Whatcom Peace
& Justice Center
May 2008 Calendar
WhatcomPJC.org
SEATTLE PI:
WPJC executive director Marie Marchand’s
guest column in the Seattle Post-Intelligenser,
April 28: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/360664_firstperson28.html
THE WESTERN FRONT:
Article on WWU students’ mock occupation
in Red Square and panel discussion:
http://westernfrontonline.net/200804299946/news/mock-occupation-aims-to-show-western-students-realities-of-war/
TRUTHOUT:
Washington Senator Patty Murray challenged the
VA in regard lying about the number of veteran
suicide attempts citing internal e-mails that
put the number at 12,000 a year when the department
was publicly saying it was fewer than 800: http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/042608A.shtml
VOLUNTEERS NEEDED:
The Whatcom Peace & Justice Center will be
hosting Open Houses on some Saturdays throughout
the Spring and Summer from 10-2pm to coincide
with the Farmer’s Market. If you are interested
in helping out with these, please contact Marie
at 734-0217. Thanks!
SUMMER PEACE ACTIVIST TRAINING FOR HIGH
SCHOOLERS:
Western Washington Fellowship of Reconciliation
and the Abe Keller Peace Education Fund are offering
Peace Activist Traineeships for high school sophomores
and juniors. The program runs July 7-31 and will
include a social action project. Youth will work
with experienced organizers and earn $8/hr. Applications
due no later than Friday, May 23, 2008. Apply
at www.wwfor.org or
contact (206) 789-5565.
Thursday May 1: Join WWU staff,
faculty, and students in Red Square 11:30-12:00
to honor US soldiers and Iraqis killed in Iraq. We
remember and honor them by simply reading their
names; and our gathering witnesses to the daily
on-going killings in this war. April has
been the deadliest month since September with
44 US soldiers killed. The number of Iraqis
killed is unknown, but is estimated at 1 million.
Thursday May 1: IMMIGRANT SOLIDARITY
MARCH hosted by Community to Community. Gathering
at 5:30pm at Maritime Heritage Park, 1600 "C"
Street. The march begins at 6:00pm to a 6:15pm
rally at the County Courthouse. We will march
at 6:30 pm to Cornwall park for a 7:00pm program
featuring speakers and a community meal.
Co-Sponsors include Unitarian Fellowship Social
Justice Committee, Whatcom Human
Rights Task Force, Whatcom Rainbow Coalition,
and Whatcom Peace and Justice Center.
Thursday May 1- Candle Light
vigil in Red Square in remembrance of the Holocaust
8-9pm, candles and beverages provided.
Friday May 2: CASCAID Peace
& Justice Conference. KEYNOTE SPEAKER Dr.
Manning Marable presents Race, Crime, and Justice
at 7pm in the Viking Union Multi-Purpose Room.
FREE and open to the public. This evening event
is preceded by two workshop sessions beginning
at 4pm in the Communications Facility, with registration
at 3:30pm.
Prolific author and race relations scholar, Dr.
Manning Marable is Professor of Public Affairs,
Political Science, History and African-American
Studies at Columbia University in New York City.
He was founding director of the Institute for
Research in African-American Studies at Columbia
University, one of the nation’s most prestigious
centers of scholarship on the black American experience.
Saturday May 3: CASCAID Peace
& Justice Conference. Day Two at WWU’s
Communications Facility. Registration begins at
9:30am. The day includes three workshop sessions
addressing over 25 social justice issues. Lunch
available. For more information, visit http://www.wwucascaid.org/
or call Korry Harvey at 360.650.6529.
Wednesday May 7: Shafqat Hussain,
a PhD student at the School of Forestry and Environmental
Studies and the Department of Anthropology at
Yale University, presents “Protecting the
snow leopard and enhancing farmers’ livelihoods.”
World Issues Forum, 12-1:30pm in Fairhaven College
Auditorium. Shafqat Hussain will address the effectiveness
of a people’s first approach in protecting
endangered wildlife and factors that jeopardize
their efforts, and how PSL demonstrates that nature
conservation is inherently tied to political and
social forces.
Thursday May 8 thru Saturday May 10:
Found Peace: A Mother's Day Collection by Carolyn
McCarthy, 8pm at The Firehouse Performing Arts
Center, 1314 Harris Avenue. Tickets $10 in advance/$15
at the door. Available at the Community Food Coop
and Village Books. Saturday's show will be ASL
interpreted by Lori Abrams & Kathleen Morris.
Questions? Call 647-0741 or visit www.carolynmcc.com.
This theatre performance includes letters home
to mom from a US soldier stationed in Iraq performed
by WWU Prof. Rich Brown.
Saturday May 10: Donate your
bike to the African Bike Project. All bikes accepted,
regardless of their condition or size (no tricycles).
Volunteers needed to collect and prepare bikes
for shipment. 9am-1pm, 3232 Laurelwood, Bellingham.
For more information, call Charles at 393-7262.
The main form of transportation in Ghana is walking;
the lucky ride bikes.
Saturday May 10: Amy Englesberg’s
Piano Recital at the Firehouse Performing Arts
Center at 3:30pm. Amy has been a board member
of the Whatcom Peace & Justice Center since
June 2006 and is an outstanding activist and event
organizer at Ferndale High School. The public
is welcome to attend. Thanks, Amy!
Saturday May 10: Al-Nakba Coalition commemorates
sixty years of Palestinian resistance with a day
of cultural expression at Seattle Central Community
College, outdoors at the South Plaza (near the
northwest corner of Broadway and E. Pine) and
indoors in room BE 1110, 12-4pm. This free event
will showcase the Palestinian heritage and culture
and celebrate Palestinian resistance with traditional
arts and crafts, folk music, handicrafts, dabka
dancing, poetry reading, photography exhibit,
and food. Sponsored by Al-Nakba Coalition. Info@nakba60th-seattle.org.
Tuesday May 13: Closing the
Food Gap: Resetting the Table in the Land of Plenty,
7-9pm. Author Mark Winne will read from his book
at the Bellingham Unitarian Fellowship 1708 'I'
St. Light refreshments will be served. "Closing
the Food Gap reveals the chasm between the two
food systems of America-the one for the poor and
the one for everyone else. Mark Winne offers compelling
solutions for making local, organic, and highly
nutritious food available to everyone." -
Dr. Jane Goodall. Sponsored by Community to Community
Development and Small Potatoes Gleaning Project.
Wednesday May 14: “Energy
Policy and Economic Transition: exploring South
America and Central Asia through personal interviews”
presented by Michaela Rollins and Devin Malone,
Learning Adventure Grant Recipients, 12-1:30pm,
World Issues Forum at Fairhaven College Auditorium.
Michaela and Devin pursued two different interviewing
projects in Tajikistan and South America with
political leaders on energy policy, as well as
with "persons on the street" about life
in Bolivia; and women of all ages to investigate
how economic transition has altered their opportunities
and livelihoods.
Friday May 16: BIKE TO WORK AND SCHOOL
DAY!
Wednesday May 21: Ben Muller,
Professor of International Relations and Critical
Security Studies at Simon Fraser University presents
on “ILLIBERAL PRACTICES OF LIBERAL REGIMES:
REFLECTIONS ON THE STATUS OF ETHICS, LAW &
JUSTICE AFTER 9/11” at 12-1:30pm, World
Issues Forum, Fairhaven College Auditorium. A
puzzle that persists for many academics and activists
is how it is possible for liberal democratic states
to act in illiberal manners. Liberalism claims
to offer the most robust restraints on sovereign
power, and yet, liberal government also offers
the most fundamental and enduring extensions of
state power into the full range of life. How do
we conceptualize questions of justice, ethics,
and law in contemporary security practices?
Thursday May 22: The Whatcom
Peace & Justice hosts a party to celebrate
two wonderful accomplishments. During the week
of April 21st, WWU students who are members of
the Guerrilla Theater Activist Club and Students
for a Democratic Society held four days of events
about which they created a short documentary.
We will celebrate their campus activism and watch
their video. This is also a “Welcome Home”
party for Iraq Vet Ash Woolson who is finishing
up his three-month peace walk across Japan. He
accompanied Buddhist monks, activists from around
the world, and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Wangari
Maathi in this incredible effort to save Article
15 of the Japanese Constitution, which is being
threatened. Potluck begins at 6:30pm, program
at 7pm, dancing and socializing follows. For more
info call 734-0217.
Monday May 26: Veterans for
Peace Memorial Day ‘Arlington Northwest’
observance at Peace Arch Park on the US/Canada
border in Blaine, WA, runs from 9am-6pm with a
Memorial Ceremony at 2pm. This is a powerful visual
event that honors all fallen US soldiers. To find
out how to get involved in the planning or set-up,
visit http://www.vfp111.org/.
Wednesday May 28: Wendy Call
presents “Fishermen, Housewives, Teachers
and Transvestites: Social Movements in Oaxaca,
Mexico” 12-1:30pm, World Issues Forum, Fairhaven
College Auditorium. In 2006, a burgeoning social
movement in Mexico’s southern state of Oaxaca
jumped into international headlines. Their grassroots
organizing continues in spite of severe repression
by the state and federal governments. In this
slideshow and talk, Wendy Call will discuss the
development of Oaxaca’s current social movement,
and how it inspired the Zapatistas in Chiapas
and other groups throughout the world.
Saturday May 31: Iraq Veterans
Against the War (IVAW) Northwest will make its
voice heard with Winter Soldier Northwest at Town
Hall in Seattle, Eighth Avenue and Seneca Street,
12 Noon. Come here eye witness testimony of veterans
who have served in the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Northwest event will be followed by a rally
and march. For more information, contact Seattle@IVAW.org.
To watch testimony from the national Winter Soldier
event that took place last March, visit www.IVAW.org.
ONGOING MEETINGS & ACTIVITIES:
Rainbow Coalition meets the first Saturday of
every at 10am at the ReStore. For more info call
Dotty at 733-4146.
Amnesty International meeting at the Public Market
(next to Tube Time at Cornwall and York) the last
Thursday of every month 6:30 PM.
Peace Vigil gathers every Friday afternoon in
front of the Federal Building at Cornwall and
Magnolia from 4-5pm. Join the Peace Zone afterwards
for announcements and discussion at The Mount
Bakery Restaurant, 308 W. Champion Street.
Veterans for Peace meets every third Friday at
6:00 PM, 1220 N. Forest Street. Veterans and non-Veterans
invited. Call (360) 961-4999 for details.
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This calendar is a service of the Whatcom Peace
& Justice Center (PO Box 2444, Bellingham,
WA 98227). We do not necessarily endorse all of
the events listed. When we are co-sponsoring or
hosting an event, we list our name in that announcement.
(360) 734-0217; WhatcomPJC@fidalgo.net.
To have your event included, please send an email
one week prior to the end of the month with “Event
Notice” in the subject line. Thank you.
