Saturday, October 19, 9:30 AM - 1:00 PM Citizens' Grassroots Congress Harvey Wasserman, the internationally known environmentalist will speak about the proposed plan to dump 77,000 tons of radioactive waste at Yucca Mountain. If Yucca Mountain opens in 2010, as scheduled, all that waste must travel American highways or railroads to get there -- some 100,000 shipments over three decades through thousands of American communities. The potential for a serious accident or terrorist hijacking has opponents to the transport plan calling it "Mobile Chernobyl." Find out if nuclear waste will be transported through your neighborhood and what you can do about it. Location: Eastminster Presbyterian Church, 3100 East Broad St. (On the COTA bus line). More information: Rick Wilhelm <rwilhelm2 at msn.com> or Connie Hammond <chammon at columbus.rr.com>.
Sunday, October 20 War Without End? Not In Our Name! Demonstrate against Bush's Endless War! Time: 5-6 PM Location: 15th Ave. and High St., Columbus, OH Contact: 614-252-9255
Thursday, October 24 Palestine Truth Tour 2002 Featuring: * New Video From Palestine by Big Noise Films (the producer of Showdown in Seattle, Black and Gold, Zapatista, 9.11) featuring Mustafa Barghouthi, Hanan Ashrawi, and recent footage from Jenin, Hebron, and more. * Reports from International Solidarity Movement activists who recently returned from Freedom Summer in Palestine, and activists from Palestine solidarity and other movements. Time: 7:30 - 9:30 PM Location: 300 Journalism Building, Ohio State University, 242 West 18th Ave., Columbus, OH Campus Map: <http://www.osu.edu/map/linkbuildings/journalismbuilding.html> Sponsors: Student International Forum & Social Welfare Action Alliance Contact: Yoshie Furuhashi, 614-668-6554 or <furuhashi.1 at osu.edu>
Saturday, October 26 NATIONAL MARCH on WASHINGTON DC to STOP the WAR ON IRAQ. For details, see <http://www.InternationalANSWER.org>. For info about transportation from Columbus to D.C., call the Community Organizing Center at 614-252-9255.
Sunday, October 27 War Without End? Not In Our Name! Demonstrate against Bush's Endless War! Time: 5-6 PM Location: 15th Ave. and High St., Columbus, OH Contact: 614-252-9255
Thursday, October 31 Screening: _The Gaza Strip_ (Dir. James Longley, 2001) ***** Like most news reports and television images coming out of the Middle East these days, _Gaza Strip_, an unsparing new documentary by James Longley, offers little reason for optimism. The film, which opens today at the Anthology Film Archives in the East Village, was shot in the winter and spring of 2001, and it provides a grim, upsetting glimpse at the lives of some of the 1.2 million Palestinians who live in the crowded cities and refugee camps of Gaza. Mr. Longley makes powerful use of the techniques of cinéma vérité. The absence of voice-over narration and talking-head interviews gives his portrait of daily life under duress a riveting immediacy. Much of _Gaza Strip_ follows Mohammed Hejazi, a 13-year-old newspaper vendor. This youth, who left school after the second grade, spends much of his spare time with other boys throwing rocks at Israeli soldiers, even though his best friend was killed by the gunfire that is the inevitable response, and his father, who had spent time in an Israeli prison, once tied his son up to keep him at home. Mohammed presents a mixture of hardened cynicism and childish innocence that is both heartbreaking and unnerving. He is equally contemptuous of Ariel Sharon, whose election as prime minister takes place early in the film, of Mr. Sharon's predecessor Ehud Barak and of Yasir Arafat, and he fluctuates between weary sorrow and militaristic bravado. ("We want weapons. We don't want food.")...There are moments in "Gaza Strip" that disclose a wrenching human reality deeper and more basic than any politics. At one point Mohammed muses on death and the afterlife. His words cut against much of what we have heard lately about the Muslim view of martyrdom and paradise. He imagines receiving a stern interrogation from God - "Why did you throw those rocks?" "Why did you steal?" - after which he will be sent to heaven or hell, he doesn't know which. After some thought, he decides that he would be happiest in the solitude of purgatory. Such is the aspiration of a boy in Gaza. (A.O. Scott, New York Times 1/8/02) ***** Cf. <http://www.littleredbutton.com/gaza/>
Thursday, November 7 Screening: _500 Dunam on the Moon_ (Dir. Rachel Leah Jones, 2002) Ayn Hawd is a Palestinian village that was captured and depopulated by Israeli forces in the 1948 war. In 1953 Marcel Janco, a Romanian painter and a founder of the Dada movement, helped transform the village into a Jewish artists' colony, and renamed it Ein Hod. This documentary tells the story of the village's original inhabitants, who, after expulsion, settled only 1.5 kilometers away in the outlying hills. This new Ayn Hawd cannot be found on official maps, as Israeli law doesn't recognize it, and its residents, deemed "present absentees" by the authorities, do not receive basic services such as water, electricity or an access road. Rachel Leah Jones' filmmaking debut is a critical look at the art of dispossession and the creativity of the dispossessed. Cf. <http://www.500dunam.com/> Location: 300 Journalism Building, Ohio State University, 242 West 18th Ave., Columbus, OH Campus Map: <http://www.osu.edu/map/linkbuildings/journalismbuilding.html> Sponsors: Student International Forum & Social Welfare Action Alliance Contact: Yoshie Furuhashi, 614-668-6554 or <furuhashi.1 at osu.edu>
Thursday, November 14 Screening: _Project Censored_ (Dir. Steve Keller) For the first time on video, stories ignored by the mainstream news media are reported and discussed by journalists and media scholars. For the past 20 years, Project Censored has compiled an annual list of the most significant news stories ignored or censored by the established media. In this new video by Off the Couch Productions, five of those stories are presented by narrator Martin Sheen: "U.S. Arms Deals Flout the 'Arms Transfer Code of Conduct'"; "NASA Bets the World: Cassini's Deadly Payload"; "Personal Care and Cosmetic Products May Be Carcinogenic"; "Dark Alliance: The Contras, the CIA, and Crack Cocaine"; and "Milking the Public: The Bovine Growth Hormone Controversy." Commentary is offered by journalism scholars Ben Bagdikian, Peter Phillips, Carl Jensen, and Erna Smith, as well as Bruce Brugmann, publisher of the San Francisco Bay Guardian. Cf. <http://mediaed.org/videos/CommercialismPoliticsAndMedia/ProjectCensored> Location: 300 Journalism Building, Ohio State University, 242 West 18th Ave., Columbus, OH Campus Map: <http://www.osu.edu/map/linkbuildings/journalismbuilding.html> Sponsors: Student International Forum & Social Welfare Action Alliance Contact: Yoshie Furuhashi, 614-668-6554 or <furuhashi.1 at osu.edu>
* Women in Black Vigil against war, exploitation, & all forms of oppression: every Friday, 5:30-6 30 PM, at the corner of 15th Ave. & High St., Columbus, OH
* On the day when the US begins a ground invasion of Iraq... Go to the Federal Building (200 North High St., at the corner of Spring & High, Columbus, OH) at 9 PM and demonstrate against the invasion. (If the invasion begins after 9 p.m., do the above the day after the beginning of the invasion.) For more info, contact Mark D. Stansbery at 252-9255.
* In light of the Bush Regime's endless war-mongering, students at Ohio State are preparing to erect a Peace Camp once again on campus. Students for Sensible Drug Policy is currently working to secure a permit and begin as early as next week. Any interested individuals or groups (university-affiliated or not) that would like to be a part of this outreach project should contact Sarah Clark @ <clark.817 at osu.edu> for further information. We envision an autonomous zone of free speech and peace work overtaking Columbus! -- Yoshie
* Calendar of Events in Columbus: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/calendar.html> * Anti-War Activist Resources: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/activist.html> * Student International Forum: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osu.edu/students/CJP/>