[Peace] AWARE Upcoming Events from 12/10/2006 meeting [12/12 City/Township Council; 12/15 Lebanon presentation; Christmas/New Year's AWARE meetings rescheduled; ...; Carter book tour?]

[Stuart Levy]

In advance of the AWARE minutes, here's a list of
upcoming events for this week and following:

  - Tue 12/12  1:00PM  Urbana Free Library

	Postcards for Peace group meeting -- mostly planning
	the 12/30 mailing/press-conference event.

  - Tue 12/12  7:00PM  Champaign City Council Chambers (University & Neil)

	Champaign Township meeting (Township Board = City Council)
	on funding for state-mandated General Assistance.
	Please attend -- let the City/Township know that
	support for the poor matters to the people of Champaign --
	and speak if you're willing!

	Problem is that due to the peculiar way G.A. is funded,
	the money for it (a few hundred thousand per year)
	is insufficient and running out fast.  There's no need for
	this; the City has a huge budget and could easily shift
	some to pay for modest services for the poor.

	Proposal for study (not vote, yet) on Tuesday is for
	an intergovernmental (City -> Township) transfer of
	about $150,000 to support services for the rest of this year.
	This needs to happen.

	Otherwise, Township would have only enough to offer half the
	state-mandated amount ($100/mo rather than $212)
	to fewer than half the eligible people (about 40,
	while about 100 currently receive G.A. each month);
	after the end of the fiscal year, even that would be gone.

	An issue too: a Township tax increase was on the
	ballot this fall, but few people knew that its
	purpose was to support General Assistance,
	and state law somehow required that the ballot
	language not specify the purpose; so the referendum failed.
	This does not mean, and our City Council/Twp Board members
	shouldn't interpret it to mean, that Champaign people are
	opposed to providing minimal assistance for the poorest
	people in our community!

  - Thu 12/14 (or before) Donations of medicine for Guatemala

	Peter Rohloff, now working in Guatemala, is requesting
	donations of over-the-counter drugs to help treat people there.

	[See Jan & Durl's note tonight.  Briefly they ask for any of:
	    ibuprofen, tylenol for children, ranitidine for acid
	    reflux, Tums, hydrocortisone cream, antifungal cream,
	    antibacterial cream, antiallergy drugs like benadryl or
	    allegra, vitamins, iron,  fingerstick machines to test
	    for diabetes with refill test sticks]
	They can also accept donations of money.

	They'd need things by *December 14th* in order to carry them
	on this trip.  If you'd like to donate something, Peter's
	wife Rebecca Rohloff is collecting; you can leave things in
	her School of Art & Design mailbox, or she will be in her
	IMC studio (somewhere in the IMC basement -- which space is hers??)
	on Thursday 12/14.

	[Is there any other way to reach Ms. Rohloff?  I didn't see
	contact info in Jan & Durl's note other than her web site,
	which just seems to have a guestbook. - Stuart]

  - Fri 12/15  7PM  IMC (202 S. Broadway Ave at Elm St.) basement Family Room

	Samidoun -- A Multimedia Presentation of the
	war in Lebanon and its aftermath

	Ana Nogueira of Democracy Now, and photojournalist Andrew Stern,
	were in Lebanon during and after this summer's war and collected
	still photography, audio and video.  More detail in this
	Vancouver Indymedia article:

	    http://vancouver.indymedia.org/?q=node/3070

  - Sat 12/16  Lincoln Square, Urbana
	Last "Village Market" of the year.
	AWARE booth times are covered, but only by
	one person each; anyone else is welcome to show up and help.


  - Sat 12/23  12:00-2:00PM   IMC   AWARE meeting (instead of usual Sun 12/24)
	Since AWARE's last two meetings of the year would fall
	at unpopular times on Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve,
	we decided to reschedule them.   Each will be held
	at noon on Sat instead of the usual 5PM Sunday.

	We'll meet as usual in the IMC Family Room unless it's
	in use; if so we'll look for an unused place in the IMC to meet.

  - Sat 12/30  11:00-noon?  IMC main (upstairs) room
	Postcards for Peace press conference/mailing event.
	The postcards to our US Senators and Representative
	(562 sets so far as of 12/10, says Barbara Kessel)
	will be mailed off, with fanfare, and readings
	of some choice messages.

  - Sat 12/30   12:00-2:00PM  IMC  (instead of usual Sun 12/31)
	Rescheduled AWARE meeting (following Postcards
	for Peace event).  Come now at noon, not 5PM on New Year's Eve.


  - Wed 1/3/2007  (don't know time yet) Courthouse in Urbana
	Hearing for Sgt. Myers, charged with using a
	taser on several people in county jail since 2004,
	and with other serious abuses.  It appears that
	CUCPJ's influence -- due especially to
	Brian Dolinar and Bob Wahlfeldt -- has put
	real pressure on the system.   It had seemed likely
	that the charges would be plea-bargained away
	leaving nothing much; but now, all charges are
	still pending against Myers.
	
	Please come and show that these issues matter to
	the community!

  - Thu 1/4/2007  9:00AM  Courtroom A   Courthouse in Urbana
	
	Hearing for Patrick Thompson's case -- motion for
	a new trial.  His new lawyer Kirchner has been laying out
	post-trial motions.  Again, please fill the courtroom!

  - first or second week of January
	AWARE Presents will meet again

  - Sat 1/27/2007  Washington, DC   National peace demonstration

	A major antiwar demonstration is being held in Washington, DC
	on Sat Jan 27th -- just in time to meet the new Congress --
	organized by UFPJ, ANSWER, and others.

	The local ISO (Int'l Socialist Org.) is organizing a
	bus from Champaign to Washington.  It would leave on
	Friday evening Jan 26th.  Who'd like to go?
	Randall Cotton asked the question; maybe he's collecting
	responses?  Saw at least a couple of hands at the meeting.

  - Fri/Sat 3/30-31/2007  Lincoln Hall
	Illinois Coalition for Peace and Justice statewide meeting
	will be held on campus, in Lincoln Hall.  (I *think* that's
	for real at this point.)
	

Whew.  More later, but I think these are all the planned events.

One as-yet-unscheduled event, but of enough interest that
I'll include it here in advance of the full minutes:

   Jimmy Carter is doing a tour for his new book,
   "Palestine: Peace or Apartheid"; and as one might expect given
   the objections to raising in the US any question remotely sympathetic
   to Palestinians, the tour is getting mediocre response.

   Apparently Carter is offering to appear on University campuses
   without charge.  Frank Knowles, who had initiated the
   October 26th panel on Israel, liked this idea and contacted
   Profs. Ken Cuno and Jamal Nassar;  Cuno spoke with the head of his
   department, the Program in S. Asian and Middle Eastern Studies;
   she is enthusiastic.  Frank K. is leaving town for the holidays,
   but wanted to check whether AWARE would carry the non-University
   side of this ball, organize related community events, etc.
   Sense of the meeting was Yes, with excitement.
   If this happens it'd be during spring semester.