Saturday, April 30, 2016

Dan Berrigan, THE HOLY OUTLAW, presente!

Friends,

  It is with a very heavy heart that I am sharing the news that Dan Berrigan died today.  He was one of the great resisters against the empire, and to those of us who knew him a wise and respected mentor.  Dan Berrigan, presente!

Kagiso,

Max


Daniel J. Berrigan, Defiant Priest Who Preached Pacifism, Dies at 94
By DANIEL LEWIS APRIL 30, 2016


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Rev. Daniel J. Berrigan gave an anti-war sermon at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York, 1972.CreditWilliam E. Sauro/The New York Times

The Rev. Daniel J. Berrigan, a Jesuit priest and poet whose defiant protests helped shape the tactics of opposition to the Vietnam War and landed him in prison, died on Saturday in New York City. He was 94.
His death was confirmed by the Rev. James Martin, a Jesuit priest and editor at large at America magazine, a national Catholic magazine published by Jesuits. Father Berrigan died at Murray-Weigel Hall, the Jesuit infirmary at Fordham University in the Bronx.
The United States was tearing itself apart over civil rights and the war in Southeast Asia when Father Berrigan emerged in the 1960s as an intellectual star of the Roman Catholic “new left,” articulating a view that racism and poverty, militarism and capitalist greed were interconnected pieces of the same big problem: an unjust society.
It was an essentially religious position, based on a stringent reading of the Scriptures that some called pure and others radical. But it would have explosive political consequences as Father Berrigan; his brother Philip, a Josephite priest; and their allies took their case to the streets with rising disregard for the law or their personal fortunes.
A defining point was the burning of Selective Service draft records in Catonsville, Md., and the subsequent trial of the so-called Catonsville Nine, a sequence of events that inspired an escalation of protests across the country; there were marches, sit-ins, the public burning of draft cards and other acts of civil disobedience.
Photo
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Father Berrigan and his brother, Philip Berrigan, seized hundreds of draft records and set them on fire with homemade napalm in 1968. Credit United Press International

The catalyzing episode occurred on May 17, 1968, six weeks after the murder of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the outbreak of new riots in dozens of cities. Nine Catholic activists, led by Daniel and Philip Berrigan, entered a Knights of Columbus building in Catonsville and went up to the second floor, where the local draft board had offices. In front of astonished clerks, they seized hundreds of draft records, carried them down to the parking lot and set them on fire with homemade napalm.
Some reporters had been told of the raid in advance. They were given a statement that said in part, “We destroy these draft records not only because they exploit our young men but because they represent misplaced power concentrated in the ruling class of America.” It added, “We confront the Catholic Church, other Christian bodies and the synagogues of America with their silence and cowardice in the face of our country’s crimes.”
In a year sick with images of destruction, from the Tet offensive in Vietnam to the murder of Dr. King, a scene was recorded that had been contrived to shock people to attention, and did so. When the police came, the trespassers were praying in the parking lot, led by two middle-aged men in clerical collars: the big, craggy Philip, a decorated hero of World War II, and the ascetic Daniel, waiting peacefully to be led into the van.
Protests and Arrests
In the years to come, well into his 80s, Daniel Berrigan was arrested time and again, for greater or lesser offenses: in 1980, for taking part in the Plowshares raid on a General Electric missile plant in King of Prussia, Pa., where the Berrigan brothers and others rained hammer blows on missile warheads; in 2006, for blocking the entrance to the Intrepid naval museum in Manhattan.
“The day after I’m embalmed,” he said in 2001, on his 80th birthday, “that’s when I’ll give it up.”
Photo
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Father Berrigan being handcuffed in 2001 after he and others blocked an entrance to the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum in Manhattan. Credit Richard Drew/Associated Press

It was not for lack of other things to do. In his long career of writing and teaching at Fordham and other universities, Father Berrigan published a torrent of essays and broadsides and, on average, a book a year, almost to the time of his death.
Among the more than 50 books were 15 volumes of poetry — the first of which, “Time Without Number,” won the prestigious Lamont Poetry Prize, given by the Academy of American Poets, in 1957 — as well as autobiography, social criticism, commentaries on the Old Testament prophets and indictments of the established order, both secular and ecclesiastic.
While he was known for his wry wit, there was a darkness in much of what Father Berrigan wrote and said, the burden of which was that one had to keep trying to do the right thing regardless of the near certainty that it would make no difference. In the withering of the pacifist movement and the country’s general support for the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, he saw proof that it was folly to expect lasting results.
“This is the worst time of my long life,” he said in an interview with The Nation in 2008. “I have never had such meager expectations of the system.”
What made it bearable, he wrote elsewhere, was a disciplined, implicitly difficult belief in God as the key to sanity and survival.
Many books by and about Father Berrigan remain in print, and a collection of his work over half a century, “Daniel Berrigan: Essential Writings,” was published in 2009.
He also had a way of popping up in the wider culture: as the “radical priest” in Paul Simon’s song “Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard”; as inspiration for the character Father Corrigan in Colum McCann’s 2009 novel, “Let the Great World Spin.” He even had a small movie role, appearing as a Jesuit priest in “The Mission” in 1989.
But his place in the public imagination was pretty much fixed at the time of the Catonsville raid, as the impish-looking half of the Berrigan brothers — traitors and anarchists in the minds of a great many Americans, exemplars to those who formed what some called the ultra-resistance.
After a trial that served as a platform for their antiwar message, the Berrigans were convicted of destroying government property and sentenced to three years each in the federal prison in Danbury, Conn. Having exhausted their appeals, they were to begin serving their terms on April 10, 1970.
Photo
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Father Berrigan, right, and a defense lawyer, William M. Kunstler, center, after he was sentenced to three years in federal prison in Danbury, Conn. Credit Associated Press

Instead, they raised the stakes by going underground. The men who had been on the cover of Time were now on the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s most-wanted list. As Daniel explained in a letter to the French magazine Africasia, he was not buying the “mythology” fostered by American liberals that there was a “moral necessity of joining illegal action to legal consequences.” In any case, both brothers were tracked down and sent to prison.
Philip Berrigan had been the main force behind Catonsville, but it was mostly Daniel who mined the incident and its aftermath for literary meaning — a process already underway when the F.B.I. caught up with him on Block Island, off the Rhode Island coast, on Aug. 11, 1970. There was “The Trial of the Catonsville Nine,” a one-act play in free verse drawn directly from the court transcripts, and “Prison Poems,” written during his incarceration in Danbury.
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Father Berrigan on “Meet the Press” in 1972.

Credit Patrick Burns/The New York Times

In “My Father,” he wrote:
I sit here in the prison ward
nervously dickering with my ulcer
a half-tamed animal
raising hell in its living space
But in 500 lines the poem talks as well about the politics of resistance, memories of childhood terror and, most of all, the overbearing weight of his dead father:
I wonder if I ever loved him
if he ever loved us
if he ever loved me.
The father was Thomas William Berrigan, a man full of words and grievances who got by as a railroad engineer, labor union officer and farmer. He married Frida Fromhart and had six sons with her. Daniel, the fourth, was born on May 9, 1921, in Virginia, Minn.
When he was a young boy, the family moved to a farm near Syracuse to be close to his father’s family.
In his autobiography, “To Dwell in Peace,” Daniel Berrigan described his father as “an incendiary without a cause,” a subscriber to Catholic liberal periodicals and the frustrated writer of poems of no distinction.
“Early on,” he wrote, “we grew inured, as the price of survival, to violence as a norm of existence. I remember, my eyes open to the lives of neighbors, my astonishment at seeing that wives and husbands were not natural enemies.”
Battles With the Church
Born with weak ankles, Daniel could not walk until he was 4. His frailty spared him the heavy lifting demanded of his brothers; instead he helped his mother around the house. Thus he seemed to absorb not only his father’s sense of life’s unfairness but also an intimate knowledge of how a man’s rage can play out in the victimization of women.
At an early age, he wrote, he believed that the church condoned his father’s treatment of his mother. Yet he wanted to be a priest. After high school he earned a bachelor’s degree in 1946 from St. Andrew-on-Hudson, a Jesuit seminary in Hyde Park, N.Y., and a master’s from Woodstock College in Baltimore in 1952. He was ordained that year.
Sent for a year of study and ministerial work in France, he met some worker-priests who gave him “a practical vision of the Church as she should be,” he wrote. Afterward he spent three years at the Jesuits’ Brooklyn Preparatory School, teaching theology and French, while absorbing the poetry of Robert Frost, E. E. Cummings and the 19th-century Jesuit Gerard Manley Hopkins. His own early work often combined elements of nature with religious symbols.
But he was not to become a pastoral poet or live the retiring life he had imagined. His ideas were simply turning too hot, sometimes even for friends and mentors like Dorothy Day, the co-founder of the Catholic Worker Movement, and the Trappist intellectual Thomas Merton.
At Le Moyne College in Syracuse, where he was a popular professor of New Testament studies from 1957 to 1963, Father Berrigan formed friendships with his students that other faculty members disapproved of, inculcating in them his ideas about pacifism and civil rights. (One student, David Miller, became the first draft-card burner to be convicted under a 1965 law.)
Father Berrigan was effectively exiled in 1965, after angering the hawkish Cardinal Francis Spellman in New York. Besides Father Berrigan’s work in organizing antiwar groups like the interdenominational Clergy and Laymen Concerned About Vietnam, there was the matter of the death of Roger La Porte, a young man with whom Father Berrigan said he was slightly acquainted. To protest American involvement in Southeast Asia, Mr. La Porte set himself on fire outside the United Nations building in November 1965.
Soon, according to Father Berrigan, “the most atrocious rumors were linking his death to his friendship with me.” He spoke at a service for Mr. La Porte, and soon thereafter the Jesuits, widely believed to have been pressured by Cardinal Spellman, sent him on a “fact-finding” mission among poor workers in South America. An outcry from Catholic liberals brought him back after only three months, enough time for him to have been radicalized even further by the facts he had found.
For the Jesuits, Father Berrigan was both a magnet to bright young seminarians and a troublemaker who could not be kept in any one faculty job too long.
At onetime or another he held faculty positions or ran programs at Union Seminary, Loyola University New Orleans, Columbia, Cornell and Yale. Eventually he settled into a long tenure at Fordham, the Jesuit university in the Bronx, where for a time he had the title of poet in residence.
Father Berrigan was released from the Danbury penitentiary in 1972; the Jesuits, alarmed at his failing health, managed to get him out early. He then resumed his travels.
After visiting the Middle East, he bluntly accused Israel of “militarism” and the “domestic repressions” of Palestinians. His remarks angered many American Jews. “Let us call this by its right name,” wrote Rabbi Arthur Hertzberg, himself a contentious figure among religious scholars: “old-fashioned theological anti-Semitism.”
Nor was Father Berrigan universally admired by Catholics. Many faulted him for not singling out repressive Communist states in his diatribes against the world order, and later for not lending his voice to the outcry over sexual abuse by priests. There was also a sense that his notoriety was a distraction from the religious work that needed to be done.
Not the least of his long-running battles was with the church hierarchy. He was scathing about the shift to conservatism under Pope John Paul II and the “company men” he appointed to high positions.
Much of Father Berrigan’s later work was concentrated on helping AIDS patients in New York City. In 2012, he appeared in Zuccotti Park in Lower Manhattan to support the Occupy Wall Street protest.
He also devoted himself to writing biblical studies. He felt a special affinity for the Hebrew prophets, especially Jeremiah, who was chosen by God to warn of impending disaster and commanded to keep at it, even though no one would listen for 40 years.
A brother, Jerry, died in July at age 95, and another brother, Philip, died in 2002 at age 79.
Father Berrigan seemed to reach a poet’s awareness of his place in the scheme of things, and that of his brother Philip, who left the priesthood for a married life of service to the poor and spent a total of 11 years in prison for disturbing the peace in one way or another before his death from cancer in 2002. While they both still lived, Daniel Berrigan wrote:
My brother and I stand like the fences
of abandoned farms, changed times
too loosely webbed against
deicide homicide
A really powerful blow
would bring us down like scarecrows.
Nature, knowing this, finding us mildly useful
indulging also
her backhanded love of freakishness
allows us to stand.
Christopher Mele contributed reporting.

Donations can be sent to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD 21218.  Ph: 410-323-1607; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/

"The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives." Eugene Victor Debs



Baltimore Activist Alert May 1 – May 3, 2016

Baltimore Activist Alert May 1 – May 3, 2016

"I speak as an American to the leaders of my own nation. The great initiative in this war is ours.
The initiative to stop it must be ours." -Martin Luther King Jr.

Friends, this list and other email documents which I send out are done under the auspices of the Baltimore Nonviolence Center.  Go to www.baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com.  If you appreciate this information and would like to make a donation, send contributions to BNC, 325 East 25th Street, Baltimore, MD 21218.  Max Obuszewski can be reached at 410-323-1607 or mobuszewski [at] verizon.net.

1] Books, buttons and stickers
2] Web site for info on federal legislation
3] Join Nonviolent Resistance lists  
4] Buy coffee through HoCoFoLa
5] Two friends are looking to buy a house in Baltimore
6] “The Long Reach of Reason” – May 1
7] May Day speaker in Baltimore – May 1
8] May Day in D.C. – May 1
9] Powering Our Stories Art & Movement – May 1
10] Film “Israel vs Israel” – May 1
11] Pentagon Vigil – May 2
12] Marc Steiner on WEAA – May 2 – My 6
13] Dynamic Social Movements – May 3
14] "Exploring a New Paradigm on the Korean Peninsula" – May 3
15] Chernobyl+30 / Fukushima+5 – May
16] Philadelphia Peace Vigil – May 3
17] Protest JHU drone research – May 3
18] Family Leave Supporters get-together – May 3
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1] – Buttons, bumperstickers and books are available.  “God Bless the Whole World, No Exceptions” stickers are in stock. Call Max at 410-323-1607.

2] – To obtain information how your federal legislators voted on particular bills, go to http://thomas.loc.gov/.  Congressional toll-free numbers are 888-818-6641, 888-355-3588 or 800-426-8073. The White House Comment Email is accessible at http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/.

3] – THE ORGANIZING LIST will be the primary decision-making mechanism of the National Campaign of Nonviolent Resistance [NCNR].  It will be augmented by conference calls and possibly in-person meetings as needed.  It will consist of 1 or 2 representatives from each local, regional, or national organization (not coalitions) that wishes to actively work to carry out the NCNR campaign of facilitating and organizing nonviolent resistance to the war in Iraq.

To join the ORGANIZING List, please send your name, group affiliation, city and email address to mobuszewski at Verizon.net.  Different local chapters of a national organization are encouraged to subscribe.  

THE NOTICES LIST will include only notices of NCNR actions and related information and is open to any interested person to subscribe.  It will be moderated to maintain focus & will include periodic notices about getting involved in NCNR national organizing.  To join the NOTICES List, send an email message to ncnrnotices-subscribe@lists.riseup.net. You will get a confirmation message once subscribed.  If you have problems, please write to the list manager at ncnrnotices-admin@lists.riseup.net.

4] – You can help safeguard human rights and fragile ecosystems through your purchase of HOCOFOLA CafĂ© Quetzal. Bags of ground coffee or whole beans can be ordered by mailing in an order form. Also note organic cocoa and sugar are for sale.  For more details and to download the order form, go to http://friendsoflatinamerica.typepad.com/hocofola/2010/02/hocofola-cafe-quetzal-order-form-2010.html. The coffee comes in one-pound bags.

Fill out the form and mail it with a check made out to HOCOFOLA on or before the second week of the month.  Be sure you indicate ground or beans for each type of coffee ordered.  Send it to Francine Sheppard at 5639B, Harpers Farm Rd., Columbia 21044. The coffee will arrive some time the following week and you will be notified where to pick it up. Contact Francine at 410-992-7679 or FrancineMSW@aol.com.

5] – Janice and Max are looking to buy a house in Baltimore.  Let Max know if you have any leads—410-323-1607 or mobuszewski at Verizon dot net.

61 – Usually, the Baltimore Ethical Society, 306 W. Franklin St., Suite 102, Baltimore 21201-4661, meets on Sundays, and generally there is a speaker and discussion from 10:30 AM to noon. On May 1, catch “The Long Reach of Reason,” which is a TED Talk video by Steven Pinker and Rebecca Newberger Goldstein.  TED Talks presents an animated Socratic dialogue! In a time when irrationality seems to rule both politics and culture, has reasoned thinking finally lost its power? Watch as psychologist Steven Pinker is gradually, brilliantly persuaded by philosopher Rebecca Newberger Goldstein that reason is actually the key driver of human moral progress, even if its effect sometimes takes generations to unfold. The dialogue was recorded live at TED, and animated, in incredible, often hilarious, detail by Cognitive.  TED Talks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world’s leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes (or less). Look for talks on Technology, Entertainment and Design — plus science, business, global issues, the arts and much more. Call 410-581-2322 or email ask@bmorethical.org.

7] – Hear a May Day speaker, Ryan Onwukwe, who will be speaking about the Minneapolis uprising, and its role in helping multiracial militant organizations grow in the Twin Cities area. The event will be on Sun., May 1 at 2 PM at the Alternative Press Center, 2239 Kirk Ave. in Baltimore. Contact Matthias RĂ©my [mailto:matthias.lalisse@gmail.com]. 

8] – Gather in Malcolm X Park, 16th St. and Euclid St. NW, WDC, on Sun., May 1 from 2 to 3:30 PM for a May Day rally and march. After the rally at 3:30 PM, there will be a march to the White House. Visit https://www.facebook.com/events/1535309696773491/.

9] – Powering Our Stories Art & Movement: My Feelings Edition is happening at the Mount Pleasant Library, 3160 16th St. NW, WDC, on Sun., May 1 from 2 to 3 PM. In collaboration with Mount Pleasant Library, DC Rape Crisis Center- DCRCC is kicking off an expanded Art & Movement curriculum. This four session workshop series is a child led exploration of emotion, empathy and mindfulness. Utilizing role play, art projects, call and response and games, adults and children will explore self-expression of their feelings, ways to communicate their needs, and different ways we can practice letting go of stress individually and within our relationships. There are four workshops, of which this is the third. This workshop focusses on control. Email alindamood@dcrcc.org.

10] – Sabeel DC Metro is proud to team up with Grace Presbyterian Church and the Unitarian Universalist Church of Arlington in presenting this important, revealing and inspiring five-part Sunday afternoon film series focusing on the beautiful but beleaguered Palestinian and Israeli people of today's Holy Land. This Sunday afternoon series--absolutely free--takes place at 2:30 PM through May 1 at the attractive, spacious Unitarian Universalist Church of Arlington, 4444 Arlington Blvd. (US 50)--midway between the Beltway and the Memorial Bridge--at the intersection for George Mason Drive SOUTH. Parking is ample in the church's parking lot.  

On Sun., May 1 see the final screening of the 2nd Annual Voices From the Holy Land Film Series.  The film “Israel vs Israel” profiles four Israeli peace activists resisting the military occupation. See link to the trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cXkxzZPAEY.  After this screening there will be a panel discussion on the theme:  “WHAT CAN I DO?”  Expert panelists will include Saleem Zaru (Executive Director, United Palestinian Appeal), Seth Morrison (Jewish Voice for Peace), and Dr. Mai Abdul Rahman (President, American Palestinian Women’s Association).  Allen Keiswetter, (Adjunct Professor, University of Maryland) will facilitate this session.  Visit https://www.facebook.com/voicesholyland. Call Paul at 301-518-5551.

11] -- There is a weekly Pentagon Peace Vigil from 7 to 8 AM on Mondays, since 1987, outside the Pentagon Metro stop.  The next vigil is Mon., May 2, and it is sponsored by the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker.  Email artlaffin@hotmail.com or call 202-882-9649.  The vigil will be outside the Pentagon's south Metro entrance and in the designated "protest zone" behind bicycle fences across from the entrance to the Metro.  By Metro, take Yellow Line and get out at the "Pentagon" stop. Do not go to the Pentagon City stop! Go up south escalators and turn left and walk across to protest area. By car from D.C. area, take 395 South and get off at Exit 8A-Pentagon South Parking. Take slight right onto S. Rotary Rd. at end of ramp and right on S. Fern St. Then take left onto Army Navy Dr. You can "pay to park" on Army Navy Dr.,  and there is meter parking one block on right on Eads St. Payment for both of these spots begin at 8 AM.  No cameras are allowed on Pentagon grounds. Restrooms are located inside Marriott Residence Inn on corner of S. Fern and Army Navy Dr. 

12] – The Marc Steiner Show airs Monday through Friday fr6m 10 AM to noon on WEAA 88.9 FM, The Voice of the Community, or online at www.weaa.org.   The call-in number is 410-319-8888, and comments can also be sent by email to steinershow@gmail.com. All shows are also available as podcasts at www.steinershow.org.

13] – On Tues., May 3 from 9 AM to 4:30 PM, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) will explore "Exploring a New Paradigm on the Korean Peninsula" with 18 speakers at CSIS, Second Floor Conference Center, 1616 Rhode Island Ave. NW, WDC. RSVP at KoreaChair@csis.org.

14] – On Tues., May 3 from noon to 1:30 PM, the Institute for Policy Studies, 1301 Connecticut Ave. NW, Suite 600, WDC 20036, is co-hosting with staff from the National Domestic Workers Alliance (NDWA) a case study.  IPS believes that dynamic social movements, equipped with cutting edge research and analysis is the key to meaningful change. The case study is for collaboration between a movement-building group and a research and policy advocacy organization. The discussion looks at how the need to work together emerged, lessons learned along the way, and their ideas and plans for moving forward. Learn about some exciting upcoming campaigns around worker justice, including immigrant women workers. Come share your own stories, experiences, and ideas on cross-issue collaboration at this informal lunch conversation. Go to http://act.ips-dc.org/site/Calendar?id=100602&view=Detail.

15] – Come to Chernobyl+30 / Fukushima+5 on Tues., May 3 from 2 to 5 PM & from 7:30 to 9 PM at the Goethe-Institut Washington, 1990 K St. NW (entrance on 20th), WDC. Beyond Nuclear will commemorate the 30th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear catastrophe and the 5th anniversary of Fukushima meltdowns with leading international experts and compelling short films in afternoon and evening programs. View the program at http://www.beyondnuclear.org/chernobyl30-fukushima5/.  Email info@beyondnuclear.org or call 301-455-5655.

16] – Each Tuesday from 4:30 - 5:30 PM, the Catholic Peace Fellowship-Philadelphia for peace in Afghanistan and Iraq gathers at the Suburban Station, 16th St. & JFK Blvd., at the entrance to Tracks 3 and 4 on the mezzanine.  The next vigil is May 3.  Call 215-426-0364.

17] – Vigil to say "No Drone Research at JHU" each Tuesday at 33rd & North Charles Sts. join this ongoing vigil on May 3  from 5:30 to 6:30  PM. Call Max at 410-323-1607.

18] – Get over to the Purchasing Power Happy Hour with the DC Paid Family Leave Campaign at the Flying Fish, Coffee and Tea, 3064 Mount Pleasant St. NW, WDC, on Tues., May 3 6:30 to 8:30 PM.  Help harness collective purchasing power in support of Paid Family Leave for DC - and enjoy some great local treats! Take action and schmooze with other Paid Family Leave supporters, AND buy local pizza, baked goods, and non-alcoholic beverages from just a few of the coalition partners that support DC Paid Family Leave. RSVP at https://www.facebook.com/events/589461631217554/. This is a non-alcoholic happy hour, with kid friendly activities. Cash purchases preferred.

To be continued.

Donations can be sent to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD 21218.  Ph: 410-366-1637; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/.


"The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives." Eugene Victor Debs 

Enjoy dinner & talk on Zero Waste/The Urban Quest for 'Zero' Waste

   The Chesapeake Physicians for Social Responsibility, working for a healthy and just Maryland, is holding its annual dinner on Sat., Apr.30 from 6 to 8:30 PM at the Baltimore Hebrew Congregation,7401 Park Heights Ave., Baltimore 21208.  The featured speaker will be Paul Connett, PhD, an acclaimed author on zero waste solutions. Paul has been a leading global fighter against incineration and for sustainable waste solutions, such as composting, recycling, reuse, repair and redesign. He is a graduate of Cambridge University, with a PhD in chemistry from Dartmouth College. A retired professor of chemistry at St. Lawrence University where he taught environmental chemistry and toxicology, for nearly three decades, he has researched and spoken on waste management in the U.S. and 54 other countries.

   Ralph Nader said of Dr. Connett, “He is the only person I know who can make waste interesting.” Dr. Connett is the author of “The Zero Waste Solution: Untrashing the Planet One Community at a Time” (Chelsea Green, 2013).  The suggested donation levels are $10, $25 or $50. To RSVP, contact Tim Whitehouse at twhitehouse@psr.org or (240) 246-4492.

·          JR: ENVIRONMENT
The Urban Quest for 'Zero' Waste

Some cities are leading the way in reducing the amount of trash they send to landfills. Here's how they're doing it.
By 
DAVID FERRY
September 12, 2011
After years of burning or burying their waste, some cities are getting serious about garbage.
Across the country, a handful of municipalities are radically reducing the amount of refuse they send to landfills, with the eventual goal of reaching "zero waste." Seattle recycles or composts more than half of what its residents toss out. San Francisco diverts 77% of its waste from landfills. Even sprawling Los Angeles recycles or composts about two-thirds of its garbage.
Those numbers stand in stark contrast to the rest of the U.S., where the Environmental Protection Agency estimates only about a third of waste is recycled or composted. The cities are getting the job done largely by having citizens and businesses sort trash more carefully, to recycle as much as possible.
Officials in these cities think they can go further. "It's good; doesn't mean we stop there," says Tim Croll, solid-waste director for Seattle Public Utilities. "We know the word 'low-hanging fruit' is overused, but there is still more stuff to be gotten out of that waste stream."
Less Than Zero?
The prime benefits in adopting zero waste are environmental; many cities that have enacted zero-waste plans say they have taken up the task in the name of sustainability.
Compost and recycling containers awaiting collection in San Francisco.ENLARGE
Compost and recycling containers awaiting collection in San Francisco. GETTY IMAGES
And supporters argue that reducing waste doesn't necessarily mean increasing costs. For cities with limited landfill space—and the higher fees that come with it—most zero-waste activities cost less than normal garbage disposal, says Gary Liss, a zero-waste consultant who has helped about 20 cities form plans to reduce waste.
One caveat: "Zero waste" doesn't necessarily mean "no waste." Most cities use a definition from Zero Waste International Alliance, an environmental group, which says that diverting 90% of waste from landfills without the use of incinerators is "successful in achieving zero waste, or darn close."
Why don't cities shoot for 100% diversion? "We're not crazy," says Neil Seldman, president of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, a nonprofit based in Washington, D.C., that promotes sustainable communities. The closer cities get to that goal, the harder it is to go further, largely because there are so many products out there that just can't be recycled—and people continue to buy them.
Cities can pass ordinances and require households and businesses to recycle and compost, but "they can't control the behavior of residents," says Chaz Miller, the state programs director for the National Solid Wastes Management Association, a Washington, D.C., trade group for the waste and recycling industry. "There is still a lot of material to dispose of in this country, and it's going to remain that way for a long time," he adds.
Indeed, despite increased recycling in recent years, Americans are still prodigious wasters. In 2009, the most recent year for which figures are available, Americans threw out roughly 243 million tons of trash—or about 4.34 pounds of garbage per person, per day, according to data from the EPA. After recycling, composting and incineration, about 132 million tons ended up in landfills that year.
Recycling by the Bay
One of the most comprehensive zero-waste strategies is San Francisco's. The city has relied on ordinances and regulations to prod citizens and businesses into wasting less. In 2009, it became the first city in the U.S. to require food composting for residents and businesses, Rather than throw food scraps and dirty napkins into the trash, individuals and businesses must chuck their organic material into city-provided green bins.
https://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/EV-AA428_ZEROon_G_20110909115103.jpgENLARGE
The mandate led to a large boost in compost collection, says San Francisco Department of the Environment director Melanie Nutter. Recology, the city's collection agency, now hauls more than 600 tons of organic waste to a composting facility each day. In an effort to "close the loop," Recology sells the certified organic compost materials.
Along with putting compost in green bins, individuals and companies are expected to sort plastics, aluminum and papers into blue bins and garbage in black "landfill" bins. The less waste residents put in the landfill bin, the less they pay for curbside collection; recycling and compost collection are free. (The system, known as "pay as you throw," is used in hundreds of other cities as well.)
San Francisco's rules don't end there. There's also a mandate for waste at building sites. Construction and demolition crews must recycle or reuse at least 65% of the material from a site, which involves sorting all debris or ensuring it is hauled to a collection facility.
The result of all these efforts is a waste-diversion rate of 77%—the nation's highest—and the city is aiming for 100% by 2020. Ms. Nutter says the city can reach 90% if it prods its citizens to be even more waste-conscious; about a third of the waste that San Francisco sends to the landfill is recyclable, and another third is compostable.
Officials in San Francisco say sustainability is the driving factor behind its push for zero waste. The city pays for garbage collection only from city buildings and property; residents and businesses pay for their service through fees. The city says residents pay about the same for curbside trash service as in nearby cities.
Shades of Green
Another zero-waste leader is Seattle, which diverts about 54% of its waste from the dump and hopes to reach 70% by 2022. The city mandates recycling for businesses and residents, and requires food composting for single-family residences.
It has also banned the food-service industry from providing goods in plastic-foam containers, and requires single-use packaging—including plates, coffee cups and utensils—to be recyclable or compostable. Among the approved alternatives on the city's website: drink cups made from corn, bowls made from tapioca starch and wooden utensils.
Still, not all high-achieving cities get there with mandates and bans. Los Angeles diverts over 65% of its waste from landfills and is shooting for 70% by 2013. But it doesn't mandate recycling. "We don't believe in banning, as a city," says Alex Helou, assistant director of the city's Bureau of Sanitation.
Mr. Helou says the bureau encourages residents by giving prizes like Starbucks gift cards to neighborhoods that increase their recycling the most. He says the city has also sought to make recycling as convenient as possible and has expanded the type of waste that consumers can throw into recycling bins to include items like plastic foam and milk cartons.
Austin, Texas, currently recycles or composts about 38% of its waste and is in the process of finalizing its zero-waste plan. In addition to considering a recycling mandate, the city has pursued an original outreach campaign. Earlier this year, "Dare To Go Zero" premiered on the city's public-access channel. The "Biggest Loser"-style reality show challenged four families to reduce their waste by 90% over the course of five weeks.
The city's director of solid-waste services, Bob Gedert, says Austin hopes to ratchet up its diversion rate to 75% by 2020 through a mix of regulation and outreach, but says the city does not expect to reach zero waste until 2040.
Incinerate or Innovate?
Some in the municipal solid-waste business don't believe that recycling and composting can reduce a city's waste down to nearly nothing. Their suggested alternative: incinerating vast amounts of trash to convert it into energy. Not only does burning turn the trash into something useful, they say, but it's also a much cleaner process than it was 30 years ago. Los Angeles's Mr. Helou says the city believes it can hit 85% through proper sorting but would consider incinerating waste to produce energy.
Officials in San Francisco, like many other zero-waste supporters, maintain that incinerating waste increases greenhouse-gas emissions, and note that incineration destroys, rather than conserves, resources.
Still, many city officials agree that some sort of technological help will be needed as they get closer to zero waste. Seattle's Mr. Croll says he is interested in anaerobic digestion, a process where micro-organisms break down organic waste and produce methane, which can later be used for energy. San Francisco is hoping to rely on advanced mechanized sorting systems that pick more recyclables from the garbage flow, Ms. Nutter says.
After that, she says, it may be out of the city's hands. "There are some items in the waste stream that can't be recycled or reused or repurposed," she says. "So, in that case, we think the last 10% will really come down to working with manufacturers" to reduce and rework materials packaging.
Mr. Liss, the zero-waste consultant, says that at some point cities have to say, "We've done a lot with recycling, but we need to do a lot more with reducing and reusing."
Mr. Ferry is a writer in Oakland, Calif. He can be reached at reports@wsj.com.
Corrections & Amplifications
San Francisco hopes to divert 100% of its waste from landfills by 2020. An earlier version of this article incorrectly said the city hopes to divert 90% by 2020.

Copyright ©2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Donations can be sent to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD 21218.  Ph: 410-323-1607; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/


"The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives." Eugene Victor Debs

Thursday, April 28, 2016

Baltimore Activist Alert April 23 - 26, 2016

Baltimore Activist Alert April 23 - 26, 2016

"I speak as an American to the leaders of my own nation. The great initiative in this war is ours.
The initiative to stop it must be ours." -Martin Luther King Jr.

Friends, this list and other email documents which I send out are done under the auspices of the Baltimore Nonviolence Center.  Go to www.baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com.  If you appreciate this information and would like to make a donation, send contributions to BNC, 325 East 25th Street, Baltimore, MD 21218.  Max Obuszewski can be reached at 410-323-1607 or mobuszewski [at] verizon.net.

1] Books, buttons and stickers
2] Web site for info on federal legislation
3] Join Nonviolent Resistance lists  
4] Buy coffee through HoCoFoLa
5] Two friends are looking to buy a house in Baltimore
6] A Future to Believe In Rally with Bernie Sanders – Apr. 23
7] Get out the vote for Donna Edwards – Apr. 23
8] Volunteer for Bernie – Apr. 23
9] Help out those released from prison – Apr. 23
10] March for the Animals – Apr. 24
11] "Liberation Ethics" – Apr. 24
12] Film “Peace, Propaganda and the Promised Land” – Apr. 24
13] Women Incarcerated – Apr. 24
14] Pentagon Vigil – Apr. 25
15] Marc Steiner on WEAA – Apr. 25 – Apr. 29
16] Gradual change doesn’t work – Apr. 25
17] Organizing Get Together – Apr. 25
18] Nakba Tour – Apr. 25
19] Film THE HAND THAT FEEDS – Apr. 25
20] Covering the Middle East – Apr. 25
21] Taco Justice – Apr. 25
22] Book talk “Greenpeace Captain” – Apr. 25
23] Interfaith Prayer – Apr. 25
24] Nuclear Security – Apr. 26
25] Philadelphia Peace Vigil – Apr. 26
26] No New Offshore Drilling – Apr. 26
27] Protest JHU drone research – Apr. 26
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1] – Buttons, bumperstickers and books are available.  “God Bless the Whole World, No Exceptions” stickers are in stock. Call Max at 410-323-1607.

2] – To obtain information how your federal legislators voted on particular bills, go to http://thomas.loc.gov/.  Congressional toll-free numbers are 888-818-6641, 888-355-3588 or 800-426-8073. The White House Comment Email is accessible at http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/.

3] – THE ORGANIZING LIST will be the primary decision-making mechanism of the National Campaign of Nonviolent Resistance [NCNR].  It will be augmented by conference calls and possibly in-person meetings as needed.  It will consist of 1 or 2 representatives from each local, regional, or national organization (not coalitions) that wishes to actively work to carry out the NCNR campaign of facilitating and organizing nonviolent resistance to the war in Iraq.

To join the ORGANIZING List, please send your name, group affiliation, city and email address to mobuszewski at Verizon.net.  Different local chapters of a national organization are encouraged to subscribe.  

THE NOTICES LIST will include only notices of NCNR actions and related information and is open to any interested person to subscribe.  It will be moderated to maintain focus & will include periodic notices about getting involved in NCNR national organizing.  To join the NOTICES List, send an email message to ncnrnotices-subscribe@lists.riseup.net. You will get a confirmation message once subscribed.  If you have problems, please write to the list manager at ncnrnotices-admin@lists.riseup.net.

4] – You can help safeguard human rights and fragile ecosystems through your purchase of HOCOFOLA CafĂ© Quetzal. Bags of ground coffee or whole beans can be ordered by mailing in an order form. Also note organic cocoa and sugar are for sale.  For more details and to download the order form, go to http://friendsoflatinamerica.typepad.com/hocofola/2010/02/hocofola-cafe-quetzal-order-form-2010.html. The coffee comes in one-pound bags.

Fill out the form and mail it with a check made out to HOCOFOLA on or before the second week of the month.  Be sure you indicate ground or beans for each type of coffee ordered.  Send it to Francine Sheppard at 5639B, Harpers Farm Rd., Columbia 21044. The coffee will arrive some time the following week and you will be notified where to pick it up. Contact Francine at 410-992-7679 or FrancineMSW@aol.com.

5] – Janice and Max are looking to buy a house in Baltimore.  Let Max know if you have any leads—410-323-1607 or mobuszewski at Verizon dot net.

6] – A Future to Believe In Rally with Bernie Sanders is on Sat., Apr. 23 with doors opening at 10 AM at the Royal Farms Arena, 201 West Baltimore St., Baltimore 21201. Join Bernie Sanders for a rally in Baltimore, Maryland featuring special guests Danny Glover and Ben Jealous. This event is free and open to the public, but RSVPs are strongly encouraged. Admission is first come, first served. For security reasons, please do not bring bags and limit what you bring to small, personal items like keys and cell phones. Weapons, sharp objects, chairs, and signs or banners will not be allowed through security. Parking can be found in the Arena's parking garage on Howard St. Public is also encouraged to take any of the following public transit options: light rail to Howard St, MARC train to Camden Yards, MTA metro to Charles St, or MTA bus to Baltimore St and Hopkins Place. RSVP at https://go.berniesanders.com/page/event/detail/rally/4wkjh.

7] – GET OUT THE VOTE FOR DONNA! This is an all hands on deck moment, and every door knock, phone call you can make, or hour you work at the polls could be the difference in this close election. Donna needs canvassers, phone bankers, and poll workers for the final stretch. Please sign up for as many get out the vote shifts as you can. Once you sign up, come visit the office location nearest you to get a training and everything you need to get started. Each office is open from 10 AM to 8 PM now through Election Day, Tues., Apr. 26. The offices are as follows: Prince George's County Office, 4500 Forbes Blvd., Suite 420, Lanham  20706; Baltimore City Office, 11 East Mount Royal Ave., 1st Floor, Baltimore 21202; Baltimore County Office, 6120 Baltimore National Pike, Catonsville 21228; and for the Montgomery County office, contact Augusta Christensen, 443-987-7268 or augusta@donnaedwardsforsenate.com. Call 240-696-8617 or email Sian Lewis at sian@donnaedwardsforsenate.com.


9] – Come to Coppin State University, Health & Human Services Bldg., HHSB 103, Baltimore, on Sat., Apr. 23 from 6 to 8 PM.  March 10, 2016 marked an important date. In Maryland, persons convicted of a felony that completed serving a court-ordered imprisonment could now could register to vote. Join the Ujima People's Progress Party (UPP) in collaboration with the Coppin State University Urban Studies Program to answer the burning question that remains. Now what? A right to vote does not automatically mean a good job, and a decent place to live. Too often these newly pinned voters face similar oppressive conditions that they faced before their incarceration. How can we address these issues? The panel will help answer these burning issues, supply information on returning programs, and cite what these programs need and comment on the issues of mass incarceration and how to address it. Panel includes representatives from RAPP (Release Aging People in Prison), Out for Justice Education for Autonomy, The Lazarus Rite Maryland Communities United, and I Can’t, We Can. Contact Dr. Ken Morgan, Asst. Prof., Urban Studies Program  at 410-951-4187. 

10] – Come to the annual March for the Animals. Sign up at http://support.mdspca.org/site/TR?fr_id=1040&pg=entry.  It is happening on Sun., Apr. 24 from 10 AM to 1 PM at Druid Hill Park. Your participation in the March for the Animals helps the Maryland SPCA care for more than 15,000 homeless pets each year. As the Maryland SPCA’s largest fundraiser, this is annual 1.5 mile walk-a-thon.

11 – Usually, the Baltimore Ethical Society, 306 W. Franklin St., Suite 102, Baltimore 21201-4661, meets on Sundays, and generally there is a speaker and discussion from 10:30 AM to noon. On Apr. 24, hear about “Liberation: Some Jewish Roots of Ethical Culture.” Felix Adler, the founder of Ethical Culture, drew inspiration from many sources. They included Emerson, Immanuel Kant, and the historical Jesus. The deepest and most consistent source, however, was Judaism. Raised in a culture committed to Reform Judaism, Adler carried into Ethical Culture an appreciation of some lofty goals of family tradition, such as a collective duty to heal a broken world and liberate humanity from oppression. In this season of Passover, which honors the ancient liberation from Egyptian slavery, Hugh Taft-Morales explores some of the Jewish and Reform roots of Ethical Culture.  Taft-Morales joined the Baltimore Ethical Society as its professional leader in 2010, the same year he was certified by the American Ethical Union as an Ethical Culture Leader. He also serves as Leader of the Ethical Humanist Society of Philadelphia.  Call 410-581-2322 or email ask@bmorethical.org.

12] – Sabeel DC Metro is proud to team up with Grace Presbyterian Church and the Unitarian Universalist Church of Arlington in presenting this important, revealing and inspiring five-part Sunday afternoon film series focusing on the beautiful but beleaguered Palestinian and Israeli people of today's Holy Land. This Sunday afternoon series--absolutely free--takes place at 2:30 PM through May 1 at the attractive, spacious Unitarian Universalist Church of Arlington, 4444 Arlington Blvd. (US 50)--midway between the Beltway and the Memorial Bridge--at the intersection for George Mason Drive SOUTH. Parking is ample in the church's parking lot.  

On Apr. 24 the series continues with the acclaimed, award-winning documentary film “Peace, Propaganda and the Promised Land: U.S. Media and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.” This outstanding film is about Israeli public relations strategies and U.S. media coverage. Go to trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UldEpr0HCEU. .
It's about U.S. media reporting, about Israeli public relations efforts, about using euphemisms to hide harsh realities, about what we do not get to see and hear, and about how all this affects U.S. policies and our tax dollars.  Visit https://www.facebook.com/voicesholyland. Call Paul at 301-518-5551.

13] – Come to Busboys and Poets, 625 Monroe St. NE, WDC 20017, on Sun., Apr. 24 from 6:30 to 8 PM. Everyone deserves access to equal opportunity and treatment under the law no matter a person's race or gender. Women, now the fastest-growing segment of the prison population, are often overlooked in the discourse on criminal justice reform and police brutality. April’s Capitol Innovation Forum: Gender Bias and Criminal Justice Reform will highlight the experiences of women incarcerated in D.C. from the perspectives of formerly incarcerated women, grassroots service providers, and policy makers. The audience will also participate in a group exercise designed to further the advocacy work of Social Solutions. The event will be recorded for the Capitol Innovation Podcast series. Visit https://www.eventbrite.com/e/capitol-innovation-forum-unheard-voices-women-in-the-criminal-justice-system-tickets-24018942303?mc_eid=035c142214&mc_cid=44dbeffdda.

14] -- There is a weekly Pentagon Peace Vigil from 7 to 8 AM on Mondays, since 1987, outside the Pentagon Metro stop.  The next vigil is Mon., Apr. 25, and it is sponsored by the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker.  Email artlaffin@hotmail.com or call 202-882-9649.  The vigil will be outside the Pentagon's south Metro entrance and in the designated "protest zone" behind bicycle fences across from the entrance to the Metro.  By Metro, take Yellow Line and get out at the "Pentagon" stop. Do not go to the Pentagon City stop! Go up south escalators and turn left and walk across to protest area. By car from D.C. area, take 395 South and get off at Exit 8A-Pentagon South Parking. Take slight right onto S. Rotary Rd. at end of ramp and right on S. Fern St. Then take left onto Army Navy Dr. You can "pay to park" on Army Navy Dr.,  and there is meter parking one block on right on Eads St. Payment for both of these spots begin at 8 AM.  No cameras are allowed on Pentagon grounds. Restrooms are located inside Marriott Residence Inn on corner of S. Fern and Army Navy Dr. 

15] – The Marc Steiner Show airs Monday through Friday fr6m 10 AM to noon on WEAA 88.9 FM, The Voice of the Community, or online at www.weaa.org.   The call-in number is 410-319-8888, and comments can also be sent by email to steinershow@gmail.com. All shows are also available as podcasts at www.steinershow.org.

16] – Pick up on a Report Release: "Missing the Slow Train: How Gradual Change Undermines Public Policy & Collective Action" in the 5th Floor Conference Room, Wilson Center, Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center, One Woodrow Wilson Plaza, 1300 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, WDC, on Mon., Apr. 25 from 1 to 3 PM.  Robert Olson is the author of Missing the Slow Train: How Gradual Change Undermines Public Policy & Collective Action. The report, part of the Forgotten Problems Project, discusses the hurdles movements face in responding to slow-moving threats and challenges, ranging from the way our brains' wiring evolved to the cognitive biases and social forces that affect people's decision-making capacity.  The author is a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Alternative Futures.  He is the primary author of the NACEPT report, The Environmental Future: Emerging Challenges and Opportunities for EPA. RSVP at https://www.wilsoncenter.org/event/missing-the-slow-train-how-gradual-change-undermines-public-policy-collective-action?mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiWmpNM05qQXdOalJsTmpVNCIsInQiOiI2M2U1M2NXVUhMaGczdThpd0VjNE0yNmlXZitCM1hWNFc3TmRycmE3dGhmMVFINXF5eWVQdTNQaTVcL1wvYVwvcHQyN0VzZURjOEVnNDlYWGlDc01GK3dNRUJOZVdGM1k1WlkyZDZpKzZEelorcz0ifQ%3D%3D.

17] – There is an Alliance for a Just Society, National People's Action and USAction Announcement and Party at the Long View Gallery, 1234 9th St. NW, WDC, on Mon., Apr. 25 from 6 to 8 PM.  Three powerful national organizing groups are coming together to do something bold and exciting together. Their ambition is nothing less than creating a new people's politics in the U.S.  Join George Goehl, LeeAnn Hall, and Fred Azcarate, the executive directors of these organizations along with allies, friends, progressive political leaders, labor leaders, community organizers, policy experts and more to hear more about the exciting plans ahead and how you can get involved! RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/weve-got-a-big-announcement-be-the-first-to-find-out-what-it-is-tickets-24241667480.

18] – Get over to the North America Nakba Tour: The Exiled Palestinians at The Potter's House, 1658 Columbia Rd. NW, WDC, on Mon., Apr. 25 from 6 to 8 PM.  The Institute for Policy Studies, in cooperation with the Free Palestine Movement, International Solidarity Movement-Northern California, and al-Awda Palestine Right to Return Coalition invite you to an intimate sit down with “Stateless Palestinians from the Camps in Lebanon." 1948, as Zionist leader David Ben Gurion was proclaiming a Jewish state in Palestine, his troops drove out the inhabitants of the ancient Palestinian town of al-Zeeb. 18-year-old Mariam Fathalla was one of them. She and her young husband fled to Lebanon. By year’s end the 4,000-year-old community had been leveled. More than half of all Palestinians were killed or expelled and more than half the cities, towns and villages disappeared, a crime that Palestinians call al-Nakba (the Catastrophe). Now 86 years old, Mariam has spent the last 68 years in crowded, makeshift refugee camps in Lebanon. She has raised three generations, all waiting to return to Palestine. She has seen five Israeli invasions of Lebanon, as well as the 1976 Tel al-Zaatar camp massacre that killed more than 2000 refugees there. They do not live under Israeli occupation. Israel does not allow them to visit their homes, much less live there. Amena has never met an Israeli, and Mariam not since 1948. RSVP at https://www.facebook.com/events/154581481604532/.

19] – On Mon., Apr. 25 from 7 to 9 PM, Beyond the Classroom at the University of Maryland, College Park, South Campus Commons, Room 1104, Building 1, for another installment of their Spring 2016 Series on "People Power: Activism for Social Change."
See the award-winning documentary: THE HAND THAT FEEDS. At a popular bakery cafĂ©, residents of New York’s Upper East Side get bagels and coffee served with a smile 24 hours a day. But behind the scenes, undocumented immigrant workers face sub-legal wages, dangerous machinery, and abusive managers who will fire them for calling in sick. Mild-mannered sandwich maker Mahoma LĂłpez has never been interested in politics, but in January 2012, he convinces a small group of his co-workers to fight back. Risking deportation and the loss of their livelihood, the workers team up with a diverse crew of innovative young organizers and take the unusual step of forming their own independent union, launching themselves on a journey that will test the limits of their resolve. RSVP at https://www.facebook.com/events/527446700796051/.

20] – The Middle East and Islamic Studies Program and the Arab Studies Institute present Covering the Middle East in the JC Room F, George Mason University, 4400 University Dr., Fairfax, VA, on Tues., Apr.  26 from 3 to 4:30 PM. One of the presentations is The War Economy in Syria by Musaab Batlchi.  Go to http://meis.gmu.edu/events/5988.

21] – Let's TACO-Bout Justice at All Souls Church, Unitarian, 1500 Harvard St. NW, WDC, on Tues., Apr. 26 from 6 to 9 PM.  Join Many Languages One Voice (MLOV) to celebrate DC's vibrant, local immigrant communities on the 12th anniversary of DC's Language Access Act! Help MLOV ensure our city's public services, schools, workplace protections, housing benefits, hospitals and more are accessible and just. For this year's annual Language Access Month event, you'll get a chance to hear about the campaigns and meet members all while enjoying a taco (or two...or three) and specialized cocktails, and catch the special unveiling of MLOV's video project: "MeLOV: Recognizing the Self as Integral to Community Power"! There is a suggested donation of $20 (or more!).  See https://www.facebook.com/events/552876388226433/.

22] – Captain Peter Willcox has lot of stories to tell, and he will be sharing them with the world in his new book “Greenpeace Captain.” Meet the captain and Annie Leonard, Executive Director of Greenpeace USA, on Mon., Apr. 25 at 6:30 PM at Busboys and Poets, 1025 5th St NW, Washington, DC, 20001. Go to https://greenwire.greenpeace.org/usa/en/events/meet-rainbow-warrior-captain-pete-willcox-and-greenpeace-usa-executive-director-annie-leonard.

23] – On Mon., Apr. 25 at 7 PM, there will be an Interfaith Prayer Service for Peace in Baltimore at the Basilica of the Assumption, 409 Cathedral St. Please join people of all faiths as we pray for healing in Baltimore on the anniversary of the unrest following the death of Freddie Gray. Call Chuck at 443-846-5207 (cell).

24] – On Tues., Apr. 26 from 10 to 11:30 AM, Frank Klotz, administrator, National Nuclear Security Administration, and George Perkovich, Carnegie Endowment, will discuss "After the Summit: U.S. Efforts to Strengthen Nuclear Security" at 1779 Massachusetts Ave. NW, WDC. 20036. RSVP at http://carnegieendowment.org/events/forms/?fa=registration&event=5228&lang=en.

25] – Each Tuesday from 4:30 - 5:30 PM, the Catholic Peace Fellowship-Philadelphia for peace in Afghanistan and Iraq gathers at the Suburban Station, 16th St. & JFK Blvd., at the entrance to Tracks 3 and 4 on the mezzanine.  The next vigil is Apr. 19.  Call 215-426-0364.

26] – Join 350.org at a public hearing in D.C. on Tues., Apr. 26 to tell President Obama: No New Offshore Drilling! Go to https://www.facebook.com/events/1715933738683452/. Across the country, the Obama administration is holding public meetings on its new draft plan, and it’s up to us to flood these meetings with a strong message to protect our coasts, our climate, and our communities. There is a rally and press conference calling for an end to new offshore drilling at the Washington Marriott at Metro Center, 775 12th St. NW, WDC, on Tues., Apr. 26 at 5 PM.

27] – Vigil to say "No Drone Research at JHU" each Tuesday at 33rd & North Charles Sts. join this ongoing vigil on Apr. 26  from 5:30 to 6:30  PM. Call Max at 410-323-1607.

To be continued.

Donations can be sent to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD 21218.  Ph: 410-366-1637; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/.

"The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives." Eugene Victor Debs