Boston Human Rights: Ideas and Action Conference

July 31, 2008
At the Boston Public Library
700 Boylston Street, Boston, MA
9:00-5:30

Program:

Welcome

The Leading Rogue State: Individual Rights?
Jean Lynch (disabled)
Rubén Rumbaut (migrants)
Tanya Golash Boza (migrants)
Dave Brunsma and Dave Overfelt (housing rights)
Brian Gran (youth)
Respondent: Ty de Pass
Presider: Alberto Moncada

The Leading Rogue State: Collective Rights?
John Barnshaw (water)
Mark Frezzo (democracy)
Rodney Coates (culture)
Judith Blau (trade)
Respondent: Grace Ross
Presider: Alberto Moncada

Human Rights Cities
Shula Koenig, PDHRE: The People’s Movement for Human Rights Learning

Roundtable Discussions: Social Identity?
Gender, Youth, Immigration, and Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Transsexual identities

Roundtable Discussions: Social Policy?
Health, Environment and Food, Peace and War, Labor, and Housing

Closing Remarks


Register Online:
www.bostonhumanrights.org

Sponsors include: Mass Global Action, Mass-Care, Open Media Boston,
Boston College Department of Sociology, Boston College Center for Human
Rights and International Justice, Sociologists without Borders, Society
for the Study of Social Problems, and Massachusetts Jobs with Justice.

Contact: info@bostonhumanrights.org

Lets' Crash the Party!

So, this post is mostly directed at those in Ohhh-three! Sorry, the rest of you. But there are ways that others can help-- read on!

I have received multiple emails and postcards from Tufts telling me of the 2003 Five-Year Reunion Party to happen on May 17. All of them went in the trash. And then I got another one.

Something similar happened to me a couple of years ago when the University College had an alumni event. I ended up going with a couple of friends and although we had invitations, it felt like we were crashing the party. It was fun (though maybe not for them!). So I thought that I would see if there is interest in crashing the reunion party. Let me tell you what I have in mind:

The Social Justice Fund has funded the Jumbo Janitor Alliance, which is an organization that supports janitors at Tufts as they seek a better contract with One Source. Many people will remember that this struggle has been going on for quite some time. The late Gerald Gill was a strong supporter of the Tufts janitors, even before they were outsourced and were forced to take a drastic pay cut for doing the same work.

The class of '03 is having a fun affair at Vox Populi in Back Bay. Lets show them what the vox populi really sounds like and organize a voice of dissent for a fair contract for the Tufts Janitors. Register for the event an then shoot me an email to let me know that you are coming! Here is a place where the Tufts Progressive Alumni Network can really get to work!

For those of you not in '03, there is a list of other events going on. You can distribute information here or just email the organizers of these events letting them know how you feel.

We can have fun at our reunion. If we do it our way.

Progressive Senior Award 2007

The Progressive Senior Award Ceremony occurred on Friday and it was a fantastic success, in my opinion. Thanks to Liz Monnin-Browder for pulling the event together, to all the members of the Award Selection committee for the hard work they did in selecting a winner, and congratulations again to Liz Manno for her great work in the Boston Chinatown community! TPAN member, Aaron Donovan LA'03, took some great pictures that are now posted on the TPAN website.

Left Forum - NYC

I will be attending the Left Forum 2007 conference at Cooper Union this weekend. They have an impressive roster including Amy Goodman, host of Democracy Now!; AK Press author Marina Sitrin; Anarchist Anthropologist David Graeber; Howard Zinn; and also people from The Nation, the Black Radical Congress, the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, and many more. I'll be mostly going to the Latin America and Social Movement panels, but I will be around. If anyone else is going or interested in going, do let me know: louis [at] tuftsprogressives [dot] org. See you there! -Lou

Join TPAN on MySpace...

-If you're on MySpace.com, join us at:
http://groups.myspace.com/tuftsesquerdistas

-If you're on Facebook.com or Friendster.com, search for and join the TPAN groups there too!