Events
month | week | day | tableEvent Description:
The Boniuk Center for Religious Tolerance and James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy present Dina R Khoury, Associate Professor of History and International Affairs George Washington University who will lecture on "Understanding the Sunni-Shi'i Divide in Iraq". Farnsworth pavilion is inside the RMC student center. The closest parking is the parking garage, accessible from entrance #20 on the campus map.
Event Sponsor:
Boniuk Center for Religious Tolerance and James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy
Event Description:
Greetings!
The next meeting for the Houston chapter of the World
Can't Wait will be on Thursday, November 30th at 6:30
pm at the General Joe's Chinese restaurant at 3939
Montrose Blvd.
This is the agenda:
1) national proposal for Spring teach-ins on campuses.
2) national human rights and impeachment day, Dec 10. http://www.worldcantwait.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3461&Itemid=223
Suggestions include pulling together a "living
graveyard" street theater outside the galleria and freeway blogging
3) sum-up and develop more plans for a wave of house
parties centered on the Bush Crimes video and/or the
October 30th New York City teach-in http://worldcantwait.org.
Event Sponsor:
Houston World Can't Wait
Event Contact Name:
sandy or jamilah
Event Phone Contact Information:
713-894-0932
Event Email Address:
escramble('houston','worldcantwait.org');">
Event Website:
www.houstonworldcantwait.tripod.com
Event Description:
A short talk on "Global warming could kill half of life on earth (including people) and what you can do about it." will be given at the Sunday meeting of Houston Climate Protection Alliance December 3rd, 2:30pm. The 11/22/06 Scientific American article "Impact from the Deep" said global warming, or more precisely high levels of CO2 could explain why over the last 500 million years, half or more of life on earth has been killed several times. http://sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa006&articleID=00037A5D-A938-150E-A93883414B7F0000 Tim Mock will give the audience a choice of either viewing the PBS Nova Science Now summary of the article aired on 11/21 or his summarizing it for us.
To cheer you up after this scary science, Nan Hildreth will summarize our accomplishments in Houston climate protection in the last year and about what we can do next.
The meeting will be at 2:30pm on Sunday 12/3/06 at First Unitarian Universalist Church, 5200 Fannin at the corner of Southmore in the Museum District. Houston Climate Protection Alliance www.HoustonClimateProtection.org is one of several groups in the growing Houston movement for climate protection.
Event Sponsor:
Houston Climate Protection Alliance
Event Contact Name:
Nan Hildreth
Event Phone Contact Information:
713-842-6643
Event Email Address:
escramble('NanHildreth','riseup.net');">
Event Website:
www.HoustonClimateProtection.org
Event Fee:
Free
Event Description:
Public Access TV, Channel 17 (or 95 TVMax, or 98 Kingwood) Featuring 6th bi-annual Southern Human Rights Organizers Conference (SHROC VI ), in Houston this weekend Dec 8-10: "Black and Brown: Unite to Fight" our guests: Maria Jimenez, Obidike Kamau, Trevor Palacios, and Jamiru Hill. Call in! Join in.
Every other week, Wednesday night, we bring you voices of the people, on We The People TV (public access cable TV, inside the city limits of Houston, Texas. --- sponsored by, Harrris County Greeen Party, this fortnightly talking-heads-type show gives access to the airwaves for people all too often not heard.
THIS WEEK, well, see the summary above. Hope to see y'all at the conference! http://www.shroc.org/index1.htm
Event Sponsor:
Harris County Green Party
Event Contact Name:
Art Browning
Event Phone Contact Information:
281-728-6327
Event Email Address:
escramble('greenwatchcollective','lists.riseup.net');">
Event Website:
www.hcgp.org/getinvolved/greenwatch/greenwatch.htm
Event Fee:
FREE! (if you have cable and live inside the city limits...)
Event Description:
The 6th bi-annual conference will be in Houston. The theme is "Black and Brown Unite to Fight-Toward a Human Rights Movement in the Deep South." Program will cover a wide range of topics, among them immigrants' and women's rights, juvenile justice, low wages, felony disenfranchisement, and environmental justice. There'll be workshops, plenaries, a public speakout, and a direct action. If you are reading this on the PAA home page, click on the event title for details.
Event Phone Contact Information:
888-949-9754
Event Website:
www.shroc.org/index1.htm
Event Fee:
$25 registration, $10 student and low income
Event Description:
The 6th bi-annual conference will be in Houston. The theme is "Black and Brown Unite to Fight-Toward a Human Rights Movement in the Deep South." Program will cover a wide range of topics, among them immigrants' and women's rights, juvenile justice, low wages, felony disenfranchisement, and environmental justice. There'll be workshops, plenaries, a public speakout, and a direct action. If you are reading this on the PAA home page, click on the event title for details.
Event Phone Contact Information:
888-949-9754
Event Website:
www.shroc.org/index1.htm
Event Fee:
$25 registration, $10 student and low income
Event Description:
The 6th bi-annual conference will be in Houston. The theme is "Black and Brown Unite to Fight-Toward a Human Rights Movement in the Deep South." Program will cover a wide range of topics, among them immigrants' and women's rights, juvenile justice, low wages, felony disenfranchisement, and environmental justice. There'll be workshops, plenaries, a public speakout, and a direct action. If you are reading this on the PAA home page, click on the event title for details.
Event Phone Contact Information:
888-949-9754
Event Website:
www.shroc.org/index1.htm
Event Fee:
$25 registration, $10 student and low income
Event Description:
FILM EVENTS
Houston Institute for Culture
and the Havens Center Present
Topical Films and Discussions
Free and Open to the Public
All films 7:00pm (unless otherwise noted)
Havens Center - 1827 W. Alabama, Houston, Texas 77098
Religion, Culture and Politics in Mexico
Sunday, October 29
-Darkness into Light: Following the Spirit
Sunday, December 10
-Guadalupe: Mother of all Mexico
[Film Descriptions]
Films cosponsored by KPFT, 90.1FM
Stay tuned; more film dates to be announced
-Argentina - Hope in Hard Times
-This Land is Our Land: The Struggle for Land in Brazil
-Approach of Dawn: Portraits of Mayan Women Forging Peace in Guatemala
-Hidden in Plain Site
FILM DESCRIPTIONS
Religion, Culture and Politics in Mexico
Sunday, October 29, 7:00pm
Darkness into Light: Following the Spirit, 2003, 56min
By Patricia Lacy Collins and Robert S. Cozens (San Rafael Films), narrated by Edward James Olmos
To understand the role of public devotions in Mexican life today, one must understand what they have cost. From the 1840s until the 1990s, successive Mexican governments have sought to control and frequently to suppress the religious life of the people. Suppression became particularly bitter following the Constitution of 1917. In a country with almost 90% of the population professing the Catholic faith, how could this be? Following the Spirit, the third documentary in the Darkness into Light series, brings the story of the spiritual journey of the people of Mexico to the present time. It traces a long- standing friction between church and state that resulted, in the 19th and 20th centuries, in somber and bloody repression of religious and human rights in Mexico. Leading historians paint a broad canvas of multiple struggles little known outside of that country.
Sunday, December 10, 7:00pm
Guadalupe: Mother of all Mexico, 2003, 56min
By Patricia Lacy Collins and Robert S. Cozens (San Rafael Films), narrated by Edward James Olmos
Each year ten million people visit the shrine of our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City. The histories and miracles of our lady of Guadalupe come alive as Mexican scholars and pilgrims on the road tell the wondrous stories behind their devotion to their spiritual mother.
Guadalupe, Mother of All Mexico suggests the strength of pre-Christian life and seeking. Such ancient, impressive sites as Teotihuacan and Monte Alban were built by human hands in cultures that had no beasts of burden. In pre-Christian times, the Mexicans tell us, "there was always a mother, but never like the Virgin Mary." In 1531, she was received by people of the western hemisphere as Our Lady of Guadalupe, the beloved "Madrecita."
PAST FILMS
Sexism and Discrimination
Thursday, September 14, 7:00pm
Havens Center Kids' Digital Story Project Debut "Talking About Sexism", 2006, 10mins
Middle School Children who are part of the Havens Center After-School Program produced a 10-minute digital story about sexism. They spoke with women in the community, including City Councilwoman Sue Lovell and Katrina survivor Mama Suma.
The soundtrack to the digital story will be aired on Houston radio stations in the fall and a DVD of their project will be distributed to area schools for classroom consideration of this important topic.
Who's Counting: Marilyn Waring on Sex, Lies and Global Economics, 1996, 52mins
Produced by The National Film Board of Canada
Marilyn Waring is the foremost spokesperson for global feminist economics, and her ideas offer new avenues of approach for political action. With persistence and wit she has succeeded in drawing attention to the fact that GDP has no negative side to its accounts - such as damage to the environment - and completely ignores the unpaid work of women. "Why is the market economy all that counts?" Ms. Waring asks?
In 1975, when she was just 22 years old, she was elected to the New Zealand parliament. She was re-elected three times and eventually brought down the government on the issue of making New Zealand a nuclear free zone. When she was chairperson of the Public Expenditures Committee, she perfected what she calls the "art of the dumb question." Ever since she has challenged the myths of economics, its elitist stance, and our tacit compliance with political agendas that masquerade as objective economic policy.
Immigration and Globalization
Cosponsored by Nuestra Palabra
Friday, September 22, 7:00pm
The Other Side, 2001, 27mins
Directed by Chris Walker; Produced by Television Trust for the Environment
Over the last century, hundreds of thousands of Mexicans have crossed the border to the United States in pursuit of permanent jobs, and a better life. But in the new millennium, that journey has become increasingly dangerous, and the costs are starting to outweigh the benefits.
This program reveals the devastating impact of Mexican-US migration. The people who attempt to cross suffer horribly and frequently die. The families and communities left behind are disabled and their languages and cultures are being destroyed. The Other Side tells the story of the villagers who have had enough - and now are trying to make sure their children will no longer have to migrate to realize their dreams.
Oaxacan Hoops, 2002, 20mins
Directed, Produced and Edited by Olga R. Rodriguez
Oaxacan Hoops explores how basketball, one of the most revered sports in the United States, has helped many Zapotec Indians living in Los Angeles build community, keep traditions alive and maintain a connection to their villages in Mexico.
The film opens in the mountains of the Sierra Norte, in the state of Oaxaca, where we find out how basketball became a cultural tradition for Zapotecs, the largest of 16 indigenous groups in the state and among Mexico's shortest people. The film crosses paths with "The Other Side," taking us to Los Angeles, where thousands of Zapotecs have gone looking for work. It is here that the biggest Oaxacan basketball tournament outside of Mexico, the Oaxaca Cup, takes place.
Saturday, September 23, 7:00pm
North of Ojinaga, 2004, 24mins
Directed by Rommel Eclarinal
Two young immigrants - a Chinese woman and a Mexican man - are smuggled across the U.S. border from Mexico and abandoned in the vast unforgiving Texas desert.
Pavements of Gold, 2001, 27mins
Directed by Steve Bradshaw; Produced by Television Trust for the Environment
Urban poverty is one of the biggest challenges facing the world in the 21st century. In 1950, three hundred million people were living in urban areas; by 2001 that figure had increased to 2.85 billion, or almost half the world's population. And the flow of rural migrants arriving in the world's mega cities shows no signs of slowing down. "It is a trend which cannot be stopped," says Anna Tibaijuka, the executive director of the UN Center for Human Settlements, "even in the developing countries..."
With the backdrop of Lima, Peru, this program examines the enduring magnetism of big cities and asks whether the migrants who have moved here now feel that city life is the answer to their dreams.
Mexico City: The Largest City, 2004, 26mins
This program defines Mexico City's globalization in terms of winners and losers, examining how, in the world's largest metropolis, immigration challenges are linked to poverty and population influx from surrounding rural areas. Contrasting the city's high-tech facilities and fashionable neighborhoods with its sprawling slums and their struggling inhabitants, the program outlines the relationship between foreign investment and the worldwide need for cheap labor, which Mexico and its indigenous peoples readily supply. Glimpses into a tech-savvy youth culture and the persistent Zapatista movement reinforce the capital's nickname: City of Contrasts.
Sunday, September 24, 7:00pm
A World Without Borders: What is Happening with Globalization, 2000, 26mins
As globalization gains momentum, industrialized and developing countries are, to a greater or lesser extent, becoming increasingly similar, with middle-class luxury and abject poverty coexisting side by side. This program explores the repercussions of globalization as well as a growing resentment toward the G8 countries and nongovernmental organizations. Concerns over third-world debt, environmental degradation, biodiversity, the concentration of power, and the future of democracy are aired by globally oriented young adults who are poised to inherit a world without borders, or rules.
Cochise County USA: Cries from the Border, 2005, 69mins (for discussion purposes we will view an except of the film)
Directed by Mercedes Maharis
Mercedes Maharis, a Mexican American resident of southeast Arizona, documented the activity of immigrants and anti-immigrant groups, as well as humanitarian organizations working to prevent deaths in the Arizona desert. A migrant trail for thousands of immigrants passes through Cochise County. The film reveals the dangers immigrants face, as well as related border issues of human and drug trafficking.
The film, which anti-immigrant activists point to as evidence for increased border protection, features interviews with Cochise County residents and officials, Border Patrol officials, "civil defense" organizers, civil rights activists and immigrants, and documents treacherous border crossings in the Arizona-Sonora desert.
Indigenous Peoples and Environment
Cosponsored by People of Earth
Friday, October 6, 7:00pm
Drumbeat for Mother Earth - Persistent Organic Pollutants Threatening Indigenous Peoples, 1999, 54mins
Directed by Joseph Di Gangi, PhD, and Amon Giebel; Produced by Indigenous Environmental Network and Greenpeace
Many scientists and tribal people consider persistent toxic chemicals to be the greatest threat to the long-term survival of Indigenous Peoples. "Drumbeat for Mother Earth" explores how these chemicals contaminate the traditional food web, violate treaty rights, travel long distances, and are passed from one generation to the next during pregnancy causing cancer, learning disabilities, and other serious health problems.
Indigenous Peoples' connection to Mother Earth places them on a collision course with these chemicals. Continued survival within a contaminated environment means making life and death decisions that could alter whole cultures, diets, ceremonies and future generations.
Huicholes and Pesticides, 1994, 27mins
Directed by Patricia Diaz-Romo
The indigenous Huichol people of Mexico consider themselves responsible for keeping the flames of life burning, and maintaining the forces of nature in balance. Paradoxically, as this documentary describes, they are also the primary victims of a disastrous environmental health crisis: their exposure to dangerous chemical pesticides, which are responsible for more than 1,500 deaths per year. In this film, doctors, anthropologists, and the Huichol people themselves describe this tragedy. The practitioners of subsistence agriculture for centuries, the Huichols' insertion into a market economy has led them to work as fieldworkers for multinational agribusiness concerns based in Mexico.
The film explains the pervasive use of pesticides there as an example of the exportation of environmentally and medically dangerous industries to the Third World, where low wages and lax enforcement of labor and environmental laws allow for the maximization of profits at catastrophic costs to the local population, especially for the marginalized indigenous populations, already suffering from the effects of poverty and malnutrition.
Saturday, October 7, 7:00pm
Pavements of Gold, 2001, 27mins
Directed by Steve Bradshaw; Produced by Television Trust for the Environment
Urban poverty is one of the biggest challenges facing the world in the 21st century. In 1950, three hundred million people were living in urban areas; by 2001 that figure had increased to 2.85 billion, or almost half the world's population. And the flow of rural migrants arriving in the world's mega cities shows no signs of slowing down. "It is a trend which cannot be stopped," says Anna Tibaijuka, the executive director of the UN Center for Human Settlements, "even in the developing countries..."
With the backdrop of Lima, Peru, this program examines the enduring magnetism of big cities and asks whether the migrants who have moved here now feel that city life is the answer to their dreams.
Ecuador: The Indigenous Woman, 1997, 57mins
Isolated in jungles, or crowded into large cities, Latin American Indians constitute the most exploited sector of society. This program traces the harsh life of indigenous women from several tribes, including the Otavalan, Puruha, and Quechua of Ecuador, from pre-Columbian times to the present. Topics discussed include rape as an ongoing practice; labor exploitation; the effects of acculturation; and racial and sexual discrimination.
Sunday, October 8, 7:00pm
In the Light of Reverence - Protecting America's Sacred Lands, 2001, 73mins
Directed by Christopher McLeod; Narrated by Peter Coyote and Tantoo Cardinal; Produced by the Sacred Land Film Project of Earth Island Institute
Across the United States, Native Americans are struggling to protect their sacred places. Religious freedom, so valued in America, is not guaranteed to those who practice land-based religion. Every year, more sacred sites - the land-based equivalent of the world's great cathedrals - are being destroyed. Strip Mining and development cause much of the destruction. But rock climbers, tourists, and New Age religious practitioners are part of the problem, too. The biggest problem is ignorance.
"In the Light of Reverence" tells the story of three indigenous communities and the land they struggle to protect: the Lakota of the Great Plains, the Hopi of the Four Corners area, and the Wintu of northern California.
Event Sponsor:
Houston Institute for Culture
Event Contact Name:
Mark Lacy
Event Phone Contact Information:
713.521.3686
Event Email Address:
escramble('info','houstonculture.org');">
Event Website:
www.houstonculture.org/film
Event Fee:
Free
Event Description:
Attend the regular monthly meeting of the Progressive Action Alliance at Leisure Learning Unlimited, 6th Floor, Room 6.
Come early to visit & gab
6:30 pm - 7:00 pm: social/meet & greet
7:00 pm - 9:00 pm: meeting
Event Contact Name:
C. Lee Taylor
Event Phone Contact Information:
713-524-1944
Event Email Address:
escramble('taylor','gmail.com');">c.lee.
Event Website:
paa-tx.org
Event Fee:
Free, but donations are welcome.
Event Description:
On the 4th Friday of December, join us for refreshments and a time to visit with other activists, followed by a showing of a DVD and a discussion.
6:30 PM - social, potluck refreshments -- bring something to share, or just show up
7:00 PM - movie showing
9:00 PM - discussion, more refreshments
The discussion will also include the Dennis Kucinich for President campaign.
DVD showing:
On Oct. 30, 2006, 325 people came to a teach-in in New York City to hear why "It's Worse Than You Think: where the Bush regime is taking the world and why it must be stopped."
Our movie night this month features the DVD made from that teach-in, with presentations by five notable figures.
The teach-in features:
- Les Roberts - An author of the recent study revealing that over 600,000 Iraqis have died since war began.
- Bill Goodman - Center for Constitutional Rights Legal Director
- Cristina Page - Author, "How the Pro-Choice Movement Saved America: Freedom, Politics, and the War on Sex"
- Larry Everest - Author, "Oil, Power & Empire: Iraq and the U.S. Global Agenda"
- Chris Hedges - author of bestseller "War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning"
This teach-in was part of a nation-wide effort organized by World Can't Wait, the Bush Crimes Commission, and others to bring out the issues not being talked about in the elections, and show the full scope, magnitude, and danger of the Bush agenda.
The following excerpts from speakers will give a taste of the very real danger facing the world. Watch the full teach-in online at http://www.worldcantwait.net/Stream10-30-06/part1/index.html or come to our movie showing to find out just why it is "worse than you think".
Click here to read one reaction to the teach-in titled "The Little Idealist in All of Us".
Les Roberts
An author of the recent Johns Hopkins report revealing that over 600,000 Iraqis have died as a result of the 2003 invasion and occupation-- far more than admitted by the US Government or widely reported in the press. He is a Columbia Univ. Lecturer in the Program on Forced Migration and Health. He will speak on "Incompatibility of Contrition and the Denial of Science": how systems for discrediting or confusing science have been used by political leaders in recent years to prevent accountability with regard to smoking, global warming, the failure of abstinence programs to prevent teen pregnancies, and how similar techniques have been used to downplay the death toll in Iraq.
Excerpt:
Can you imagine today, the president, calling in the head of the FDA, or calling in the head of the EPA, and saying, okay, you're the scientist, so you're going to decide whether or not we're going to regulate tobacco, or whether or not we're going to, for example, have regulations of carbon emmissions, I just want to be informed in advance. That's a laughable notion.
Bill Goodman
As Legal Director for the Center for Constitutional Rights, Goodman is involved in many legal challenges to the Bush administration, including Supreme Court cases to stop illegal domestic surveillance, challenge extraordinary rendition, and defend Guantanamo prison detainees.
Excerpt:
About 791 years ago, a bunch of guys that who called themselves noblemen actually did something that was noble. They forced the king of England to put in into written words a recognition of the right of habeus corpus...
791 years later, a man who would not recognize nobility if it crawled out from under the rug and bit him on the nose, signed a statute called the Military Commissions Act that was a vast assault on the right of habeus corpus.
This one moment, this signing of this legislation which he had engineered, which he had designed, which he had prepared for by planning the whole Guantanamo operation...
This moment i think recognized and emblemized what this administration is all about.
Cristina Page
Author, "How the Pro-Choice Movement Saved America: Freedom, Politics, and the War on Sex"; Vice President, Institute for Reproductive Health Access at NARAL Pro-Choice New York.
Excerpt:
The pro-life movement has found a friend in George Bush because they share a disdain for science, information, evidence, proof, truth...
When the pro-life movement asked Bush to appoint an abstinence-only ideologue to oversee the nation's contraception program to the poor, Bush said yes...
When the right-to-life movement asked him to appoint an anti-contraception fanatic to the expert panel that approves contraceptives in the FDA, he said I will. And that choice led the FDA, our nation's premiere scientific agency, to make its first ideological religious decision in its history by denying the over the counter application for emergency contraceptives...
When the right-to-life movement asked whether the president supports birth control, his spokesman dodged, only willing to say Bush supports a culture of life...
When the right-to-life movement asked Bush to defund the UN agency that provides contraception to the people living in the poorest countries on earth, the places where family planning is nothing less than a life-saving technology, Bush said where do I sign.
[Click here to read the full speech]
Larry Everest
Author, "Oil, Power & Empire: Iraq and the U.S. Global Agenda"; contributor to "Impeach the President: the Case Against Bush and Cheney"; an organizer of Bush Crimes Commission.
Excerpt:
The call to this teach-in begins with the words that the world is facing a grave emergency. I couldn't agree more, and I'd like to add that all the shocking things we've been seen for the past 6 yrs, including the things the other speakers have been talking about and will talk about tonight, are only the beginning of the horrors this regime has in store for us, unless it's driven from power.
I don't think this is hyperbole or hysteria, I think it's based on a sober assessment of what the Bush agenda is all about and where it's taking us and the rest of the world...
Obviously more and more people are opposing the war, are unhappy about the war, don't particularly like the war. But unfortunately most people still think that Iraq was a mistake. They don't understand the actual reasons that this war was launched. They think it's going so bad so fast because of blunders by Bush; they don't understand that developments in Iraq are rooted in the very nature of the agenda that's being carried out there. And far too many people believe that there's still some kind of legitimacy in Bush's so-called "war on terror". And flowing from this I don't think people understand the grave danger of escalation of war in the region, whether it be in Iraq or Iran or other countries.
Chris Hedges
War reporter for almost 20 years, former Middle East bureau chief for New York Times; author of bestseller "War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning" and "Losing Moses on the Freeway: America 's Broken Covenant With The Ten Commandments." Current article: "Bush's Nuclear Apocalypse."
Excerpt:
As I speak to you tonight, the aircraft carrier Eisenhower, accompanied by the guided-missile cruiser USS Anzio, guided-missile destroyer USS Ramage, guided-missile destroyer USS Mason, and fast-attack submarine US Newport News are arriving in the Straights of Hormuz off of Iran. The ships will be in place to strike Iran by the end of the month. It may be a bluff. It may be a feint. It may be a simple show of American power. But I doubt it. The chances of a war with Iran, a war that would unleash an apocalyptic scenario in the Middle East, are not only real, but probably by the end of the Bush administration. It could begin in as little as a few weeks.
Event Sponsor:
Progressive Action Alliance
Event Contact Name:
Lee Taylor
Event Phone Contact Information:
713-524-1944
Event Fee:
Free, but donations will be gladly accepted
Event Description:
Following the 4th Friday Flicks & Fun showing http://www.paa-tx.org/node/2444 there will be a preliminary organizing meeting for the Dennis Kucinich for President http://kucinich.us campaign for our area.
Event Sponsor:
Houson Area Kucinich for President campaign
Event Contact Name:
Bill_Crosier
Event Phone Contact Information:
713.641.4941
