News

by Brad Johnson.

Cross-posted from ThinkProgress Green.

Five senators and 39 representatives received a perfect 100 percent score from the Koch brothers’ astroturf group Americans For Prosperity (AFP) for
the first half of the 112th Congress. AFP judged Congress on their votes to protect the Koch brothers’ right-wing petrochemical empire on such issues as the repeal of President Obama’s new health care law,
preempting EPA’s authority to regulate greenhouse gases, Chairman Paul
Ryan’s budget to end Medicare, ending ethanol subsidies, several
Congressional Review Act resolutions of disapproval to overturn new
regulations, and the fiscal year 2012 appropriations bills.

The Koch Five are Sens. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), Orrin
Hatch (R-Utah), Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), and Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), who have
received a combined $187,400 in campaign contributions from the Koch empire:

Senator Koch Contributions

Coburn
$56,300

Crapo
$42,000

Hatch
$26,500

Rubio
$34,700

Johnson
$27,900

The Kochs were the top contributors to Johnson’s successful
campaign to unseat Russ Feingold in 2010. Like first-termers Rubio and
Johnson, Coburn has a perfect lifetime Koch score.

Related Links:

Time to be angry, not cynical, about corporate money in politics

Critical List: Congress does everything it can to screw the environment; fabric cleaned by sunlight

Congress passes the wrong pipeline bill

Date: February 23, 2012 – February 24, 2012
Location: UC Davis; Davis, CA

This day-and-a-half course on California water basics and water district board member governance will be held February 23 and 24, 2012 on the Davis campus of the University of California. The course will run from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. February 23 and 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. February 24.

The course is open to anyone interested in learning more about the history of and the management structure of water in California and about the water issues facing the state. The course will be especially beneficial to water resource industry staff, engineering and environmental firm personnel, legislators, legislative staff, advocates, stakeholders, environmentalists, public interest organizations and water district directors.

Top speakers are committed to teach the course led by Foundation Board Member Byron Buck, executive director of the State and Federal Contractors Water Agency.

Educational sessions the first day will include discussions on:

• California’s natural water environment
• California’s water rights systems
• Water demand and use
• Current issues in California water management
• The legal and institutional management framework

On the second day participants will be provided with a governance primer for water district directors that will include the roles and responsibilities of a director, legal requirements of board members and points on understanding the news media.

Cost: $150. Registration fee includes all educational materials, coffee breaks, lunch on February 23, and a graduation certificate upon completion of the day and a half course.

Watch the Web site for more information or contact the Water Education Foundation, 916-444-6240. Visit the Web site to register: http://www.watereducation.org/doc.asp?id=2230&parentID=849

More Information

Open Letter to Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi

Linda P.B. Katehi,

I am a junior faculty member at UC Davis. I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of English, and I teach in the Program in Critical Theory and in Science & Technology Studies. I have a strong record of research, teaching, and service. I am currently a Board Member of the Davis Faculty Association. I have also taken an active role in supporting the student movement to defend public education on our campus and throughout the UC system. In a word: I am the sort of young faculty member, like many of my colleagues, this campus needs. I am an asset to the University of California at Davis.

You are not.

I write to you and to my colleagues for three reasons:

1) to express my outrage at the police brutality which occurred against students engaged in peaceful protest on the UC Davis campus today

2) to hold you accountable for this police brutality

3) to demand your immediate resignation

Today you ordered police onto our campus to clear student protesters from the quad. These were protesters who participated in a rally speaking out against tuition increases and police brutality on UC campuses on Tuesday—a rally that I organized, and which was endorsed by the Davis Faculty Association. These students attended that rally in response to a call for solidarity from students and faculty who were bludgeoned with batons, hospitalized, and arrested at UC Berkeley last week. In the highest tradition of non-violent civil disobedience, those protesters had linked arms and held their ground in defense of tents they set up beside Sproul Hall. In a gesture of solidarity with those students and faculty, and in solidarity with the national Occupy movement, students at UC Davis set up tents on the main quad. When you ordered police outfitted with riot helmets, brandishing batons and teargas guns to remove their tents today, those students sat down on the ground in a circle and linked arms to protect them.

What happened next?

Without any provocation whatsoever, other than the bodies of these students sitting where they were on the ground, with their arms linked, police pepper-sprayed students. Students remained on the ground, now writhing in pain, with their arms linked.

What happened next?

Police used batons to try to push the students apart. Those they could separate, they arrested, kneeling on their bodies and pushing their heads into the ground. Those they could not separate, they pepper-sprayed directly in the face, holding these students as they did so. When students covered their eyes with their clothing, police forced open their mouths and pepper-sprayed down their throats. Several of these students were hospitalized. Others are seriously injured. One of them, forty-five minutes after being pepper-sprayed down his throat, was still coughing up blood.

This is what happened. You are responsible for it.

You are responsible for it because this is what happens when UC Chancellors order police onto our campuses to disperse peaceful protesters through the use of force: students get hurt. Faculty get hurt. One of the most inspiring things (inspiring for those of us who care about students who assert their rights to free speech and peaceful assembly) about the demonstration in Berkeley on November 9 is that UC Berkeley faculty stood together with students, their arms linked together. Associate Professor of English Celeste Langan was grabbed by her hair, thrown on the ground, and arrested. Associate Professor Geoffrey O’Brien was injured by baton blows. Professor Robert Hass, former Poet Laureate of the United States, National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize winner, was also struck with a baton. These faculty stood together with students in solidarity, and they too were beaten and arrested by the police. In writing this letter, I stand together with those faculty and with the students they supported.

One week after this happened at UC Berkeley, you ordered police to clear tents from the quad at UC Davis. When students responded in the same way—linking arms and holding their ground—police also responded in the same way: with violent force. The fact is: the administration of UC campuses systematically uses police brutality to terrorize students and faculty, to crush political dissent on our campuses, and to suppress free speech and peaceful assembly. Many people know this. Many more people are learning it very quickly.

You are responsible for the police violence directed against students on the UC Davis quad on November 18, 2011. As I said, I am writing to hold you responsible and to demand your immediate resignation on these grounds.

On Wednesday November 16, you issued a letter by email to the campus community. In this letter, you discussed a hate crime which occurred at UC Davis on Sunday November 13. In this letter, you express concern about the safety of our students. You write, “it is particularly disturbing that such an act of intolerance should occur at a time when the campus community is working to create a safe and inviting space for all our students.” You write, “while these are turbulent economic times, as a campus community, we must all be committed to a safe, welcoming environment that advances our efforts to diversity and excellence at UC Davis.”

I will leave it to my colleagues and every reader of this letter to decide what poses a greater threat to “a safe and inviting space for all our students” or “a safe, welcoming environment” at UC Davis: 1) Setting up tents on the quad in solidarity with faculty and students brutalized by police at UC Berkeley? or 2) Sending in riot police to disperse students with batons, pepper-spray, and tear-gas guns, while those students sit peacefully on the ground with their arms linked? Is this what you have in mind when you refer to creating “a safe and inviting space?” Is this what you have in mind when you express commitment to “a safe, welcoming environment?”

I am writing to tell you in no uncertain terms that there must be space for protest on our campus. There must be space for political dissent on our campus. There must be space for civil disobedience on our campus. There must be space for students to assert their right to decide on the form of their protest, their dissent, and their civil disobedience—including the simple act of setting up tents in solidarity with other students who have done so. There must be space for protest and dissent, especially, when the object of protest and dissent is police brutality itself. You may not order police to forcefully disperse student protesters peacefully protesting police brutality. You may not do so. It is not an option available to you as the Chancellor of a UC campus. That is why I am calling for your immediate resignation.

Your words express concern for the safety of our students. Youractions express no concern whatsoever for the safety of our students. I deduce from this discrepancy that you are not, in fact, concerned about the safety of our students. Your actions directly threaten the safety of our students. And I want you to know that this is clear. It is clear to anyone who reads your campus emails concerning our “Principles of Community” and who also takes the time to inform themselves about your actions. You should bear in mind that when you send emails to the UC Davis community, you address a body of faculty and students who are well trained to see through rhetoric that evinces care for students while implicitly threatening them. I see through your rhetoric very clearly. You also write to a campus community that knows how to speak truth to power. That is what I am doing.

I call for your resignation because you are unfit to do your job. You are unfit to ensure the safety of students at UC Davis. In fact: you are the primary threat to the safety of students at UC Davis. As such, I call upon you to resign immediately.

Sincerely,

Nathan Brown
Assistant Professor
Department of English
Program in Critical Theory
University of California at Davis

Check out these YouTube videos as well:

Protest at Cal

Police pepper spraying and arresting students at UC Davis

Riot Police at UC Davis

Berkeley police yank hair of female professor and students at Occupy Cal

Date: April 21, 2012 – April 22, 2012
Location: Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, USA

“A Meeting of Minds”–CNN

The Global Health & Innovation Conference is the world’s largest global health conference and social entrepreneurship conference. This must-attend, thought-leading conference annually convenes 2,200 leaders, changemakers, students, and professionals from all fields of global health, international development, and social entrepreneurship.

The conference’s confirmed speakers to date include:
Keynote Addresses
• Sasha Dichter, Director of Business Development, Acumen Fund
• Seth Goldman, President and TeaEO of Honest Tea
• Jeffrey Sachs, PhD, Director of Earth Institute at Columbia University; Quetelet Professor of Sustainable Development, Professor of Health Policy and Management, Columbia University; Special Advisor to Secretary-General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon
• Sonia Ehrlich Sachs, MD, MPH, Director of Health, Millennium Village Project, Earth Institute at Columbia University

For registration, abstract submission and further information on speakers, please visit the Web site.

http://johnmuir.ucdavis.edu/events/1791/global-health-innovation-conference-2012