Saturday, April 17, 2010

Green Party Gubernatorial Candidate Deacon Alexander and the Black Rider Liberation Party join "Say No to Nazis" camapign

Stand Together to Say No to Nazi's!
Deacon Alexander, Green Party California gubernatorial primary candidate, has asked me to post the following message:
"As part of its Reclaim the Southwest campaign, National Socialist Movement (NSM) has obtained permit for a Nazi rally at LA City Hall. Nazis are on the march, after decades of covert organizing. They soon arrive in LA for a national conference. NSM's call for an all-White U.S. 
NSM has chapters across the U.S., with strong presence in Riverside County, where a number of  anti-immigrant demonstrations have been held. NSM's also support death penalty for all LGBTQ's, and have a history of racist violence and execution style murders.
Deacon Alexander urges you to Stand Together with him, to Say No to Nazis!
A non-violent demonstration is being organized Saturday, April 17, 10:00am, at the Triforium statue, on Temple and Main Streets in downtown LA.
A city-wide planning meeting to Say No to Nazi's will be held Saturday April 3 6pm, at Chuco's Justice Center, 1137 East Redondo Blvd, Inglewood (3 blocks west of Crenshaw at West Blvd., one block north of Florence).
The Black Riders, a present-day version of Black Panthers, are part of this grassroots community organizing effort. Both Deacon Alexander and The Black Riders have joined hands with No Nazis In LA Coalition, whose stated objectives are:
  a.. Send the Nazis packing,
  b.. Support human rights and self determination for Black, Brown, Native, Asian, gay and poor and working people,
  c.. Say No to racism, sexism, anti-Semitism, imperialism and genocide,
  d.. Do not accept penning by police.
Deacon says; "I hope a large collective action of Greens, and all people of  conscience, will help promote Green Party core values of human rights, non-violence and social justice. Stand Together to Say No to Nazi's!"

Monday, April 12, 2010

Students Rally to Defend athletics at UC Davis

Demonstration against the UC Davis Administration
    Monday, April 12, 2010
    2:00pm - 3:30pm
    Meeting at the Bus depot next to Hickey gym marching to Mrak hall
[http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/event.php?eid=110469645650143]
We are meeting at Hickey gym and walking over to Mrak hall to show the administration that the student body is not okay with closed-door policies and decision-making. This is not just a walk against the cutting of athletic teams, but against our administration, which has neglected multiple resolutions that have been proposed and passed by the student body, and student elected officials of the ASUCD.
This is school wide, and we are hoping to bring together multiple communities that might soon also be affected by this administrations neglect of the principles of community. We should be able to see where our money is going, and the reasoning behind drastic decisions to balance our ever failing budget.
We encourage anyone who is fed up with our administration and how they are running our university, to attend. We also hope that those teams that are "SAVED" will step up and help support your fellow athletes, you understand what it means to compete, and would want the same support if you were at risk for being removed!
What to wear: please wear something that represents your sport, club, organization, or something that represents UC Davis.
---
Shawdee R., April 14, 2010:
To all those who believe that we, student-athletes, have been portrayed in a negative light due to the recent protests I'd like to say that I have heard nothing but POSITIVE feedback from professors, coaches, administrators, and the news media regarding our actions. We are approaching the issue in a very PEACEFUL, DIPLOMATIC, RESPECTFUL, and STRONG manner..so keep it up, and don't let what anyone else tells you make you think otherwise. GO AGS!! Keep the fight going in SOLIDARITY!


"13 athletic teams await their fates"
2010-04-09 from "Dateline: UC Davis News & Information" [http://dateline.ucdavis.edu/dl_detail.lasso?id=12564]:
Athletics Director Greg Warzecka and a work group of other UC Davis officials continued their review this week of 13 men’s and women’s teams for possible elimination in response to the budget crisis affecting the entire UC system.
No decisions had been announced as of the morning of April 7, when Dateline went to press. Look for an update at ucdavis.edu and in next week’s Dateline.
Student-athletes opposed to cutbacks marched on Mrak Hall and Hickey Gym on April 2.
That was the same day Warzecka sent a letter to the campus community, to advise on what was coming. Here is the letter in full:
•••
To the UC Davis Community:
I’m sure that by now many of you have read or heard something about the gravity of the financial problems at UC Davis and the potential impact on the Intercollegiate Athletics program. In recent weeks, hundreds of students, staff, faculty, alumni and friends of the university have contacted me to express their heartfelt concern for particular sports programs or for the future of Intercollegiate Athletics overall. I’ve also had numerous meetings with internal constituent groups. I appreciate your interest and your concern, and I want everyone in the UC Davis community to understand that I feel and hear your worry and distress.
For the past two years, UC Davis has been working through an unprecedented fiscal crisis. During this time, our university has made tough decisions and difficult choices to resolve shortfalls totaling more than $150 million, or 25 percent of the general fund budget. For 2010-11, the campus faces an additional shortfall of $38 million to $78 million, depending on the outcome of the governor’s budget proposal.
In a Feb. 5 budget-planning letter to the campus, Chancellor Linda Katehi and Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor Enrique Lavernia proposed among other things $36 million in budget reductions campuswide, including a $1.79 million cut to Intercollegiate Athletics, effective July 1, from campus general funds and registration fee funds.
It’s important for the entire UC Davis community to understand that the $1.79 million cut was academic money that goes to pay the salaries and benefits for physical education lecturers and supervisors who also have a coaching assignment, and not to support our 27 teams.
That’s because our approach at UC Davis is unique within the UC system and in Division I. In the same way that we have student-athletes at UC Davis, we also have teacher-coaches. So these people teach and manage the physical education program within the College of Letters and Science, in addition to their coaching responsibilities. These lecturers administer exams and give grades to students in classes, classes that the students take for academic credit. These lecturers report to Dean Ron Mangun of the Division of Social Sciences, and not to me.
And so, this $1.79 million cut in physical education costs will now fall to Intercollegiate Athletics. But the cut is actually greater — closer to $2.4 million — when you include benefits that will have to be paid for.
The chancellor and provost have left it up to Intercollegiate Athletics, a unit of Student Affairs, to come up with our own budget for 2010-11, to find ways to bring our program back to fiscal solvency. But it’s important to understand that we are left with very few options to manage a cut of this magnitude.
Last month, Student Affairs Vice Chancellor Fred Wood appointed an eight-member team of campus faculty and staff to review, assist and advise Intercollegiate Athletics on our budget recommendations. My leadership team has met with these advisors several times and we will continue to meet in April.
Today, we can be proud of the level of revenue we are currently generating, and current staff will continue to be creative and entrepreneurial. But it would be reckless to continue to behave as if Intercollegiate Athletics has enough flexibility with its funding sources to continue all 27 NCAA Division I teams.
We have found prudent and creative ways to resolve the numerous budgetary challenges facing the department in the past, but we have now reached the end of credible alternatives. We have tried short-term fundraising efforts that generate less than $100,000 per year per sport; we now need to accept that those efforts have fallen short of solving the massive financial problem we currently face.
As a result, we are now reviewing 13 different men’s and women’s sports based on established criteria that include, among other considerations, current conference and NCAA requirements and continued compliance with federal Title IX regulations (gender equity).
Vice Chancellor Wood’s appointed advisory team will ensure that all options under consideration will undergo a budgetary and legal review prior to his forwarding any final recommendation to Chancellor Katehi and Provost Lavernia. In some cases, varsity programs that are discontinued may have the opportunity to be supported and grow through Campus Recreation’s Sport Clubs program. UC Davis has one of the largest and most active sport club programs in the country.
While other NCAA Division I institutions have recently announced the discontinuation of varsity sports — and many others have announced review processes similar to ours — I want to stress that our current circumstance can’t be compared with the decisions made by other institutions. It’s also important for you all to understand that we are not now just beginning to analyze our Intercollegiate Athletics budget for efficiencies and cost cutting.
Indeed, over the past few years, Intercollegiate Athletics has looked for various ways to shed costs and still provide the most essential core services needed to maintain competitive teams and student-athlete welfare. We can no longer address these challenges solely with across-the-board sports and administrative unit budget reductions — we have already done so. We have also taken advantage of staff attrition while asking the remaining staff to take on additional responsibilities. We have already cut sports budgets across the board and replaced the multi-year cuts with donations. But this is not a sustainable approach for our 27-sport program over the long term.
In essence, most mid-level Division I institutions don’t sell a lot of tickets. And if a school doesn’t have a large alumni base making significant contributions, and if it isn’t in a Division I conference that generates revenue, then athletic administrators have little chance of growing revenue significantly to offset budget cuts of the size that we face today at UC Davis.
Let me also add that the intrinsic value and life’s lessons that student-athletes learn today from varsity participation are present in all 27 of our NCAA Division I sports; those values and lessons are not any greater or more valuable in one sport over another. Unfortunately, in the immediate and near future we will lack the funding necessary to continue all 27 sports, and as a result, some male and female opportunities to participate in athletics at UC Davis will be lost.
For many years UC Davis has had a history and practice of expanding its intercollegiate athletics program. Given the current financial situation, we can no longer add sports, and instead will shift our compliance efforts to what is known as “Prong One” of Title IX’s three-prong compliance test, which requires an institution to maintain competitive opportunities for men and women in substantial proportion to the ratio between the genders in the undergraduate population.
Starting in the 2010-11 fiscal year, we will move forward with those sports that help the intercollegiate athletics program maintain a broad-based offering of sports for men and women while allowing the department the best chance to reach and maintain fiscal solvency.
I want to thank you all again for your concern and your interest, and for your continued support for Aggie athletics.
[signed] Greg Warzecka, Director of Athletics

Friday, April 9, 2010

Freedom to Live, "Off the Grid"

To live free of economic domination by entities existing solely for profit, is illegal in many state jurisdictions across the USA, with regulations imposed on residents concerning safety as related to being networked into the grid of sewage and energy conduits, including electricity and natural gas, many of which are operated by investor owned corporations whose sole purpose is to create private profit above human needs.
Homelessness is enhanced by the regulations that are making illegal the act of living "off the grid". For example, encampments for those living without homes are not allowed the stability to afford the process of creating permanent habitation, because all human habitation, being regulated for safety, must be aligned into the grid, a process that would cost the governing agency millions of dollars levied as taxation against the working class.
Therefore, for the sake of enhancing freedom, the following archive is being provided. It will be updated as content is submitted.

"How to Live Off-the-grid in a Tiny House" [link]

Sunday, April 4, 2010

Homes Not Jails - Rally, March & Occupation on Easter Sunday

START DATE: Sunday April 04
TIME: 12:00 PM - 3:00 PM
AT: 24th Street & Mission Street, San Francisco, CA
Homes Not Jails [contact (@) homesnotjailssf.org] [www.homesnotjailssf.org]
On Easter Sunday, April 4th @ 12 noon.
Rally at 24th Street & Mission Streets followed by a march to the occupation site. Housing should not sit vacant when people are living on the streets. People should not not be evicted for profit. People's rights should come before property rights. Come out and let your voice be heard.
Due to for-profit evictions, real estate speculation, and indifference to human suffering and need, hundreds of buildings or housing units sit vacant in San Francisco while thousands of people remain unhoused. Our purpose is to publicize and protest the injustice of this situation -- as well as to assert the right of people to sleep inside vacant buildings instead of sleeping in front of them.
People should not not be evicted so that landlords, banks and developers can evade local laws while driving up rents. People's rights should come before property rights. As San Francisco City Hall, Police Chief Gasçon, and merchants strive to outlaw sitting and lying down in public, Homes Not Jails squats in defiance!