Category: Announcements
The Lincoln chapter of NFP is sponsoring the reading/performance of Foie Gras and the Public Servant on August 6 at 7 PM at the Unitarian Church in Lincoln located at 6300 A Street:
The play, by Hayashi Kyoko, a victim of the bombing of Nagasaki who lived with radiation sickness for over forty years after the Nagasaki bombing, tells of Japanese and American mass killings. Born in Nagasaki, Kyoko went to Shanghai in the 1930s but returned to Nagasaki in 1945 to go to school. Instead she was required to work in a munitions factory where she was laboring when the Nagasaki bomb fell and afflicted her with her fragile health for the rest of her life. She began writing in 1962, mainly short stories and novels but also two plays. For her work she received the Akutagawa Prize, the Kawabata Prize, and the Tanizaki Prize, three of Japan's highest literary honors.
Foie Gras and the Public Servant was written in the 1980s, broadcast on Japanese radio, and subsequently produced in Japan. The action takes place on the green fields of the dead in Arlington National Cemetery outside Washington, D.C. at a time when a tourist Japanese medical doctor named Okita visits the place. There he remembers how he, in 1945, then a medical student, entered the atomic wasteland of Nagasaki. As he wanders in this cemetery, he meets the Japanese widow of an American war veteran, Bob, buried as a vet but capable of appearing from the the other side. As Okita meets Bob’s ghost emerging from his grave, Bob recalls his romance with his wife, Pearl Harbor, the Bataan death march. Meanwhile Bob's two grandchildren play in Arlington to the tunes of a military funeral while Okita recalls Nagasaki. Ironically both men receive a reward for their service in war, the one man an appointment as a public servant, the other fois gras and champagne.
Read morePosted In: Announcements
Carol Windrum
Nebraskans for Peace is offering scholarships to graduating high school seniors. Three $500 scholarships and six $100 scholarships will be awarded to seniors who wish to pursue a college education. The awards, based upon written essays, will be evenly divided among the three congressional districts. The recipients will be students who wish to further their education in an area consistent with the mission of Nebraskans for Peace: peace with justice through community building, education and political action.
Applications should go within the body of an email (not as an attachment) to NFPscholarships@gmail.com on or before April 15, 2010. Winners will be notified no later than April 22, 2010.
Read morePosted In: Announcements
Welcome to our newly redesigned Web site.
This new version of NebraskansforPeace.org is meant to enhance our efforts at community-building, education and political action in 2010. We will continue to focus on turning off the violence in our schools, working for peace and international law, exposing the threats of StratCom's offensive missions, organizing for civil rights and economic justice, and defending our environment. Our bi-monthly media publication, the Nebraska Report, will continue to be offered as a PDF to download and all of its content will be posted as Articles to share online.
As a statewide organization, we have also built into the site structure a place for local Chapters to thrive -- to work together and share what works. With 11 Chapters currently across the state, we feel providing a online resource will help them grow and be more successful in their own communities while working for the goals of Nebraskans for Peace.
Read morePosted In: Announcements
NEBRASKANS FOR PEACE
On February 1, 1970, when Nebraskans for Peace first filed its articles of incorporation with the Nebraska Secretary of State, no one could have predicted that this fledgling anti-war group would one day become the oldest statewide Peace & Justice organization in the entire country.
An even ‘redder’ state then than we are today, set smack in the heart of middle America, Nebraska was the last place anyone would have expected a ‘peace organization’ to emerge and then endure.
Read morePosted In: Announcements
Nebraskans for Peace
On top of the 300-plus bills that carried over from last year’s legislative session, Nebraska state senators have introduced another 400 bills for 2010. With state tax receipts continuing to fall short of projections however (and another round of budget cuts looming), any of this legislation that requires new money will be pretty much dead on arrival in this short, 60-working-day session of the Unicameral. Given this economic reality, here’s a brief overview of some of the bills NFP will be supporting. This list is by no means comprehensive, but it provides a sampling of the kind of legislative priorities NFP will be advocating for in the next three months.
A dozen new bills dealing with renewable energy were introduced, but two that could dramatically reshape the energy landscape in Nebraska are LB 1048, the Natural Resources Committee’s ‘Big Wind’ bill that grew out of Sen. Ken Haar’s legislation from last year, and Sen. Heath Mello’s LB 1098. The Natural Resources Committee bill would help create the legal and infrastructural conditions necessary for large-scale wind development projects in the state that could ultimately make Nebraska an exporter of clean renewable energy to the rest of the nation. Sen. Mello’s bill, alternatively, would authorize Nebraska municipalities to establish “sustainable energy financing districts” to loan homeowners and local businesses the funds for energy efficiency and renewable energy improvements to their properties. To make this program broadly accessible, the loans would be assessed against the property and paid back in the form of property taxes. The energy savings from the improvements, though, would largely offset the property tax increase, allowing everyone the opportunity to adopt a ‘greener’ lifestyle—and thereby reduce our dependence on foreign oil and domestic coal.
Read morePosted In: Announcements
