Bits & Peaces

EVENTS

Walt Whitman's War Poems: A Spiritual Journey, talk by Laurie Noble, 2/10/2008, 10:30 am. Independent scholar and former professor of English at Tufts and BU, Noble will trace Whitman's path during the US Civil War from abolitionist just war advocate to, after caring for wounded soldiers, an opponent of the inhumanity of war. Ethical Society of Boston, Longy School of Music, 33 Garden St., Cambridge, MA (near Harvard Square), 617/739-9050, esboston@bostonethical.org, www.bostonethical.org. Free.

Testimony To War: Art From The Battlegrounds of Iraq, 3/4-4/8, Visual Arts Museum, NY, NY. Work of five emerging and established artists, each of whom has a direct experience of the war in Iraq: Army Major Peter Buotte, Army Sergeant Aaron Hughes, embedded artist Steve Mumford, embedded photographer Lucian Read, and Army Staff Sergeant Ryan Roa. Examples of painting, drawing, sculpture, photography and video range from the subtly conceptual to the graphically raw, these works drive home the human costs of war, Visual Arts Museum, 209 East 23rd Street, NY, NY, www.sva.edu.

Helen Elaine Lee reads from Life Without 2/27, MIT Professor Lee reads from her new novel, Life Without, which chronicles the lives of inmates in American prisons. The Museum of African American History, The Abiel Smith School, 46 Joy Street, Beacon Hill, Boston MA, 6:30-8:30 pm. ASL provided. Part of the Writing Race: Memory & Imagination series presented by The Boston African American National Historic Site & Community Change Inc., 617-523-0555, www.communitychangeinc.org.

NATO Game Over, 03/22/08, Resist Military Globalization! Five years after the Iraq war started: an international action weekend at NATO's headquarters in Brussels, Belgium. www.wri-irg.org

Opening Hearts & Minds: Speaking Truth to Power Retreat, 2/29-3/2 with Bonnie Tinker, founder of Love Makes a Family, Inc., and Rev. Cecil Charles Prescod, founding member of Brother to Brother, an organization for African American gay and bisexual men. Respond creatively to conflict by the practice of LARA: Listen, Affirm, Respond, and Add. Participants will bring the political and social issuues that most deeply divide them from family, co-workers, and community. Quaker Center, Box 686 Ben Lomond, CA, 95005, 831/336-8333, mail@quakercenter.org, www.quakercenter.org. Sliding scale, $120-$200, scholarships available.

Women, Action, & the Media Conference, 3/28-30, MIT's Stata Center in Cambridge, MA. Share facts and ideas, develop skills, build collaborations, and create action plans to amplify progressive women's public voices in society. Keynotes by Helen Thomas and Iraqi columnist Haifa Zangana. Co-sponsored by the Center for New Words and MIT Women's Studies, 7 Temple Street, Cambridge, MA 02139, 617/876-5310, www.centerfornewwords.org/wam/

The International Violence Against Women Act (IVAWA), if passed in the US Congress, would consistently incorporate solutions for reducing violence against women into US foreign assistance programs. Sign the IVAWA petition at www.womensedgecoalition.org.

Darfur, Sudan Civilian Protection Program. The Genocide Intervention Network works with Darfuri community leaders, displaced women and girls, the African Union, and the UN to protect people in camps for Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs). Firewood near the camps is growing increasingly scarce. Every day, women and girls are forced to wander further into the desert in search of firewood for cooking, where militias have raped and attacked them. GI-Net's Civilian Protection Program offers safer cooking options by providing alternative-fuel stoves, guarded firewood patrols, and income-generating projects for women so that they can afford to buy firewood. Donations needed. www.genocideintervention.org.

Ban Cluster Bombs. Cluster munitions pose a danger to civilians during and after wars. When used, they scatter over wide swaths of land. After use, malfunctioning bomblets become de facto landmines. In the last 10 years, the US has used cluster bombs in civilian-populated areas of the former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, and Iraq. The US arsenal includes nearly 1 billion bomblets. Thirty-five years after the official end of the US war in Southeast Asia, US cluster bombs continue to kill. In 2007, the campaign convinced Congress to ban export of cluster bombs for one year. Now, work to ban all use in civilian areas. Write newspapers & Congress. Templates at www.fcnl.org.

OPPORTUNITIES

Summer Junior Counselor Opportunity at the Girls Leadership Institute. The GLI provides middle and high school girls with critical leadership skills. Held at Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, MA in summer 2008 in two consecutive two-week sessions. Junior Counselors must be at least 18 years of age, have experience working with young people and be passionate about girls' empowerment. Applications processed in the order received, deadline 2/15. send a cover letter and resume in Word or pdf format to simone@girlsleadership.org with full name and "JC application" in the subject line. www.girlsleadershipinstitute.org

Call to Artists by Casa de la Cultura / Center for Latino Arts Gallery. The CLA Gallery is calling for portfolio submissions for solo and group shows. Artists working in painting, sculpture, drawing, printmaking, photography, digital media, textiles, mixed media, and installation are eligible. Eight to ten shows of six weeks will be awarded. Deadline 2/8. Send portfolio of: Exhibition Statement; Artist Statement(s) and/or Resume/CV; & 10 to 15 Images per artist on CD/DVD. Include a 250 word statement of why you want to participate. Mail portfolio to CLA Gallery ñ Artist Call, Attn: Javier Torres, 405 Shawmut Avenue, Boston, MA 02118, 617/927-1737, www.claboston.org.

RESOURCES

War With No End by John Berger, Naomi Klein, Hanif Kureishi, Arundhati Roy, Ahdaf Soueif, Joe Sacco, Haifa Zangana, Phyllis Bennis, Tram Nguyen, & September 11th Familes for Peaceful Tomorrows, 167 pp; $14.95 pb. Showcases fine writers protesting the "war on terror." Published by Verso in conjunction with the Stop the War Coalition and United for Peace and Justice.

The Occupation: War and Resistance in Iraq by Patrick Cockburn, 229 pp. $16.96 pb. Cockburn secretly crossed into Iraq in March 2003 as the UK Independent's Middle East Correspondent. Recounts the devastation of post-Saddam Hussein-Iraq. New edition through 2007. Verso.

Great Peacemakers: True Stories from Around the World by Ken Beller and Heather Chase, 195 pp., $21.95 pb. Twenty capsule biographies of peacemakers from around the world, both famous & lesser known (Anderson Sá, a Brazilian singer). Includes lesson plans & standards maps for middle and high school content areas. Published 3/2008, Ingram Book Group, www.GreatPeacemakers.com.