Senate Passes Protect Our Children Act

The Protect Our Children Act, introduced by Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., made it through the Senate. Separate bills authored by Sens. John McCain and Hillary Clinton were folded into the legislation, which authorizes more than $320 million for the Justice Department over the next five years for, among other things, the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force.

Read the entire bill at http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d110:s.1738

More information at the National Association to Protect Children: http://www.protect.org/

Living in the post-protest age

A thought provoking piece that ran in the St. Petersburg Times this weekend:

Living in the Post Protest Age:
Read complete story in http://www.tampabay.com/features/humaninterest/article828808.ece

The stock market has gone nuts, and the federal government is treating Wall Street with experimental cures that will cost nearly $1-trillion. An unpopular foreign war, now in its sixth year, has resulted in more than 4,100 American deaths. For the first time in history, the presidential campaign includes an African-American candidate for president and a Republican female candidate for vice president.

Taken together, these data points give this moment in American history a once-in-a-great-while feel of Something Large. But if this is truly a pivot in time, its most peculiar feature may be how un-peculiar it feels. For all the social and political upheaval, for all the banner headlines and for all the bipartisan calls for change, there is plenty of unease — but a very notable lack of unrest.

It's as though the gods of turmoil threw a party and nobody came. When was the last time you saw a street protest? Or a burning effigy? Or a teach-in? Or a boycott? It's kind of odd: We have the sense that this is an emergency, but open the window and give a listen. There aren't any sirens.

How come?

The Mothers Election Guide

MOTHERS Election Guide NOW AVAILABLE! We strongly believe it is so important that you make your voice heard by voting in this election. We also realize that deciding which candidates should get your vote can be challenging. We decided to make it easier for you to get the information you need. And with deadlines approaching for voter registration, we wanted to get it out to you NOW. You can now access the MOTHERS Election Guide, a simple and comprehensive guide to how to find everything you need to make informed decisions on Election Day. This guide provides you with information on: why your vote is important how to register and when the deadline for registation is for your state how to find your legislators and candidates running in your state and district how to learn more about those candidates so you can make an informed decision what issues affect families how to find information on the presidential candidates' policies and, finally, how to get to the facts and cut through all the hype and misleading statements. It is non-partisan and designed to empower you in making choices that will work for you and your family. Visit https://www.mothersoughttohaveequalrights.org/election-2008-vote-mothers.html for more information and resources.

Reverse Trick or Treat - Have A Fair Trade Halloween

A neat Fair Trade effort -- combined with Trick or Treat for UNICEF and you've got a great community service project!
______________________________

This Year it's Time to Reverse Trick-or-Treat!

On Halloween night, young people across the US and Canada will unite to:

END poverty among cocoa farmers

END abusive child labor in the cocoa industry

PROMOTE Fair Trade

PROTECT the environment

by giving Fair Trade chocolate back to adults…while Trick-or-Treating door-to-door in their communities on Halloween! Each piece of chocolate bears a card with information about social and environmental justice issues in the cocoa industry and how buying Fair Trade certified chocolate provides a solution. Parents of last year's youngest participants raved about how Reverse Trick-or-Treating transforms Halloween into a meaningful event when youth activists give back to their neighbors and to cocoa growing communities.

This year Americans for Informed Democracy is partnering with Global Exchange and others to increase our impact! Join us, and together, we will reach nearly a quarter million households this year!

Costumes optional…having fun while making a difference guaranteed!

Reverse Trick-or-Treating kits are FREE

Thanks to the generous donations of Fair Trade chocolate companies

Equal Exchange, Alter Eco, Theo Chocolates, and La Siembra (in Canada).

Participate as an individual or organize your classroom, school, congregation, youth group or social justice organization to participate by distributing multiple kits to participants!

DEADLINE TO REQUEST KITS:

Groups (schools, congregations, youth groups, etc): October 1

Individuals: October 13

Order yours TODAY! Last year, we ran out before the deadline, so hurry!

Visit www.reversetrickortreating.org for more information!

Willing to volunteer to be trailed by a print, radio, or television reporter while Reverse Trick-or-Treating? Send an email to Sarah@aidemocracy.org or fairtrade@globalexchange.org, with "RTT media volunteer" in the subject line.

Receive a very special prize! Post a photo or video of Reverse Trick-or-Treating at www.5actions.org and http://www.youtube.com/group/revtrickortreat08. Then, email fairtrade@globalexchange.org with your mailing address to let us know you did so by November 15! Our favorite 50 postings will receive a limited edition lapel pin designed by renowned artist Shepard Fairey's Studio Number One, thanks to the partnership between Global Exchange and Battle in Seattle (www.battleinseattlemovie.com), the feature film about the 1999 WTO Seattle protests…in theatres NOW!

Reverse Trick-or-Treating is an initiative of Global Exchange and is a collaborative effort of countless children, youth, and adults supported by nonprofit organizations including Americans for Informed Democracy, Green America (formerly Coop America), International Labor Rights Forum, Slow Food, Unitarian Universalist Service Committee, United Students for Fair Trade, and many others.

Please forward this email broadly! The more the merrier! Let's spread the Fair Trade love!

Sincerely,


Sarah Frazer
Global Development Campaign Coordinator/CARE Fellow
Americans for Informed Democracy
701 Cathedral Street, Suite L3
Baltimore, MD 21201
Phone: 410-962-8773
Fax: 410-962-8771
Email: sarah@aidemocracy.org
www.aidemocracy.org

Awareness. Advocacy. Action.
Leaders of tomorrow creating change today.

Watch Michael Moore's "Slacker Uprising" film- free online

From film maker Michael Moore:
___________________

Join Me in Making History ...from Michael Moore

Friends,

This is it. The time has arrived! At midnight tonight, you can be one of the first people ever to legally download, for FREE, a brand new, feature-length film. It's my new movie, "Slacker Uprising <http://slackeruprising.com/> ," and I'm giving it to you as a gift of thanks for coming to my films over the 20 years I've been a filmmaker.

It's also one of my contributions to help get out the vote November 4th. That's why I'm giving you my blanket permission to not only download it, but also to email it, burn it, and share it with anyone and everyone (in the U.S. and Canada only). I want you to use "Slacker Uprising" in any way you see fit to help with the election or to do the work that you do in your community. You can show my film in your local theater, your high school classroom, your college auditorium, your church, union hall or community center. You can have your friends and neighbors over to the house for a viewing. You can broadcast it on TV, on cable access, on regular channels or on the web. It's completely free -- I don't want to see a dime from this. And if you want, you can charge admission or ask for a donation if it's to raise money for a candidate, a voter drive, or for any non-profit or educational purpose. In other words -- it's yours!

"Slacker Uprising" chronicles the 62-city tour I did leading up to the 2004 election. It is electrifying to see the tens of thousands of young people who were ready then for the uprising -- and who, this year, are actually making it happen. This is my concert film tribute to the young voters who are going to save this country from four more years of Republican rule. There are a number of ways, beginning at midnight tonight, that you can download or stream "Slacker Uprising" thanks to our distributor, Brave New Films <http://bravenewfilms.org/> :

1) Blip.tv will provide standard resolution streaming, free of commercials
and advertising.
2) Amazon Video on Demand will provide a high quality version of the above
stream.
3) iTunes will make it easy for you to download "Slacker Uprising" on your
iTunes, iPod, or Apple TV, and view it there or transmit it to your
television. This way, the film can be portable as well as for home viewing.
4) Hypernia is providing bandwidth, servers and management to host "Slacker
Uprising" online, so you can download the film and view it at any time or
burn it onto a DVD.

I am fortunate to have all these great people bringing you my movie for free. There will be no ads and they have all agreed to supply their services free of charge. All of them wanted to be part of this historic moment when the first major feature-length movie is being released for free on the internet.

(For those of you who don't download, there will be a low-cost DVD available <http://slackeruprising.com/buy.php> .) This past Thursday we held the world premiere of "Slacker Uprising" in Ann Arbor (you can read about it here <http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/mikeinthenews/index.php?id=12277> ). The response was incredible and I want to encourage you to screen this movie with large groups. I believe it will inspire our get-out-the-vote efforts at a time when we need to get millions registered <https://www.voteforchange.com/> in the next two weeks.

Thanks again for all your support over the years. I hope you'll like my new
film. It's all yours, anytime after midnight tonight. Enjoy!

Yours,
Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com
SlackerUprising.com <http://slackeruprising.com/>
MichaelMoore.com <http://www.michaelmoore.com/>

P.S. I'll be doing a live chat, tonight at 11:00 PM ET, on Daily Kos
<http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/9/21/225040/528/97/606029> , in the hour
countdown leading up to the internet release of my film. Hope to see you
online!

Poynter Online: You Can Put Lipstick on a Bad Writer, but...

Poynter Online offers a great way to combine politics and language arts:

You Can Put Lipstick on a Bad Writer, but...

You can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig. And you can put a tired catch phrase in the mouth of a great orator, and it's still a tired catch phrase.

Next thing you know, Sen. Barack Obama will be trying to turn chicken spit into chicken salad or lemons into lemonade. 'Cause when the going gets tough...well, you know the rest.

I winced when I heard Obama drag out the lip schtick, not because it was a sexist remark aimed at the rootin' tootin' governor of Alaska, but because it is now a standard debating point of so many politicians, a fact demonstrated by video clips of Senator John McCain and Vice President Dick Cheney using the same gag. Gag indeed.

Read the complete editorial and participate in the online contest for the best worst catch phrase at Poynter Online: http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=78&aid=150359

From News Hounds: Sarah Palin is not just another working mom

In Sarah Palin is not just another working mom, the author suggests responses to Sarah Palin's career choices are more natural than party pundits would have us believe:

"The media" is being accused of sexism for asking questions about Sarah Palin that are not asked of a man, but is that fair? Mrs. Palin is the mother of a four-month old baby; it is reported that she returned to work just three days after his premature birth at a small Alaska hospital with no NICU, after flying eight hours and driving another even though her water had broken. Put aside the far-reaching suspicions raised by such a dramatic birth story, and focus on the facts - would it be reasonable to ask a male candidate the same questions? Of course not.

...This is not sexism to apply these standards to her as a woman - men cannot be mothers so the questions will never be pertinent. A father returning to work three days after the birth of his child does not raise the same issues - can we be adults and state that? It's not the same. As a mother and a woman she has every right to go back to work three days after giving birth, but some of us would like to hear her reasoning. It's unusual, to say the least.

Pregnant daughters are nothing to be ashamed of, but pushing an abstinence only agenda, which clearly failed for her family, on the nation at large is a public policy issue for which her unfortunate daughter has just become the poster child. That's not sexism; the facts would still warrant discussion if Palin was a man with the same radical "pro-life" anti-education views .

Sarah Palin, like all American women, is free to live her life as she sees fit and to make decisions for her family. But as a public figure seeking election to the number two spot, she does have to answer to the American people she would lead. Her life should be an open book, and her public persona should be born out by her private practices.

Read the complete editorial at News Hounds (tagline "We Watch Fox So You Don't Have To")

Amendments 5, 7 & 9 struck from November Ballot

The Florida Supreme Court has unanimously barred three proposed state constitutional amendments from appearing on the November ballot. - Read full story at BizJournal

File under Irony: Palin backed abstinence education

From CNNs Politicker:

(CNN) – Sarah Palin, who announced on Monday that her 17-year-old daughter is pregnant, indicated during her run for Alaska governor that she was a firm supporter of abstinence-only education in schools.

In a 2006 Eagle Forum questionnaire, Palin indicated that she supported funding abstinence-until-marriage education programs instead of teaching sex-education programs.

"Explicit sex-ed programs will not find my support," Palin wrote in the conservative group’s questionnaire.