Earth Hour is the single, largest, symbolic mass participation event in the world. Born out of a hope that we could mobilize people to take action on climate change, Earth Hour now inspires a global community of millions of people in 7,001 cities and towns across 152 countries and territories to switch lights off for an hour as a massive show of concern for the environment.
Earth Hour has now become much more than a symbolic action. It has evolved into a continuous movement driving real actions, big and small, that are changing the world we live in. :earn more at Earth Hour .Org Book Beat Suggestion: A Reading Hour by yourself or with your family by candlelight, flashlight or fire-light.
Free Showing of the Film GENETIC ROULETTE: March 26th
The Farmington Hills Main Library will be showing “Genetic Roulete” on March 26th, Tuesday, March 26th at 6:45-8:45 P.M. The Farmington Hills Main Library is located at 32737 W. Twelve Mile Road, please RSVP to: 313-515-7027 or mail: ZacaryJS@Comcast.net
The Main Library Theater holds up to 235 people and we are trying to fill every seat! This is one of the most important movies on food you will ever see.. The library is on 12 mile between Orchard Lake and Farmington Rd. I look forward to seeing everyone! “Genetic Roulette,” a filmby Jeffrey M. Smith and narrated by Lisa Oz. It is a production of the Institute for Responsible Technology. Presented by NO GMO 4 MICHIGAN.org
The movie explains the difference between traditional hybridization techniques and the gene splicing process that occurs with GMOs and how this process can significantly alter the nature of a food. Much of the movie focuses on GM “roundup ready corn” and how it works its way through the food chain from the actual corn itself to food ingredients, animal feed, meat and milk products. Scientists present convincing evidence about how proteins and toxins related to the addition of roundup linger in the gut, destroying gut flora and leading to a host of digestive and other health concerns. Study after study reveals the health problems caused by consumption of genetically modified foods in both animals and humans.
The movie presents many actual cases of animals and people eating a GMO vs. non GMO diet and the corresponding physiological impact. The graphic display of unhealthy livestock, sick pets and cattle dying after eating GMO cotton stalks in India leaves one with a strong visual impression of the serious complications GMO foods can cause. Source: FAIM , Movie Review
The Oak Park Public Library & Book Beat present Linda Cohen’s1000 MITZVAHS: How Small Acts of Kindness can Heal, Inspire & Change Your Life on Monday, April 30, 2012, 6:30 P.M. at the Oak Park Library. (14200 Oak Park Boulevard Oak Park, MI 48237 (248) 691-7480). The Oak Park Library has just recently re-opened after undergoing a beautiful remodeling. We strongly encourage you to stop in to check out one of the metro area’s most welcoming libraries!
“The word mitzvah comes from the root of the word…connection. It’s that idea about connecting with other human being even if it’s over a very minor thing like letting someone into traffic.” -Linda Cohen.
1,000 Mitzvahs: How Small Acts of Kindness Can Heal, Inspire and Change Your Life shares Cohen’s two-and-a-half-year journey from sorrow to inspiration through simple daily acts of kindness. She presents each mitzvah as a short vignette and the myriad forms they take from helping the elderly to donating to good causes to baking and collecting food for others. As she pursues her quest, Cohen finds her life is improved by these small acts and that every time she goes our of her way to do something good for someone else, she enhances her own well-being.
“Performing one thousand mitzvahs turned out to be exactly what I needed to move from grief to inspiration and help honor my father’s memory in a positive manner. Along the way, I received so much more than I gave.”
To reserve copies of the book please call Book Beat at 248-968-1190, or visit their website: thebookbeat.com
A limited number of autographed copies of the book are now available at the Book Beat.
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In addition to writing, Cohen speaks around the country on the subjects of volunteerism, parenting and mitzvahs. She currently serves on the Board of Directors for Willowbrook, a non-profit summer arts program for children. Visit her at www.1000mitzvahs.com.
Because of recent budget cutbacks the Center for Peace and Conflict Studies at Wayne State University is in dire straights and on the verge of closing its doors. It is one of the oldest institutions devoted to the study of peace and conflict in the country. Please help by passing along this information to anyone you know that may be interested in preserving this noble 46-year-old Detroit & World class institution.
“WSU President Gilmour has moved to have the Center for Peace and Conflict Studies closed, with a final vote of the Board of Governors to be decided in December. The Dean of the College of Liberal Arts (where the Center resides), Robert Thomas, has given a directive to have a formal annual commitment of $177,000 as a pre-condition to withdraw its request for closure by a self-defeating deadline of October 21, 2011. We are intent on taking a collective stand on the import of keeping the Center for Peace and Conflict Studies open. We implore this academic administration to engage in fruitful open negotiation as the Center’s supporters bring forth resources and support, funds and fundraisers to meet this financial challenge.
We are taking a stand that peace education is vital to the development of our society and it shall continue. At this Great Turning we need to model the importance of citizenship as living responsibly in the world. And we must ask, “What does a university responsibly give to a society?” The university was originally founded on the principle of providing “academic freedom.” My classes have been cross-listed with the Center for Peace and Conflict Studies and they have creating the context for studying and creating art that moves the culture forward, and raises questions that move our society forward.
Save the Center for Peace and Conflict Studies and give peace a chance!
We are in the midst of a powerful democratic awakening and we need your help as a leading voice for peace. The Center for Peace and Conflict Studies in Detroit
is part of the Wayne State University, a major Carnegie Mellon research university in the cultural center of Detroit. We are now stewarding the 21st century facing great battles for our devastated inner city school systems which experiences 50-75% dropout rate, the ravished environment and the ravaged economy. I am teaching a class titled: Art as Activism: So You Say You Want a Revolution? and it is committed to being part of the grassroots activism that is fired up in this city at this time. We have read Grace Lee Boggs’s current classic The New American Revolution: Sustainable Revolution for the 21st Century as our textbook where she speaks to this being the time to “grow our own souls.” Now we are literally asking our Wayne State University administration to,
“Give peace a chance!”
The Center for Peace and Conflict Studies began in 1965 and forged peace education during the seismic social changes of the following decades. This program is the oldest of its kind, and it grew during the most challenging decades of social change for peace, women’s rights, civil rights and the LBGT movement. Now we are another crucible for change. This Center for Peace and Conflict Studies teaches the tools for creating a more just society and beloved communities in a state that has been rated third in the number of hate groups in this country, and where hate crimes against LGBT individuals have reported to be increased in 2010 (according to the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs). It was crucial in mediating life threatening conflict with Arab-American owned businesses in the neighboring township Dearborn after 9/11, and continues to be crucial in educating against bullying in the schools and diminishing violence against youth. It is successful in its mission to “develop and implement projects, programs, curricula, research and publications in areas of scholarship related to international and domestic peace, war, social justice, arms control, globalization, multicultural awareness and constructive conflict resolution” and it is being threatened of being closed by its own administration to serve the budget cuts and be the sacrificial lamb to this economic crisis.
We acknowledge that these are difficult times and that the administration must make difficult decisions. However we are there are creative solutions for keeping the center open and we are mandating our administration to consider being flexible to those who are stepping up to the plate to create solutions for sustaining the operation of the Center for Peace and Conflict Studies.
Howard Thurman cautions those of us who are concerned with cultural transformation to not allow our visions to conform to a pattern we seek to impose but rather to allow them to be modeled and shaped according to the innermost transformation that is going on in our spirits.
It took 46 years of social justice struggle to have the Center for Peace and Conflict Studies forge its presence to now. We must keep it in place, keep what is good. We have to take care of the past in order to take care of the future. If we let it cave now, we will march, and rise, and create revolution to again ask, “What kind of education do we need to forge the future?” And it will be, again, a Center for Peace and Conflict Studies. ” – source; face book announcement, created by Aaron Timlin, Marilyn Zimmerwoman, and Sarah Stawski
On Thursday May 26th at 7:00 pm the Book Beat is pleased to present Grace Lee Boggs together with Oran Hesterman in discussion at the Oak Park Library, located at 14200 Oak Park, Blvd., in Oak Park. Books will be available at the event for purchase. Please call 248-968-1190 for more information. We sincerely thank the Oak Park Library for providing their space and support for this important community event.
Grace Lee Boggs is a legendary Detroit based activist and force for social change. She is a visionary thinker and author who has devoted over seven decades of her life not only in sharing her ideas on civil rights, education, environmental justice and peace but putting them into everyday use and practice. She is an internationally renowned author and inspirational force for change. Her new book isThe Next American Revolution: Sustainable Activism for the Twenty-First Century.
Grace Lee Boggs was born in New York City in 1915 and is the daughter of Chinese born immigrants. In 1953 she moved to Detroit and married African-American labor and Black Power activist Jimmy Boggs (1919-1993) whose selected writings have recently been released as Pages from a Black Radical’s Notebooks: A James Boggs Reader.
“Reading Grace Lee Boggs helps you glimpse a United States that is better and more beautiful than you thought it was. As she analyzes some of the inspiring theories and practices that have emerged from the struggles for equality and freedom in Detroit and beyond, she also shows us that in this country, a future revolution is not only necessary but possible.” –Michael Hardt, co-author of Commonwealth
“One of the most accomplished radicals of our time, the Detroit-based visionary Grace Lee Boggs has become one of our most influential and inspiring public intellectuals. The Next American Revolution is her powerful reflection on a lifetime of urban revolutionary work, an ode to the courage and brilliance of her late partner James Boggs, and a plain-spoken call for us to address the troubled times we face with a sense of history, a strong set of values, and an unwavering faith in our own creative, restorative powers.” –Jeff Chang, author of Can’t Stop Won’t Stop
“Grace has continued to make history as she has nurtured new ideas in Detroit and raised new possibilities of reuniting the efforts of all of us into a new movement…. As we move forth in the twenty-first century, I want to thank you, Grace. I want to thank you so much for being a part of my life. And certainly I am going to soak up whatever I can from you as long as you are here and as long as you are able and willing to give it.” –Danny Glover, actor/humanitarian (from the Foreword, The Next American Revolution)
Hear a recent interview with Grace Lee Boggs on the NPR Michael Eric Dyson Show. a recent program dedicated Mothers Day to mother’s everywhere.
“Over a long life, Grace Lee Boggs has tried out one radical idea after another to make America work for everyone. She embraced some, discarded others, fashioned new ones of her own and has remained passionate about trying to humanize our democracy. And through it all, this activist and philosopher has been a witness to tumultuous change even as she kept herself rooted to the place she still calls home.” -Bill Moyers ,veteran journalist, PBS commentator, author and White House Press Secretary under President Lyndon B. Johnson (1965-1967)
“I see a movement beginning to emerge, ’cause I see hope beginning to trump despair.” – Grace Lee Boggs, interviewed in 2007 on PBS by Bill Moyers, read or see the entire interview at: The Bill Moyer’s Journal
The Boggs Center was established in Detroit in 1995 by friends of Jimmy Boggs (1919-1993) and Grace Lee Boggs to continue their legacy as movement activists and theoreticians.
Dr. Oran Hesterman is the founder of the Fair Food Network“a national nonprofit that works at the intersection of food systems, sustainability and social equity to guarantee access to healthy, fresh and sustainably grown food, especially in underserved communities.” He is also author of the new book Fair Food, a book that takes a look at how food gets to our dinner table and how it can be done better. We are pleased to bring him into this discussion on new ways to think about living and creating a sustainable future. Oran Hesterman lives in Ann Arbor.
“The author’s deft explanation of our current cultivation and consumption of food should have families moving away from their supermarket aisles and into farmers’ markets and community-supported agriculture programs…A thorough, inspiring guide on how to restructure the food system for a long and healthy future, for consumers and legislators alike.” - Kirkus Review
“Fair Food not only chronicles the challenges our food system faces and the achievements already made but also illuminates a clear path toward a more sustainable, fair, and delicious future.” —Alice Waters| Chef, Restaurateur
On March 26, 2011 people around the world will be turning of the electricity in their homes from 8:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. as part of the global action Earth Hour. Here is some information about the event, you can also go to earthhour.org to learn more and find ideas to help use less energy. Many people try to turn off the electricity in their homes the whole day as well. A simple action that sends a big message to be shared with the world. Being book lovers, we recommend that you or your family could read or read aloud by candle light during this time, certainly a time to remember.
Earth Hour 2011: 8.30pm, Saturday 26 March. This Earth Hour, go beyond the hour with a commitment to a positive action for the planet and celebrate that commitment with the people of the world by switching off your lights for Earth Hour 2011.
From its inception as a single-city initiative – Sydney, Australia – in 2007, Earth Hour has grown into a global symbol of hope and movement for change. Earth Hour 2010 created history as the world’s largest ever voluntary action with people, businesses and governments in 128 countries across every continent coming together to celebrate an unambiguous commitment to the one thing that unites us all – the planet.
Sign up to earthhour.org, switch off your lights for Earth Hour 2011, and share the positive actions you will sustain for earth beyond the hour.
On October 10, 2010 people around the world will be participating in action events to help spread awareness about the climate change our world is facing. See if there’s something you can do on this day with friends, your community or family. The 350 organization suggests fun things like bicycle rides, working in a garden, working on becoming efficient in your house, planting trees or cleaning up trash. Check out the links to a few different organizations; 10/10/10 or A Global Day of Doing to learn more and please pass the information on.
