Articles published in today’s newspapers on Utah Legislative News – inlcudes news on U.S. Senators and U.S. House Represenatives from Utah:
Salt Lake Tribune
2006 Legislature: One for the history books
Bishop rejects Patriot Act amendments, while Cannon and Matheson vote yes
Hatch’s flag bill will move to floor: Proposed constitutional amendment: Utah senator’s measure would let Congress ‘protect’ American symbol
Matheson backs line-item veto
March 10
1910
Slavery abolished in China
1913
Harriet Tubman Day, on the anniversary of her death in 1913 to honor her work freeing slaves.
1969
James Earl Ray was jailed for 99 years by a court in Memphis, Tennessee, after admitting he murdered American civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.King, who preached non-violence and was shot dead by Ray in Memphis, Tennessee in April 1968 as he stood on a hotel balcony.
moments before the murder
Today’s Deseret News has an article on Deb Sawyer, a local peace activist in Salt Lake.
Deb is the director for The Gandhi Alliance for Peace, which has the mission of bringing the teachings of Gandhi to schools and providing assistance to citizens in countries ravaged by war and disaster. Projects of the Gandhi Alliance for Peace include Landmines (through its Adop-A-Minefield Program–providing support to remove landmines in Afghanistan) and Tsunami Relief.
“Our kids aren’t being taught non-violence,” she says. “Their images of bravery are of people standing up to violence with more violence. We want to teach them that there’s another way.”
Currently, Deb and her friends are raising funds to help villagers in Afghanistan, a country littered with millions of land mines and unexploded ordnance. Through the “Adopt-a-Minefield” program, land is being cleared so war refugees can find a safe place to resettle.
Deb has provided speeches and stories at local peace rallies in the past:
March 15, 2003
September 11, 2003
Every year the The Gandhi Alliance for Peace holds “Night of a Thousand Dinners” to raise money for its Adopt-A-Minefield Program. My vocal students from school are always invited by Deb to perform at this event, which is enjoyed by many and a great experience for my students.
Deb Sawyer is truly a model for peace activists in our community. I have always admired her and was happy today to see her and the work she is doing highlighted in a major Utah newspaper.
Private Fuel Storage, a consoritum of utility companies who now obtain a license to build a nuclear waste storage facility on the Goshute Reservation in Skull Valley in western Utah, has made it clear thatit will move forward and opponents can’t stop them, and in fact is downplaying any efforts being made by citizens in Utah, including the state of Utah.
“We will get the fuel to the site because it’s a legal commodity, and we now have a license to receive it,” said Private Fuel Storage’s chairman John Parkyn.
Really?
And get this:
Parkyn said the Cedar Mountain reserve is not a real wilderness either, arguing that the wilderness is in the mountains and that the delegation just “drew a bubble” around the mountains to block the nuclear waste — an argument he says could matter later down the line.
Not real wilderness? What does that mean? So now the PFS chair is an expert in wilderness issues?
The state of Utah this week filed an updated challenge to the PFS proposal in the U.S. District Court of Appeals for Washington, D.C. It challenges the NRC’s license, issued to PFS last month.
And Time magazine is reporting that PFS would pay the Skull Valley Band of Goshute Indians up to $100 million over 40 years for the right to operate its proposed repository on the band’s reservation.
Jason Groenewold, director of the anti-nuclear group Healthy Environment Alliance of Utah, said the $100 million figure is “pennies on the dollar, compared to liabilities the nuclear industry faces for keeping this waste where it’s generated. . . .
“Given that the liabilities and risks are going to be the highest for those that live in Skull Valley, they got the short end of the stick.”
(You can view the Time Magazine article at Utah’s Toxic Opportunity: SOME GOSHUTE INDIANS WANT TO CREATE A NUCLEAR-FUEL DUMP ON THEIR LAND. CONTROVERSIAL? OF COURSE)
The PFS site would be a 40 year project to store up to half the nation’s spent fuel rods from nuclear energy facilities. After 40 years PFS would leave the project and there are no plans to maintain the site after that. Spent fuel/toxic waste takes tens of thousands of years to reach the point being “harmless” to life.
It will be interesting to see if PFS chairman Parkyn gets his way. There is a lot of resistance to this project in our state and their are people who are willing to put their bodies on the line to do everything they can from preventing this project to move forward – including me.
Good resources to reasearch and find more info in this issue are:
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged environment, goshutes, nuclear issues, private fuel storage, Utah
March 9
1839
The U.S. Supreme Court freed slaves who had seized the slave ship Amistad in 1839. The slaves had taken control of the ship off the shore of Cuba (then a colony of Spain)and demanded to be taken back to Africa but wound up in U.S. waters off the coast of Long Island, New York.
Slave Ship
Tonight in Salt Lake an event was held to celebrate International Women’s Day. Building Global Bridges was held at Westminster College. Tabling was for 1/2 hour prior to the film and panel.
Jen of Jen’s Green Journal has posted photos and an account of the event.
Here are photos from the tabling session:
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged pro-choice, reproductive rights, Women, women's rights
Today, March 8 marks International Women’s Day, the day of the Global Women’s Strike. IWD is a day that has been celebrated internationally by women and men and childrenm since 1945. (Scroll down for IWD history).
Locally, in Salt Lake City, there will be this event:
International Women’s Day – “Building Global Bridges”
Vieve Gore Concert Hall, Westminster College
FREE and open to the public
Reception: 6pm, Program: 6:45pm
Feature Film: “Women on the Frontlines” – Women in 5 countries strive to improve their lives and communities thorugh education, micro loans, democracy, and the search for peace and forgiveness. Discussion will follow.
Presented by:
Planned Parenthood, People for Peace and Justice of UTah, Mormons for Equality and Social Justice, National Council for Community and Justice, Tapestry Against Polygamy, Ten Thousand Villages, Westminster Students for Choice and Diversity Center, Rape REcovery Center, YWCA, SLC Film Center and City Weekly
Women at work in India
Ajit Solanki, Associated Press
Women break chili pepper stalks in Ahmadabad, India. The women earn 11 cents for more than 40 pounds of chilies. Today is International Women’s Day — an occasion where women’s groups worldwide are honoring women’s achievements and working for equality.
(published in today’s Deseret News)
Read these articles and accounts of women and women’s issues:
Statement from Women <a href="Housewives workers in the home to President Chavez – 4 February 2006
http://www.globalwomenstrike.net/English2005/WSFworkshops.htm”>Global Women’s Strike workshops at the World Social Forum, Caracas, Venezuela, Jan-Feb 2006
Venezuela: bringing the women’s revolution to Europe & US
Women under occupation – daily life and resistance: Three Palestinian women speak at Crossroads Women’s Centre
Refusing to kill, a website by Payday, a network of men working with the Global Women’s Strike
IWD History
1908
Thousands of workers in the New York needle trades (primarily women) demonstrated & began a strike for higher wages, a shorter workday and an end to child labor.
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged pro-choice, reproductive rights, Women, women's rights
I have posted some pieces here on the Patriot Act Extension Proposal and the debate over its renewal.
It’s official.
Yesterday the U.S. House narrowly voted to renew the Patriot Act in a “cliffhanger vote”.
The vote was 280-138, just two more than needed under special rules that required a two-thirds majority. The close vote caught senior Republican aides in both chambers by surprise.
Nonetheless, the vote marked a political victory for Bush and will allow congressional Republicans facing midterm elections this year to continue touting a tough-on-terror stance. Bush’s approval ratings have suffered in recent months after revelations that he had authorized secret, warrantless wiretapping of Americans.
Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, had this to say: “I rise in strong opposition to this legislation because it offers only a superficial reform that will have little if any impact on safeguarding our civil liberties.”
Provisions of the renewed act:
The package renews 16 expiring provisions of the original Patriot Act, including one that allows federal officials to obtain “tangible items” like business records, including those from libraries and bookstores, for foreign intelligence and international terrorism investigations.
Other provisions would clarify that foreign intelligence or counterintelligence officers should share information obtained as part of a criminal investigation with counterparts in domestic law enforcement agencies.
Forced by Feingold’s filibuster, Congress and the White House have agreed to new curbs on the Patriot Act’s powers.
These restrictions would:
— Give recipients of court-approved subpoenas for information in terrorist investigations the right to challenge a requirement that they refrain from telling anyone.
— Eliminate a requirement that an individual provide the FBI with the name of a lawyer consulted about a National Security Letter, which is a demand for records issued by investigators.
— Clarify that most libraries are not subject to demands in those letters for information about suspected terrorists.
The legislation also takes aim at the distribution and use of methamphetamine by limiting the supply of a key ingredient found in everyday cold and allergy medicines.
Yet another provision is designed to strengthen port security by imposing strict punishments on crew members who impede or mislead law enforcement officers trying to board their ships.
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged civil liberties, free speech, government corruption, patriot act, politics
Follow-up on Legislature 2006: Articles in published in today’s Utah newspapers:
Salt Lake Tribune
Senate killed bills on ethical standard–Resisting reform: Implication of impropriety angered some
Analyst says docs’ shield law won’t stand up in courtroom
Lawmakers ignored learning gap in 2006, education advocates say: Legislators ignored achievement
Deseret News
Land-use bill raises ethics questions
March 8
International Women’s Day, since 1945
1908
Thousands of workers in the New York needle trades (primarily women) demonstrated & began a strike for higher wages, a shorter workday and an end to child labor.
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Deanna Dee-Dee Taylor 