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Aware Meeting Minutes 6/20/04 (Father's Day) Following introductions, news of the week, we have the following reports: Prospect For Peace: there will be a demonstration on July 3 as usual Legal Issues: the legal committee (Al . Kagan, Randall Cotton, Susan Davis) is planning a meeting with Mr. Finch, the city attorney, and the Chief of police. July 4: the float is "Another World Is Possible", and is shaping up nicely. There will be work meetings to apply papier mache on Tuesday and Thursday of this week at 5:30 p.m.. Seeking a meeting with Tim Johnson: Matt Murray reported that he got a hold of Johnson's representative and is trying to get him to commit to a public meeting concerning the situation in Iraq. What are we to do? Would he meet with us in August? David Gill, green candidate, might be interested in debating Mr. Johnson. Resolved: keep pushing on this issue of accountability from Johnson. Tabling/Farmers Market: tabling is going very well, selling a lot of buttons and bumper stickers. There will be no farmers market table next weekend due to our July 4 commitments. We decided to order some new yard signs. The postcard campaign is going well. People are receiving replies from candidates, mostly Kerry. We emphasized that it is important for people to have something to do when they come to the table -- signed a petition, write a letter, make a yard signs. WILL commentaries: nothing new on this front: trying to get the radio station censorship of commentary policy reasonably explained and then changed. Urbana public television: nothing new on this front -- trying to get public TV in Urbana to carry "Democracy Now" Randall proposes to go to the quarterly meeting on Monday. Boondocks: the petition was a success, the cartoon will start again in the News Gazette tomorrow, Jan Kruse reports, although still in the back of the paper with the classifieds. Literature: Al and Susan are working on new literature. Finances. No report today. We have about $2000 in cash as usual. Events of the past week: Durl attended the police board meeting this week. In his opinion, the police talked about how great they are. Durl is not sure that this was appreciated very much by the African American community, and he's not sure Chief Finney gets the picture. Durl commented on training versus teaching the police to understand about civil and free-speech rights and being sensitive to minority communities. He feels there's a long way to go. The JuneteeNth (Emancipation Day) program at Parkland was a success and really fun. Discussion of why the News takes the shape it does in Champaign Urbana -- we discussed that this would make an interesting and useful leaflet. We could take up the issue of what interests are being served by the shape of the News in our town. It would be useful to have an analysis of print and broadcast media ownership and control. As well as patterns of coverage. New ideas: Mort Brussel suggests a discussion of articles that have appeared this past week on Znet. Could everyone read the articles and perhaps be willing to discuss? A meeting is tentatively scheduled for 3 p.m. July 18 -- maybe a more formal event in August? Mort will circulate via the list. The Michael Moore movie, Fahrenheit 9/11, will be playing at the Art. We plan to have a table at the movie theater. Discussion of whether we will have candidates literature or should perhaps candidates leaflet outside? We decide not to have candidates literature, but only peace and contact your representative literature. We could raffle off two tickets at the farmers market table. Jan and Durl are in charge. Upcoming events: We will table at The Taste of Champaign. There will be a U-C Progressives picnic, July 3, 5 p.m., at Crystal Lake Park. On June 29, space 7 p.m., there will be a discussion and dessert at Carol's house with Meredith Kruse, to talk about her work in Guatemala.