Wednesday, March 1, 2017

Baltimore Activist Alert - March 2 - 3, 2017

40] Healthy Families legislation – Mar. 2 & 3
41] Film YASUNI MAN – Mar. 2
42] Ban Fracking Now – Mar. 2
43] Access to Healthcare Town Hall – Mar. 2
44] Fundraiser for Ulster Project Delaware – Mar. 2
45] Community Forum on Immigrants’ Rights – Mar. 2
46] Refugee Program of Jewish Family Services – Mar. 2
47] Book talk on “Suspect Freedoms” - Mar. 2
48] Book talk AMONG MURDERERS – Mar. 2
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40] –  As a result of strong grassroots pressure from across the state on key lawmakers the House Economic Matters Committee passed a strong version of the Healthy Working Families Act for earned sick days (HB 1/SB 230) with no harmful amendments! While this was a major victory in ensuring more than half a million Marylanders will be able earn sick days that never have before, we still have a long way to go in getting this bill passed in 2017. We’ll never have the money and influence of the corporate lobbyists, but what we do have is our voices and stories as people that work, especially in the low-wage industries like restaurants and retail that consistently do not offer their workers the ability to earn sick days. On Thurs., Mar. 2, the full Maryland House of Delegates will vote on the Healthy Working Families Act. We need to continue to show our lawmakers that there is a growing movement in Maryland for the human right to work with dignity, which includes paid sick days. On Mar. 2 at 9:30 AM, meet at Lawyers Mall in front of the Maryland State House to greet Delegates. We will then sit in the gallery for the vote. RSVP at https://www.facebook.com/events/1656076738030837/ or to crystal@unitedworkers.org. Carpools will be leaving from Baltimore at 8 AM. If you need a ride, call Luis at 401-365-7233 to confirm your address and pick up time.

There will also be a rally on Lawyers Mall in front of the Maryland State House for the Healthy Working Families Act at 9:30 AM on Fri., Mar. 3. Carpools will be leaving from Baltimore at 8:00am. If you need a ride, please call Luis at 401-365-7233 to confirm your address and pick up time. Go to http://www.unitedworkers.org/.

41] – On Thurs., Mar. 2 from 12:30 to 2 PM, come to Amazon Watch / CIEL Conference Room, 1350 Connecticut Ave. NW, #1100, (above Cosi, Dupont Circle South), WDC, and see the film YASUNI MAN, a documentary feature, which tells the story of the conflict in Ecuador's Yasuni National Park that has pitted biodiversity and human rights against extractive industries and human consumption. Director, producer and cinematographer Ryan P. Killackey, leads us on an incredible expedition through Yasuni – a 1,500 kilometer journey along seven rivers – exploring the impact of oil development on the biodiversity of the forest and its people. Through the documentary, Killackey ushers the viewer into a world unexplored and illustrates a cautionary tale of the far-reaching impact our dependence on fossil fuels can have on wildlife and indigenous people. This social, political, environmental and human rights drama forces the question: How far would you go to save it? Ryan will lead a discussion after the film.
42] – On Thurs., Mar. 2 at 1 PM, march from the Asbury United Methodist Church, 87 West St., and then rally with one clear demand: ban fracking now.  March through Annapolis and around the State House, then have a massive rally in Lawyers Mall. RSVP at https://sierra.secure.force.com/events/details?formcampaignid=70131000001DpPkAAK.

Buses are being organized from multiple locations across Maryland. Go to http://www.dontfrackmd.org/march/ to get tickets for the bus nearest you. At 3 PM, buses depart from College Ave. On March 2nd, we’re marching on Annapolis with one clear demand: ban fracking now. Join hundreds of Marylanders from across the state to show legislators just how powerful our movement is. We’ll march through Annapolis and around the State House, then have a massive rally in Lawyers Mall.

The Baltimore bus will be leaving from the Rogers Avenue Metro Station -- 4300 Hayward Ave.  Go to https://www.facebook.com/events/1731463936867344/.

43] – There will be an Access to Healthcare Town Hall (ACA) on Thurs., Mar. 2 at 6 PM at St Paul's UCC Fellowship Hall, Westminster, MD 21157.  Join a non-partisan discussion on affordable access to healthcare for all citizens. We have a diverse panel of experts to educate participants and answer questions. Contact information for elected officials will be distributed at the end of the meeting. All federal, county, state and municipal elected officials for Carroll County, MD have been invited to attend. Go to https://www.facebook.com/events/622892697918244 and https://www.resistancerecess.com/event/resist-recess/search/?source=climatehawks.

44] – On Thurs., Mar. 2 from 6 to 9 PM, get over to the fundraiser for Ulster Project Delaware. Enjoy live music, drink specials, appetizer buffet and a Chinese auction at Dead Presidents Restaurant, 618 N. Union St., Wilmington, DE. Visit http://ulsterprojectdelaware.org/.

45] – There is a Community Forum on Immigrants’ Rights on Thurs., Mar. 2 from 6 to 8 PM at the Carlos Rosario International Public Charter School, 1100 Harvard St. NW. Councilmember Brianne K. Nadeau, in collaboration with Carlos Rosario International Public Charter School, CARECEN, MLOV, Capital Area Immigrants’ Rights Coalition, and other community partners, will hold a forum about rights and resources for our immigrant community. Residents will also be able to share concerns and ask questions and breakout sessions will facilitate organizing of neighbors and school leaders. Allies are encouraged to attend. Call 202-724-8181.

46] – On Thurs., Mar. 2 from 7 to 9 PM, the Refugee Program of Jewish Family Services [JFS] will be hosting several general orientations over the next few weeks to go over various volunteer roles, and necessary screening required for each of them. Volunteer orientations are required in order to volunteer with the Refugee Program. There are Volunteer Orientations at Wilmington Friends School, 101 School Rd., Wilmington, and another at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 500 W. Chestnut Hill Rd., Newark, DE. Register at https://www.jfsdelaware.org/event/rise-orientation-0302/.

47] –  “Suspect Freedoms” is an Author Talk with Nancy Mirabal at 1658 Columbia Rd. NW, WDC, on Thurs., Mar. 2 from 7 to 8:30 PM.  The largely unexamined and often forgotten history of more than a hundred years of Cuban exile, migration, diaspora, and community formation.  Beginning in the early nineteenth century, Cubans migrated to New York City to organize and protest against Spanish colonial rule. While revolutionary wars raged in Cuba, expatriates envisioned, dissected, and redefined meanings of independence and nationhood. An underlying element was the concept of Cubanidad, a shared sense of what it meant to be Cuban. Deeply influenced by discussions of slavery, freedom, masculinity, and United States imperialism, the question of what and who constituted “being Cuban” remained in flux and often, suspect. This is the first book to explore Cuban racial and sexual politics in New York during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.   Mirabal is Associate Professor in the American Studies Department and U.S. Latina/o Studies Program at the University of Maryland at College Park.

48] – On Thur., Mar. 2 at 7:30 PM at Red Emma's Bookstore Coffeehouse, 30 W. North Ave., Baltimore 21201, hear a book talk AMONG MURDERERS with SABINE HEINLEIN and MIKITA BROTTMAN IN CONVERSATION. Welcome authors Sabine Heinlein and Mikita Brottman, alongside Out for Justice organizer Vince Greco, who will explore the criminal justice crisis from the inside of the prison cell and the outside. Heinlein is the author of AMONG MURDERERS: Life After Prison (2013), a book that follows the lives of three returning citizens over the course of several years as they painstakingly learn how to master their freedom. Having lived most of their lives behind bars, the men struggle to cross the street, choose a dish at a restaurant and withdraw money from an ATM. Brottman, who teaches in the Humanistic Studies department at MICA, is the author of “The Maximum Security Book Club: Reading Literature in a Men's Prison” (2016), a riveting account of the two years she spent reading literature with prisoners (including Greco) at the Jessup Correctional Institute, a maximum-security men’s prison outside Baltimore, and what she learned from them. Call 443-602-7585.  RSVP at http://www.redemmas.org.

To be continued.

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


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