Online Edition: March 2007     Vol. XIX, No. 7

ACTIONS FOR PEACE
sponsored by Peace Life Center, Public invited

  • MODESTO PEACE LIFE CENTER VIGILS: Vigils are held once a month; Friday evenings; call the Center for info: 529-5750. Vigil on the 4th Anniversary of the Iraq War:  March 17, Noon-2 pm, Tenth Stree Plaza--see article for more details

  • PEACE LIFE CENTER WILL BE OPEN TUESDAYS, Noon to 3 pm. Come by for coffee or tea and just to chat or look at our book and magazine collection. Bring your own bag lunch; there may be films some days. 720 13th St. Call us 529-5750, we'll get back to you with info on vigils and other activities.

  • Click here for other Peace Actions around the Valley and Mother Lode, including Sonora, March 18 and Stockton, March 17

You are invited
to attend the
2007 Peace Essay Contest
Awards Reception

Sunday, the Twenty-fifth of March
2:00 o’clock in the afternoon
at the
Dena Boer School
4801 Golden Valley Road, Salida

Light refreshments will be served.

The public is welcome

Connections needs help!

Stanislaus Connections, the peace and justice newspaper of the Modesto Peace Life Center, needs volunteers able to help edit, write, or help put up the paper each month. We meet two times per month. If you are interested in helping with our progressive paper, contact us.

Email Jim Costello, jcostello@igc.org or call 537-7818. Or call Myrtle Osner, 522-4967, osnerm@sbcglobal.net

CONTENTS

San Joaquin Connections--Our Sister Publication to the North--March issue (pdf)
Community Alliance--Our Sister Publication to the South--February issue (pdf)

Peace & Justice

Around the Center: 

Events

Articles

Living Lightly

Recipes from Connections

A Gathering of Voices--Karen Baker

Out and About

COMMUNITY CALENDAR --CURRENT & COMING EVENTS

Masthead and Back Issues

Opinion and Letters to Connections

Liberal Voices, no longer small and lonely

By FRED HERMAN

Liberal Voices, a group of valley residents seeking an ear amid the tumult and shouting of a largely conservative community, can be heard at 7 p.m. the fourth Thursday each month in a Modesto living room.

Born three years ago at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Stanislaus County, comprised mainly but certainly not entirely of UUs, it is based on a workshop that was entitled “Liberal Voices in a Conservative Landscape.”

Its text was by Berkeley semanticist George Lakoff who in such books as Don’t Think of an Elephant shows how neocon politicians frame some issues in ways hard to refute - such as “No Child Left Behind” or “Death Tax.”

How can, asks Lakoff, progressives reframe their issues creatively rather than reactively? The group began by critiquing each other‘s letters to the editor.

Its first activism came in response to the Stanislaus County Board of Supervisors’ censorship of a library belly dance program, which members interpreted as an attack on free speech.

It offered two programs on global warming/climate change — one a “Party for the Planet” sponsored by the Union of Concerned Scientists, the other a showing of Al Gore’s film An Inconvenient Truth.

Current themes include local environmental issues such as recycling, alternative energy, greening a proposed new church building, and statewide health care for all.

There are no officers but Pat Egenberger and Ann Krabach serve as de facto chairpersons. No membership rosters although a dozen out of a mailing list of two-dozen attend. No dues, fees, collections or other obligations.

ACTION: Discussions go for about two hours. If interested, call 524-3075, 667-1824, 523-5907 or 522-1571 for exact dates and location. All welcome.

Outstanding Women of Stanislaus chosen

Since 1980, the Stanislaus County Commission for Women has named Outstanding Women of the year.

In later years, the honorees also included notable women of history and young women of achievement.

This year ten Outstanding Women are being named, along with three Outstanding Young Women and one Woman Pioneer.

The celebratory evening will be held at the Assyrian Cultural Center in Ceres, Saturday. March 17 at 6 p.m. Dinner tickets are $40.Rreservations must be made and paid for in advance by March 9, by sending a check to SCCW, P. O. Box 4254, Modesto, CA 95352.

 DEADLINE TO SUBMIT ARTICLES TO CONNECTIONS.

Tenth of each month. Submit peace, justice and environmentally friendly event notices to P.O. Box 134, Modesto, CA, 95353, or call 522-4967 or 575-4299, or email to Jim Costello. Free listings subject to space, availability and editing.

02/27/07