Bard sings songs of peace

By SANDY SAMPLE

"John is one of our greatest songwriters, musicians and song leaders. And not just incidentally, he is dedicated to organizing and moving this world in a better direction."

—Pete Seeger

Here in the northern San Joaquin Valley, January seems to breed fog and dreariness and post-holiday gloom - or is it cynicism? But in recent years we've managed to create a solid mid-January tradition that lights a bright path through the fog, dispels the dreariness, lifts the gloom, and counteracts cynicism so powerfully that those who participate go forth feeling connected to a wider band of hearty folk who not only yearn for a more just, powerful and humane world, but are inspired to turn their yearning into action.

Fine lovely music from a gifted folk musician is your reward. An evening with John McCutcheon is music that delights, inspires, connects with young and old, and reminds us of what abundant life is really all about: storytelling, song, laughter, shared tears, honest work, open-hearted love, faith in humankind. Plus, an opportunity to both laugh and weep over corporate evils, poke fun at pomposity in all its forms, and dispel the myth of "I'm just one person , what can I do?"

No matter what you carry in the door with you of gloom and dreariness, you'll find your heart softening and daring to hope again, you'll find yourself dropping your guard and tapping your foot and singing along. You'll be royally entertained, deeply moved, and invited to cast away fear and reclaim energy and hope.

You'll get far more than your money's worth: fine musicianship on at least six acoustic instruments (hammered dulcimer, guitar, banjo, autoharp, piano and voice), plus seasoned storytelling, from a down-to-earth musician who invites you to join him in walking the walk and connecting with others, down through the ages and in our time, who stubbornly hang onto hope, honor love and tenderness, move beyond fear, work tirelessly for justice, and light beacons that pierce the darkness.

And you just might gain a few priceless essentials: hope that carries you into the next struggle with a lighter spirit, music that accompanies you into the night and echoes in your heart when you need it most, and a new commitment to the things that matter most in this crazy world and might even change it.

ACTION: Tickets available from Peace Center people, the State Theatre, in advance, or at the door ($16 or $20) and $5 for children under 12, at the Church of the Brethren, 2301 Woodland Ave., Modesto, 7 p.m., Wed., Jan 14, 2004.

Local flutist Elise Osner will open with music from her recent release of music for the Native American flute, Unbound.

John McCutcheon in Modesto
January 14, 2004

by John Morearty

Folk artist John McCutcheon has become an annual mid-January event in Modesto, packing the house for the Modesto Peace Center. Last year, the Center’s Song Circle opened the show in their shy public debut, leading more than 300 of us in “We Shall Overcome.” They stepped down, and there was a silence.

Then from a side door, striding through the crowd, came this slender middle-aged guy. He swept up on stage with a big bright banjo in hand, smiled without a word and cut loose—fingers flying, ringing and zinging through the big church hall, on and on for ten minutes or more, blazing skeins of glory in our ears and bones. At last he stopped, smiled, took a bow to rolling applause, and said “Hi! Thank you, it’s nice to be back in Modesto.”

It sure was. After the amazing banjo came piano kid songs, old ballads on the guitar, funny stories from twenty years on the road as a folkie, and a droll ditty of life in W’s America, “I wanna be a spy in Ashcroft’s army.” We all sang the chorus, including (by McCutcheon’s invitation) the spies among us.

It was a long and jolly first set, we were getting our money’s worth. Before the break for apple juice and CD-signing, he invited requests. I wrote a little note asking for “Christmas in the Trenches,” about World War One, which I’d heard him sing on KPFA.

The second set was more serious, with virtuoso solos on violin and hammered dulcimer. He sang “Christmas,” telling the astonishing story of singing it for German World War One veterans in Denmark, and I cried again. And he led us in the first song from his album “Water from Another Time,” a visionary song of hope:

“Alleluia, the great storm is over, lift up your wings and fly….”

I bought the album and sang the song in my truck on highway 99 back to Stockton. Next morning before getting out of bed, and for days to come, we played it over and over, loud:

“Little children shall dance and they sing, and play with the bears and the lions in the spring….”

In these times, we all need hope and joy. John McCutcheon sings to us.

John McCutcheon will be performing at the Modesto Church of the Brethren, 2301 Woodland Ave
(off Carpenter), on Wednesday January 14 at 7 PM. Tickets are $16 in advance, $20 at the door, $5 for children under 12 and are available at the State Theater, 1307 J Street, Modesto, 527-4697. Also at the Church office.

ACLU to elect board members

The Stanislaus County ACLU Chapter will meet on Thursday, January 29, 2004, 7:00 p.m. in the McHenry Room of the Stanislaus County Library, 15th and I Sts., Modesto.

A full board of committed citizens has accepted nomination to the newly forming chapter and will be presented to the general membership for election. Nominations will also be accepted from the floor.

The Nominating Committee encourages everyone not yet a member to become one since only members can vote for the chapter's officers. There are approximately 250 "Card Carrying" ACLU members in Stanislaus County and more are needed.

Thank you all for your continued support and commitment to preserving civil rights. The Nominating Committee: Wally Williams, Fred Herman, Martin Zonligt, Ed Buettner, Tracy Herbeck.

Cornel West to recall Martin Luther King, Jr. in Modesto

By GLEN CARRINGTON and JAMES COSTELLO

The Martin Luther King Commemoration Committee invites you to honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on Saturday, January 24, 2004, 7:00 p.m. at the Modesto Junior College Auditorium as part of its Tenth Annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Commemoration.

Our guest speaker this year is Dr. Cornel West, the Class of 1943 University Professor of Religion at Princeton University. Dr. West, a popular lecturer who blends drama, knowledge, and inspiration in his talks, will speak on “Race Matters,” and will sign copies of his books after his presentation.

Dr. West, noted social and economic philosopher, has pushed the struggle for racial equity into the national spotlight. He is the author of numerous books and articles, and his best-selling book, Race Matters touched a nerve in the American public and initiated a national debate on race issues. Dr. West is a compelling orator and noted commentator, and encourages dialogue to explore the past and to question policies and issues in contemporary society.

The eclectic West has written other ground-breaking books including Jews and Blacks: Let the Healing Begin (with Michael Lerner), and the Cornel West Reader. He has also produced an acclaimed rap CD, Sketches of My Culture, and appeared in the Matrix films.

Dr. West believes the concepts of “race” and ideologies and practices based on “race,” are modern constructs that bear serious consequences. To confront these difficult and perplexing issues he calls for dialogue and engagement. Cornel West is no stranger to facing controversial topics. The Civil Rights road has many twists and turns and, as an educator, Dr. West attempts to confront the various challenges with new insights. He has paid enormous tribute to leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr., Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. Du Bois, and Malcolm X because they all believed in and fought in the civil rights struggle.

ACTION: this event is FREE to the public and, at press time, is sponsored by City of Modesto Parks, Recreation and Neighborhoods Dept., Modesto Peace/Life Center, Modesto Junior College, King-Kennedy Center, California State University, Stanislaus, Frailing, Rockwell, & Kelly, The Modesto Bee, Blue Cross of California, Kaiser Permanente, Modesto Irrigation District, Modesto-Stanislaus Chapter NAACP.

Modestan visits destitute South African township

By LEE RYAN MILLER

Sixth 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, visiting nine countries and ten ports.

In this series, I present excerpts from my journal and commentary on the societies we visited.

In last month’s installment, I described Cape Town, South Africa, a modern, First World city that has much in common with cities in the United States. On February 22, 2003, I led a group of students on a trip to visit the Third World. We did not have to travel far, only to the outskirts of Cape Town.

We spent the day as volunteers for Operation Hunger, a non-governmental organization that focuses on alleviating hunger and malnutrition. Our guide was Clement, a former preacher from the region to the north of Cape Town, who is now the coordinator of Operation Hunger for the Western Cape Province.

In the morning we traveled to the Chris Hani Park, a township on the outskirts of Cape Town. “Township” is the name South Africans give to the settlements that millions of destitute people build on the outskirts of cities. Our task was to weigh the children living there in order to assess the scope of malnutrition. Clement explained that with our help, he would accomplish in a couple of hours a task that would take him weeks on his own.

We brought along toys, pens, coloring books, and other items to give out to the kids. Clement brought packets of instant soup. As soon as we arrived, a crowd gathered around our coach. Since it was Saturday, most adults were at home. Clement told us that we would work only until lunchtime. There is a lot of alcohol abuse in the townships, he explained, and the local people would likely be drunk and uncooperative in the afternoon.

The community was composed primarily of Afrikaans-speaking Coloureds (descendants of children fathered by Dutch settlers and native women centuries ago), although there were some black families. Despite the fact that there was a mosque across the street from the community, there was only one Muslim family. The rest were Christians.

The children formed a line, and a local woman translated. We weighed each child, and recorded his/her age in months. then graphed the age/weight ratio of the children to compare our statistics with what would be normal. We weighed more than one hundred children and found many of them significantly underweight. After weighing each child, we gave him/her items like coloring books, crayons, pens, and instant soup packages.

There were several dozen of us, too many for the tasks at hand, so surplus volunteers played with the kids and talked with the parents who spoke English. The children and parents alike requested that we take their photos and send them copies since they were so poor that hardly any families had any photos.

Chris Hani Park, was named after the (assassinated) leader of the youth group of the African National Congress (ANC), the organization that fought for decades against Apartheid under the leadership of Nelson Mandela. The ANC is now the dominant political party in South Africa holding nearly two-thirds of the seats in Parliament. Most of the people living in this township, Clement explained, were supporters of the National Party, not the ANC. The National Party, ironically, was the party of the Afrikaners under the period of white minority rule, and was the architect of Apartheid. The first election under universal suffrage occurred in 1994, and most Coloureds voted for the National Party, for fear that they would face discrimination under a government dominated by the mostly-black ANC. But the people in the township we visited, according to Clement, “saw which way the wind was blowing,” and named their community after the martyred Chris Hani.

Living conditions in this township were shocking. Families lived in shacks constructed out of scrap wood, with roofs made out of metal or plastic tarps. They had no running water, electricity, or sewage. Fires are common, and often burn down several houses before bucket brigades can bring them under control.

There were some two hundred houses in Chris Hani, situated along narrow dirt roads. There were about five taps on the street supplying water for drinking, cooking, washing, etc. It was common for people to drink directly from the taps, or to wash items like dirty diapers below the taps. They did this while standing barefoot in the mud created by the splashing water. Disease was a problem in the township.

Many families had a few small electric appliances like a lamp or stereo that they hooked up to a car battery for power. Toilets were nonexistent. People built flimsy outhouses to provide privacy as they used buckets which the local government empties periodically. Aside from the faucets on the street, this was the only service the community received. Presumably the local government emptied the outhouse buckets in order to lessen the likelihood of epidemics.

Six months prior, local government officials had forced all the residents of Chris Hani to dismantle their homes and to move across the street. The officials explained that they were planning to build them permanent houses on the old site. Sadly, after the families disassembled their shacks and moved them to the new location, no houses were built at old location. Months went by, and at the time of my visit, the residents of Chris Hani had just been told that the houses will indeed be built—but that they will be for other people, not them.

Adjacent to Chris Hani lay neighborhoods of modest houses—permanent structures, not wooden shacks like Chris Hani. Why the difference? The permanent houses were the homes of people who earn modest but regular incomes. They can afford to pay monthly rent or mortgage payments. The people living in the shacks, in contrast, work whenever they can (seasonally, part-time, etc.) but do not usually receive regular paychecks. They cannot afford to move into permanent housing.

We left Chris Hani after noon and ate lunch at a rest stop along the highway. Most of us ate only part of our lunch and saved the rest to give to people at our next destination.

• Learn more about the District Six Museum: www.districtsix.co.za
• Learn more about Semester at Sea: www.semesteratsea.com
• Read more stories from Lee Ryan Miller: www.LeerRyanMiller.com
• Read installment 1, Modestan gets a peek inside Castro’s Cuba
• Read  installment 2, Modestan observes poverty and inequality in Brazil
• Read installment 3, part 1 of Modestan visits the Amazon Rainforest
• Read installment 4, part 2 of Modestan visits the Amazon Rainforest

• Read installment 5, Modestan Observes Legacy of Apartheid in South Africa

Next month: Violence and AIDS in South Africa

Wheels of Justice rolls through MJC

By BRIANNE BOGART and DOUG GILBERT

From the Modesto Junior College PIRATES LOG

A huge multi-colored bus with the words, "Wheels of Justice" written on the side parked on the Modesto Junior College East Campus educated recently the campus community about key conflicts in the Middle East. Adorned with a hand-painted mural of peace, hope and photographs of the effects of war on the people of Israel/Palestine and Iraq, the bus came stocked with brochures, pamphlets, statistics and photos. Most importantly, it bore a handful of dedicated individuals who have been eyewitnesses to the violence that has resulted from historical and political circumstances. They have been touring the western United States to promote "non-violent solutions" to the situations.

Invited to campus by the MJC Student Activist Club, members of the group visited several classes and held a public forum on the evening of Nov. 20.

Garrick Ruiz is a member of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), a group dedicated to restoring peace between Palestine and Israel on a foundation of justice and equality. He traveled to Palestine in the summer of 2002, and documented his experiences in video and photos. During his presentation, Ruiz went over a short history of Palestine and the state of Israel.

"Israel has taken over more than 78% of [historic] Palestine, forcing Palestinians out of their homes," said Ruiz. Several members of Ruiz's group, ISM, he said, have been shot by Israeli snipers and killed. Ruiz himself was at an Israeli checkpoint when he was tackled and kicked by an Israeli soldier who may have mistaken him for a Palestinian, he postulated. The assault resulted in several broken ribs. Ruiz also told classes about one young American activist from Washington state, Rachael Corrie, who was run over by an Israeli bulldozer while trying to stop a Palestinian home from destruction. The incident was reported all over the world.

Palestinians began to rise up against the occupation in 1989 in what has come to be known as the first "Intifada" (uprising) against Israel. A second, more violent Intifada began in 2000. According to the activists, Israel uses the violence of some resistance groups, like Hamas, to justify its repressive treatment of Palestinians.

"The Israeli military sets up sanctions where the Palestinians aren't even allowed to leave their house," said Ruiz, of Israel's policy of keeping Palestinians inside their homes, sometimes for up to a hundred days. Israel also sets up roadblocks and huge walls to restrict movement of locals. Trips that could take as little as 20 minutes, might take up to a year, because of blockades by piles of rocks or postings of Israeli military. While restricting the movement of people, Israel also destroys the trees and crops of farmers, the backbone of the Palestinians' crumbling economy. Ruiz suggested that American people spread information on the situation, and hold the U.S. government accountable for its support of the Israeli government through weapons and aid.

Not far from Palestine, there is another situation that concerns the Wheels of Justice, the current occupation of Iraq by the United States. Bettejo Passalaqua, who spent time in Iraq during the war in April with the organization Voices in the Wilderness, is traveling with the Wheels of Justice tour.

"Many of the people affected by the war, didn’t have anything to do with the war. They never liked their leader, yet they're the ones suffering the most," said Passalaqua. She says that there have been from 7,000-9,500 innocent civilian deaths from the current war and the following occupation of Iraq, a fact largely unreported by the American mainstream press.

Passalaqua gave a short history of Iraq, focusing mainly on the United States aiding Saddam Hussein into power in the 1970's, and then using the Iran-Iraq war to sell weapons to both groups. After the Gulf War in 1991, the United Nations Security Council implemented a policy of strict sanctions that only allowed Iraq to acquire things like food by selling oil. It also kept many basic medical and school supplies from entering the country. During the time of the sanctions, the infant mortality rate rose to about 5,000 per month, and it is estimated that over 500,000 children have died from the sanctions, according to the UN and UNICEF. Also contributing to the deaths, are the lack of good water treatment facilities and chlorine, since they were bombed in the Gulf War. Under the sanctions, new pipelines and chlorine could not come into the country, and many children died from drinking water laced with sewage. Despite the ending of the war, [and the official lifting of sanctions on May 22, 2003], deaths continue.

Passalaqua also faulted the US occupation for its policy of keeping many different Iraqi groups out of local elections and hindering the democratic process. "Iraq doesn't want the Americans help to rebuild, they just want them to leave," she said.

With the continuing deaths of Iraqi civilians and militants, and the growing number of deaths of US service men and women stationed there, the warnings and criticisms of activists such as those on the Wheels of Justice are becoming more mainstream, as is the option of a U.S. withdrawal.

(Reprinted with permission. Edited)

Global Art Project: community, creativity, and peace

By TINO PLANK

The Global Art Project invites you to join in its sixth biennial cross-cultural art exchange scheduled for March-April, 2004.The Global Art Project was nominated for the 2002 UNESCO Peace Prize for Tolerance and Non-Violence. Since 1994 there have been over 56,000 participants on all seven continents.

There’s an African proverb that says, “If you can walk, you can dance; if you can clap, you can drum; and if you can talk, you can sing.” I love this proverb because it de-professionalizes the arts. In our modern world, the arts have become entertainment—where you as consumer take a passive (and often commercialized) role. But long before the arts were mass-produced and marketed, before TV shows and films showcased the performances of an elite corps of actors and musicians, before we had Hallmark stores in every town selling pre-packaged images to reflect our sentiments, every community shared in the creative and artistic expression of its members. Long before there was an artificial separation between performers and spectators, entire communities would participate in art, and the only “audience” was Spirit itself.

In times past (and in indigenous communities today), the arts were not distinct and separate from “regular” life. The work in the fields, the hunting and gathering of food, and the preparation of meals – all of these regular tasks involved songs and dances, or ritual paintings and carvings that depicted the events. Imagine a meal infused with not just spices, but with the energy of dance and song as well. Our ancestors were physically and spiritually fed in this manner. Perhaps it is this spiritual feeding that leads native cultures to closely associate healing and health with the arts. Malidoma Somé, in his book The Healing Wisdom of Africa, writes:

“Artistic ability, the capacity to heal, and the vision to see into the Other World are connected for indigenous people. In my village there is only a fine line between the artist and the healer. In fact, there is no word in the Dagara language for art. The closest term to it would be the same word as sacred.”

Similarly, the capacity to heal the wounds of violence and the creative process are connected. If violence can be understood as resulting from an obstructed ability to think creatively, then providing avenues for artistic self-expression can foster peace. The ability to find creative alternatives to violence is directly linked to a functioning ability to imagine.

Joining in our efforts and help spread the message of fostering world peace and unity through creative expressions of tolerance and compassion. As a participant you’ll create a work of art, in any medium, expressing your vision of global unity. After displaying the art in your community, you’ll be matched up by the Global Art Project with an exchange partner somewhere else in the world. Your creations are sent to your partner as a gift of global friendship, and will be exhibited in the receiving community—building community and promoting peace as a result.

ACTION: To register for this year’s Global Art Project,  visit www.global-art.org. Or contact Regional Coordinator, Tino Plank, P.O. Box 1155, Columbia, CA 95310, spiritrx@emovere.com

Electronic voting may imperil democracy
Submitted by LEE RYAN MILLER

The 2000 presidential election and the consequential actions of Congress and the states are dramatically changing the American election process. The Help America Vote Act (HAVA) passed by Congress in 2002 mandates reform of the election processes of all states. Among its requirements are a revamp of the voter registration system, the replacement of all punch card systems, and the addition of electronic voting methods that allow disabled citizens to vote without assistance.

Two provisions not included in HAVA are open-source software in electronic voting computers and a paper record of each ballot, verified by the voter at the time the ballot is cast. Many Americans are concerned that, because of the omission of these two provisions, the widespread changes now occurring are moving us toward less, rather than more, democracy.

There is gravel concern about the increased reliance on voting machines that record and tally votes exclusively through secret electronic means and provide no paper ballot that can be verified by the voter. Three major objections to entrusting our elections to these machines:

• Software errors are unavoidable.

• It is impossible to perform meaningful recounts to settle election disputes.

• The opportunities for fraud exist on a greater scale than ever before.

Software Errors

No one knows how to write bug-free software. The more complex the software, the more difficult it is to find and fix bugs. Election software is very complex, and it will contain errors, regardless of the skill and dedication of the engineers who design it and the programmers who code it.

As valuable as computers are, all of us know that glitches are not uncommon. Undoubtedly, software errors will cause problems in future elections, just as they have in past elections. Here are three of the many examples of computer errors reported in local newspapers' coverage of the November, 2003 elections:

• In Fairfax, Virginia, testing ordered by a judge revealed that several voting machines subtracted one in every hundred votes for the candidate who lost her seat on the School Board.

• In Bethel, Connecticut, voting machines would not allow voters to pick candidates from different parties for some boards, such as the Board of Finance and the Board of Education.

• In Boone County, Indiana, a software glitch caused 144,000 votes to be counted from a pool of 19,000 registered voters. Corrected accounting showed just 5,352 ballots cast.

Question: how many election results were compromised by unnoticed computer errors and malfunctions? We have no way of knowing. These reported cases were detected, but it is reasonable to assume there were other undetected errors. We will never know how many.

Impossibility of Meaningful Recounts

When voting machines fail, manual recounts of paper ballots could provide correct results. But what if paper ballots are not available? The suspect election results in Bethel, Connecticut will stand, despite innumerable complaints by voters. Without paper ballots, the only alternative is to hold another election, and the Secretary of State chose not to do so.

Trusting our votes to a wholly electronic process leaves us completely without recourse if that electronic process fails and history shows that the process fails all too frequently. Without paper records that accurately reflect voters' choices, it is simply impossible to perform a meaningful recount. While voting computers can print a report of the votes cast, the report is simply a printout of the electronic records. If the initial tally is inaccurate, the report will also be inaccurate. This is not a meaningful recount.

Consider this very possible scenario: A voter marks the appropriate locations on a computer screen, reviews the choices, and gives the command to cast the ballot. The computer records the ballot incorrectly. The voter leaves the booth, and at the end of the day, the poll worker prints out the ballot image. The voter's votes are incorrectly tallied, and the printed ballot is incorrect. The computer error goes undetected because the voter is not there to view the printed version. The printout does not provide an audit trail appropriate for a meaningful recount; it is merely a printed version of the computer's inaccurate data.

Opportunities for Grand-Scale Fraud

Election fraud is not unknown in previous American elections, and it is not unexpected in future elections. However, the opportunities for fraud provided by electronic voting machines surpass all the opportunities available prior to the recent advances in technology. Here's what could happen:

An insider, working for one of the vendors of widely-used voting machines, could add malicious code to the software. That malicious code could alter the election results in every state that uses the voting computers, and the subversions could remain completely undetected. Here's why.

1. Computer hackers have the ability to create software that could alter election results in a way that would be subtle enough it would not set off any alarms in the minds of even the most observant election officials.

2. U.S. courts have ruled that the source code used to run voting machines is a "trade secret" and is not open to public scrutiny. So, malicious software could be clearly visible in the source code and yet remain hidden because no outside experts are allowed to inspect it.

3. The national standards for testing and certification are very weak and are not enforced. Testing is normally done by Independent Testing Authorities, in secret, and the results are not available to the public. Certification is provided by election officials who are not computer experts and usually know little about computer security or the intricacies of software.

Concerns about fraud are not simply speculation. A study by Johns Hopkins and Rice University computer experts revealed hundreds of security flaws in the software of a leading manufacturer. A separate study by Science Applications International Corp (SAIC )confirmed the findings. A recent Ohio study of the four major voting machines has shown them all to be vulnerable to tampering. The study has prompted the Ohio Secretary of State to delay the installation of the machines until after the 2004 election.

A Reasonable Solution

Elections are everyone's business. Trade secrets and resistance to voters' needs are inappropriate when they pose a potential threat to democracy. If voting-machine manufacturers want to sell their products to American cities, counties, and states, let them be truly accountable to American voters. Let them provide each voter with a ballot that the voter can verify, that cannot be altered after verification, and that is available for a meaningful recount. Let them open their source code to the public so independent experts can inspect it and make public its strengths and weaknesses.

The major manufacturers do not offer products that meet these requirements. If they are not willing to be accountable to the public they claim to be serving, we must look elsewhere for the tools by which we can express our will in fair elections  tools that give us confidence in our continuing democracy. Voting machines that provide accessibility for the disabled and accountability to the public ARE available. Why are they not the equipment of choice?

The reasonable solution is for every state or the federal government to pass a law requiring all voting computers to provide a voter-verified audit trail and open source software. A bill (H.R. 2239 in the House and S. 1980 in the Senate) proposing such a law has been introduced into Congress. We must have these bills passed as soon as possible.

Edited from: www.verifiedvoting.org/

ACTION: Call your three congressional representatives (800) 839-5276. Ask them to co-sponsor HR 2239. Ask Senator Boxer and Senator Feinstein to co-sponsor S. 1980.