ProgressiveAustin.org / Calendar

7pm Friday March 5, 2010, Resistencia Books, 2010-A S First

Red Salmon Arts presents Café Libro, a bi-monthly open mike series, featuring Mujeres de PODER Celebrating International Women’s Day with guest artist Natalie Goodnow and the women of PODER: Susana Almanza (Co-Director), Erika Gonzalez (Co-Director), Carmen Llanes (Natural Resources Coordinator/Organizer), Nancy Flores (Volunteer), and Corazon Renteria (Board Member) with guest host PODER Board Chair & community elder Janie Rangel. We invite poet/artistas to come share/enjoy the cantos & cuentos of emerging & established writers/musicians.

Land stewards, farmers, and ranchers interested in turning wildlife into real wealth on their land will not want to miss Holistic Management Texas’ Spring Conference on March 5 and 6, 2010 at T Bar M Resort in New Braunfels, TX.  This two-day event will provide a variety of information about how to work with wildlife to increase biodiversity and your bottom line simultaneously. For more information and details about pricing, please visit www.hmitexas.org or contact Amy Normand (830-868-2427). Don’t miss this great chance to learn all about Holistic Management!

Rally at UT, Thursday, March 4, 11:30 AM, Gather at UT West Mall steps (west side of Tower)

In response to a massive budget shortfall, slashing of funding for public education at all levels, and skyrocketing college tuition costs, students and educators up and down the state of California have been mobilizing, culminating in a call for a day of action on March 4. At the University of Texas at Austin, various colleges and departments have been laying off staff and instructors, throwing UT employees to the wolves and reducing the quality of education despite a relatively shallow budget deficit. Next came news of a 8% tuition increase over the next two years — after tuition at UT has doubled over the last decade — and the closing of the beloved Cactus Café. Now Gov. Perry is demanding another $29 million cut from UT’s budget. Enough is enough. Students and educators shouldn’t have to pay for the crisis others created.

On March 4, join a demonstration at UT to defend public education. Come out and demand: Stop the cuts and layoffs! Protect our education! Stop raising tuition! Save the Cactus! Equal benefits for all UT employees!

Endorse the March 4 Day of Action at UT to Defend Public Education. Email your name and title, or that of your organization, to enmarterre@gmail.com

RSVP on Facebook

March 1, 2010, 6pm-8pm, Council Chambers, 301 W. Second Street, 1st Floor

Office of the Police Monitor Citizen Review Panel Regular Monthly Meeting

Public Input Agenda

The Public meeting of the Citizen Review Panel will be held at City Hall Council Chambers at 6:00 p.m. The following is the agenda:

1) 2009-1235: Citizen alleges that officer was unprofessional and to failed to detach himself in a civil matter.

2) 2009-0953: Complainant alleges officer made an illegal stop and was rude.

3) 2009-1483: Complainant alleges officer used excessive force.

4) 2009-0777: Complainant alleges officer used excessive force.

5) 2009-1216: Complainant alleges detective was not thorough in conducting an investigation.

6) 2009-1316: Complainant alleges officer used excessive force.

7) Community Policing Issues

Complainants/Citizens may address the Citizen Review Panel about the above items.

If you wish to address the Citizen Review Panel please sign up 30 minutes in advance of the Public session. For additional information on any agenda item, please contact Office of the Police Monitor, City of Austin 512-974-9090.

The City of Austin is committed to compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act. If you require special assistance for participation in our programs or use of our facilities, please call 974-9090.

We meet Monday, March 1, and the first Monday of each month from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Below are links to the project website and a map showing the new location at 3121 E 12th, just west of Airport. If you’d like to volunteer, please send an email to jane.chamberlain@gmail.com so I can put you on the update list. (Please note they also have evening sessions available.)

I’d like book-loving progressives to know about an exciting volunteer opportunity with Inside Books, a nonprofit focused on providing reading material to Texas’s 170,000-odd prisoners. IBP receives roughly 800 letters per month from prisoners in the Texas system requesting reading material by subject. Volunteers take a letter, look for the best match in IBP’s library of donated books, write a short note and prepare a package of free books for mailing.

“The most fun you can have doing good ” . . . Prisoners’ letters are respectful and appreciative, sometimes funny, often engaging and inspiring. Many have been victimized by circumstances. Most have few educational opportunities and limited access to libraries that are themselves frequently in poor condition, heavily censored, filled with pulp fiction but lacking in African-American and Mexican-American subjects, GED and other standardized test training, coping with specific medical conditions, and art/craft how-to-do-its.

9pm Saturday Feb. 27, 2010, Resistencia Bookstore, casa de Red Salmon Arts, 1801-A South First St., Austin, Tejas

CONJURE: Calling up the Spirit of Struggle, Resistance, & Liberation. We invite you to a forum for progressive artist/activists: A series of experiments in jazz music, dance, spoken word, & cinema

This session will feature award-winning author/activist sharon bridgforth, Chicana performance artist/cultural worker Virginia Grise, & dance/body movement by Czarina Aggabao Thelen

Rooted in the tradition of improvisation, revolution, and blues, Conjure is a sovereign site for artistic/exploratory/spiritual collaboration, expression, and rejuvenation. Each jam session will highlight the “Afrological improvised music” of the 3Collective along with a featured spoken word performer, dancer, and filmmaker inspired by the jazz aesthetic.

“my work has been labeled; performance art, linked stories, poetry, experimental fiction, plays…i call it jazz. i write performance literature/work that is polyphonic in its design, rendering a vivified return of the art of storytelling to an African-American experience of art. the jazz of my work assumes that art and Life are not separate; that artists are responsible to community; that art is about innovation; that visual art, movement, music, dramatic interpretation, poetic voice, ritual, Prayer and the human Spirit must be presented simultaneously to make a story come alive; that working within a polyrhythmic storytelling form/as jazz-is a traditional African-American practice; that the purpose of this art is to serve the revolution of Spirit; that the reader/audience is a responsible witness-participant in the process of the work’s coming alive”…sharonbridgforth

Saturday, February 27, 7 pm, MonkeyWrench Books, 110 E. North Loop

“Catching out: The secret world of day laborers” — Labor Ready, Volt, Labor Finders, Adecco — you can check in the Yellow Pages under “employment, temporary” and find probably two dozen halls similar to these. Seasoned journalist Dick Reavis reported to a labor hall each morning, hoping to “catch out,” or get job assignments. To supplement his retirement savings, the sixty-two-year-old North Carolinian joined people dispatched by an agency to jobs for which they were paid at the end of each day.

Written with the flair of a gifted portraitist and storyteller, Catching Out describes Reavis’s jobs at a factory; as a construction and demolition worker, landscaper, road crew flagman, auto-auction driver and warehouseman; and several days spent sorting artifacts in a dead packrat’s apartment. On one pick-and-shovel job, he finds that his partner is too blind to see the hole they’re digging. In each setting, he describes the personalities and problems of his desperate peers, the attitudes of their bosses, and the straits of immigrant coworkers, so many of whom make up the three-million-strong day-laborer poor.

This is a gritty, hard-times evocation of the men and women on the bottom rung of the American workforce. It is partly a guide to performing hard, physical tasks, partly a celebration of strength, and partly a venting of ire at stingy and stern overseers. Reavis reminds us that physical exertion, even when painful or unpleasant, remains vital to the economy — and that those who labor, though poorly paid, bring vigor, skill, and cunning to their tasks. In the tradition of Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickel and Dimed, Catching Out is destined to become a classic of our troubled times. Dick J. Reavis is an award-winning journalist, educator and author. He was active in the civil rights movement in the South and with SDS at the University of Texas in Austin. He wrote for Austin’s underground newspaper The Rag, and was a senior editor at Texas Monthly magazine. Dick Reavis’ book, The Ashes of Waco: An Investigation, about the siege and burning of the Branch Davidian compound, was published by Simon and Schuster and may be the definitive work on the subject.

Saturday, February 27th, 2010, 4 pm, The Independent, Corner of E. 5th & Brushy St.

THE YOUTH POETRY SLAM – SEASON #8! Presented by the Texas Youth Word Collective. Last Chance to Qualify for a Spot in the Finals!

How is it that the shortest month of the year got the most things stuffed in it? Think about it, two presidents’ birthdays, Black History Month, and the much anticipated (or always dreaded, depending on your opinion) Valentines Day. That doesn’t even include the Super Bowl which somehow found a way to creep its way out of January. We plan to cram one more big, important, celebratory day into this button-popping month: the They Speak Youth Poetry Slam. February is a robust month and the only thing worthy of such a month is a youth poetry slam filled with stellar writing, wrenching stories, and great performances. Whether you are a poet, a judge, our host, a member of the audience, or our fabulous DJ F. Scott, all are essential to the intellectually and emotionally stimulating experience that is the youth slam. Add it all together and what do you get? Love.

So, we invite all of you to come join us for this, our 8th season of the city wide youth poetry slam, the They Speak Youth Poetry Slam. See what all the excitement is about and be inspired by the voices and leaders of tomorrow. Those participants between the ages of 13 and 19 will be eligible to compete for a spot on the team we take to Brave New Voices 2010 in the home of the stars, the City of Angels , Los Angeles , California

Please come for a night of stirring, thought-provoking poetry. This project is funded in part by the City of Austin through the Cultural Arts Division and by a grant from the Texas Commission on the Arts.

$5 cover, slam participants, under 5 and teachers free

CONTACTS:

Tova Charles (514) 554-3720, Project Coordinator

Dr. Sheila Siobhan (512) 422-6653, Co-Director

u21slam@yahoo.com

Saturday, February 27, 2:00pm-3:30pm March from Oilcan Harry’s to Austin City Hall Oilcan Harry’s is at 211 West 4th Street, Austin, TX 78701-3916, (512) 320-8823

Austin March Against Hate “Unify Against Violence & Hate”

Hi Everyone,

Late last Friday night on February 19, two of our players were on their way home from OCH after attending Softball Austin’s Jersey Night which kicks off each new softball season. All of our players, including Matt Morgan and Emmanuel Winston, were wearing their Shady Ladies jersey as part of the festivities.

As Matt & Emmanuel began their walk from OCH to their car at City Hall, they didn’t notice the four men following them. When they got close to City Hall, the men ambushed Matt & Emmanuel uttering slurs about their sexuality and violently beat them before running away. Their only motivation in the attack was hate.

Our community needs to come together and take a stand against Hate and let our Austin Police and City Leaders know that they need to do more to ensure the safety and protection of all Austinites who make that same walk every night.

This Saturday afternoon, we are holding an “Austin March Against Hate” and we want to get the entire community to come join us as we all walk together with Matt Morgan and Emmanuel Winston as we take that same walk from OCH to City Hall. We will gather at OCH starting at 2PM on Saturday, February 27, 2010 and we will march from OCH to City Hall at 3PM!

We will all be wearing our Shady Ladies shirts. If you participate in any of Austin’s many GLBT sports leagues, please wear your team’s jersey as well.

Many of you have also asked about wanting to buy a Shady Ladies shirt to wear and we will have those available for purchase on Saturday for just $10.

So let’s get the entire community unified this Saturday afternoon and take a stand against hate!

See everyone on Saturday!

Thanks,
Shady Ladies Softball Team

February 27, 2010, 1:00 PM – 5:00 PM, Huston-Tillotson University

www.austinheritagefestival.org
Tentative Schedule

Event MC – Miss Black Texas USA! Zakiya Larry
1:00 – 2:00 The Celebration Begins! – Kickoff with the exciting Reagan High School Band Vendor Booths / Health Fair / Children’s Activities and More…
2:00 – 2:30
Festival Program
Presentation of the Colors by Boy Scouts
Welcome
Invocation
Negro Nat’l Anthem
Introduction of Representative Dukes
Introduction of Huston-Tillotson University President, Dr. Larry Earvin & Scholarship Check Presentation
2:30 – 3:15
Urban Prayze Music from Soulfruit!
Soulfruit
3:15 – 5:00 More exciting music, poetry and dance from some of Austin’s premiere talent

Pasado, Presente, y Futuro: Forty Years of Chicana and Chicano Studies in Texas

The year 2010 marks the 40th anniversary of the formal establishment of Mexican American Studies in the academy in Texas. Since the early 1970s, many approaches have been developed and employed in the field of Chicana and Chicano Studies, some focusing on political economy, others on cultural studies, some focusing on the specificity of the Tejano experience, others focusing on how Texas fits into the larger experience of Mexican Americans in the United States and linkages to Mexico and Latin America. Chicana and Chicano Studies in Texas has drawn from many intellectual approaches and fields, and struggled to expand the definition of the academy, activism, and intellectual life.

The goal of the 2010 National Association for Chicana and Chicano Studies (NACCS) Tejas Foco Regional Conference is to examine questions around a “Texas School” of Chicana and Chicano Studies. Scholars of Chicana and Chicano Studies, members of NACCS, and the general public will engage the question of whether there is (or is not) a Texas-based approach to Chicana and Chicano Studies. Presentations will look at the past, present, and future of Chicana and Chicano Studies in Texas to outline such a “Texas School” of thought or may call into question the very idea of such a proposition. The conference will also consider whether there is more than one school of thought within Texas.
The conference is free and open to the public.

Bienvenida
Center for Mexican American Studies
The University of Texas at Austin
Thursday, February 25, 2010

Conference Day 1
San Jacinto Conference Center
The University of Texas at Austin
Friday, February 26, 2010

Tardeada de Cultura
San Jacinto Conference Center
The University of Texas at Austin
Friday, February 26, 2010

Conference Day 2
San Jacinto Conference Center
The University of Texas at Austin
Saturday, February 27, 2010

For more information please call 512-471-4557 or visit the CMAS website

Thursday, February 25, 7:00 PM, UT campus, Parlin 101

“You really have to rethink your core business model, and that’s what we’re doing.” — Kevin Hegarty, UT-Austin Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Around the country and in Texas, a full-scale attack on public education is underway at all levels. Here at UT-Austin, this has taken the shape budget cuts and layoffs of staff and instructors, and proposals to increase tuition after a decade of skyrocketing costs for students. Politicians and administrators claim these measures are necessary to deal with recession-era economics. And yet at other times they declare that Texas has a budget surplus and the deficit at UT is minimal compared to other institutions.

So are the cuts and tuition increases necessary — or do they represent an attempt to ration access to higher education in the name of making UT a more elite institution? And how can we fight for access for quality affordable education for all?

Come to a presentation and discussion featuring Prof. Snehal Shingavi, UT Dept. of English.

RSVP on Facebook

7pm Thursday Feb. 25, 2010, Resistencia Books, 1801-A S First

Sacrifice for Justice: Immigrant rights activist Rama Carty speaks after his release from detention. “Going on hunger strike is not a crime, it’s making a sacrifice for justice.” Rama Carty is an immigrant rights activist and leader outside/within immigrant detention centers in the U.S. Spurring Amnesty International’s investigation of the Port Isabel Detention Center in the Rio Grande Valley, Rama has been organizing within the detention system. He will speak on the realities of immigrant detention and the organizing on the inside.

Local activists will also talk about how people can stand in solidarity and support those on the inside: Texas organizers Anayanse Garza & Lauren Martin, National organizer Silky Shah of the Detention Watch Network, & Haitian-American artist/activist Carole Metellus.

Rama Carty is a Haitian immigrant who has lived in the United States for 38 years. He was detained by ICE for over 20 months after serving a 2 year sentence for a drug conviction. He continues to advocate on behalf of those held in detention. The event is sponsored by Grassroots Leadership, Southwest Workers Union, and Resistencia Bookstore.

Thursday, February 25,

SAN ANTONIO 12:00-1:00 pm, San Antonio ICE offices

Join Grassroots Leadership and our allies for the Texas launch of the national Dignity Not Detention: Preserving Human Rights and Restoring Justice campaign. We will be holding two events on February 25th calling for Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to close two enormous south Texas detention centers – the privately-run “Tent City” detention center in Raymondville and the Port Isabel Detention Center, where immigrant detainees have been holding ongoing hunger strikes to highlight human rights abuses.

While ICE recently announced that it plans to institute major reforms in the detention system, there has been little evidence of change, and immigrants continue to suffer. Over 10% of detained immigrants in the U.S. are held in these two detention centers in Texas. The more than 4,000 immigrants detained at these facilities are held in conditions considered to be substandard by numerous human rights organizations. Join us to take action to close these detention centers once and for all:

Grassroots Leadership will join with members of the faith community, former detainees, and human rights organizers from across Texas in a protest, press conference, and letter delivery to the ICE offices in San Antonio. Protesters will call on ICE to make good on its commitment to fix the immigrant detention system by closing Tent City and Port Isabel and implementing alternatives to detention policies. We will also deliver a petition signed by immigrant detainees across Texas. The ICE offices are located at 8940 Fourwinds Dr., San Antonio, TX, 78239. For information on an Austin caravan, please email Bob Libal or call (512) 499-8111.

Panel Discussion on Immigrant Detention
Thursday, February 25, 7:00 pm, Resistencia Bookstore, Austin, Texas

Join us for a panel discussion on organizing against the immigrant detention system. Panelists will include Rama Carty, former Port Isabel detainee and immigrant rights leader whose hunger strike drew national attention, Silky Shah, national coordinator of the Detention Watch Network’s Dignity Not Detention campaign, Anayanse Garza of the Southwest Workers Union, and Lauren Martin of Grassroots Leadership and Texans United for Families

We have reached another sad milestone today. 1000 U.S. soldiers have died in Afghanistan, in addition to tens of thousands of Afghan civilians. Please join us WEDNESDAY, February 24th at 5:00 p.m. (weather delay) at City Hall as we mourn the lives lost. CodePink Austin will bring coffins draped with U.S. & Afghan flags and tombstones marking the number of deaths. We encourage you to wear black.

Monday, February 22, 8 pm, MonkeyWrench Books, 110 E. North Loop

A talk by Ashanti Alston, Former Black Panther and Black Liberation Army member: Drawing on his own experience in a variety of struggles, Ashanti will speak about the relevance of black liberation, the Zapatistas, and anarchism to modern radical organizing in the US. Ashanti Alston is a former member of the Black Panther Party and Black Liberation Army, and was a political prisoner for over 12 years. Residing in New York, he is presently the national co-chair of the Jericho Amnesty Movement, and an active member of Estacion Libre, the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, and Critical Resistance. Ashanti publishes the zine “Anarchist Panther” and has spent time in Chiapas, Mexico, studying the autonomous structure of Zapatista communities.

Saturday, February 20, 2010, 6:30 PM, Hyatt Regency North Dallas, 701 East Campbell Road, Richardson, TX 75081

Join us for the Muslim Legal Fund of America’s Annual Benefit Dinner and listen to an award-winning investigative journalist share her captivating journey to Islam. Yvonne Ridley is an award-winning investigative journalist from the United Kingdom. She was arrested by the Taliban while she was covering the US war in Afghanistan. She was released after 10 days and kept a promise she made to one of her captors that she would read the Quran and learn about Islam. About 30 months after her release, she converted to Islam and became an outspoken defender of Islam, Muslim causes and human rights all over the world.

Ms. Ridley authored two books, Into the Hands of the Taliban and Ticket to Paradise, and recently finished a documentary on Prisoner 650, the only known female prisoner held at the notorious Bagram prison in Afghanistan (known as the “Abu Ghraib of Afghanistan” by human rights activists). Ms. Ridley’s interviews include eye-witness accounts claiming Prisoner 650 is Dr. Aafia Siddiqui, a beneficiary of MLFA’s charitable work. Ms. Ridley is an avid supporter of MLFA and has spoken at MLFA events in major cities across America.

The Muslim Legal Fund of America is a 501(c)(3) non-profit charitable organization that supports legal cases impacting the Muslim community. This support includes financial support (made possible through your generous donations) as well as logistical support. MLFA also maintains a database of attorneys who agree to reduce their legal fees for members of the Muslim community who are facing legal challenges. Donations to MLFA are tax-deductible and zakat-eligible.

Find Us on Facebook
For more information:
Call (972) 331-9021

Saturday, February 20, 1:00 – 5:00 PM, Travis County Expo Center, 7311 Decker Ln.

“A CALL FOR REFORM” TEXAS CONVENTION FOR IMMIGRANT INTEGRATION Community members, advocacy groups, elected officials and allies from all around Texas will convene in Austin for a convention on immigrant integration. Immigrants in Texas represent 16 percent of the population, more than the national average of 12.5 percent. Some of them are forced to live in the shadows by a broken immigration system that keeps them from contributing fully to their adopted country. The United States and Texas need a comprehensive immigration reform in 2010. It’s good for the economy, good for security and good for families. Registration is free.

Sponsored by the Reform Immigration for Texas Alliance. More info: acadena@bnhr.org or (915) 253-2262

Saturday, February 20, Save this Date, UT Campus Room and Time TBA

THE ROOTS OF RACISM AND THE DEATH PENALTY IN AMERICA: Presenting the Campaign to End the Death Penalty’s National Speaking Tour for 2009 – 2010. Join this teach-in tour in cities around the country this fall and spring. This year’s tour looks at the historic link between the death penalty and lynching in the United States. Hear from those who have been freed from death row, activists and scholars on the role of racism in our criminal justice system and why the death penalty and unjust sentencing need to be abolished.

Friday-Saturday, February 19-20, UT campus,  AT&T Conference Center on the UT Austin campus

This conference provides an opportunity to develop a comprehensive working plan to secure competitive insurance benefits for state university employees and to develop your campus initiatives on equality issues. Continuing the momentum created at last year’s conference, we are urging every public and private university in Texas to send one or more representatives. The conference is designed for university faculty and staff, and 1 student leader per school may also attend. Registration is $75 per person.

Sponsored by UT-Austin’s Pride and Equity Faculty and Staff Association and Equality Texas, with co-sponsors Texas State University and the University of Houston.

More info:

Debra Winegarten at winegarten@astro.as.utexas.edu