Tag Archives: ~ Culture & History

My son was shot and killed at UC Santa Barbara in May of this year.

Why did Chris die? He died because of craven, irresponsible politicians and the NRA. I said it the day after my son was murdered, and sadly it’s still true today.

What has changed is that millions of Americans like you have stepped up to demand more of our country and its elected officials: Not. One. More.

And it’s working. Here in California, with the help of Everytown, we passed a law that will temporarily suspend somebody’s access to guns if they’re found to be a threat to themselves or others — somebody like the man who killed my son. Everytown can take winning strategies like this all across the country, but only with your support.

I’m asking you to join me in supporting Everytown with a year-end gift of $5 or more. With your support, we can save lives. Please join this fight before Wednesday’s end-of-year deadline.

Everytown is doing something no one else has ever done before. I’ve seen the passion that powers this movement up close. I’ve shared hugs and tears with others whose lives have been turned upside down by gun violence.

Everytown has given me a chance to share Chris’s story and a platform from which I can work so that fewer parents have to experience this pain.

Our work is fueled by gun violence survivors, moms, dads, and concerned citizens — and it’s backed by cutting edge research and policy analysis. Because of this movement, the NRA is losing its grip on our country’s state houses.

Help us move forward in 2015. Lives depend on it. I’m asking you to show your support with a year-end donation of $5 or more right now — before the Wednesday night deadline:

https://donate.everytown.org/donate/2015-NOM-donate6

As the father of a young person killed with a gun, I know that it’s not enough to just want change. We must work hard and keep the pressure on in 2015.

Thank you for your care and support,

Richard Martinez

Asa movement of Americans fighting for common-sense gun policies, we depend on contributions from supporters like you to fund important work toreduce gun violence.Paid for by Everytown for Gun Safety Action Fund. Contributions to Everytown for Gun Safety Action Fund are not tax-deductible.

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

PLU adjunct faculty lose union vote, say they’ll try again

12/23/2015 Nativegrl77

Posted by Katherine Long

in seattletimes.org Jan.15

Adjunct faculty members at Pacific Lutheran University, who won a precedent-setting national victory last month when the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) endorsed their right to form a union, appear to have lost a vote to unionize.

The faculty group announced Wednesday that they were withdrawing a petition to form a union, but say they’ll likely attempt a new vote later this year.

The decision comes a week after the impounded ballots from the election — which was held in October 2013 — were finally counted. The vote was 54 votes against union representation and 30 votes in favor, but 38 votes were uncounted because they were challenged by either PLU or the contingent faculty.

The uncounted ballots were impounded immediately after the election when PLU appealed to the NLRB, arguing the school was exempt from national labor rules because it is a religious institution, and because full-time contingents (as adjuncts are called at PLU) were managerial employees.The NLRB, in its decision last month, rejected those arguments.

“The election was hopelessly flawed so we decided a new vote was the best course of action,” said Jane Harty, a contingent music teacher at the university, in an email. She said there were so many challenges to the ballots that it “would be very expensive and take months to contest” the challenges to the ballot.

PLU Provost Steven Starkovich said the university would try to address the contingents’ concerns through its faculty governance committee and a task force of contingents. “As we have stated before, we believe our robust, general-assembly style of faculty governance can serve as a model for other universities,” he said in a statement.

Adjunct faculty make up at least half the higher-education workforce nationwide, according to some studies. They are not eligible for tenure and teach anything from one class each quarter to a full-time slate of courses. They usually make less money than tenured professors and often have fewer benefits.

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

Voting Rights Act Petition … Sign it! Michael Keegan, President will Seal and deliver

Image 10/05/2015 Nativegrl77

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

Flowing Across Borders

10/03/2015 Nativegrl77

The practice of granting asylum to people fleeing persecution in foreign lands is one of the earliest hallmarks of civilization. References to it have been found in texts written 3,500 years ago, during the blossoming of the great early empires in the Middle East such as the Hittites, Babylonians, Assyrians and ancient Egyptians.

Over three millennia later, protecting refugees was made the core mandate of the UN refugee agency, which was set up to look after refugees, specifically those waiting to return home at the end of World War II.

The 1951 Refugee Convention spells out that a refugee is someone who “owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality, and is unable to, or owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country.”

Since then, UNHCR has offered protection and assistance to tens of millions of refugees, finding durable solutions for many of them. Global migration patterns have become increasingly complex in modern times, involving not just refugees, but also millions of economic migrants. But refugees and migrants, even if they often travel in the same way, are fundamentally different, and for that reason are treated very differently under modern international law.

Migrants, especially economic migrants, choose to move in order to improve the future prospects of themselves and their families. Refugees have to move if they are to save their lives or preserve their freedom. They have no protection from their own state – indeed it is often their own government that is threatening to persecute them. If other countries do not let them in, and do not help them once they are in, then they may be condemning them to death – or to an intolerable life in the shadows, without sustenance and without rights.