Calling All Musicians, Dancers, Artists and Folks With No Talents At All:

Come together with Community Members to Create Dove Costumes for this year's Procession of the Species.

Work together to represent the whole range of people in the area who oppose expansion of the war.

How to get involved:

*Come to work parties at the Procession Studio: Saturdays anytime between 10 am and 2 pm; Thursdays anytime between 6 pm and 9pm

*Attend organizing meetings: Fridays @ noon, Traditions Cafe.

*Contact 753-7093 and let us know you are interested in walking with us (even if you want to participate but don't have time to construct a costume) We need your ideas! Current ideas for additional creations include papier mache globes and batik earth flags.

Gender Variant Health

Sunday, April 14th 2-4:30pm

First Methodist Church

PFLAG welcomes the Gender Variant Health Project. Parents, Friends of Lesbians and Gays promotes the health and well-being of gay, lesbian, bixexual and transgendered persons, their families and friends through support, education and advocacy. Info at 866-0511 and http://home.attbi.com/~pflag-olympia/

April 20th events for Global Justice in Seattle!

If you don't know, now ya know! April 20th will have events and actions against the IMF/WB, the upcoming G8 meeting in Alberta, a Reclaim the Streets party with a concert, towards debt relief, against corporate monoculture, towards freedom and peace for all the world, live bands!, clowns (yes really!), counterculture businesspeople, against colonialism, peace hippies, ultra radicals, lefty moderates, ONE BIG GLOBAL MOVEMENT FOR PEACE AND JUSTICE...all on one day!

Please check out the following website so you familiarize yourself with what is going on: www.seattleacc.cjb.net

We DO want to work with groups who are not necessarily ideologically aligned with the ACC, but who wish to abolish/reform the IMF/WB. We feel at this time in struggle, unity is our strength.

Contact Info:

yellowblock@riseup.net

1(866)841-9140 x4918

Global Greens Gathering Video on EarthDay

In April 2001, 800 Greens from 70 countries met in Canberra, Australia for the first ever gathering of Global Greens. This 60-minute video highlights that event in all it's living color. Out of that conference came the first Global Green Charter. Delegates from Africa, Asia, Latin America, Europe and North America discuss and debate the issues, then drum and dance the night away. Join us for this anniversay showing at Traditions Cafe on EarthDay, April 21st at 7pm. Sponsored by the South Sound Greens and the Green Party of Washington State.

Dance O' Dance

Dance O' Dance is now being taped LIVE on the 1st Friday of the month. It's still all-ages, all genders, smoke & alcohol free, featuring independent NW artists. Special arrangements can be made to showcase a prepared dance of any style. * 943-5440 * April 5th, May 3rd, June 7th

Weekly peace vigils

PEACE VIGIL, noon to 1 p.m. in NW corner of Sylvester Park (corner of Legion & Capitol Way) EVERY WEDNESDAY. We provide signs or you may bring your own. Please come for all or part of the hour to witness for peace and nonviolence. Sponsor: Olympia Fellowship of Reconciliation Info: 491-9093 glen@olywa.net

PEACE VIGIL, 4:30 to 5:30 p.m. on 4th Ave near the fountain EVERY FRIDAY. Our demeanor and signs are friendly and positive, urging lifting the economic sanctions on Iraq and promoting peace and human rights in light of the current international crisis. Olympia FOR provides signs or you may bring your own. Info: call 867-1731 or 491-9093. E-Mail: glen@olywa.net

15th Annual Bicycle Commuter Contest

Climate Solutions, a non-profit agency committed to practical solutions to global warming, will be gearing up for its 15th Annual Bicycle Commuter Contest this May. Every year, since 1988, the Bicycle Commuter Contest celebrates bicycle commuting by both encouraging newcomers to give it a try and recognizing regular bike commuters. Hundreds of free prizes will be up for grabs by participating cyclists as well as those that ride the most miles, or ride most consistently, during the month of May.

April 26/Friday - Wrenchers' Ball. 7 a.m.- 6 p.m. Olympia Transit Center, Olympia. Come register for the 15th Annual Bicycle Commuter Contest and get your bike tuned up for FREE. To help out or for more information call Climate Solutions at 360-352-1763 or visit www.climatesolutions.org.

May 4/Friday - Bicycle Commuter Contest Registration Deadline. Get your registration form for the Bicycle Commuter Contest to Climate Solutions, 610 E. 4th Ave., Olympia, by 5:00 P.M! E-mail us at bikecommute@climatesolutions.org.

Procession Doesn't Fight Apathy

Dear Editor:

I sent this letter to the Olympian. I am not surprised they did not publish it. Anyway, that newspaper should be in the middle of Wyoming. Here is my version, modified, of course. I do not want to alienate to the middle class, who pay so many taxes.

The Procession of the Species really sucks! It is an energy together for nothing. The day USA started to bomb Yugoslavia, while the bombs were destroying bridges, water plant-treatments, markets and nature, we were dancing on the streets. We ignored the pain and tears of other people in other geographies. Our selfishness and denial allowed us to dance on the streets. Without really wanting, we were celebrating the bombing, the massacre, the tragedy.

Now, we have been bombing one of the poorest of the poor country on earth. One billion dollars per day! Our taxes, our own taxes!

All of this is mainly done because our apathy. Apathy is much more harmful than racism. The concentration camps in USA, in the WW2, where so many American-Japanese lost their homes, farms, and freedom, was because of apathy. There was no resistance or marchs to oppose that current government.

Now, our taxes, again, are destroying the richest place in biodiversity on this planet, OUR ONLY HOME. I am talking about Colombia, where our government is making the preparations for a full war -- first was the excuse of the plantations of coca leaves, while the USA Embassy in La Paz, Bolivia, legally consumes around twelve hundred pounds of coca leaves as tea in USA territory. Second, now the excuse is the "war on terror".

According to Cary Fowler and Pat Mooney (Food,Politics, and the Loss of Genetic Diversity), "probably two-thirds of all the species on earth (plants and animals) live only on the tropics- most in the tropical forests. The British Isles boast some 1,450 species of trees, shrubs and herbs-only 350 more than have been recorded on less than a square mile in Colombia. Colombia may have twice as many plant species as Ecuador. Ecuador has as many plants species as all of Central America. Central America is the size of France, but the tiny country of Panama contains as many plants species as all of Europe.....And the waters of the Amazon river system are home to nearly as many varieties of fish as are found in the Atlantic Ocean."

Allowing the USA and Colombia governments to fumigate this unique ecosystem, and start bombing this environment, is to sign the death penalty for all the living beings on earth, since all living beings are interdependent. The part affects the whole; it does not matter where we live. Borders are just arbitrary concepts to divide what cannot be divided, borders only segregate people, and racism is based on it.

How many billions of dollars, our taxes, are going to cause all these atrocities? How many social and sustainable projects could we accomplish with all those economic resources? We could realy build harmony and hope on the whole Planet! All the people of this planet would love us! We would not need wars ever again. Wars would be obsolete and just a sad history of phony civilizations. But the reality is quite different.

Do we have the right to celebrate life while our bombings in Afghenistan have forced innocent civilians to eat grass perhaps with some barley flour on it? Are they celebrating life and diversity? Are the Colombian peasants dancing while the bombs and herbicides are falling on their food, water and land? And all paid with our taxes? Taxes that are taken from our work and life?

Wake up American sisters and brothers, wake up before is too late! Use your community energy and genuine love to create a beautiful planet, without mine or yours. But we have to stop the continuation of the world genocide. It is not too late yet. We have to work together for this. Celebrating denial, apathy, catharsis, selfishness, is not going to accomplish anything good, anything even lovable, worst earthy.

Have a beautiful and telluric spring all together, including me, a semi nomad and semi homeless person. But do not talk loudly, the directors of the parade are coming and we are not allowed to express ourselves with words, something inherent to my species. Just remember apathy does much more damage than racism.

With love,

Amando Barzola-Hidalgo

Jose "Chencho" Alas to speak:

El Salvador's Peasant-Led Local Zone of Peace & Bottom-Up Sustainable Development

Tuesday, April 23

7:00-8:30 PM

Traditions Fair Trade

(5th Ave & Water St., Olympia)

Live Music by members of

Latin Band "Los Calaveras"

&

Wednesday, April 24

Noon-1 PM

Library Lobby at Evergreen State College, Olympia

Jose "Chencho" Alas is founder and Executive Director of Foundation for Self Sufficiency. The US-based Foundation for Self-Sufficiency is a Non-Governmental Organization supporting peasant-led efforts in 86 communities in rural El Salvador. The communities have defined themselves as a Local Zone of Peace. The sustainable development model they use is the opposite of international globalization of economies. It is a bottom-up model incorporating social and economic democracy where people at the base of society are organized and decide on how to meet needs. Efforts of the Salvadoran communities and the Foundation are: sustainable development and environmental restoration as well dispute resolution, disaster response and youth gang mediation.

Jose Alas is a historical figure in El Salvador. During the late 1960's and 1970's he helped develop and implement Liberation Theology and was an advisor to slain Archbishop Oscar Romero. Dr. Charles Clements in his book, Witness to War said: "The guns came after Alas was driven away. His legacy was the campesinos' dignity and self-esteem." Renny Golden in her book, The Hour of the Poor, The Hour of Women-Salavoran Women Speak described his treatment by the oligarchy: "Alas was abducted as he walked to the parking lot after his talk (on land reform). He was stripped, tortured, drugged, and (only because of an international outcry) abandoned still alive on a mountain outside the city."

Alas will invite people to join him on a US delegation to El Salvador this August 5-11. This tour will visit the Salvadoran Capital and learn of the struggles during the war as well as visit the rural communities and meet and observe the efforts of the peasants against poverty and structural injustice.

For more information contact Vicki Leonard at 360-357-5030 or Bob Zeigler at 360-570-0848.