DISABILITY LAW CENTER ESTABLISHES FELLOWSHIP TO ENSURE
FUTURE GENERATIONS OF DISABILITY ADVOCATES
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Barbara G. Toomer used a wheelchair after contracting polio in 1956. She was a trailblazer who championed civil rights for people with disabilities in Utah and across the nation. She helped organize and lead many disability advocacy groups including Community Shares, the Utah Independent Living Center, ADAPT/Utah and the Disabled Rights Action Committee (DRAC) among others. She served on the Martin Luther King Jr. Human Rights Commission and the Professional Ethics Committee of the Utah State Bar. Recognized by the National Organization for Women with their Woman of Courageous Action Lifetime Achievement Award, she was a tireless advocate who wrote letters, made phone calls, gave testimony, and met in person with many leaders in Washington D.C. and at the Utah legislature. When she felt diplomacy had failed to yield results, Barbara, and her army of volunteers, turned to non-violent direct action to champion the cause of equality and to fight for the respect and basic human dignity for people with disabilities.
Barbara passed away in April of 2018 at the age of 88. Her nearly four-decade legacy as a civil rights champion inspired the Disability Law Center to create a fellowship in her name. The Barbara G. Toomer Disability Rights Fellowship is a nine-month intensive experience designed to nurture new and emerging leaders in the disability community. Barbara's daughter, Jean Layton, said,
"...the Fellowship will empower the next generation so their voices can speak for those who are not heard...My mother realized early on that it is not enough to just get a seat at the table. To truly effectuate change we need to raise our voice to speak truth to power and point out injustice. It is my greatest hope that this Fellowship teaches people how to fight and not just sit around a table and talk policy. Teaching the next generation to fight for their rights is the best way to honor her legacy."
The highly competitive, paid fellowship offers students, recent graduates and/or those in the early stages of their careers the chance to work alongside skilled professionals to gain practical experience in leading change initiatives, understanding disability culture, engaging in citizen politics and pursuing legal, legislative and advocacy efforts. Participants will gain experience while contributing to projects that make a positive difference in the lives of people with disabilities in Utah. Qualified applicants must identify as a person with a disability.
To learn more about the fellowship, please visit http://disabilitylawcenter.org/toomer-fellowship/
Applications are due by Friday, March 15, 2019.
The Disability Law Center is a private non-profit organization. The DLC's mission is to enforce and strengthen laws that protect the opportunities, choices and legal rights of Utahns with disabilities. Our services are available statewide and free of charge, regardless of income, legal status, language, or place of residence.
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SALT LAKE CITY- Today the Utah Senate Business and Labor committee passed S.B.132 "Beer Amendments" unanimously out of committee.
"The majority of our members are opposed to an arbitrary and incremental increase to 4.8% ABW as outlined in this bill. They remain in favor of lifting the limit put on alcohol content of beer. However, this legislation would benefit out-of-state breweries at the expense of small, locally owned breweries who employ thousands of Utahns," said executive director Nicole Dicou.
S.B.132 is carefully targeted to open an optimized window for mass-produced products to enter and remain in the Utah marketplace, pushing aside local independent options.
Allowing the ceiling of alcohol content in Utah to be brought to a level commonly enforced throughout the United States — which this bill does not accomplish — would help to normalize the perception of Utah’s beer industry into a place that provides opportunities for people to make free-market decisions on the products they would like to support.
The Utah Brewers Guild is a 501(c)6 trade organization founded in 2005 to support and promote the Utah craft beer industry. Our membership includes 28 local and independent craft breweries, which are listed at utahbrewersguild.org.
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Don’t Expect Rulers of Nuclear-Armed Nations to Accept Nuclear Disarmament―Unless They’re Pushed to Do So
By Lawrence Wittner
961 words
At the beginning of February 2019, the two leading nuclear powers took an official step toward resumption of the nuclear arms race. On February 1, the U.S. government, charging Russian violations of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, announced that it would pull out of the agreement and develop new intermediate-range missiles banned by it. The following day, Russian President Vladimir Putin suspended his government’s observance of the treaty, claiming that this was done as a “symmetrical” response to the U.S. action and that Russia would develop nuclear weapons outlawed by the agreement.
In this fashion, the 1987 Soviet-American INF Treaty―which had eliminated thousands of destabilizing nuclear weapons, set the course for future nuclear disarmament agreements between the two nuclear superpowers, and paved the way for an end to the Cold War―was formally dispensed with.
Actually, the scrapping of the treaty should not have come as a surprise. After all, the rulers of nations, especially “the great powers,” are rarely interested in limiting their access to powerful weapons of war, including nuclear weapons. Indeed, they usually favor weapons buildups by their own nation and, thus, end up in immensely dangerous and expensive arms races with other nations.
Donald Trump exemplifies this embrace of nuclear weapons. During his presidential campaign, he made the bizarre claim that the 7,000-weapon U.S. nuclear arsenal “doesn’t work,” and promised to restore it to its full glory. Shortly after his election, Trump tweeted: “The United States must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability.” The following day, with his customary insouciance, he remarked simply: “Let it be an arms race.”
Naturally, as president, he has been a keen supporter of a $1.7 trillion refurbishment of the entire U.S. nuclear weapons complex, including the building of new nuclear weapons. Nor has he hesitated to brag about U.S. nuclear prowess. In connection with his war of words with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, Trump boasted: “I too have a Nuclear Button, but it is a much bigger and more powerful one than his.”
Russian leaders, too, though not as overtly provocative, have been impatient to build new nuclear weapons. As early as 2007, Putin complained to top-level U.S. officials that only Russia and the United States were covered by the INF Treaty; therefore, unless other nations were brought into the agreement, “it will be difficult for us to keep within the [treaty] framework.” The following year, Sergey Ivanov, the Russian defense minister, publicly bemoaned the INF agreement, observing that intermediate-range nuclear weapons “would be quite useful for us” against China.
By 2014, according to the U.S. government and arms control experts, Russia was pursuing a cruise missile program that violated the INF agreement, although Putin denied that the missile was banned by the treaty and claimed, instead, that the U.S. missile defense system was out of compliance. And so the offending missile program continued, as did Russian programs for blood-curdling types of nuclear weapons outside the treaty’s framework. In 2016, Putin criticized “the naïve former Russian leadership” for signing the INF Treaty in the first place. When the U.S. government pulled out of the treaty, Putin not only quickly proclaimed Russia’s withdrawal, but announced plans for building new nuclear weapons and said that Russia would no longer initiate nuclear arms control talks with the United States.
The leaders of the seven other nuclear-armed nations have displayed much the same attitude. All have recently been upgrading their nuclear arsenals, with China, India, Pakistan, and North Korea developing nuclear weapons that would be banned by the INF Treaty. Efforts by the U.S. government, in 2008, to bring some of these nations into the treaty were rebuffed by their governments. In the context of the recent breakdown of the INF Treaty, China’s government (which, among them, possesses the largest number of such weapons) has praised the agreement for carrying forward the nuclear disarmament process and improving international relations, but has opposed making the treaty a multilateral one―a polite way of saying that nuclear disarmament should be confined to the Americans and the Russians.
Characteristically, all the nuclear powers have rejected the 2017 UN treaty prohibiting nuclear weapons.
But the history of the INF Treaty’s emergence provides a more heartening perspective.
During the late 1970s and early 1980s, in response to the advent of government officials championing a nuclear weapons buildup and talking glibly of nuclear war, an immense surge of popular protest swept around the world. Antinuclear demonstrations of unprecedented size convulsed Western Europe, Asia, and North America. Even within Communist nations, protesters defied authorities and took to the streets. With opinion polls showing massive opposition to the deployment of new nuclear weapons and the waging of nuclear war, mainstream organizations and political parties sharply condemned the nuclear buildup and called for nuclear disarmament.
Consequently, hawkish government officials began to reassess their priorities. In the fall of 1983, with some five million people busy protesting the U.S. plan to install intermediate-range nuclear weapons in Western Europe, Ronald Reagan told his secretary of state: “If things get hotter and hotter and arms control remains an issue, maybe I should . . . propose eliminating all nuclear weapons.” Previously, to dampen antinuclear protest, Reagan and other NATO hawks had proposed the “zero option”―scrapping plans for U.S. missile deployment in Western Europe for Soviet withdrawal of INF missiles from Eastern Europe. But Russian leaders scorned this public relations gesture until Mikhail Gorbachev, riding the wave of popular protest, decided to call Reagan’s bluff. As a result, recalled a top administration official, “we had to take yes for an answer.” In 1987, amid great popular celebration, Reagan and Gorbachev signed the INF Treaty.
Although the rulers of nuclear-armed nations are usually eager to foster nuclear buildups, substantial public pressure can secure their acceptance of nuclear disarmament.
–end–
Dr. Lawrence Wittner, syndicated by PeaceVoice, is Professor of History emeritus at SUNY/Albany and the author of Confronting the Bomb (Stanford University Press).
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Creativity, curiosity and critical thinking skills go hand in hand with knowledge, yet art programs which nurture these competencies are continuously being cut from school curriculums across the United States. Agnes Gund’s organization, Studio in a School, has found new ways to provide and enhance art education for young learners. “If we want our children to grow up learning how to learn and how to think, we should be working in the other direction: make the classroom look more like the art studio,” says Christopher Wisniewski, Executive Director of the program. In a new interview with C.M. Rubin, Founder of CMRubinWorld, Wisniewski says Studio’s success is all about “quality”. The organization hires “extraordinary artists” who work to become “great teachers.” In addition, the success of the Studio in a School program is dependent on an open line of communication between the artist instructors and the schools’ principals, classroom teachers, and families. While every student should have access to the arts in their respective schools, Wisniewski believes that the general focus should be on bettering middle school education, where encouraging the use of projects and creativity will enhance their learning capabilities and thinking capacity overall.
Read the full article here
Chris Wisniewski is the Executive Director of Studio in a School, an organization founded by Agnes Gund to get around the budget cuts geared towards arts programs in New York City schools by providing training in house for artists to become teachers and lend their combined skill set to these schools. Studio in a School has benefited over 30,000 students across New York City and they plan on sharing their approach on a national scale to benefit even more children and communities.
CMRubinWorld’s award-winning series, The Global Search for Education, brings together distinguished thought leaders in education and innovation from around the world to explore the key learning issues faced by most nations. The series has become a highly visible platform for global discourse on 21st-century learning, offering a diverse range of innovative ideas which are presented by the series founder, C. M. Rubin, together with the world’s leading thinkers.
For more information on CMRubinWorld
Follow @CMRubinWorld on Twitter
Contact Information:
David Wine
David(at)cmrubinworld(dot)com
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BOY BECOMES HERO
Premieres Music Video for "Abstraction"
Exclusively with Substream Magazine
"All of it comes together for an amazing story,
one that is incredibly personal"- Substream Magazine
Debut Album Reverie
Due Out February 28, 2019
"Gravity" Collaboration Bundle with
To Write Love on Her Arms Available Now at
https://www.boybecomeshero.com/
February 7, 2019 - Kalamazoo, Michigan - "Don't drop below, Stay afloat, Grab my hand, I'll be your gravity." These are lyrics from "Abstraction", the brand new single from post-hardcore project Boy Becomes Hero. The track and accompanying lyric video are premiering exclusively with Substream Magazine today while sharing an important message to fans.
In an exclusive interview with Substream, Andrew Brittingham, the creative mind behind Boy Becomes Hero, shares that "Abstraction" is a song that heavily resonated with him while creating a partnership with To Write Love on Her Arms. "The lyrics make a clear distinction of what my mission statement for this album really is...Addiction, depression, and anxiety are abstractions themselves and feelings that are near impossible to explain. They're even harder for people who haven't experienced them to understand." Fans can check out the full interview and premiere of "Abstraction" HERE.
After battling addiction for 10+ years, Andrew became sober in early 2017. He had always struggled to find his place in the music world after bouncing around bands and finally had the clarity and inspiration to create the concept album he'd been dreaming of. He shares that "Sobriety is not a punishment for those who cannot control their use of these substances, but a reminder and privilege to have the opportunity to regain our inspiration, create amazing music and art, while inspiring others to do the same."
In addition to this track, Brittingham worked with To Write Love on Her Arms to create the "Gravity Initiative" t-shirt. 100% of proceeds from the shirt and bundles as well as 10% of all additional album sales will be donated to TWLoHA to help further their mission. All pre-orders and bundles are available now at https://www.boybecomeshero.com/. Fans can also pre-save Reverie on Spotify at https://show.co/nfC9xW7.
This track comes from Boy Becomes Hero's debut LP, Reverie. With thrashing anthems and melodic breakdowns, Reverie is a story that takes listeners on a true journey while they follow a boy named Tsukuyo through his battle with the evil that has consumed his past, present and his future. Mixed and mastered by Kris Crummett (Dance Gavin Dance, Sleeping With Sirens, Issues), Reverie is due out February 28, 2019.
"I hope that 'Reverie' is able to create a new experience in post-hardcore scene that will allow listeners a place to stop and escape from their struggles and to be lost in the music and story alike" shares Brittingham on the upcoming release. The 10-track concept album features vocal performances by Kurt Travis (Royal Coda, ex-Dance Gavin Dance), Garret Rapp (The Color Morale), Aaron Gillespie (Underoath, The Almost), Darina Kayuokova (Moqumentary) and Sam Kohl (ex-Sea in the Sky).
Reverie Track listing
1: Exordium (feat. Kurt Travis and Darina Kayukova)
2: Perspicacity (feat. Garret Rapp)
3: Contrition
4: Expatiate (feat. Darina Kayukova)
5: Ingress
6: Abstraction
7: Abeyance (feat. Darina Kayukova)
8: Deluge (feat. Aaron Gillespie & Sam Kohl)
9: Delectation (feat. Kurt Travis & Garret Rapp)
10: Denouement
Boy Becomes Hero is dedicated to creating a musical experience across the post-hardcore scene and sub-genres while raising awareness for depression, self-harm, addiction and suicide. For more information, please visit www.boybecomeshero.com.
About To Write Love on Her Arms:
To Write Love on Her Arms is a non-profit movement dedicated to presenting hope and finding help for people struggling with depression, addiction, self-injury, and suicide. TWLOHA exists to encourage, inform, inspire, and also to invest directly into treatment and recovery. For more information, please visit https://twloha.com/.
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