The Women's Resource Directory

New Page 1
went looking for Carena Pope's phone number to give to my co-worker and found this most excellent web page (not just for women).
http://www.wrcpgh.org/directory.htm

(..This just in from Ms Tyra of the YouthPlaces organization. now, those are some hard working folks. i hope everyone there on Smallman street are enjoying the summer. i hope to do some more work with them during the autumn of '04...jim)

Original Message-----
From: Salvador Wilcox, EI, Inc. [mailto:s.wilcox@educationinnovations.org]
Sent: Tuesday, June 29, 2004 2:51 PM
To: tgood@youthplaces.org
Subject: Scholarship Opportunity for Young Entrepreneur's Club

"Tyra-
It was a pleasure meeting you today. I hope we can get a partnership going! Below is information about our scholarship opportunity. Feel free to pass it along to anyone who you think would get some benefit. Thanks, Sal Wilcox

Education Innovations, a non-profit organization in Highland Park, has full scholarship opportunities to The Young Entrepreneur's Club (July 26 through August at St. Andrew's in Highland Park). We thank PNC Bank for the opportunity to offer this club free of charge to eligible children in grades 4 through 8. The Young Entrepreneur's Club runs Monday through Friday from 9:00AM to 12:00PM.

To accept a scholarship, students must be low-income and enrolled in his/her school's free or reduced lunch program. Student in the Young Entrepreneur's will learn how to earn, spend, and save money as well as develop business ideas that will keep earning for them for years to come. You can get more information about The Young Entrepreneur's Club at www.educationinnovations.org. Please send an e-mail to scholarships@educationinnovations.org if you would like to be considered for a full scholarship."

Salvador A Wilcox
CEO,
Education Innovations, Inc.
914 Heberton Street
Pittsburgh, PA 15206
412.363.7707 (voice)
412.363.7706 (fax)
www.educationinnovations.org

...and now, 412 with Mark Rauterkaus.

(...i always enjoy these updates from Mark...jim)

Hi Friends of Freedom,

You are invited to our July 4th party. Hope you can make it this year.

Come at or after 6 pm on July 4.

Details:

We are starting a little earlier this year as we'll play badminton and other games in the park by our house. We have something for every age and ability. So come to the house or directly to the park at 6 pm (or any time after).

Badminton is a popular world-wide, full-medal Olympic sport. We obtained some equipment from CHINA, where they have OPEN REC CENTERS and coaches.
We'll share. We'll even tell you a little bit about our five week trip if you ask.

Games are slated for the Armstrong Park, on 12th Street between East Carson and Sarah Streets. The park is one short block from our house, 108 South 12th Street. We are at the corner of 12th Street and Bradish, a gray, wood frame. Look for the "Fire Mayor Murphy" sign in the front window.

Games in the park start at 6 pm, crafts at the house, water
balloon toss, regatta fireworks at dark (9:30-ish). We supply lemonaide, chips, cups, napkins, spoons, forks (sometimes we even manage a fruit salad). If you want other drinks and snacks please feel free to bring them along. We have several beds to rest babies if little ones fizzle before fireworks.

Don't miss the fun. Let's spend an evening smashing "birdies" around the park -- birdies, not skeet.

FYI, we're inviting V.P., Dick Cheney as well. (His fax: 202-456-2461) He might be 'game,' as he'll be in Pittsburgh at Soldiers & Sailors' Hall in Oakland around noon on the 4th.

Confirmed out-of-town guests include our nephew, Cameron Middleburry College and his state's top student in 2003 ACT score) and Aunt Debbie (Florida).

For more insights: Mark@Rauterkus.com
cell = 412-298-3432

Closing Pointer and Rant:

Today (sunny to 6 pm, high of 74-degrees) the public pools within the
city closed at 2 pm. And, the Post-Gazette story from today, (must read)post-gazette sums up conditions in a part of the city. We (Pgh Interfaith Impact Network's Youth Task Force) were PROHIBITED from installing a computer lab, at no charge to the city, at the Warrington Rec Center. Sigh.

A majority on City Council is set to squander their rights and
independence. Council bargained for our city to enter into a "distressed status." The mayor rejoiced in its arrival. Within hours, our elected council is set to yield to the unelected of oversight boards and appointed authorities.

Elected city leaders: "Duty isn't pragmatic!" Pittsburgh's "UN-American" mode of operation aims for solutions that are one step better than the worst possible, again. To heal and soar takes much more.

Loyalist (loyal to King George) of 1776 didn't have to face scornful emails wedged within an invite to cherish and celebrate at a free 4th of July party. How sad for them. Thanks for reading and do consider a visit to the South Side on the 4th. And as always, thanks for your dissent.
Ta.

Mark Rauterkus http://Play.CLOH.Org
xCoach@Rauterkus.com http://CLOH.Org http://Rauterkus.com
412-298-3432 = cell

PS: - - - Other dates - - -
Invite 2: July 9, Club Cafe, concert with Mindy Simmons
(singer/songwriter). Theme: "This IS America." http://S6.CLOH.Org

Invite 3: July 11, Sunnyhill Sunday Service at 10:30 am --
Intergenerational Service and Music. Theme: "Consider the Source."
http://Sunnyhill.Org

Invite 4: I'm slated for a radio show, 1360 AM, on July 1 at 7:20 am to talk about the ACT 47, Pittsburgh and a pending edition of the Park District Proposal. http://DSL.CLOH.Org/v1/ Email your thoughts now.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
412-Public-Remarks is an email service from Mark Rauterkus.
Thanks for listening. You can control your own subscription at the URL below: http://rauterkus.com/mailman/listinfo/412-public-remarks

my neighborhood streets are overrun with these 'toys'.

Wired News: Speedy, Tiny and Troublesome

"Whizzing down the street just inches from the pavement, Vincent Walstra looks like a big kid getting away with his little brother's pint-size bike. Arms and legs straddling the shiny yellow two-wheeler, Walstra knows he looks silly, but he's having fun on his new toy -- a shrunken-down motorcycle commonly referred to as a "pocket bike."


i posted a letter to pittsburgh tv station WPXI about this issue just yesterday. this is more dangerous than kids on bicycles

note to self

looking back over the last flurry of entries, i promise to edit for length and speling. grammer, syntax and punctuation are extremely overrated. jim

a little lite reading

Rethinking Schools Online:

"Founded in 1986 by activist teachers, Rethinking Schools is a nonprofit, independent publisher of educational materials. We advocate the reform of elementary and secondary education, with a strong emphasis on issues of equity and social justice."

(...i no longer have children in the public school system, but i'm keenly aware of the challenges of contemporary public education. i visit classrooms and converse with 12-18 year-olds on a weekly basis. i respect both teachers and administrators who go to work with the intention of providing a safe and fertile ground for the physical growth and literacy of our children...jim)

ged out and fine som'ting to do -- you lazy mon'.

Gregg Services, Inc.

you don't have to go to kuwait to find a living wage! call the good folks at Gregg Services Inc.

remember who'll be changing our diapers.

AlterNet: Election 2004: This Ain't No Party

"In Cincinnati, the bus pulled into the Over-The-Rhine neighborhood that had erupted in rioting in April of 2001 after the police shooting of black resident Timothy Thomas. There, things took a strange turn. "The pastor who was supposed to walk us through the neighborhood got scared and left us," Neo recalls. "It was wild. One of my Somali brothers, they tried to rob him, take his watch and his chains. A white guy who was with us, they came at him like nine, ten deep, just talking about, 'This ain't the place for you to be.' One of the 14-year-old guys, somebody pulled a knife on him, just for asking him to register to vote."

(we really don't have any choice when it comes to preparing our children to assume control of this planet...jim)

We're Talkin' Happy Hour- right here!

hey there. yeah..you.
are ya looking for a good time?

(...I've never met Ms Gregg, vis-a vis, but
anyone who is willing to work this hard for
a charity event is looking better to me with
each passing moment. Please share some time
and some coin of the realm with these
fine people...jim)

Location: Sports Rock Cafe
1400 Smallman Street, Pittsburgh, PA
When: Thursday, July 22, 6:00pm- 9:00pm

"Pittsburgh's 50 Finest" are 50 of Pittsburgh's most eligible men and women, who are honored for their activity in the community professionally and charitably. They are successful in their careers and are considered to be some of the most prominent, influential, and successful single professionals in the city. Join Shannon Gregg, one of Pittsburgh's 50 Finest 2004, as she raises money for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation by guest bartending at the Sports Rock Cafe! All tips collected will be donated to the CFF, so remember to bring LOTS of cash." (And for those of you who remember when Shannon was a bartender...order beer!)

www.gregg.bz
www.srcafe.net

This is London?

This is London

"Boxing legend Mike Tyson has been sleeping in homeless shelters and living like a 'street bum' since declaring himself bankrupt."
(...i'm sorry, i had to blog this one, if only for the photo image and the part of the text where Mike says, "...unsavory characters are giving me money."
i wish him no ill-will and i hope his station in life will be less complicated... don't we have enough shelters in Pittsburgh for Mike?...jim)

alternative views

Sensory homunculus - Museum, Exhibition and Display at The Natural History Museum, London

(...hey. ya' ever wonder what the various parts of our bodies would look like if they they grew in proportion to the area of our brain responsible for that parts' sensory perception?.... yeah, me neither.
well how about size in relation to money spent to maintain the various parts?...jim)

better living through genetics

Biotech @ 25: A Cartoon Guide to Genetics

"San Francisco artist Larry Gonick and UC Davis microbiologist Mark Wheelis use their artistic abilitiy and scientific knowledge to present a humorous look at genetics for a lay audience. Gonick has generously loaned The Bancroft Library the original art work for The Cartoon Guide to Genetics (1991)."

(...after all my doom and gloom stories about genetic fingerprinting i thought it best to present the livlier side of this frontier science. enjoy... jim)

can't get e'nuff of the pbs stuff

Explore Public Radio with RadioScout

(...found this site for lists of public stations and current/future broadcasts.
i just like the monotone voices of the pbs air-jockeys...jim)

4.5 years later, their baack....

Operation targets weapons, violence
(...found this little item tucked away in a corner of the way-back machine. this pogrom has the perenniality of crab-grass and each time the task force parachutes into my neighborhood i double the odds that i'll get shot in the head...wish me luck...jim)
"Operation targets weapons, violence
Repeat offenders focus of crackdown
Monday, January 24, 2000By Torsten Ove, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

"One hundred and fifty - that's roughly how many bad guys with guns are responsible for the bulk of the shootings in the Pittsburgh region, with its population of more than 2 million people.
And those are the people - the 'bad actors,' in cop-speak - that a federal, state and local gun task force has identified as the violent repeat offenders authorities want to curtail, one way or another, under Operation Target.
Operation Target, cited by President Clinton as one of four model anti-gun programs nationwide, is a broad-based effort by the U.S. attorney's office and a dozen law enforcement agencies to crack down on illegal gun trafficking and gun violence. One aspect of the program is to make it clear to the shooters out there that they're being watched, and if they're caught with a gun, they're going to prison - in some cases federal prison.
'We're trying to influence behavior,' said U.S. Attorney Harry Litman. 'For me, our success will be measured in terms of a decrease in shootings in the community. If we have significantly fewer shootings a year from now, then [Operation] Target will have been a success.'"

(...maybe the new task force will put the target on our chests...jim)

More talk

Safer Cities:
"MR. BLUMSTEIN: The drug story is a particularly complicated one, in part because one facet of the improvement we've been seeing lately is that the word is out on the street that the crack drug is a very has very undesirable consequences, and so we've seen a major decline in the use of it, really regardless of the drug war. So this nuisance feature that George mentioned is far less an issue out on the streets. We have in the meantime built up enormous prison populations. Over 20 percent of state prisoners, and over 60 percent of the people in the federal prisons, are there on drug charges.

Now lots of those folks are in on very long-term mandatories, have done nothing more serious than selling drugs, but the sanctions we've endorsed for drug selling in our attempt to do something about the drug problem have become very large. And I think it's fair to say that we haven't averted very many drug transactions through this enormous growth of incarceration, largely because it's a resilient marketplace. Whatever the demand is out there, the market finds ways to meet that demand by the current sellers working harder or recruiting new people.

One of the consequences was that in the mid-80s there was major recruitment of young African-American males not in the drug business, and if you're in that business you have to carry a gun because you're vulnerable to attack by street robbers. What we saw was a major spreading of guns from the kids in the drug markets to their buddies, and that was a major factor in the growth of the homicide and other violence during the late 80s."

say what!?

Safer Cities::
"MR. BLUMSTEIN: Crime rates in the US have been violent crime rates particularly, and homicide in particular, which is the best measure of crime, has been coming down rather steadily since it peaked in 1991. We are now at a level of homicide that we haven't seen since the mid-1960s, all of which is good news.

MR. NNAMDI: And what are the breakdowns in that decrease in the overall crime rate? Are property crimes also falling?

MR. BLUMSTEIN: Property crimes are also falling, but the violent crimes are the ones that trouble most people, and violent crimes being measured best as homicides and robberies, and both are following a very similar path, coming down in the order of 5 to 10 percent a year. But this decrease obviously can't continue indefinitely, and we're starting to see a flattening out at least in the larger cities, which are the ones that started down first, in part because the largest cities were the ones that started up first in the mid-1980s, largely a consequence of the growth of crack markets and the violence associated with those, and the presence of guns, particularly in young people's hands. I think it's important to note that the entire growth of the late 80s, which peaked in 1991, was attributable to young people using handguns, in terms of homicides.

MR. NNAMDI: Jeremy Travis, your take on these statistics?

MR. TRAVIS: Well, it's important to recognize that this is in some ways the best of times in a long time in this country in terms of overall crime rates, and as Al Blumstein points out, the sharp decline in violent crime and homicides that we've seen in this decade is particularly welcome, and that has been experienced in large cities and in poor neighborhoods particularly.

ok, here's the Stick. what, no Carrot?

ThePittsburghChannel.com
Federal 'Impact Team' Tackling Pittsburgh Gun Crimes

they'll call it collateral damage.
(...i live in Homewood. have been for the past 12 years. before that, i lived in East Liberty, for 15 years. i don't believe that long federal sentences will deter people from committing the violent acts for which the Impact Team has been assembled. these crimes are not being performed by people with much foresight or introspection.
after many years of waging a war on drugs with no real victory in sight, the federal police are coming back into our neighborhoods to engage the only combatants they have any chance of defeating.
Armed with the skills and weapons from the urban war in Iraq, our government is poised to bring their 'shock and awe' show into my community. the current 'patriot act' virtually nullifies any shred of civil rights that american citizens can lay claim to. and under 'patiot act 2, we'll wave goodbye to any chance of privacy, security or quality of life...jim)
Why is this invasion set to occur in my neighborhood. because no one will protest the use of extreme force against 'those people' in 'bad' neighborhoods. the DEA hasn't stopped the flow of drugs into this country. the local police have not stopped the successive waves of drug peddlers from working our streets. the ATFE can only make it difficult, not impossible, for weapons and munitions to get into my neighborhood.
my mind is reeling around this decision to flood my community with high-tech surveillance and black-clad 'spooks' who answer only to Ashecroft.
Just when i'd gotten used to the internal dangers of walking through my neighborhood, now i've got be on the look-out for federal-ninjas whose primary duty is to bring convictions against the people of my community.
of course i want the killing to stop. i'd also like the dilapidated and abandoned house next to mine to be demolished. but after 5 years, it ain't happening. i'd like the good people of Penn Hills to quit doing 40 mph on my Main street as the pass through on their way to work. i'd like a federal task force remove all the abandoned cars that have been allowed to die on the streets and empty lots in my neighborhood.
and while their at it, can somebody on the Impact Team stop the ice-cream truck guy from playing that same silly song so darned loud-in my neighborhood.
The logical argument is going to be 'if your not involved in criminal activity, you should have nothing to fear.
i'm a black man living in a low-income urban community about to be invaded by a federal task-force whose mission is to surveille, arrest and convict. i live in America-- i would rather take my chances on the streets than with the team from 'mission impossible 3'. i've got plenty to fear.
they'll call it 'collateral damage'

No Taxes on Broadband

Wired News: Bush: No Taxes on Broadband

As for broadband, Bush said users should not be taxed, and that the government should encourage competition among providers.

Bush has already signed into a law a two-year extension of the Internet Access Tax moratorium, which expired last fall. Now, he's calling on Congress to pass legislation that would extend the moratorium to broadband and make it permanent.

The House has passed a moratorium on user taxes levied against consumers who subscribe to broadband; the Senate is scheduled to address the issue this week.

(and in another part of the planet, the wiley Jeb Bush of Florida has figured-out a way to drop the anvil on the head of the unsuspecting Floridian consumer. See 'Poll Tax' below or go directly to article ...jim)

real talk

Scott & Gary
Scott: Dude.
Gary: Bro.
Scott: Dude.
Gary: I know.
Scott: This is good for me. I've been spending too much of my life programming Java servlets.
Gary: Dude. You have no idea. I lived in Albany.

Then we made a pact of honesty, promising to tell each other the truth in pursuit of a greater
goal, a musical version of Maoist self-criticism.

Scott: You're not that good a guitar player.
Gary: You're a pathetic sound nerd.
Scott: Your lyrics blow, and your voice cracks.
Gary: You're not allowed to program any more drum tracks.

It stung, but it was also a relief. We could stop pretending and just play, and concentrate
on our strengths. After our third session, with 10 minutes of untitled song ideas multi-tracked
onto Scott's hard drive, I told him we needed to think about getting a band together.

Scott: Well, you know, this is fun, but I don�t know if I want to go through all the stress.
Gary: [staring silently]
Scott: I'm just saying, it's a lot of work.
Gary: Sure, I understand. Your time is better spent programming Java.
Scott: No, but...
Gary: I mean, what'll be great, is when you�re on your bed of death, a ring of grandchildren around you...
Scott: Grandnephews and grandnieces...
Gary: And the nurse is hooking up an IV to your arm, and you turn to the people in the room and with
rheumy eyes, you can say, "I die knowing my skills in object-oriented programming increased revenue for a
branding consultancy".
Scott: I'm just saying it's work.
Gary: Allow me, Scott, to draw you a picture.

Scott waited with exasperated patience as I drew a stick fish and a stick person. Under the stick person
I wrote the words 'Martin Gore'.

Scott: Fish Martin Gore."

i came, i saw. i mooched.

"Why Freegan
- An Attack on Consumption -
- In Defense of Donuts -

Why Freegan?
Freeganism is essentially an anti-consumeristic ethic about eating; asking 'Why freegan?' is essentially asking 'Why not consumerism?, so here is a quick criticism of consumerism.

Treading lightly on the Earth - Our high impact, produce & consume society puts a very intense strain on the Earth and her resources. Rainforsets are clear-cut to provide more land for food production. Food production also consumes vast quantities of fresh water, one of our fastest-depleting resources. And then there is the packaging! Go look in your trash right now and most likely it will be filled with plastic, paper, and styrofoam packaging from food products (if not you get mad props!). Go look in any trash or landfill and you will see literally tons & tons of packaging. The act of consumption is the transformation of natural land and resources into money for corporations and acres of trash in landfills. (This is not a good thing.)

Anti-Capitalism - If you are an 'anti-capitalist', what vetter way to protest the economy than withdrawing from it and never using money?

Working Sucks - Where does the money you spend come from? You or your folks working long hours at a dehumanizing job, most likely. You don't have to compromise yourself and your humanity to the evil demon of wage-slavery! Working sucks and if a little scavenging can keep you from needing a job than go jump in a dumpster! Even if you do need to work to pay your bills, think about how much less you would have to work if you didn't have to buy food. "