Spring Break is almost here, and then right when we come back, STAR Testing will be upon us, and I’m sure we can’t wait. Heh.
Anyway, Peace Club will be kind of inactive during the testing season, however over spring break I’ll be looking into a club fundraiser, and maybe one or two more events to close out the school year.

However, if you need something to do over spring break, here’s a roundup of local events which are coming up!

• Chris Hedges, the author of War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning will be presenting his new book, American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War On America.

  Twenty-five years ago, when Pat Robertson and other radio and TV evangelists first spoke of the United States becoming a Christian nation that would build a global Christian empire, it was hard to take such hyperbolic rhetoric seriously. Today, such language no longer sounds like hyperbole but poses, instead, a very real threat to our freedom and our way of life. In American Fascists, Chris Hedges, veteran journalist and author of the National Book Award finalist War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning, challenges the Christian Right’s religious legitimacy and argues that at its core it is a mass movement fueled by unbridled nationalism and a hatred for the open society. The movement’s yearning for apocalyptic violence and its assault on dispassionate intellectual inquiry are laying the foundation for a new, frightening America.

  “This urgent book forcefully illuminates what many will recognize as a growing threat to the very concept and practice of an open society.” –Publishers Weekly

  Chris Hedges, currently a senior fellow at The Nation Institute and a Lecturer in the Council of the Humanities and the Anschutz Distinguished Fellow at Princeton University, spent nearly two decades as a foreign correspondent in Central America, the Middle East, Africa and the Balkans. Hedges, who has reported from more than 50 countries, worked for The Christian Science Monitor, National Public Radio, The Dallas Morning News and The New York Times, where he spent fifteen years. Hedges was part of the New York Times team that won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for the paper’s coverage of global terrorism and he received the 2002 Amnesty International Global Award for Human Rights Journalism. The son of a Presbyterian minister, Hedges has a Master of Divinity from Harvard University. He currently writes for numerous publications including Foreign Affairs, Harper’s magazine, The New York Review of Books, Granta and Mother Jones.

  The event will take place this Saturday, March 31st, at 2:00 PM at the First Presbyterian Church in Palo Alto (view map), and is presented by the Peninsula Peace and Justice Center. Admission is a $10-$20 sliding scale; no one turned away for lack of funds.

• Free Monthly Forum: Inside Iran — A conversation with Dr. Ali Ferdowsi, Chair, Political Science Dept., Notre Dam de Amur University.

  As the Bush administration ratchets up the threats against Iran,
  most Americans have little idea of what is really happening within Iranian society. Dr. Ferdowsi, a native of Iran, spends at least 100 days each year in Iran, talking to people about their political beliefs, their hopes and fears for the future. This ancient, vibrant culture, still not fully accessible due to government censorship, is alive with its own growing movements for democracy, equality and reform.

  Please join us for this inside look at Iran in order to gain an understanding of the country and the people whom our government seems intent on attacking next. We owe it to ourselves, and to the Iranian people, to have a deeper understanding beyond media images.

  This event is free and open to the public, and is presented by Peninsula Peace and Justice Center. There is a simultaneous live broadcast on Cable Channel 27 (Mid-Peninsula Cable), and online. The forum will take place on Tuesday, April 3rd at the Community Media Center in Palo Alto (view map).

• Eyewitness reporter Derrick Kikuchi will be presenting Eyewitness: New Orleans, a reflection through photos and poetry about the rebuilding projects taking place in New Orleans and the systemic challenges that still need to be addressed. The event is sponsored by the Peninsula Peace and Justice Center, and will take place Tuesday, April 10th at 7:30 PM at the Fellowship Hall of the First Baptist Church in Palo Alto (view map). There is a $5-$10 suggested donation for admission.