org>
Subject: Health vs HMO 5.04 7pm
Help Solve the Health Care Crisis
planning mtg, mon May 4, 7PM
Walker Church (gallery in basement), 3104 16th Ave S, Mpls (1 block from
Lake Str and Bloomington Ave). call for directions.
plan direct Action at United Health Group HMO's Annual Shareholders
Mtg ,tues, June 2, 10am
suggested things needed in advance or at mtg:
-groups to endorse this demo
-share your health care horror story of HMO denying coverage,care.
-creative expression: art, music, puppetry, street skit .....
more info: joel [at] uhcan-mn.org 612-384-0973 Universal Health Care Action
Network - MN
--------9 of 12--------
France: May Day warning
Editorial
The Guardian UK)
May 2, 2009
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/may/02/leader-france-may-day-revolution-economic-crisis
When the former prime minister Dominique de Villepin warned that there was
a risk of revolution in France, it was not just because he wanted to make
life difficult for his arch-rival Nicolas Sarkozy. It was also because
social unrest is genuinely on the rise. Yesterday thousands of protesters
took to the streets - not as many as the millions who protested in March,
but this was a respectable turnout, considering that it was the third
national protest at the government's handling of the global downturn in
four months.
They are not just marching: universities have ground to a halt for three
months over attempts to rewrite the terms of employment contracts for
lecturers. There has been a wave of "bossnappings", where chief executives
arriving at plants to announce layoffs found themselves barred from
leaving. There have been commando-style "picnics" in supermarkets, where
people feast from shelves shouting "we will not pay for your crisis". The
protests are local and apparently spontaneous. Union officials find
themselves not so much leading the action as trying to head it off. In
five out of seven cases, bossnapping was used against foreign-owned
companies (Sony, Caterpillar, 3M) which are reputed to be more cavalier
about laying off workers than their French counterparts. Nor are strikes
mere stunts. They represent a widespread feeling that if the president can
pay billions to preserve the boss class, and their shares, he should do
the same to protect workers. Popular outrage at the banking bailout may be
similiar around the world, but it finds different forms of expression.
Barack Obama may have told AIG bosses that the White House was the only
thing standing between them and the pitchforks. But in France the feeling
is that the pitchforks are not just metaphorical.
International comparisons are deceptive, but on paper there is no glaring
reason why the outrage in France should be so much more acute. The public
deficit is high, but little more than half of Britain's. Nor is
unemployment so much higher, although it is climbing faster. France
entered the global turndown later than Britain, and fewer banks were in
trouble. Social protection, although under attack, is still substantially
more generous than in Britain.
The big picture, however, masks structural problems. France has one of the
highest rates of youth unemployment in the developed world, with about one
quarter of its 2.5 million unemployed under the age of 25. The truth is
that no government in Europe has the luxury of treating French, German or
Greek social unrest as a spectator sport. The breakdown in the social
compact, the gulf between promise and delivery, should concern everyone.
--------10 of 12--------
"When Companies Begin to Lose Money, They Start to Listen"
The Israel Boycott is Biting
By NADIA HIJAB
CounterPunch
May 1 - 3, 2009
On May 4, protesters will greet Motorola shareholders, already disgruntled
by the company's losses, as they arrive for their annual meeting at the
Rosemont Theater in Chicago, Illinois.
The protest, organized by the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation,
is part of a drive to "Hang Up On Motorola" until it ends sales of
communications and other products that support Israel's military
occupation of Palestinian land.
Inside the meeting, the Presbyterian, United Methodist and other churches
will urge shareholders to support their resolution, which calls for
corporate standards grounded in international law. Doing the right thing
could also reduce the risk of "consumer boycotts, divestment campaigns and
lawsuits."
Although Motorola executives deny it, such risks must have played a part
in their decision to sell the department making bomb fuses shortly after
Human Rights Watch teams found shrapnel with Motorola serial numbers at
some of the civilian sites bombed by Israel in its December-January
assault on Gaza.
The US protests are part of a growing global movement that has taken
international law into its own hands because governments have not. And,
especially since the attacks on Gaza, the boycotts have been biting. There
are three reasons why.
First, boycotts enable ordinary citizens to take direct action. For
instance, the New York group Adalah decided to target diamond merchant Lev
Leviev, whose profits are plowed into colonizing the West Bank. During the
Christmas season, they sing carols with the words creatively altered to
urge shoppers to boycott his Madison Avenue store.
The British group Architects and Planners for Justice in Palestine teamed
up with Adalah NY and others to exert public pressure on the British
government regarding Leviev. The British Embassy in Tel Aviv recently
cancelled plans to rent premises from Leviev's company Africa-Israel.
There are other results. Activists in Britain have targeted the
supermarket chain Tesco to stop the sales of Israeli goods produced in
settlements. In a video of one such action - over 38,000 YouTube views to
date - Welsh activists load up a trolley with settlement products and
push it out of the shop without paying.
All the while, they calmly explain to the camera just what they are doing
and why. They talk away as they pour red paint over the produce, and as
British Bobbies quietly lead them away to a police van.
The result of such consumer boycotts? A fifth of Israeli producers have
reported a drop in demand since the assault on Gaza, particularly in
Britain and Scandinavia.
The second reason boycotts are more effective is the visible role of
Jewish human rights advocates, making it harder for Israel to argue that
these actions are anti-Semitic.
For example, British architect Abe Hayeem, an Iraqi Jew, describes in a
passionate column in The Guardian exactly how Leviev tramples on
Palestinian rights, and warns Israeli architects involved in settlements
that they will be held to account by their international peers.
In the United States, Jewish Voice for Peace has led an ongoing campaign
to stop Caterpillar from selling bulldozers to Israel, which militarizes
them and uses them in home demolitions and building the separation wall.
The third, key, reason for the growing success of this global movement is
the determined leadership of Palestinian civil society. The spark was lit
at the world conference against racism in Durban in 2001. In 2004,
Palestinian civil society launched an academic and cultural boycott that
is having an impact.
In 2005, over 170 Palestinian civil society coalitions, organizations, and
unions, from the occupied territories, within Israel, and in exile issued
a formal call for an international campaign of boycott, divestment, and
sanctions (BDS) until Israel abides by international law. The call sets
out clear goals for the movement and provides a framework for action.
In November 2008, Palestinian NGOs helped convene an international BDS
conference in Bilbao, Spain, to adopt common actions. This launched a
"Derail Veolia" campaign. That French multinational corporation, together
with another French company, Alstom, is building a light railway linking
East Jerusalem to illegal settlements.
The light rail project was cited by the Swedish national pension fund in
its decision to exclude Alstom from its $15 billion portfolio, and by the
Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council in its decision not to consider
further Veolia's bid for a $1.9 billion waste improvement plan. There were
active grassroots campaigns in both areas.
Other hits: Veolia lost the contract to operate the city of Stockholm
subway and an urban network in Bordeaux. Although these were reportedly
"business decisions" there were also activist campaigns in both places.
The Galway city council in Ireland decided to follow Stockholm's example.
Meanwhile, Connex, the company that is supposed to operate the light rail,
is being targeted by activists in Australia.
The "Derail Veolia" campaign has been the movement's biggest success to
date. Veolia and its subsidiaries are estimated to have lost as much as
$7.5 billion.
As one of the BDS movement leaders, Omar Barghouti, put it, "When
companies start to lose money, then they listen." Perhaps governments will
too.
Nadia Hijab is a senior fellow at the Institute for Palestine Studies.
--------11 of 12--------
Swine Flu and the Industrial Meat Gulags
When Piggies Come Home to Roost
By RICHARD RHAMES
CounterPunch
May 1 - 3, 2009
"In 1965, for instance, there were 53 million US hogs on more than 1
million farms; today, 65 million hogs are concentrated in 65,000
facilities. This has been a transition from old-fashioned pig pens to vast
excremental hells, containing tens of thousands of animals with weakened
immune systems suffocating in heat and manure while exchanging pathogens
at blinding velocity with their fellow inmates".
--Mike Davis, The Guardian, 4/27/09
I met Piggy in the early eighties. She was in a pen on Ray Lemay's Poverty
Ledge Farm in the neighboring town of Arundel. Ray had a small dairy herd
of big-bagged Holstein cows. He'd convinced his dubious wife that he could
make a living raising/selling turkeys, feeder pigs, grain, and dairying.
He'd been a long-haul trucker, but he wanted to get off the road. Now he
was tied to a twice-daily milking schedule, barn chores, and dealing with
wannabe swineherds like me.
Ray had dabbled at pig-breeding for a few years, but this lot he was
selling was bought-in: 30-40 pound Yorkshire feeders. Long-bodied, white,
with upright ears, they were British "bacon-type" pigs, bred to convert
their feed into lean meat, as opposed to the traditional American hogs,
inclined to produce back fat aplenty for lard.
These animals were culls from a larger industrial operation. They featured
carefully selected genetic traits that assured rapid growth, with maximum
lean meat. But they, or their mothers had other traits that bigger
operations couldn't afford. They might have birthing ("farrowing")
problems, or, more commonly, slender leg bones. The pork "industry" was
then moving swiftly to the CAFO (confined animal feeding operation) model.
A CAFO pig spends its life standing on concrete, gnawing on the bars of a
steel pen, in a cavernous metal "barn," where the sun never shines, the
wind never blows, and birdsong is replaced by the hum of electric motors,
mingled with the shrieking of stressed captives. Pigs with thick leg bones
can better tolerate the day-to-day trauma of standing on concrete. Finer
bones mark a piglet for shipping. The CAFO existence would rapidly make it
a cripple and a cost.
I built what I called "the pig palace" out of rough-cut pine and recycled
tongue and groove, and erected a pen of youngish pitch pine poles. Piggy
took up residence, but a few days later Ray convinced me that she'd do
better with a companion - pigs are social animals after all. And so Ziggy
came to breathe Biddeford's storied air as well.
Over the summer they grew rapidly. Their ration was mostly bagged
"unmedicated" grain, sometimes amended to their boundless delight by "pig
potatoes," kitchen waste, vegetable culls, and (in the fall) apple "drops"
from a now-defunct Saco orchard. If I was late with the evening meal the
increasingly large porkers would rear up on their hind legs, front
trotters on the rail fence and bellow their disapproval. We had a deal,
after all.
Pigs, with, digestive systems similar to mans', have traditionally been a
useful part of world agriculture. It was a rare subsistence farm that
didn't have a pig or two on the place. In the American corn belt, pigs
were part of diversified operations back when farming paid.
"Mortgage-lifters" they were called. If corn prices were a little low some
years, the corn would be put through a quickly ramped-up hog herd with the
corn sold as pork on the hoof. It was a system that worked well, was
remarkably agile, and kept millions of profitable family farms on the
landscape. It had to go.
Ziggy had to go (into the freezer) that fall. But Piggy remained. There
was then, a research lab 20 miles down the road that was working on AI
(artificial insemination) of swine. It featured a herd of six classy boars
- Landrace, Yorkshires, Durocs. They were "trained to a dummy," and
would happily mount a properly scented, artificially (but pleasantly)
plumbed female facsimile, and after some zealous thrusting, spew a
piglet-batter emission into a waiting sterile reservoir. When your sow
came into "standing heat" you could call, name your preferred sire and
hours later, return with a thermos of semen/extender for your
estrus-addled piggy-mama. A pipette, a squeeze-bottle, and presto: Piglets
in the oven. My late father-in-law was richly amused at the method. He
never tired of laughingly referring to me as a "pig-f**ker". I've been
called worse.
Piggy and Gwen (a daughter from her first litter) stayed on as breeders.
While the thermos/pipette regime prevailed all was well. But the lab
closed. Trucking the sows to area boars led to them picking up some kind
of STD which made them infertile. Hopeful, I hung onto them longer than I
should have. At 500 pounds each they were big, expensive "pets". So ended
my fondly remembered interlude with pigs - the good kind.
The heartless, obscene, and supposedly efficient CAFO operations that
Piggy and Gwen never knew, have now become the metastasizing and
globalized model for raising meat animals. Imprisoned unnamed in their
hell-hole livestock cities, kept alive by constant infusions of
antibiotics, it seems that the suffering we humans have inflicted on
harmless creatures may now be partially returned.
Apparently these fetid manure/microbe industrial gulags have been
efficiently breeding, evolving, mutating exotic viral strains that now
easily jump species barriers, from bird, to swine, to man, and back again.
The Pew Research Center cautioned just last year that, "the continual
cycling of viruses .... in large herds or flocks (will) increase
opportunities for the generation of novel virus through mutation or
recombinant events that could result in more efficient human to human
transmission".
The reportedly emerging "swine-flu" pandemic currently freaking-out the
skittish American public may provide a teachable moment for passing
reflection.
Cheap and inhumanely produced food ultimately comes at a cost.
Richard Rhames is a dirt-farmer in Biddeford, Maine (just north of the
Kennebunkport town line). He can be reached at: rrhames [at] xpressamerica.net
--------12 of 12--------
Swine flu brought to you
courtesy of Rev Jim and
Tamiflu Baker
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- David Shove shove001 [at] tc.umn.edu
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