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Newsletter of the Green Party of Ohio
Vol. II, No. 19 -- June 8, 2002
(This newsletter distributed to 2,794)
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FEATURED IN THIS ISSUE
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1) HELP GREEN PARTY
CANDIDATES IN OHIO
2) EARTH WARMING THREATENS MILLIONS
3)
GREEN PARTY NATIONAL CONVENTION
4) COMFEST 2002: VOLUNTEERS NEEDED
5) GPO'S RAPID RESPONSE TEAM ENDORSEMENT
6) GREEN PARTY NEWS FROM
AROUND THE COUNTRY
7) FORMER GPO MEMBER RUNS IN ILLINOIS
8)
DEFYING CORPORATIONS, DEFINING DEMOCRACY
9) ACCESS TO HEALTH SERVICES
A BURDEN FOR POOR
10) 85,000 COLORADOANS LOST HEALTH INSURANCE
11) TOOTH
DECAY ON THE RISE
12) EFF SUIT SO CONSUMERS CAN SKIP COMMERCIALS
13)
MISCELLANEOUS ITEMS
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Join the Green Party of Ohio:
http://www.ohiogreens.org/membership/register.html
List of current Green Party members:
http://www.ohiogreens.org/membership/.
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1) HELP GREEN PARTY CANDIDATES IN OHIO
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We have two Green Party candidates in Ohio this year.
They need your support
of money and time.
Frank
Doden is the Green Party candidate for U.S.
Congress in the 7th District.
Send contributions to
support Frank's campaign to FRANK DODEN FOR CONGRESS,
Richard Donnelly, Treasurer, 422 N. Walnut St., Yellow
Springs, OH 45387,
or visit Frank's Web site at
http://www.dodenfordemocracy.com
to make an online
contribution.
Alan
Amstutz is the Green Party candidate for Ohio
House of Representatives, District
22 (Clintonville,
Beechwald, Dublin & NW Columbus). Send contributions
to support Alan's campaign to VOTE AMSTUTZ, Greg Richey,
Treasurer, 2363 N.
4th St., Columbus OH 43202.
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2) EARTH WARMING THREATENS MILLIONS
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The glaciers on Mt. Everest are melting alarmingly
quickly. The climbing and
skiing resort of Chamonix
in the Alps is under threat in the long term, as
the
peaks around Mont Blanc begin to lose their ice and
become more prone
to avalanches. The north face of
the Eiger in Switzerland used to have three
massive
ice fields, but there is only one left and it is
almost gone.
Glaciers on the African peaks of Kili-
manjaro and Mount Kenya are receding
rapidly, and the
same is happening in the South American Andes. And, it
is not only the mountain glaciers that are melting.
American NASA scientists
say the rate at which the
huge Greenland ice sheet is melting has increased
by
a fifth in the last two decades.
***More: http://www.observer.co.uk/focus/story/0,6903,729951,00.html
It's
official, global warming does exist, says Bush
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/archive/article/0,,4426866,00.html
U.S.
Is Icing Our Warming Report
http://www.newsday.com/news/opinion/ny-vpmck062734168jun06.story
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3) GREEN PARTY NATIONAL CONVENTION
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Register to attend the Green Party National Convention
on July 18-21 in Philadelphia.
***More: http://www.greenpartyus.org/convention.html
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4) COMFEST 2002: VOLUNTEERS NEEDED
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Comfest (see http://www.comfest.com)
is less than
three weeks away! It's time to volunteer for the
Central
Ohio Green Party's (COGP) booth at the Com-
munity Festival to collect signatures
for current
petitions, promote local and statewide candidates,
add new
members and financial contributors and sell
products (t-shirts, baseball caps,
buttons, etc.)
that feature the Green Party logo and carry the Green
Party
message. Booth volunteers are needed for the
entire length of Comfest.
Party
booth volunteers are most needed for the
following shifts:
FRI., JUNE
28: 5-8 PM, 8-11 PM
SAT., JUNE 29: 4-7 PM, 7-10 PM
SUN., JUNE 30: 10 AM-1
PM, 1-4 PM, 4-7 PM, 7-10 PM
Contact Bill Kerwin at wkerwin@hotmail.com
if you can help.
In
addition, volunteers to help put on the festival
itself are needed. Party
organizers need six people to
volunteer for four hours each with the Festival
organizers
-- either with Security or with the Cleanup & Recycling
team. (Be sure to tell them that you are with the Green
Party; otherwise,
the COGP won't get their $96 volunteer
deposit back!) You can volunteer on-line
at:
http://www.comfest.com/applications.htm.
Once you have
volunteered on line, email Bill Kerwin at wkerwin@hotmail.com
and tell him that you have volunteered so he can post your
name on the schedule.
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5) GPO'S RAPID RESPONSE TEAM ENDORSEMENT
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At the May Coordinating Committee meeting of the Green
Party of Ohio, a Rapid
Response Team (RRT) was developed.
The first action of the RRT was supporting
the
"Statement Opposing the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Dump"
(see
below) on May 29:
Transporting
77,000 tons of high-level nuclear waste to
a dump site at Yucca Mountain that
cannot meet basic
safety standards poses unacceptable threats to human
health and the environment.
Important scientific, ethical, environmental
justice,
and policy questions about the repository proposal remain
unresolved,
as identified in part by independent federal
review agencies. The Department
of Energy has not developed
a credible transportation plan. The risks of shipping
highly radioactive waste through 44 states to a question-
able site, as currently
proposed, cannot be justified.
We therefore oppose the Department of
Energy's premature
and technically unfounded Yucca Mountain recommendation.
***More: http://www.yuccastatement.org
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6) GREEN PARTY
NEWS FROM AROUND THE COUNTRY
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Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate whose near-
qualification for millions
of dollars in Clean Elections
money has been a giant headache for Democrats
in the
governor's race, may have a headache of her own.
***More: http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/156/metro/Green_Party_may_not_get_funds+.shtml
Greens
v. Liberal Democrats in Minnesota
The Future Wellstone Deserves
by Alexander
Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair
From: Counterpunch, June 3, 2002
***More:
http://www.counterpunch.com/cockburn0603.html
California:
Santa Monica Native Could Shake Up Election
http://www.ohiogreens.org/features/020608/california1.html
California:
The Davis Divide Groups of Color Consider
Giving Up on the Governor
http://www.ohiogreens.org/features/020608/california2.html
Maine:
Green Party Worries Maine Democrats
http://www.ohiogreens.org/features/020608/maine.html
New
York: Green Party Candidate Wants to Raise Taxes
http://www.ohiogreens.org/features/020608/new_york.html
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7) FORMER GPO MEMBER RUNS IN ILLINOIS
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Former Green Party of Ohio delegate Phil Huckelberry,
who is now in Illinois,
reports that Greens in the
state are working extremely hard to get candidates
on
the ballot in Central Illinois. Carl Estabrook, a
professor at the
University of Illinois, needs 5,000
signatures to get on the ballot for Congress
in the
15th Congressional District, and there are four candi-
dates -
including Phil - in two districts who need 312
signatures per district to
qualify for the ballot for
McLean County Board.
Phil
reports that the county board campaigns require
no monetary support at this
time as they are literally
not spending any money above and beyond the cost
of
printing petitions (less than $5). He does ask, however,
that if anyone
has contacts in Central Illinois, parti-
cularly in McLean County, to please
notify him. Phil can
be reached at huckelberry@softhome.net.
The
Democrats, in a fairly hypocritical act, have vowed
to challenge Carl's signatures,
so Greens are working
toward getting 7,000-8,000 signatures. Ballot access
laws
in Illinois are some of the worst in the nation. The Demo-
cratic
machine in Illinois also challenged the Nader bal-
lots in 2000. The challenge
required Greens to defend
signatures under heavy scrutiny for days.
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8) DEFYING CORPORATIONS,
DEFINING DEMOCRACY
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The Program on Corporations, Law & Democracy (POCLAD)
is twelve activists
who have spent the last several
years researching corporate, labor and legal
histories,
rethinking past organizing strategies and talking with
people
about democracy movements. They work in the
tradition of people's struggles
to replace illegitimate
and tyrannical institutions with democratic ones that
disperse, rather than concentrate, wealth and power.
An
excellent publication produced by POCLAD is "Defying
Corporations, Defining
Democracy: A Book of History and
Strategy." The 305-page book, a collection
of 72 "articles,
essays, speeches, letters, harangues, and screeds"
brings
together a dozen authors' unique experiences and perspec-
tives
from decades of civic activism. The book focuses
on understanding and defying
corporate sovereignty with
strategies for returning sovereignty to the people.
***More: http://www.poclad.org/resources/defying.html
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9) ACCESS TO HEALTH SERVICES A BURDEN FOR POOR
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Results of a survey released June 5 by the Kaiser
Family Foundation, Harvard
University's Kennedy School
of Government and NPR indicate a "significant
medical
divide" along socioeconomic lines in the United States.
Researchers
conducted a nationwide telephone survey
between March 28 and May 1 of 1,205
individuals ages 18
or older. The survey finds that people in the top income
categories have "very few problems" accessing or paying
for health
care, while those in the lower income cate-
gories are "burdened"
by such problems.
***More: http://www.ohiogreens.org/features/020608/health.html
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10) 85,000 COLORADOANS LOST HEALTH INSURANCE
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Rising health care costs and "skyrocketing" premiums
have led to
an additional 85,000 uninsured residents
in Colorado, who last year were covered
under employer-
based health plans sponsored by small businesses, the
Denver Rocky Mountain News reported June 3. In the past
18 months, the number
of insurance companies that cover
small-business employees in the state has
dropped from
44 to 24, according to state Insurance Commissioner
William
Kirven. The shift is in part the result of
healthy, self-employed people who
are "leaving the
pricey small-group" insurance market. Small businesses
are then left with a disproportionate share of workers
with chronic health
problems that make them more expen-
sive to insure. Consequently, insurers
that continue to
cover small-business employees have raised premiums and
out-of-pocket costs, such as prescription drug co-payments.
According to the
Colorado Division of Insurance, health
plan premiums have tripled over the
last 10 years, are
expected to increase 15% this year and could increase
by more than 10% next year. "This is a very severe
problem that we don't
have the public will to deal
with right now," Dr. Michael Earnest, medical
director
for quality management at Denver Health and Hospitals, said.
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11) TOOTH DECAY ON THE RISE
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Tooth decay is increasing among children and possibly
adults. The rise is
even greater among non-white and
Hispanic children. Some reasons given for
the increase
include: bottled water that has no fluoride; soft drinks
and sport drinks with sugar; sour candy favored by youth;
and sugared breath
mints. Limited access to dental care
was also cited as a contributing factor
for the increase.
***More: http://archives.seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/texis.cgi/web/vortex/display?slug=cavity21&date=20020521&query=Dental+cavities
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12) EFF SUIT SO CONSUMERS CAN SKIP COMMERCIALS
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The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) on Thursday
filed a lawsuit against
28 major entertainment compa-
nies on behalf of five users of ReplayTV, a
digital-
video recording device that allows consumers to skip
commercials
and record television programs for later
viewing. Claiming the entertainment
industry is trying
to curb ReplayTV users' fair-use rights, the civil-
liberties group asks for three declaratory judgments:
It wants the court to
rule that users have the right
to digitally record programming, to fast-forward
through
it, and to send the recordings to other devices. Craig
Newmark,
one of the five plaintiffs in the case and
operator of the Craigslist.org
online community, says
the entertainment giants are trying to reverse home
recording rights that consumers have enjoyed for more
than two decades. "To
oversimplify, the Hollywood law-
yers are telling us that when we view TV,
skipping
commercials is a copyright violation... and it gets
worse from
there. Craig and others are telling them
that this ain't okay," Newmark
wrote in a letter to
the Craigslist community.
***More:
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/3418583.htm
http://www.eff.org/IP/Video/Newmark_v_Turner/
http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,53032,00.html
http://www.craigslist.org/craig.vs.hollywood.html
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13) MISCELLANEOUS ITEMS
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Feds Worked to Quash College Protests, Boost Reagan's Political Career
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/0609-07.htm
Do
Dots Connect to Police State?
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,53037,00.html
PNG
Forest Future Set by Secret Pre-Election Deals
http://ens-news.com/ens/jun2002/2002-06-07-01.asp
U.S.
lawmakers blast FCC on ultrawideband policy
http://www.infoworld.com/articles/hn/xml/02/06/06/020606hnfcc.xml
Feds
sued over anthrax documents
Legal group wonders why White House took Cipro
before attacks
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=27888
Mideast
Fuels 2 Democratic Primaries
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A2382-2002Jun5.html
The
Business of America Is Out of Control
http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0605-01.htm
Senator
Clinton Raises Big Money, but Overhead Is Costly
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/04/nyregion/04HILL.html?todaysheadlines
A
Prime Example of Anything-Goes Executive Pay
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/04/business/04DENN.html?todaysheadlines
Suspects
Lacking Lawyers Are Freed in Atlanta
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/04/national/04LAWY.html?todaysheadlines
A
Natural Split With Bush, and Many Quit
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/0603-01.htm
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The views expressed in this newsletter are those
of the author or organization
noted and do not
necessarily reflect the opinions of the Green Party
of
Ohio.
***************************************************
To join the
Green Party of Ohio, complete the form at
http://www.ohiogreens.org/membership/register.html.
To see the membership list of the GPO, see
http://www.ohiogreens.org/membership/.
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Miss an issue of our newsletter?
You can now read
past newsletters of the Green Party of Ohio by
visiting
the newsletter archives at:
http://www.ohiogreens.org/newsletters/
***************************************************
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weekly (with some
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activities,
and news of interest to the Green Party
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Copyright
© 2002, Green Party of Ohio.
All rights reserved.
Paid for by the
Green Party of Ohio PAC (OH1066)
Gina Ficociello, Treasurer
1427 Northstar
Rd., Columbus OH 43212
Contributions to the Green Party of Ohio are not
deductible for federal tax purposes. This newsletter
is not authorized by
any candidate or candidate
authorized committee.
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Green Party of Ohio
PO Box 851, Kent OH 44240
Email: secretary@ohiogreens.org
Web: http://www.ohiogreens.org