Feature Archives

Over a thousand people joined the Dia de los Meurtos (Day of the Dead) procession through San Francisco’s mission district November 2nd. Dia de los Muertos is an annual Meso-American holiday dedicated to ancestors and loved ones now gone. The procession was lead by the Rescue Culture Collective and ended at the Festival of Altars in Garfield Park at 25th Street and Harrison. Not in Our Name joined others, including CODEPINK, in remembering the over 100,000 Iraqis and 2,000 US troops killed due to our government’s current war without end on that country.
Photos

On September 10th, 2005, the 7th Annual 911 Power to the Peaceful Festival (PTTP) took place at Speedway Meadow in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco. (Photos: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4) PTTP is an annual series of free, outdoor music and arts festivals with a social justice message bringing together international musicians, local artists and renowned speakers in a large festival atmosphere. Tens of thousands of people atteneded the concert. This year, the San Francisco Mayor’s Office proclaimed September 10th Power to the Peaceful Day at the festival. Saturday's theme, Bring ‘Em Home, seeks to remind the public that the best way to support American troops abroad is to bring them home today.

This year, PTTP included a skate ramp, a zero-waste program that included bio-diesel vegetable fuel for power, an open-air art gallery, earth-conscious vendors, massage and yoga, a DJ dance floor, eco-village, kid’s zone, a food drive, and the SF Bike Coalition. Social, environmental and political organizations such as Indybay had tables with information and wares for sale (cell phone pics). The event was broadcast live on KPFA radio. A festival after party and all-star jam closed the night out on the 10th at 1015 Folsom.

On Sunday, September 11th, Michael Franti will host the Social Justice Forum at Cell Space on Bryant Street from 11am-5pm. There will be a ‘Power To The Peaceful Yoga Workshop’ at 2pm on Sunday at the Yoga Tree-Yoga Flow classroom in the Castro District. PTTP will also include a 1st Annual International Film Festival, co-presented by Amnesty International, at the Roxie Theater on September 12th and 13th with highlights including a clip of Robert Greenwald’s upcoming release "Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price" and Michael Franti’s film about his journey to Iraq, Palestine and Israel last year titled "I Know I’m Not Alone."

Past Indybay Coverage of Power to the Peaceful

Melissa Gira, in the June issue of Fault Lines, writes:
The prospective client on the other end of the line is in Mississippi - somewhere ill-fit for submission. I am stretched on my bed, as is the cliché, but no, no cigarette, and no cosmo, either. I really am resting on my pillows, nursing a cough, but now late to the start of the Sex Worker Film and Arts Festival that is kicking off just as the phone rings.

Carol Leigh (aka Scarlot Harlot), the Festival’s founder and producer, has already tipped me off, so through some underground connections I now have a clip from The Tonight Show. Leno is tweaking at the class war, his quips aimed at none other than Whore College, which opens this week as part of the 2005 Sex Worker Film and Arts Festival. “What do you fall back on when you flunk out of Whore College? Your typing skills?” Nervous laughs burble & recede, as Red and Blue State audience members pause for perhaps the first time and ponder how it is that all the whores got that way.

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On Saturday, June 11th, La Peña Day will be celebrated in Berkeley with a 30th Anniversary Street Festival. The La Peña Cultural Center is a community space that includes a cafde, music and dance classes, and performances. The festival will be held from 12pm-6pm at the intersection of Prince & Shattuck streets. There will be free live music, food, drink, free kids' activities, including a kids' stage, and arts and community booths. With Pachasiku, Rafael Manriquez, La Peña Afro Cuban Youth Ensemble, La Peña Bomba Class, Jesus Diaz & QBA, La Familia, Youth Movement Records, and DJ José Ruiz. La Peña is creating a community history project- they ask that people visit La Peña's booth at the Street Festival and bring photos or memories from past events to enter into the community history journals.

Other Celebratory Programs:
Fri. & Sat. June 10th and 11th ¡Vivan los treinta de La Peña! with CANTINFLAS!, a celebrated bilingual play written and performed by Culture Clash's Herbert Sigüenza. This tribute to comedian & movie actor Mario Moreno captures the fusion of the comic's clever word play.
On Friday, June 17th, the La Peña Community Chorus celebrates La Peña's 30th Anniversary in a concert of retrospection and vision with some of its favorite songs from the last 25 years, as well as the most recent additions to its repertoire of music that celebrates justice, peace, unity and hope.
On Saturday, June 18th, Quetzal will be in concert. The leading Chicano band from LA returns to Berkeley with its high quality songs with upbeat rhythms and powerful lyrics in a mix of Mexican, Cuban, Latin American rhythms, jazz, and rock supercharged by its dynamic vocals. Read more

The Society for Disability Studies is holding its annual conference at San Francisco State University from June 8th through 11th. The theme of the conference is Conversations & Connections Across Race, Disability & Identity. The conference coincides with activism by people in the Bay Area and on the East Coast to start a national organization for and by disabled people of color. There is a registration fee for the conference, but the following events are lower cost:

The photo exhibit Brown Disabled Broken Bodies: A Tour of Police Brutality Cases Against Disabled People of Color will be up on June 10th from 5-7PM in the Nob Hill Room. Photos of people such as May Molina, a diabetic woman who died in Chicago police custody when she was denied access to her medication, will be on display.

On Saturday June 11th from 12:30-2:30pm in the Richmond Room, there will be a panel entitled: Coast to Coast African Americans' Grassroots Incentives. The organizations to be represented are from the East Coast and California dealing with people of color with disabilities, and especially African Americans.

Also on June 11th, from 7:30-9:30pm in the Richmond Room, Black AND Disabled Artists Sharing, or BADAS, will perform Black Disabled Art History 101 with a slide show. Artists include Hip-Hop artist Keith Jones, Jazz poet Charles Curtice Blackwell, Safi wa Nairobi, and Leroy F. Moore.

As part of the conference, there will also be a Color of Disability photo exhibit of the two political conventions focusing on people of color with disabilities by Safi wa Nairobi.

For more information about the exhibit and performance, email Leroy Moore, sfdamo (at) yahoo.com | Society for Disability Studies | Leroy Moore's website

A Reclaim The Streets Party was held on Friday, May 20th in Palo Alto. Partygoers met at Lytton Plaza at University Ave. and Emerson at 8pm. Photos: 1 | 2 Report: 1

From the RTS Callout:
Our everyday lives are fucking boring. From where we work to when we sleep, when we go to school and where we play, every aspect of our lives is beyond our control. We have to work, to shop, and to go to school to survive, but these repetitive activities deprive us of what make us really alive: freedom, creativity, spontaneity, adventure, excitement, and love. Our cities are planned to keep us content, isolated, and passified - we want excitement, community, and revolt! When was the last time you danced like no one was watching - when was the last time you ran like it really mattered?"

Flyer for RTS | Palo Alto RTS Web Site

From the newswire:

"Zizek told the audience why he was a philosopher. He does not want to explain and account for the unaccountable, and instead wants to "render strange something we accept as given." Seeing things in a new way to "help us get a small shift of perspective to see the unexpected, implicit consequences" of thought and actions. "We do not know where we truly are," he stated, adding "we do not know what is really going on. We are in a radical crisis," he concluded."

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Listen to Q&A with Zizek