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AWARE Meeting 5/23 - Al Kagan Facilitating / 20 folks attending Poetry by Matt Murrey Introductions News of the Week by Carl Estabrook (posted separately) P4P - Next protest is on June 5th . Keeping with the National Day of Protest, we will have signs about the Israeli invasion into Gaza. Ricky will bring sign-making materials to the next AWARE meeting so that folks can make some much-needed new signs. - Ricky also mentions that some folks periodically ask for more frequent protests; we can always go more frequently if there is interest. Legal Issues (Al, Carol and Ricky) - Folks on the working group are contacting additional lawyers since there has been a delay in Ellyn Bullock.s law firm okay-ing her working for AWARE. - Ricky is setting up a meeting with the Champaign Police and their legal department for next week. - We may want to keep in mind the option of approaching the Champaign City Council with our concerns since they are the oversight for the police. Tim Johnson: Public Meeting - Matt presented the letter to Tim Johnson requesting a public meeting to discuss concerns about the war. Group approved his version and it will be faxed to Johnson.s Washington office this week. I've included the letter at the end of these minutes. Farmer's Market - We need folks to work the 10-12 slot at the table on Saturdays. Please email Peter if you're available for the upcoming Saturdays. Peter can be reached at rohloff@uiuc.edu . - Durl volunteered to coordinate the Farmer's Market tabling in July. - Susan and Carol will work on literature / info to encourage folks who stop by the table to send a postcard to Kerry (or any candidate running for office) to encourage anti-war positions. ( In general discussion, folks mentioned that we all can email candidates or use the candidates. postage-paid fundraising envelopes as an opportunity to pressure for stronger stands against the war. See Ricky's posting to peace-discuss for one example) Finances -Linda reports that we've got $1,812.76, thanks to donations to AWARE at Farmer's Market. WILL commentary policy Local public radio station WILL has turned down a commentary submitted by David Green because they have decided (after Randall's commentary) to only accept pieces which deal with local/regional issues. Much discussion about the hypocrisy of this stand, and a suggestion to go to the News Gazette to publicize it, or to try to impact them during the next fund drive. Group agreed that a first step is to talk to sympathetic WILL staff in as timely a way as possible. Al will follow up. Democracy Now! -Randall reports progress is being made on bringing DN! to UPTV. No meeting yet about getting it on WILL. News Gazette drops Boondocks - Jan has written a letter to the News Gazette protesting their dropping of the popular comic strip Boondocks. The strip was removed because of its critical humor targetting Bush. Several folks added their names to the letter. If you would like to be included, please email Jan promptly. durljan@earthlink.net New Ideas - Linda is doing the groundwork to get AWARE a table at the Sweet Corn Festival held in Urbana in August. - David Cobb, a Green Party candidate, is speaking on June 2nd at 8 pm at the Illini Union. We've been invited to table there. - Tom Mackaman is running as a Socialist candidate in District 103. A petition to help him get on the ballot was circulated. He will speak at an upcoming AWARE meeting. Events of the Past Week - Carl reported on the Free Speech forum at the Champaign Public Library Upcoming Events - WEFT is tabling at Pages for All Ages from May 23-27, and 20% of purchases will support the station (if you mention WEFT). Stop by their table and tell them you appreciate the public affairs programming and would like to see more. http://www.weft.org/ Matt's letter to Tim Johnson follows below: Dear Representative Johnson, I am writing to you as a representative of the Champaign-Urbana group AWARE, an anti-war, anti-racist group of citizens, most of whose members are your constituents. I am contacting you because our group would like to hold a public meeting with you to ask you questions about the ongoing war in Iraq. We are especially interested in the following topics: the secret intelligence that led you to vote for authorizing the President to wage war in Iraq, the torture and abuse of prisoners in Iraq, exit strategy for US troops now in Iraq, the funding of the war, and the relation of the war to the Israel/Palestine conflict. It seems that the war and occupation of Iraq have reached a critical juncture, and with the "handover of sovereignty" planned for June 30th, your constituents should have an opportunity to ask you questions and give you their opinions about the war before your next public meeting in scheduled in August. I look forward to hearing from you about setting up this meeting as soon as possible. Thank you very much. Sincerely, Matthew Murrey