We Ride Bikes

Awesome.

Via feministing:

Cecilia Fire Thunder, President of the Oglala Sioux Tribe in South Dakota, has said she will open a Planned Parenthood on the reservation where the state of South Dakota has no jurisdiction.

Two more days...

I don't think I'm gonna make it.

So many people are on edge and just irritable...something about knowing spring break is SO close and yet there are two more days left...

Today the Student Animal Legal Defense Fund had an all vegan barbecue. I don't think you can beat free vegan lunch. Not much going on lately, will update more tomorrow.

But here's a Today in Labor History for tomorrow:

March 23, 1918 - In Chicago, 101 members of the Industrial Workers of the World are put on trial for opposing the draft and hindering the war effort.

Hell yeah.

Also, check out this cool video. Give it a minute to load, then click play, because any death, is one death too many.

Yes.

(Click for larger.)

Tuesday...

Spring Break starts in 3 days and it cannot get here soon enough.

But catching up over the past month or so...

Things have been going well. I've taken over the Coordinator position for the LC Military Counseling project. We are a part of an nationwide GI Rights Hotline. We provide information and resources, as necessary, to service members in the U.S. Armed Forces. Our project fights a larger battle on essentially two fronts: first, we help service members avoid or withdraw from service, and second, we actively counter the recruiting efforts by the military in the Portland area. When you hear some of the tactics used by some of these recruiters, you just can't believe it. The kids they are targeting deserve to hear the truth. (2/3 of enlistees never see their GI Bill benefits, it's not simply 2 years and getting to pick any job you want, they can completely re-evaluate your contract at anytime without negotiating, etc.)

As coordinator, I simply do the administrative stuff and maintain relationships in the peace movement and build coalitions and things like that. The two guys who have had my job before me have done a great job of building those relationships and I really just have to maintain them. Normally I would be writing grants and things of that nature, but I think they've all been written, I simply have to follow up on them and respond if necessary.

Sunday as you can see by the pictures below, was a HUGE peace march in Portland. Police estimated turnout at 9,000-10,000 and the organizers estimated 40,000. I know it was a lot of people. Evidently, there was one arrest and since there were only 8 legal observers, we missed it.

Yesterday, there was a civil disobedience action against Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR). 19 protesters entered his office to demand he submit legislation to begin bringing troops home, and implement some peaceful transfer of power. Unfortunately, the Legal Observers were refused entrance into the office and kicked out of the building. All 19 were cited for failing to obey a federal officer, and released.

Either way, it was an exciting couple of days to be a legal observer. More soon, I promise.

March 19 Anti-War March

Pictures from Meredith's visit, and Seattle

This is out of control...

It's March. I can handle the rain, I really can. I can handle how it's warmer when it is raining, and colder when it's clear. But snowing? In March? C'mon.

Word Cloud

A cool toy from ALSM. Type in your blog url and you get a "word cloud" and they'll make a tshirt for you... [Oh] Snap shirts.

Baseball

This is probably the most exciting thing to happen to baseball since Cal Ripken, Jr. broke Lou Gehrig's consecutive game streak in 1995, or the Sammy Sosa/Mark McGwire home run battle in 1998.

I know it's only the first year, and I don't really feel like I've heard much about it considering it's already started, and the US plays Mexico tomorrow. (But I have been a little out of touch, what with being immersed in law school and without a computer.) It's an awkward time, coming during Spring Training. There are players who are, for whatever reasons, not participating. And yet, I'm really looking forward to watching or listening to some of these games. I also am interested to see how this develops in the future. My hope is that it will become like the World Cup. An internationally renowned tournament where players play 100% because it's about the game. I'm not here advocating for a schedule change, I'm not concerned with whether they play in March or in November, before or after the "World" Series. (Like this guy.) I truly believe the potential for this is so great, I hope we aren't disappointed. I hope these games reflect baseball at its finest: manufacturing runs, base hits, strategic pitching and batting, stolen bases, and taking extra bases. At a time when the game has been marred by drugs and consistent failure to remedy or address the issue, this can help save the game that I love.

3 July 2003, I was walking amidst thousands of people in Downtown Chicago leaving the fireworks display. As I'm walking, I begin telling Ryan, another baseball fan, about the Kansas City Royals game I attended a couple of weeks before. It was an interleague game against the San Francisco Giants, and Bonds didn't hit a home run. I finish the story by saying, "And they lost 6-1."

A guy in front of me--indignant--says, "the CUBS?!"

"Oh, no. I was..."

"White Sox?!"

"No, I was telling him about a Royals game I saw a couple of weeks ago."

"Oh, okay, well God bless baseball!"

And while I may not agree with everything in the sentiment, there's something very telling about a game that brings together complete strangers on the street in a way that few things can. So many things around us either divide us, or isolate us. And regardless of whether you think the designated hitter is necessary or a crappy marketing scheme, baseball can bring us together.

The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. [The world] has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game: it's a part of our past, Ray. It reminds of us of all that once was good and could be again. -Terence Mann in Field of Dreams

¡El pueblo unido jamás será vencido!

The people united, can never be defeated!

As a member of the local Jobs with Justice, I am committed to attend several rallies, protests, marches or other actions that they or their members organize. However, occasionally I have the pleasure of attending these events as a legal observer.

Respeto a los trabajadores, Ningun ser human es ilegal...Respect all workers, No Human Being is Illegal.

Today, the Pineros y Campesinos Unidos Del Noreste (PCUN - Northwest Treeplanters and Farmworkers United) held a march for Immigrant Rights in downtown Portland. Organized labor, the religious and immigrant communities and their allies mobilized to protest the "Border Security and Immigration Enforcement Act" (H.R. 4337). In December, the Sensenbrenner Bill passed the House of Representatives and if enacted would:

• Criminalize as "smugglers" any relative, employer, co-worker, or friend of an undocumented immigrant,
• Make the 11 million undocumented immigrants currently in the country ineligible to legally immigrate ever,
• Force state and local police to act as immigration agents even when dealing with crime victims,
• Coerce employers into screening all new employees through a deeply flawed database of eligible workers.

The organizers acquired a permit, but asked the local NLG chapter to provide legal observers as a precaution. There were several of us out there and, luckily, no arrests were made and it was a truly peaceful march.

Estimates of the attendance ranged from 2,000-4,000 people. It was amazing to see everyone there in support of the immigrants and workers, documented and undocumented. I couldn't take pictures but I found some online that I am posting. (Thanks to Jim Lockhart and Indymedia.)

Sign of the day: "Native American? If not you're family immigrated" (emphasis added)
T-shirt of the day: "Just because we work like dogs doesn't mean you have to treat us as such"

It truly was incredible. It was nice to see so much solidarity. SEIU, Teamsters, Longshoremen, UFCW, IWW, students, families, and so many others attended the rally.

At the end there were speeches, including one by the first woman of color to be elected to the Oregon State Senate. She closed with a traditional African prayer that speaks not only to the sense of community that we need, but also to where we ought to place our values.

"Bless the children, for they have a long way to go,
Bless the aged, for they have come a long way,
and bless those in between for they do all the work."

(Click each for larger.)