Etcetera

A conference on "political correctness" titled "The P.C. Frame-up: What's Behind the Attack?" will be held Nov. 15-17 on the U-M campus. Organized by a group of faculty, students, staff, and campus ministers, the conference is intended to provide a forum to respond to what conference organizers say is an unfair attack against reforms that challenge racism, homophobia find sexism on college campuses.

The conference will also examine the charge that left-wing thought police are terrorizing universities and the realities of various university reform movements. Conference organizers say speakers and panelists will discuss aspects of the controversy from left, right, center and unclassifiable viewpoints.

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See the CALENDAR for details, including a closing plenary which will feature Jon Weiner, American history professor at UC Irvine and contributing editor to The Nation. There is no registration fee for this conference and the general public is invited to all sessions. For more information contact Debra Dobbs at 763-0146.

Redefining Meanings "A NEWSWEEK poll last week revealed that while 45% of women believe that the women's movement has done well in improving women's lives and an additional 23% believe that it hasn't gone far enough, only 34% identify themselves as feminists. 'Tremendous gains have been made, but not under the label of feminism,' says Susan Marshall, a sociologist at the University of Texas. 'Such a number has been done on that term that people shy away from it.' Maybe it's time to bring it back, to rescue feminism from the media hacks and woman-haters who abused the term so widely and effectively even its friends could no longer recognize it. And while we're at it, let's bring back feminists, too - women who like that word. They're still around, they've just been keeping their heads down, getting their work done, raising their families, getting along. It's time we staked a permanent claim to our offices, our cities, our country and our identity. I'm not a feminist, but..'? But you probably are." (NEWSWEEK: October 21, 1991 "Why Women are Angry" by Laura Shapiro)

Save Tiger Stadium! The Common Ground Coalition, a group of individuals and groups supporting Tiger Stadium renovation (including the Tiger Stadium Fan Club), has completed a petition drive to put the question before Detroit voters in the next general election.

Over 10,000 signatures of registered city voters were collected; 7,300 were necessary. If Wayne County Executive Ed McNamara's stadium fund-raising proposal is on the ballot in March,1992, that will make it a general election, instead of just a presidential primary (in which voters must declare a party preference) and the renovation question will appear on that ballot. If not, it will be on the November 1992 ballot.

This proposal would prevent the Detroit City Council from breaking the lease the Tigers have with the City of Detroit.

In another Tiger Stadium note, Detroit Free Press writer Michael Betzold and Ethan Casey have just completed a history of the great old ballpark at Michigan and Trumbull, "Queen of Diamonds: The Tiger Stadium Story" - full of vintage photos, anecdotes, and comments by fans, players, officials and stadium experts.

It's also an account of the grass-roots efforts to save the stadium; today, the park with baseball's closest seats and most loyal fans is threatened by club officials who want to replace it with a baseball mail. Many agree with commentator George Will, who feels that tearing down Tiger Stadium would be "vandalism."

Out in the Cold  What do Department of Social Services budget cuts mean for area shelters? "Disaster," according to a joint press release of the Domestic Violence Project, SOS Crisis Center, and the Shelter Association of Ann Arbor. Agency administrators believe the abolition of Emergency Needs Payments may result in the loss of reimbursement costs to local shelters, which in many cases will mean staff layoffs and possible curtailment of services.

At the same time, the eradication of general assistance payments and the lack of resources within the DSS to put individuals in motels on an emergency basis will force more people to rely on increasingly overburdened shelters. The result will be, say agency administrators, more people sleeping on the streets this winter.

"No one knows their neighbor's true thoughts..." (From a recent letter to AGENDA editors from John Meyer, author of "No Turning Back: On the Loose in China and Tibet," excerpts of which were published in AGENDA in August).

"We entered China on the 14th (of September). Even more than the massacres two years ago, the collapse of the CPSO has made China a tense place. There's sort of a timebomb feeling about. Everybody hates the party - they'll express that openly now - but nobody has any idea about the future, or they don't dare express their..fears.

I think when Deng dies things will change, and it will likely be more violent and chaotic than in Moscow. Imagine a billion scores to be repaid - vengeance on an unprecedented scale.

Meanwhile, the Chinese media is full of rosy Bullshit: increased production, happy ethnic minorities, socialist stability. There is no open discussion of China's problems - no glasnost - and this is why China will change violently and unpredictably. People here haven't had five years to blow off steam, to VOTE, like in the USSR. Attitudes are unfathomable - no one knows their neighbors true thoughts."

A Different Kind of Fundraiser As Dominos Pizza and Detroit Tigers owner Tom Monaghan and Nicaragua's Cardinal Miguel Obando y Bravo were trying to raise $3 million October 16 for a new cathedral in Managua, the Religious Coalition on Latin America was trying to raise $5,000 for three new classrooms for a severely overcrowded school in Juigalpa, Ann Arbor's sister city in Nicaragua.

As the cathedral fund-raisers enjoyed cocktails before a dinner for $500 a plate, the coalition held a litany of mourning for those who suffered during Nicaragua's 10-year war.

And as the cathedral fund-raisers ate and listened to big-name entertainment at the Michigan League, members and supporters of the coalition enjoyed a rice and beans dinner for five cents per plate during a fiesta on the plaza outside the Michigan League featuring local, volunteer musicians. The dinner raised about $565, according to a Coalition member, and the fund-raising drive so far has netted about $2,700. Call 663-1870 to find out how to make a donation to the classrooms project.

Release Silvia! Postcard Campaign The National Release Silvia! Committee has issued an open letter to the progressive community asking for help with a campaign to repatriate Silvia Baraldini to Italy. A political prisoner in the U.S. since 1982, Baraldini is serving 43 years for charges including conspiracy to commit bank robbery and conspiracy to free prominent Black Panther leader Assata Shakur from prison.

For the past twenty years Baraldini has actively fought for human rights, including organizing white people to combat racism and working in community groups for women's and lesbian/gay liberation. Despite the Strasbourg Convention (an international treaty providing for the repatriation of prisoners to their country of origin), uterine cancer for which she has had two operations and radiation therapy, and petitioning from numerous groups in Italy, including the government, the U.S. Justice Department denied the request for release.

In December,1991, the Attorney General will again review Silvia's case. The committee has asked those concerned to send a letter demanding the immediate repatriation of Baraldini to Italy to: U.S. Attorney General, U.S. Department of Justice, 10th Street and Constitution Ave., Washington, D.C. 20530. And/or send money to help with publication of an open letter in several national papers. Make checks payable to John Brown Education Fund and send to: Release Silvia! Committee, 3543 18th Street; Box 30,San Francisco, CA 94110.