March on Washington D.C. Sept 14-16

This is an email notice I'm passing on to you.

Dear Friends,

We are only 10 days from the deadline to submit payment to the bus company for the trip to Washington, D.C. to march on the Capitol on the weekend of Sept. 14-16. If you have any interest at all in going, please respond to this e-mail. It would be a fantastic step in service of peace for Iowa to be represented at this protest which the Justice Department and the city of Washington, D.C. are trying to repress by threatening ANSWER with thousands of dollars in fines for simply putting posters up throughout the city. Whether FOX news believes it or not, this is an affront to the right to express dissent and petition our government for a redress of grievances. If you want more information on this attempt to stifle the anti-war movement, check out this link on ANSWER's website: http://answer.pephost.org/site/PageServer?pagename=ANS_homepage

If I may say one other thing, it is that this trip will be a great opportunity to support veterans and GIs who are standing up to the intimidation of the White House, the Pentagon, and the Congress by taking part in the die-in on the Capitol steps. We can stand in solidarity with them to resist the war-mongers as they reassure the public with happy talk and spin about how progress is being made, and that the military is on the verge of securing Baghdad, while in the mean time planning to continue this occupation long enough to get control of Iraqi oil and bomb Iran. Now is the time for us to work all the harder to show the powerful that the people will not be silenced.

Admittedly, it is a tough decision to pay money and rearrange your lives in order to go, but nevertheless we encourage you to do it, to do your part to end this criminal and corrupt policy. If you are unable to make it, please consider supporting the trip with a small donation.

Below this message is more detailed information about the trip. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask them. Thank you for considering this, and we hope to hear from you soon.

Sincerely,

Susan Junis and Tim Gauger
319-541-1684 319-936-2307
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The basic details of the trip are the following:

1) Cost = $100; Checks should be mailed to: Brian Shearer, 603 South Dubuque Street, Apt. 110, Iowa City, IA 52240. Please include "D.C. Bus Trip" on the memo line. If you know someone who would be willing to donate money to the trip, please encourage them to do so. Any donations can also be sent to Brian Shearer at the above address. Deadline for payment is AUGUST 31.
2) Departure from Iowa City = Friday, Sept. 14, 11am from the Wal-Mart parking lot on HWY 1 in Iowa City.
3) Arrival in Washington, D.C. = Saturday, Sept. 15 in the morning for the march and rally.
4) Departure from D.C. = Saturday evening, probably around 9pm.
5) Arrival back in Iowa City = Sunday afternoon, Sept. 16.

The most important thing to do now is this: spread the word. Forward this e-mail. Talk to family, friends, acquaintances, veterans, active-duty military servicemembers, high school or college student groups, social justice organizations, peace-friendly businesses, church groups, media outlets--anyone at all who would be even remotely interested in helping us. Write letters to your newspapers, or call in to radio shows to get the word out.

Check out our pages on MySpace and Facebook and invite all of your friends to them.
To find the event on MySpace, go to "Events" and do a keyword search by "Protest" with the category set as "Politics and Action" and the zip code set as "52240".
The Facebook event is "I.C. to D.C. Bus Trip".

Update on AT&T's "mistake" in muting anti-bush Pearl Jam lyrics

Earlier I posted about AT&T leaving out anti-bush lyrics from a live webcast of Pearl Jam's performance at Lollapalooza. AT&T has said that is was a mistake made by an employee of a company they had contracted to run the webcast. So, I wanted to share this story I came across...

Crew Member Asserts Previous AT&T Show Had ‘No Politics’ Policy
by Eliot Van Buskirk
found on freepress.net website

Debbie Almontaser resigns

Debbie Almontaser was going to be the principal of the new Khalil Gibran International Academy. This public school's focus is Arab language and culture.

Debbie Almontaser was criticized for her explanation of the meaning of 'intifada'. She was asked about this meaning from a student referring to a shirt reading "Intifada NYC".

To read/watch/listen to an overview of what happened and interviews with Paula Hajar and Mona Eldahry by DemocracyNow!, please click here.

Mona Eldahry is a co-founder of AWAAM, the group that distributed the controversial T-shirts.

How much energy are you getting from the gas you are buying?

An article titled, "When Consumers feel the Heat, Big Oil makes Cold Cash" by Brian Beutler explains how America's oil consumers are getting ripped-off.

This article starts,

"It's probably intuitive to most people that the gasoline in their fuel tank expands in the heat—just like doorframes and cookware and everything else on the planet. What's probably less intuitive is that, in the United States, this physical phenomenon pumps a nearly $2 billion annual windfall out of consumers' pockets and into oil company coffers, according to numerous calculations, including a recent House of Representatives study... (more) "

Public Opinion of News Media

Click here to read a short article titled, "Poll — Public Sees News Media as Biased, Inaccurate, Uncaring".

To view the Pew Research Center's Summary of findings from this survey, click here.

Sign the petition to reinstate Ward Churchill

I wanted to draw your attention to this important petition that I recently signed:
"Reinstate Ward Churchill"
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/reinstatewardchurchill?e

I really think this is an important cause, and I'd like to encourage you to add your signature, too. It's free and takes less than a minute of your time.

Thanks!

Unsure who Ward Churchill is... check out

*Ward Churchill Solidarity Network (This site deals with the lead-up to him being fired)

*Listen/Watch/Read an interview with Ward on Democracy Now!

*Also, Ward Churchill has written many books, including

• On the Justice of Roosting Chickens : reflections on the consequences of U.S. imperial arrogance and criminality
• Acts of Rebellion: The Ward Churchill Reader
• Perversions of Justice : Indigenous Peoples and Angloamerican Law
• The COINTELPRO papers : documents from the FBI’s secret wars against dissent in the United States
• Agents of Repression : the FBI’s secret wars against the Black Panther Party and the American Indian movement
• A little matter of genocide : holocaust and denial in the Americas, 1492 to the present

These are just a few... check it out!

National Conference for Media Reform 2008!!!!

National Conference for Media Reform 2008 will be held in Minneapolis from June 6-8.

To sign up for NCMR '08 updates, click here.

Media consolidation and changes in media laws affect the quality of information consumers get everyday. A great way to get informed and get ideas on how to make change in the media environment is to view the archives for the National Conference for Media Reform in Memphis, Tennessee. I attended the conference and it was very informative!! A lot of the workshops and speeches are available online.

Some of my favorite workshops:

*Inside Corporate Media: Can it Tell the Truth?
Moderator: Phil Donahue
Jeff Cohen, TV host, author, Cable News Confidential
Juan Gonzalez, NY Daily News
Flavia Colgan, MSNBC and Philadelphia Daily News
Laura Washington, Chicago Sun-Times and In These Times

*Media Scholars' Policy Research Review
Moderator: Bob McChesney, Free Press, Univ. of Illinois
Michael Delli Carpini, Univ. of Pennsylvania
Susan Douglas, Univ. of Michigan
Larry Gross, Univ. of Southern California
Allen Hammond, Santa Clara Univ.
Marty Kaplan, Univ. of Southern California

*Media Policy is a Civil Rights Issue
Moderator: Mark Lloyd, Leadership Conference on Civil Rights
Juan Gonzalez, New York Daily News and Democracy Now!
Kim Gandy, National Organization for Women
Karen Peltz Strauss, American Association of People with Disabilities
Rev. Timothy McDonald, African American Ministers Leadership Council

AT&T omits some lyrics from Pearl Jam "live" webcast

With media consolidation happening everyday, what kind of content will be fed to the consumer? Will we get what we think we are getting? What will dictate what information or performances are accessible? Will we be given information and be allowed to come to our own conclustions, or will the way that we are "supposed" to process the news be told to us? Not all of these questions directly come out of what this post is about, but I think they are all relevant questions in a world of private/corporate media domination.

Over the weekend many people attended the Lollapalooza music festival. For those unable to make it, AT&T sponsered a webcast of some performances. Pearl Jam's performance was included, but not all of their performance was heard.

Read a statement by Pearl Jam about what happened.

Read a Chicago Tribune article here.

AT&T has made a statement on their website about the "omission". I hate to send you to AT&T's site because then they are getting more users on their site, but it is important to read the statement for yourself.

To read more articles about this incident and get more information about "Big media", click here. This link also includes another article about AT&T that is very interesting. Check it out!

U.S. drops atomic bomb on Nagasaki 62 years ago today

I am not writing a piece that does this tragedy justice, but instead posting to remember this horrific event.

Please refer to the link in the last post for important information on what lead up to the bombings and information on tests that were done right here in the U.S. The testing was done on July 16, 1945 in New Mexico.

To view a website with some of Truman and Stimson's diaries, click here.

George Weller was a journalist who snuck into Nagasaki after the bombing to report on the devastation. At the time, General Douglas MacArthur had declared the area "off-limits".
His account of what was going on was censored by the US government. After his death, carbon copies of his writings were discovered. They are now featured in the book, First Into Nagasaki. Check it out from your local library, and if they don't have it, tell them to order it.

To read/listen/watch a Democracy Now segment with Anthony Weller, son of George Weller, click here.

To listen to NPR's Talk of the Nation program with guest Anthony Weller, son of George Weller, click here.

To view the Nagasaki Peace declaration made by Tomihisa Taue, Mayor of Nagasaki, click here. 　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　

U.S. drops atomic bomb on Hiroshima 62 years ago today

On August 6, 1942 the U.S. dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. Three days later, the U.S. dropped another on Nagasaki, Japan. The devastation caused is too tremendous to put into words. Especially for someone like me who can only read as much as possible and use my imagination to understand everything that happened.

To read documents about the decision to use the bombs:
http://www.dannen.com/decision/