Connections Party Fundraiser, Sept. 13

By DAN ONORATO

You're reading Stanislaus Connections, right? Some of the articles offer information you won't find in the mainstream press, right? A publication that comes out monthly eleven times of year requires funding, right? Good, you're smart. Three rights. Your reward: a hearty invitation to join others in our local peace community at the Connections annual fundraiser potluck party on Saturday, September 13, at 5:00 p.m. 

Drive to the home of Robert Rudholm and Jeff Schweiker, 2866 Gondring Rd., Ceres , bringing food and beverage to share. Enjoy mixing with other good people at the potluck feast, walk the labyrinth, indulge in the moonlit merriment of bonfire drumming and music making, and don your spirit of wild abandon for the fun filled auction.

Auction items will range from a mystical hot air balloon ride over the valley, to dinner for four at Mom's Bread and Breakfast in Modesto, to a forget-the-diet scrumptious fruit pie a month for six months. Problems with your computer? Bid for assistance of a computer expert! Don't have time to clean your windows or floors? Bid high enough and the job is good as done! Want to redecorate a room or two? Check out our selection of art from local and other artists!

There will be many surprise treasures. If you would like to donate an item or a service for the auction, call me or Jim Costello ahead of time, 526-5436 or 537-7818. It can be anything that others might like, from child care for an evening, to a relaxing body massage, to Yoga instructions for a month, to a two day stay at your mountain retreat or that time-share in Hawaii.

We plan a special surprise for all Peace/Life Center volunteers, so we hope if you help out in any of the Center's activities, from Peace Camp, Peace Essay Contest, Pancake Breakfast, and Song Circle to the collating crew that helps mail out Connections each month and the activists who participate in vigils and demonstrations, please attend this delightful evening. We want to thank you in a special way.

Oh, by the way, in last year's auction ardor, a certain colorful shirt was the object of such interest that it might be available this year. The fashion markets of Milan, Paris, and New York wanted it, but its owner prefers it stay local and help Connections.

ACTION: See you September 13 for a wonderful evening!

Two elections this fall challenge voters

By MYRTLE OSNER

Triggered by petitions to recall Governor Gray Davis, a special election has been called for Tuesday Oct. 7. Unique to California is the fact that an unlimited number of candidates may (and have) filed to replace him. But, THERE IS NO REQUIREMENT THAT THE WINNER MUST GET A MAJORITY OF THE VOTES. So we may get a Governor who gets a relatively small number of votes.

There are no party primaries to select candidates, and no provision for a runoff, and no limit on the number who can run.

IF THE RECALL SUCCEEDS, the candidate with the largest number of votes wins and takes office the following day.

All you can do is vote your conscience, hoping to choose the best candidate. It is estimated that from $35 to $60 million will be spent on this process. Who pays for this? You and I, of course. Actually, the county elections departments will probably be left holding the bag, since the state is broke.

When a special election is called, all ballot propositions that have qualified are placed on that ballot. That means we will also face Propositions 53 and 54 in October.

Prop. 53 is a legislative constitutional amendment, put there by the legislature to fix infrastructure finance as part of the budget process.

Prop. 54 is highly controversial. The League of Women Voters as well as other organizations opposes it strongly. Called the Connerly Initiative, Prop. 54 would ban the collection of racial and ethnicity data. It would damage our ability to address disparities in healthcare and disease patterns, educational resources, academic achievement, hate crime and discrimination. More info can be found at www.ca.lwv.org as well as www.informedcalifornia.org, and the ACLU of No. California; www.aclunc.org/pressrel/030729-creno.html

LOCAL ELECTIONS; WHERE YOU CAN MAKE A BIG IMPACT

Though the recall election gets all the press, equally important are the numerous local elections this fall, taking place on Tuesday Nov. 4. BE SURE YOU ARE REGISTERED TO VOTE AT LEAST 15 DAYS BEFORE THE ELECTION. If you have moved or changed your name, you MUST re-register.

The League of Women Voters will sponsor televised candidate forums on Cable Channel 8 at Modesto City Hall downstairs. You can call in your questions or be there in person. Tentative dates for City Council and Modesto School Board are Sept. 25, 29, 30, and Oct. 1. The forums are free and open to the public.

At this date we aren't sure how many candidates have filed, and may not be able to accommodate the entire City Council in one night. Call League of Women Voters for further info: 524-1698.

The fate of Modesto's growth is in your hands; there will be two Measure M votes on its ballot. Measure M is an advisory vote on whether to extend sewer trunk lines to bring in planned growth areas to the city. Actually, the Modesto City Council makes the final decision about growth, so the composition of our Council is important.

Also on the November ballot will be elections for numerous school boards. Crucial decisions about our public schools are made by school boards; pay attention to the races in the district where your children or grandchildren attend. Especially important is the Modesto City Board of Education. Under its jurisdiction soon to be eight high schools and all the local elementary and middle schools which feed into those high schools.

ACTION: Vote!

Modestan observes poverty and inequality in Brazil

By LEE RYAN MILLER

Second in a series

January to May 2003 I lived on a ship that circumnavigated the globe. I was teaching political science on Semester at Sea, a program run by the University of Pittsburgh. Some 650 students participated. We visited nine countries and ten ports.

In this series I present excerpts from my journal and commentary on the societies that we visited. This installment takes us to our next port of call, Salvador, Brazil.

Before we leave each port, the ship usually is joined by an "inter-port lecturer" and at least one "inter-port student"-- a professor and a college student from the country that will be our next destination. They help to prepare the shipboard community for our upcoming visit to their country. En-route to Brazil, professor Tomm Elliott and student Carol Torres taught us a lot about Brazilian culture, history, politics, and social problems. Brazil is the largest in South America, and nearly as large as the United States. It was colonized by Portugal several centuries ago, and is the only Portuguese-speaking country in the Americas. Like the United States, it is very ethnically diverse:  its population is descended from indigenous peoples, European settlers, and African slaves. Also like the United States, social and economic status tend to be correlated with race; in general, the lighter one's skin, the higher one's social status. Unlike the United States, however, Brazil is beset by devastating social problems caused by the enormous gap between rich and poor.

In Brazil, public services are on the verge of collapse. Poor patients die in public hospital emergency rooms due to a shortage of doctors. Public schools are awful, and only a minority of students graduate. Rich and middle class people can afford private health care and private schools or tutors.

Poor Brazilians (the majority of the population) live in level of poverty alien to most Americans. In rural areas, a small number of rich families own vast tracts of land, and often are in conflict with landless, impoverished squatters. Squatters attempt to seize and farm unused land; however, due to their poverty, they find it difficult to make the investments necessary to achieve much more than subsistence.

The poor also live in "favelas," communities of shacks built on vacant land on the outskirts of major cities. Like the homes of rural squatters, such communities often lack basic services that we take for granted, like electricity, running water, and indoor plumbing. Unemployment and crime are epidemic in favelas and throughout most major Brazilian cities. Homeless children roam the streets picking people's pockets, while more seasoned criminals engage in car-jacking, armed-robbery, and kidnapping. Crime in Brazil has become increasingly violent. Middle class and rich Brazilians - who tend to be lighter-skinned - lived in walled and gated homes and communities to protect themselves.

Brazilians tend not to wear watches or jewelry in public, nor carry wallets, purses, or backpacks. Tomm and Carol warned us never to leave the ship with any items that we could not afford to lose. Despite taking precautions, several students were robbed during our visit to Brazil.

Brazil had just elected a new president, Luiz Ignacio Lula da Silva, popularly known as "Lula."  An advocate of social justice and workers' rights, Lula had lost several previous bids for the presidency. Lula finally was successful due to two factors:  the rich elite came to the conclusion that deteriorating social conditions were reaching a crisis point (rich people were becoming fearful of leaving their houses), and Lula reached out to the elite to reassure them that he would pursue responsible economic policies if elected.

On February 5 the ship docked in Salvador, Brazil's third largest city, situated on the central coast. After attending a briefing by American diplomats, another professor and I boarded a tour bus with 30 students for a trip to the Calabar favela

Our guide explained to us that Calabar is the oldest favela in Salvador, dating from 1913. Although it originally was built on the outskirts of the city, the city has grown around it. It is sandwiched between a rich and a middle class neighborhood. Many of the houses are hooked up to city water and electricity. But the houses were poorly constructed, and the streets were full of trash.

Ironically, favelas often are built by the same people who build the homes of the rich. Construction companies hire poor unskilled workers to build residential and commercial buildings. Those workers usually build shacks on vacant land adjacent to the construction site to house their families. When the job is done, the workers lose their jobs, and continue living in their shacks. Eventually families move to another location when the husband finds another job, or when developers tear down the favela to build office buildings, shops, or homes for the more affluent.

I asked our guide why developers had not razed the favela and built expensive condos like those in adjacent neighborhoods. He explained that the residents of Calabar had an unusually strong community organization, and had organized protests to prevent this.

We spent most of our time at a school. There are no public schools in the favela, and the members of the community have organized their own. It receives no financial assistance from the government, subsisting on the proceeds from bake sales, donations, and grants from non-governmental organizations.

The director of the school proudly told us that her school accepts all children, no matter how poor. Parents sending their kids to public schools must pay tuition and provide shoes and uniforms. Most of the kids in this school had no shoes. They had no uniforms, and indeed, many of the boys wore no shirts. The children were aged 3 1/2 to 15, but all looked very small. The school, located in a run-down building few desks, books, and supplies.

The kids seemed thrilled by our visit. Many of the younger children insisted on holding the hands of the students and professors, and all wanted us to take their pictures. They also put on a performance of "capoeira," a sort of cross between dance and martial arts. Pairs of kids took turns in a fighting routine of kicks, jumps, and rolls on the concrete floor while others sang and clapped out a rhythm.

We presented the director of the school with boxes of school supplies and promised to send the kids copies of the photos we took. Brazil is a land of great contrasts. Fabulously wealthy people live beside desperately poor people. Brazilians are warm and friendly people, but theft is a way of life, and violent crime is a constant threat. I sincerely hope that President Lula succeeds in his efforts to improve the lives of the poor and to reduce the level of violence in Brazilian society.

Learn more about Semester at Sea by visiting www.semesteratsea.com

Read more stories by Lee Ryan Miller at  www.LeeRyanMiller.com

With us: the legacy of Charles Baker

By GENE PALSGROVE

Charles Baker passed away on June 23 from complications following a long and valiant struggle with Parkinson's disease.

Chuck was a proud product of Baltimore and he persevered with his Orioles baseball team through good times and more often thin times. He was a factory worker who had to drop out of high school to help his widowed mother support their family.

Along came the military draft in l940 and Charles followed the teachings of The Church of the Brethren, a peace church, and registered as a conscientious objector. He was inducted into Civilian Public Service in 1941 and spent four years doing work of "national importance," all the way from building privies for the poor in Florida to volunteering for human guinea pig medical experiments at the University of Minnesota.

Following CPS, marriage to wife Florence in 1946, Charles finished high school and college and pursued his career in education in Modesto as a teacher, counselor, "hooky cop," and psychometrist, retiring in 1977.

Daughters Marianne and Margaret speak of their father: "To (our) father . . . who loved to read, who always believed that literature and history have many truths to tell us, who had faith in public education and in the wisdom of committed and professional educators, who lived by the tenets embodied in the Bill of Rights, and who also had a keen sense for the comedic and the absurd. He was . . . not a patient man when it came to peace and justice. He questioned and probed and did what he could to make the world better."

Charles and Florence have been supporters of the Peace/Life Center since its inception. Charles joins others of his era - Gordon and Helen Nutson, Rudy Potochnik, Howard Ten Brink, Sam Tyson, Willie Weaver, Charles Sesser, John Downing and others who have made significant investments for peace and justice in our community and to the national and world scene.

And from me, personally, thanks, Charles, for being my friend.

Senator Diane Feinstein's constituents breakfast in Washington, D.C.

By SUZIE TORNBERG

With ego inflated from the previous question; if she would run for Governor Davis' office if he was to be recalled; Senator Feinstein then is asked about how the U.S. can keep sending billions of dollars to Israel which is using it to kill, including women and children. She is also asked when there will be an investigation into the death of Rachel Corrie. Then the senator's shoulders slump the slightest, she takes a half dozen or so steps back as she prepares to speak to the question.

"That is a loaded and biased question," she says. Her response is not that of an answer to a question, but that of a polation creating a web of propaganda for the blind to get caught. “They have a right to defend themselves from terror. They have more people die, proportionately, then the U.S. did from the terrorist attacks on 9-11.”

Assuming termination of the question, Senator Feinstein turns to answer another constituent’s question. She is then reminded of the question regarding Rachel Corrie. She asks, "Who?" After being reminded (or told) that Rachel Corrie was a citizen of the United States who was killed by being run over by a bulldozer in Israel as she stood in front of a Palestinian's home. The U.S. Senator from California answers, "She shouldn't have been there."

Again she stated the fear Israelis live with and terror they face. She was then asked what would she do if her home were bulldozed down because her son threw a rock at a tank. With that Senator Feinstein turned her back and said that she was done with this conversation.

According to Senator Diane Feinstein's logic ... then our soldiers don't belong “There” -or anywhere, but on U.S. soil, dying to protect another's right to live peacefully.