United for Peace and Justice has issued a call for today to be a National Call your Congress Official Day. The Green Party of Utah has issued a press release urging Utahns to participate and demand a stop to the Iraq War.
Here is a list of contact informaiton for Utah U.S. House of Representatives for Utah:
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Awaiting a 3rd District Judge’s ruling on the legality of the new domestic partners benefits program instituted by the mayor and city government of Salt Lake, 16 employees are ready to take advantage of those benefits.
The employees have applied in accordance with the published deadline which was last week. All that remains is the Judge’s ruling. Three citizens have sued the city stating that the implementation of this benefits program violates Utah’s Defense of Marriage Act.
Salt Lake City will proceed with the program until such time as a court order prevents them from doing so.
Kudos to SLC for their stance on providing benefits for all their employees, whether “married” or not.
Utah officials and activists expected the U.S. Supreme Court to reject its case of appeal of a lower court ruling that denied a set of laws from being implemented that would have blocked the storage of high level nuclear waste in Utah.
Private Fuel Storage, the coalition that wants to store the waste in Utah’s west desert in Goshute Reservation land, is of course relieved with this recent news.
The article in today’s Salt Lake Tribune has an archive of links to past articles on the issue.
At the end of the article is a series of bulleted points on “what lies ahead” in this struggle. The last point states that:
Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid has proposed a plan to keep waste at the nuclear reactors that produced it until it can be reprocessed. It has the support of Utah’s governor and congressional delegation, with the exception of Sen. Orrin Hatch.
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Ever since the Tulsa Convention there has been much to-do about the seat left vacant on the nationsl GPUS Steering Committee as a result of the elections leavning such a vacancy. There recently came about a proposal from California regarding this, with two people up for being placed in the vacant seat, each sharing the votes by half.
Today, Tom Sevigny, one of the two, and the person who won the election via the voting method that was used in Tulsa (one of the points of contention is the actual voting method), resigned from the party all together. A veteran Green, he’s had it.
This has made me very sad.
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This week’s Carnival of the Green (#5) is hosted by The Greener Side, a blog devoted to all sorts of green issues.
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Tagged blogging, carnival of the green, environment, fair trade, green blogs
Most of Utah’s drinking water comes from underground water sources. So it’s alarming to hear that
4,000 cases of leaking underground petroleum storage tanks have been reported since 1988, according to an article in today’s Deseret News. Cleanup efforts are approaching the $1 million mark.
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(Sources: Peace Buttons and War Resisters League Calendar)
December 5
1955
Five days after Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat the African-American community of Montgomery, Alabama launched their boycott of the city’s bus system.The Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) was formed to coordinate the boycott with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., elected as its president. Out of Montgomery’s 50,000 black residents 30,000-40,000 participated. The boycott lasted over 1 year (54 weeks) until the buses were integrated.
This morning I spoke with Emily, my 16-year-old daughter who lives in Maryland. She told me this story:
A man came in to the fast food restaurant where she works and ordered his meal. He initiated a conversation with Emily and found out that she wants to be a cosmetologist. Telling her about his “wife’s business” in cosmetics he told Emily that he might be able to get her a job with his wife, so he got Emily to give him her phone number.
Ever since then, she has been called daily by this man, identifying himself as a recruiter from the Army recruiting office in her area. She does not answer her phone, instead allowing the recruiter to leave her his message.
Needless to say, my jaw dropped to the floor as she told me this. I have effectively instilled in my children the merits of becoming conscientious objectors and the alternatives to war to promote peace and justice. This includes educating them on the deceptive tactics that military recruiters use to get young people to enlist.
Emily has been instructed to write down the number the next time this person calls and to forward it to me.
The recruiter will be very sorry he is calling her when he hears from me.
The Deseret News has started a series of articles examining the rising cost of heating bills and the impact it will have on Utahns. The D-News will follow individuals and their families throughout the winter to learn how they cope with the rising heating costs.
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