http://www.youtube.com/homeproject#p/a/f/0/jqxENMKaeCU

Please do. And help spread the word by sharing this link.

As is our format for the First Tuesday Film Festival, the screening was followed by a discussion about what we saw, how we felt about it, and a sharing of ideas and resources to help deal with the issues brought up by the film.

A few of the resources mentioned during the discussion are included here:  (Thank you Anita!)

1. http:xa.yimg.com/kq/groups/4069058/1880251750/name/The%20Case%20for%20Young%20Peo.ple%20and%20Nature-A%20Path%20to%20a%20Healt An article supporting the information given in the movie.

2. Paul Hawken, “Blessed Unrest.” http://www.paulhawken.com/blessedunrest.com/

3. UK columnist George Monbiot : “Heat: How to Stop the Planet Burning.” – opined that to stop global warming “rich” nations would need to reduce carbon emissions by 90% by 2030: http://www.monbiot.com/2006/10/31/heres-the-plan/ A US blogger lays out how a family CAN reduce by 90%: http://simplereduce.wordpress.com/riot-for-austerity-90-reduction-project-intro/ http://1greengeneration.elemen​tsintime.com/?p=404

The First Tuesday Social Action Film Festival screened the film “Moving to Mars” on March 1st.  Moving to Mars  follows  a group of Burmese refugees as they relocate to England.  A group from the Dallas community of Burmese Karen refugees joined us and shared their perspectives as well as their musical talent.

More information on the Dallas Karen Community and photographs from last nights event can be found on the One World Outreach blog:  http://oneworldoutreach.blogspot.com/2011/03/film-screening.html

Please consider how you might be able to symbolically invite these people to your table. By sharing your resources, you take ownership of the important work of Unitarian Universalist Service Committee. You are “voting” for these projects with your dollars. Is this work worth spending a little less money on something else?
 
The donation boxes will be collected at the end of December. Donations are tax deductible; donors of $10 or more will receive a tax receipt from UUSC if they include their name and address with the donation. If you prefer to write a check, please make it to UUSC with Untarian Universalist Church of Oak Cliff in the memo.

A call to action:
Recently we have seen a lot about gay teen suicides.
Students who are bullied by their peers but no one
stood up for. Come stand up for the kids, teens and young adults.

Join the Dallas Gay and Lesbian Alliance along with other
GLBT groups and many straight allies in a rally to bring
more attention to these tragic and senseless losses.

Oct. 15th, 2010
Lake Cliff Park, Dallas
(201 E. Colorado Blvd. 75203)
6:30pm – 7:30pm
Wear purple if possible!

Miss HIV

Our co-sponsors for this film include
the Dallas Peace Center.

Miss HIV follows the journey of two HIV-positive women who enter the MissHIV contest in Botswana. It compares what is happening in Botswana, where half of all pregnant women have HIV, and Uganda, a country which has experienced the largest reductions of new infections ever recorded. The story takes you backstage to the Miss HIV pageant and behind the curtain on the war against a virus that is now the leading killer of people under 60 in the world.
Please note that the visit of the AIDS Quilt to the Unitarian Universalist Church of Oak Cliff during the first week of November has been postponed. We will be notifying everyone when we know the new schedule. MissHIV will still be shown as scheduled on Nov. 2nd.

Kathy puts her heart into it | Photo Credit: Ian Grey

Last week I painted the world, and that weekend I attended the Alan Ross Texas Freedom Parade 2010.
This parade, the largest in Texas, has been held for the last twenty-seven years, and is Dallas’s annual gay pride parade.

This year, as in others, NTAUUS (the North Texas Association of Unitarian Universalist Societies) had a float for the parade. This year’s theme was “One Heart, One World, One Pride.” We began creating the earth a month before the parade. Using a very large balloon, the students and teachers from the UUCOC Religious Education program built a four-foot papier mache’ globe, and painted it blue. Once the blue paint had dried, my job was to add the continents. I first tried to draw them freehand, but that was less than effective. Instead, I chalked the equator, prime meridian, and other latitude and longitude lines for reference. I used the lines as if they were graph paper, and with a smaller globe nearby for reference, outlined the continents. A week later, the continents were all in place, and painted.

At the same time I was charting the world, my mother was constructing the giant yellow heart that we all recognize from the “Standing on the Side of Love” campaign logo. The heart would also be part of our float. My mother and I arrived at church every morning, and stayed until late in the afternoon, for a solid week completing both of these projects.

On Saturday, the day before parade day, my mother and I went to the church early, to meet Marcia and the rental truck. Carefully, we loaded the globe onto the truck, and secured it as well as we could. We drove to First Church in Dallas together, with Marcia driving the truck, me in the back protecting the globe, and my mother following us in her car, with the heart. Parts of the ride were harrowing, but we managed to get everything there in one piece.

The next step was to figure out how everything would go together, test it, take it apart, and then rebuild it all outside later that day, so it would be ready for attachment on Sunday.

Lifting the Globe | Photo Credit: Kathy Grey

On Sunday, we spent three hours making the float ready for the parade. In addition to the actual float, which included PVC tower adorned with banners, the globe (which sat atop the tower) and the heart, there were more 200 people representing almost all of the NTAUUS-affiliated churches, all carrying signs, and bursting with pride, Pride, PRIDE! We found later that we were the largest delegation from a religious organization.

Officially, there were 92 entries in the parade, and we were number thirty-one, which meant it was nearly an hour of impatience and exhaustion before we actually marched anywhere. I confess, that once we were moving I was terrified that the globe I’d spent so much time on would topple off the tower, but it didn’t, which left me free to help pass out hundreds of fans to spectators and fellow marchers alike. In fact, I was so energized by everything working as it should that my exhaustion evaporated, and I was able to actually run the fans from the truck to the people.

Several hours later, after the party had ended and the float had been dismantled, we regrouped at First Church where Daniel Polk (NTAUUS president and our group’s parade leader) showed off the trophy we had been given as our award for best social commentary.

And the winner is... | Photo Credit: Ian Grey

A recording of the presentation is now available here as an MP3 file. RT 32:42

A good turnout greeted American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Texas’ Executive Director Terri Burke. Ms. Burke addressed the State Board of Education’s recent abuse of its authority, including the efforts of some members to insert personal ideology into curriculum content. She also discussed issues of importance to voters in the upcoming State Board elections in November.

Burke drew on information gathered in the ACLU of Texas report, "The Texas State Board of Education: A Case of Abuse of Power" issued last May.