Wally noted two things from Danny Schechter's News Dissector for yesterday. First:
PACIFICA RADIO TO AIR IRAQ FORUM IN CONGRESS
David Swanson writes:I'll be co-hosting with Verna Avery-Brown of Pacifica Radio, a live broadcast on Pacifica from 8:30-11 a.m. ET on Thursday, April 27, of a forum on Capitol Hill hosted by Congresswomen Lynn Woolsey and Barbara Lee.
Second:
SCHEDULE
Thanks for tuning in. I will be speaking in Boston at Emerson College on Friday at 7 PM. The film The Jihadi and the Journalist which I worked on opens at the Tribeca Film Festival on the 27th, and South African Broadcasting’s SABC 1 airs on April 26th on SABC 1 at 9 PM. Amandla!
that's from c.i.'s entry this morning. elaine had wanted to include it tonight when she was posting, but she forgot. she's rushing to get packed and i told her just get packed and go grab whatever you need at the store (we're all going to nyc for the protest this weekend), i'll cover it. i also said i'd call kat and she's always a good sport and great friend so she said 'just tell me what to post' when i told her i had a favor to ask if she was posting tonight.
mike's advocating (tonight and prior) that at the next protests, people start taking a guest with them, someone who hasn't been before, because we have to grow the movement and if every 1 who participates took just 1 person with them, we'd have amazing turnouts and more word of mouth after the protests. so i'm taking my grandmother (who was thrilled to be asked) and, of course, fly boy (who went to the november protests). who are you taking? think about and try to find someone to include and to do things in your area. you can start your own activity if you don't have anything in your area or if, as is the case with some of my younger readers, your parents see protests as being as dangerous as a who concert. (older readers get that but younger readers are going 'who?')
c.i. noted this last week and i said i'd note it today, it's from now:
Join NOW at the March for Peace, Justice & Democracy
On April 29, NOW will be joining with other women's rights organizations, the peace movement, environmental groups, civil rights, labor, and religious communities to march for peace, justice and democracy. Women's organizations will meet at 20th Street and Broadway.
i know codepink and united for peace and justice are participating and a lot of others. it's a big tent, welcome to all. now does great work (all the groups do) and i love kim gandy - even more now that she and now seem the only 1s willing to fight for our reproductive rights.
here's a list of some of the groups participating:
United for Peace and Justice
Rainbow/PUSH Coalition
National Organization for Women
Friends of the Earth
U.S. Labor Against the War
Climate Crisis Coalition
People's Hurricane Relief Fund
National Youth and Student Peace Coalition
Veterans For Peace
marcia e-mailed this from the advocate, "Kentucky governor agrees to fund Baptist college that expelled gay student:"
Kentucky governor Ernie Fletcher cut $370 million from the state budget, but spared $11 million for a proposed pharmacy school at a private Baptist college in southeastern Kentucky that recently expelled a student for being gay. The Republican governor said he is using his line-item veto power to reduce the level of debt in the $18.1 billion budget."I will not criticize any of the projects which the legislature selected," Fletcher said in a televised budget address Monday evening. "But to reduce the level of debt, we must reduce the number of projects."Fletcher said he would not veto funding for a proposed pharmacy school at the University of the Cumberlands, the private Baptist college in Williamsburg that became the center of debate in state capital Frankfort earlier this month after administrators expelled an openly gay student. Fletcher said he based that decision on the fact that the $10 million for construction and $1 million for scholarships for the proposed project came from coal severance taxes paid by coal companies, not by individual taxpayers in the state.
oh, okay, as long as the tax money (public funds) came from this, but not that. here's a suggestion. you don't want medicaid to pay for abortions (it doesn't), then i don't want any tax money used to promote homophobia. that's what's going on. a college that is private and can do whatever it wants as a private college, also wants to get public monies. not when you discriminate.
that's disgusting. the same sort of crap happened in this country last century. only then our 'good christians' were using their fundy religions to bash african-americans and deny them their rights. when i see all the efforts to go 'big tent' (really to push out abortion, gay issues and the bedrock out of the tent) and see some of the wack jobs invited in, it irritates the hell out of me.
i was glad that katha pollitt called jim wallis on his anti-choice stance but really ticked off that it was only her because she wasn't the 1 pushing jim wallis all over the pages of the nation.
now let's talk pacifica radio's flashpoints (you can hear tonight's episode there, at the pacifica link or at kpfa's archives for thursday). i'm not ruth. she has a steno pad and knows shorthand. i'm likely to grab the envelope containing a bill off the coffee table and jot down a few sentences on the back of it. robert knight did his knight report and it was a humorous look at bully boy making 'an honest man' out of tony snow. snow is going to be the new white house press secretary. he's whored for the administration for years, hence bully boy making an honest man out of him. (knight didn't use the word 'whore,' i am.) there was a focus on the immigration issue and the upcoming may 1st activities (that's monday). i was asked by sherry where i fell on this. i know that some don't approve of the national day of protest (where people don't go to work and don't purchase anything). that's their right. myself, i support it. (the people who don't approve, that i'm speaking of, don't approve of that action but approve of making your voice heard in support of immigrant rights.) i'll be honoring it. t's closing her shop for monday. that's a loss for her. but she says, 'if people hadn't helped african-americans in the 50s and 60s, jim crow might still be around. it's my obligation and honor to help immigrants in any way i can and knowing that most people won't make it's all the more important for those of us who can to do so.'
dennis bernstein interviewed lynn duff who is a reporter for pacific news service and a flashpoints correspondent. (see, give me time, i will learn names.) (sherry listened online and said that the woman yesterday is identified at the show's site as 'marcy' so it's with a 'y' and not 'ie'.) duff, a former student of bernstein's - see, i do listen - was reporting on haiti including the fact that run off elections have taken place and the media isn't very interested in the topic. more importantly victims of the us backed coup, which took place on 2-29-04, are emerging. (including 1 man who had his hands chopped off.) but the press, mainstream/corporate, isn't interested in these stories. then ruth's favorite, michael ratner came on to discuss donald rumsfeld. ccr (center for constitutional rights) attempted to bring rumsfeld to trial in germany but the german court took the position that the us courts or administration might address the issue (apparently that was the german court's attempt at stand up). they are going to bring charges again (i believe he said this fall). the 2 issues at stake are the war crimes statute and the torture statute. he feels that the war crimes statute has obviously been violated and that new details emerging reveal more and more of rumsfeld's role in torture.
so that was flashpoints and tomorrow night i'll just be noting thursday's show since i've noted it all week. friday, i will be in nyc and will not be able to catch it. i'm not sure yet about blogging on friday. if i do skip, i'll probably have something up on monday.
