http://www.douglasdispatch.com/articles/2008/04/17/news/doc4807baad8e35a498617393.txt

PHOENIX — Arizona schools whose courses “denigrate American values and the teachings of Western civilization” could lose state funding under the terms of legislation approved Wednesday by a House panel.

SB 1108 also would bar teaching practices that “overtly encourage dissent” from those values, including democracy, capitalism, pluralism and religious toleration. Schools would have to surrender teaching materials to the state school superintendent for review, who could withhold state aid of districts that broke the law.

Here's a good blog post about it.

My journal entry from a few days ago:

Sao Paolo is the fifth biggest city in the world and only 18 years away from a dictatorship. Definitely an interesting place. It kind of has the feel of New York (at least from what I can remember from 5 years ago). Lots of people on the streets, lots of motorcycles. Tons of tall buildings. I haven't been to the favelas yet, though, where most of the city lives. My hostel is in a fancier part of town, right near the Centro. Of course, even in the fanciest parts of the town there are homeless people sleeping on the streets and piles of trash collecting flies. Yesterday, based on a tip from a fellow journalist staying in my hostel room, I decided to head out for the Ciudad Universitaria, the campus of the University of Sao Paolo (USP), home to 80,000 students. Over there, an occupation was supposed to be happening at the building of the rectora (university president). Along the way, I was able to get a nice bus tour of the streets of Sao Paolo. Lots of awesome graffiti. Political and non-political. Legalize abortion now! Feed your soul - no to capitalism! Entering the university, the graffiti increased. Signs of the occupation were everywhere - newspapers, stencils, bulletin boards covered in propaganda.

There will be a Benefit Concert for Indigenous Peoples this Friday (6/22) at 6 pm at the MAAC Project auditorium at 1355 3rd Ave in Chula Vista.

Directions

All of the money raised at the event will help support the Encounter of the Indigenous Peoples of the Americas which will take place in October in the state of Sonora, Mexico. The musical groups at the concert will be Kanari (rock en español), Guaraca (son jarocho) and a salsa group that will provide free lessons. Traditional Mexican food will be sold at the event. Photos and documentaries will also be shown from the Other Campaign that was started by the Zapatista indigenous movement from southern Mexico. Tickets are $3 presale and $5 at the door. If you would like a presale ticket, please call 619-528-8060 or send an email to kilo@riseup.net. The concert is being organized by La Otra San Diego, a coalition of adherents to the Zapatista's Sixth Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle.

Jeff Schwilk, leader of the San Diego Minutemen, is exposed as a racist, violent vigilante, which unfortunately are qualities that characterize his entire organization and the Minutemen movement as a whole.

originally published on san diego indymedia

So I was driving up Sixth Ave by Balboa Park on the way to work and the motorcycle cop who's always there stepped out into the street with his radar gun and stopped me. He said I was going 47 mph in a 30 mph zone. First of all, I wasn't even going that fast and second of all, that is a completely ridiculous speed limit since that street has no lights or stop signs for several blocks and has four lanes so of course you're going to pick up a little speed. It's the perfect speed trap and the police expoit it for all it's worth.

After I got the ticket, I was determined to fight it. I did some research online and found this website:

http://tinyurl.com/sepls

I found out that you can plead not guilty and do a trial by mail for just the cost of the postage. And here's the best part: cops are paid overtime to show up in court but receive nothing to fill out paperwork. They have no incentive to help prosecute you except for their sense of "justice" which luckily most cops don't give a fuck about.

In my case, I wrote in my written deposition (form letter found at previous link) that if the cop was not able to provide proof that a road survey was conducted in the past 5 years (necessary in order to issue tickets based on the reading on a radar gun) that I should be found not guilty. The cop never turned in the required documentation so I won by default. According to the Ticket Assassin website, this is what happens in over 40% of the trials by mail. I got my money back and started the Bankers Hill Copwatch to let people know about their rights. Imagine if everyone fought their ticket by mail, even if you thought that you broke the law (you can still go to traffic school if they find you guility). We would flood the system with so much paperwork that there would be no way they could handle it, making the current way of doing things unsustainable.

It's 6:15 in the morning and the sun is starting to rise over the forested hills of San Cristobal, Chiapas. This will be our third day here. In an hour, we will get on the back of a pickup truck headed for Oventic, one of the Zapatista communities. There we will participate in the Zapatista encounter with the peoples of the world for the next four days. We will be camping along with hundreds of other participants and attending workshops on different aspects of the Zapatista movement. Tomorrow night there will be a No Border Camp meeting with activists from the States, Mexico and hopefully other countries and we are all very excited. Yesterday we had a very good meeting about the camp with about 15 people from the States and Mexico and there was a lot of interest and very good discussions. Vamos a ver!

compiled from the no border camp 2007 zine

the no border camp is...

...a forum for dialogue and planning, coordinated actions and propaganda campaigns
...an intervention in a discourse

part of a global movement that is...

...decentralized, autonomous and horizontal
...against borders and all of the manifestations of such borders (nationalism, xenophobia, racism among others)
...collectively building a platform from which the struggle can be demonstrated and articulated

a space...

...for direct actions against the border, detention and migration controls ...for the construction of local alternatives to global capitalism

Pues por fin aquí estamos en Oaxaca. Después de meses de planificación y semanas de preocupación con todos los reportes que hemos escuchado, toda la delegación ya esta sentada en un internet café en la ciudad de Oaxaca, seguros y sanos. Estamos unas cuadras de una barricada de la PFP. Lo pasamos con un representante de la Seccion 22 del sindicato de maestros y no había ninguna molestia. Las huellas de las acciones de las semanas anteriores todavía existen. Hay pinta por todos lados cubriendo la grafiti de resistencia de antes. Todavía quedan algunos carteles y mensajes. Ya con el acuerdo de desmovilización con el gobierno, la gente habla abierta del APPO y de la lucha, pero esta vez con más “inteligencia”. Pero a la misma vez, nadie tiene pensado que van a reocupar al zócalo tampoco. Hace dos días hizo la gente del APPO una marcha pacifica de 8.000 personas demandando la libertad de los presos políticos que quedan encarcelados de los estados norteños de Mexico. No había ninguna confrontación con la policía. También hicieron su Noche de los Rábanos Alternativa del Pueblo (una celebración oaxaqueña tradicional) pero tuvieron que moverlo a otro lugar porque 300 miembros de la PFP no previenieron realizarla en la plaza de Santo Domingo, a partir del hecho de que habia un acuerdo previo. Hospedamos con un compa y su familia en un pueblo 40 minutos afuera de la ciudad de Oaxaca. El paisaje es muy bonito y tiene una iglesia colonial bien hermosa. Visitamos al mercado del pueblo esta mañana y era buenísimo. Compramos mezcal casera (mi alcohol favorito!) y postres oaxaqueños tradicionales. Esta noche celebramos la navidad con la familia de nuestro compa y con 20 amigos de la familia. Creo que va a ser buenísimo! Manténganse pendientes para más actualizaciones.