[A-List] Angela Davis and Turn Around Your Thinking

[Nicaragua Solidarity and Fair Trade Resource]

From: <moderator at PORTSIDE.ORG>
Subject:  Quote of the Day

> Quote of the Day  -  Angela Davis
> June 10, 2007
>
> 'I hope that you will treasure the approaches and ways
> of thinking that you have learned more than the facts
> you have accumulated. For you will never discover a
> scarcity of facts, and these facts will be presented in
> such a way as to veil the ways of thinking embedded in
> them. And so to reveal these hidden ways of thinking,
> to suggest alternate frameworks, to imagine better ways
> of living in evolving worlds, to imagine new human
> relations that are freed from persisting hierarchies,
> whether they be racial or sexual or geopolitical - yes,
> I think this is the work of educated beings. I might
> then ask you to think about education as the practice
> of freedom. '
>
> Angela Davis
> Professor, University of California,
> Santa Cruz
>
> Commencement address at Grinnell College
>
> New York Times
> June 10, 2007
>
> http://tinyurl.com/3crne3
>
> ***************************
>
> Supreme Court strikes down Bill 29 provisions in landmark ruling:
>
> http://www.heu.org/News/2007/06/NewsRelease6392/index.cfm?call2=HOMEPAGE&type=1
>
> NEWSFLASH!!! COLLECTIVE BARGAINING PROTECTED BY
> CHARTER, SUPREME COURT RULES
>
> In a stunning reversal of 20 years of its own
> jurisprudence, the Supreme Court of Canada has ruled
> (6-1) that the guarantee of freedom of association in
> section 2(d) of the Charter of Rights protects the
> right of Canadian workers to bargain collectively.
> Collective bargaining is a fundamental aspect of
> Canadian society, the Court declared, and recognition
> of that right reaffirms the values of dignity, personal
> autonomy, equality and democracy that are inherent in
> the Charter.
>
> As a result, the Court declared several provisions of
> B.C.'s Health and Social Services Delivery Improvement
> Act to be unconstitutional, although it suspended its
> declaration for a period of 12 months to allow the B.C.
> government to address the repercussions of its
> decision. Enacted by the Liberal government of Premier
> Gordon Campbell in 2002, the legislation purported to
> override collective agreement protections for hospital
> workers in the areas of contracting out, and layoff and
> bumping rights. Following passage of the legislation,
> thousands of non-clinical support staff were laid off
> from B.C. hospitals, and paid substantially less by
> service providers to perform the same services at the
> hospitals from which they had been laid off.
>
> In the Court's view, a number of provisions in the B.C.
> Act (sections 6(2), 6(4) and 9), which were challenged
> by trade unions, were in violation of section 2(d) of
> the Charter, and were not permitted by section 1, which
> allows reasonable limits on Charter rights. It was not
> shown that they minimally impaired the employees' right
> to collective bargaining: there was no consideration by
> the government of less intrusive measures, and the
> legislation was adopted rapidly with full knowledge
> that the unions were strongly opposed to many of the
> provisions, without consideration of alternative ways
> to achieve the government's objective, and without
> explanation of the government's choices.
>
> A full review of the Supreme Court's decision will be
> available on the website www.lancasterhouse.com  on
> Monday, June 11.
>
> Full text of the Supreme Court of Canada's decision in
> the Health Services case:
> http://scc.lexum.umontreal.ca/en/2007/2007scc27/2007scc27.html
>
> Additional news release and backgrounder:
> http://www.heu.org/~documents/news%20releases/bill29jointb_backgrounder.pdf
>
> ************************
>
> Ousmane Sembène, 84, Dies; Led Cinema’s Advance in
> Africa
>
> By AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
> Published: June 11, 2007
> http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/11/world/africa/11sembene.html
>
> The Senegalese filmmaker and writer Ousmane Sembène, a
> pioneer of African cinema, died at his home in Dakar,
> Senegal, his friends and family said Sunday. He was 84.
>
> He had been ill since December.
>
> Born into a fisherman’s family in 1923, he worked as a
> mechanic, carpenter and builder in Africa and Europe
> before being drafted by the French Army in World War
> II. Those experiences gave Mr. Sembène, a self-educated
> writer, material for films as well as books like "The
> Black Docker," "God’s Bits of Wood" and "The Money
> Order."
>
> He said that he decided to go to film school, in
> Moscow, after realizing that "pictures are more
> accessible than words." That led him to what he called
> "fairground cinema."
>
> "I can go to a village and show the film," he explained
> in 2005, "because everything can be filmed and
> transported to the most remote village in Africa."
>
> His career began in the 1960s with black-and-white
> shorts like "Borom Sarret," about a poor cart-driver.
> His "Black Girl From ..." (1966), about a Senegalese
> girl who becomes a servant in France, is considered the
> first full-length feature by an African filmmaker.
>
> One of his last films, "Moolaadé" (2004), was a
> denunciation of female genital cutting and won a jury
> prize at the Cannes Film Festival.
>
> He also won two prizes at the Venice Film Festival, in
> 1968 and in 1988. The first was for "The Money Order,"
> the second for "The Camp of Thiaroye," which recounts
> the violent repression by French troops of protests by
> Senegalese soldiers demanding their pay. He was among
> the first African artists to warn of the danger of
> excesses in the post-colonial era and to call for "a
> radical change in African policies."
>
> The former Senegalese president Abdlu Diouf said Africa
> had lost one its greatest filmmakers and a "fervent
> defender of liberty and social justice."
>
> A tribute from Mali’s culture minister, Cheick Oumar
> Sissoko, himself a filmmaker and a friend of Mr.
> Sembène, said that "African cinema has lost one of its
> lighthouses."
>
> "The man only worked fully in Africa and for Africa,"
> he said. Mr. Sembène "led Africa to understand its
> identity and build its cultural horizon."
>
> ******************************
>
> WBAI Radio's Building Bridges: Your Community & Labor
> Report Produced & Hosted by Mimi Rosenberg & Ken Nash
> Monday, June 11, 2007, 7 - 8 p.m. EST, over 99.5 FM or
> streaming live at http://www.wbai.org
>
> ==================
>
> Two-Hundred-Thousand Immigrant Woman Have
> Waited Too Long! with Estella Ng'ambi, Domestic Workers
> United Nita Asuncion- Kalayaan/Women Workers Project of
> Committee Against Anti-Asian Violence John Sweeney,
> Pres. AFL-CIO Barbara Ehrenreich, author Nickle & Dimed
> Assemblyman Keith Wright Patricia Smith, Commissioner
> of Labor
>
> Building Bridges brings you highlights from an
> electrictifying Town Hall meeting where Domestic
> Workers voiced their demands for power, respect and a
> Domestic Workers Bill of Rights, to recognize their
> workforce and establish  basic labor standards such as
> a living wage, and basic benefits.
>
> ===================
>
> Forty Years & Counting: Israel's Occupation & Gaza's
> Suffocation with Dr. Mona El-Farra
>
> Dr. Mona El-Farra is a physician, human rights
> activist, and mother in the occupied Gaza Strip. She is
> the Director of Gaza Projects for the Middle East
> Children's Alliance.  Dr. El-Farra is also the Vice
> President of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society of
> the Gaza Strip and a member of the Union  of Health
> Work Committees. Dr. El-Farra will speak to us about
> life in Gaza  and Palestinian rights.
>
> ====================
>
> Advocates For Inmates & Their Families Outraged By
> Board Of Corrections Proposed Rule Changes with
> Madeline deLone, Executive Director, Innocence Project
>
> The board that oversees the city's Department of
> Correction will discuss at its monthly meeting changes
> to the rules governing the daily lives of inmates.  The
> proposed rules changes are draconian and inhumane.
> These proposals, if implemented have the potential to
> inflict undue hardship on prisoners
>
> ====================
>
> You can listen to In Brief, which examines issues of
> law & social justice produced by Mimi Rosenberg, Wed.
> mornings at 7:40 am.
>
> ====================
>
> Building Bridges and most WBAI Programs are now being
> archived for 90 Days. They are also being PodCast.
> These links will be live ca. 15 minutes after the
> program ends. To listen, download or PodCast archived
> shows go to
> http://archive.wbai.org/index.php?sort=nameaz
>
> To contact Building Bridges send e-mail to
> knash at igc.org
>
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