Join us for talk about..ourselves.

Discussion/Study Group for Local Economy Readings and Action

Based on the E.F. Schumacher Society's paradigm, this group will read and discuss short and longer essays, watch short videos on the subjects of land, labor and money as community assets, rather than as commodities.
Reading will include Jane Jacobs, E.F. Schumacher, Robert Swann, Susan Witt, Peter Berg, Rudolf Steiner and many more who have written or spoke on the tools and paths to create a regional economy.
The discussions will be moderated-without having too much structure we hope-and we wil focus on the land, Labor and Wealth Generation topics seen on the Society's website:
smallisbeautiful.org

The idea is to hold these groups once month, and alternating Uptown and downtown locations. We would also like it to be non-alcoholic at one and alcohol-allowable for the other. We expect that Fair Grinds Coffeehouse will be our downtown location as they are leaders and true community people in their parts and we will no doubt find a successful Uptown location easily.

Please leave comments here to talk about your interests in this concept and possible Uptown locations.
My initial feeling is Mondays or Wednesday nights will be best and possible starting at 6 pm.
Dar

Join us this June

Democracy at Work:
3rd National Conference of Worker Cooperatives
and Democratic Workplaces
New Orleans, LA
June 19-22, 2008


The conference will be held on the campus of Loyola University in New Orleans, and is co-sponsored by the Twomey Center for Peace Through Justice at Loyola. We're preparing for three full, focused, fun days of information exchange and skill-sharing, thinking about our place in a larger movement for economic justice, creating connections with each other and other groups, and continuing to build our national Federation.

We will have workshops by and for worker cooperators, speakers from around the world, presentations by New Orleanians and those helping to rebuild the city, one-on-one consultation times with co-op development experts, meals together, parties and social events, live music (of course! it's New Orleans!), and plenty of chances to spend time together enjoying the excellent company of other worker cooperative members and supporters.

2008 National Worker Cooperative Conference Schedule
Schedule last updated: Monday, May 26, 2008


THURSDAY 6/19
4-11pm Check in to lodging
8-10pm Movie Night
Faubourg Treme: The Untold Story of Black New Orleans
At Home in Utopia
Argentina: Turning Around

FRIDAY 6/20
8am OPTIONAL: Morning stretching in Audubon Park for early risers
9am Continental Breakfast & Check in to lodging
9:45am Welcome and Introduction
10am USFWC Membership Meeting: All Group
WORKSHOPS
Biodiesel: A Community Industry (Part 1)
What's the Economy For Anyway?
Social Capital and Democratic Participation
Taxation of Patronage Dividends: Are They Subject to Self-Employment Tax?
12pm Lunch
1-3pm USFWC Membership Meeting: Small Groups
Bylaws, Strategic Plan, Inclusiveness and Equity, Member Participation,
Unions and Coops, Big Ideas
WORKSHOPS
Biodiesel: A Community Industry (Part 2)
Intro to Worker Coops
3pm Break
3:30pm New Orleans-Focused Showcase of Cooperatives in Central City N.O.
5:30pm New Orleans Co-op Showcase
Reception
Rebuilding Tours of New Orleans
7pm Party and Dinner hosted by New Orleans emerging co-op community

SATURDAY 6/21
8am OPTIONAL: Morning stretching in Audubon Park for early risers
9am Continental Breakfast
10am Welcome to New Orleans
Shakoor Aljuwani, C4 Tech members, others TBA
10:30am Session 1: Economic Justice, Development, Community
Self-Sufficiency
Speaker: Harvey Reed, Louisiana Assn of Cooperatives, Kathia Duran, Global Trade Network; Greta Gladney, Louisiana Assn of Cooperatives
11:30am WORKSHOPS
Intro to Worker Coops
Green Union Coops: A Strategy for Development
Youth Empowerment Through Cooperation
Managing the Cooperative Difference
Spanish-Speaking Workers' Space
1pm Lunch
2:15pm Session 2: The Cooperative Difference - Nuts and Bolts
Speaker: Omar Freilla,Green Worker Cooperatives
3pm WORKSHOPS
Building the Cooperative Movmement in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast (Part 1)
Taking The Man out of Management
Develop This! The Gloriously Imperfect World of Coop Conversions
Construction Cooperatives
Financial Planning for Growth
4:30pm Break
5pm WORKSHOPS
African American Women in Worker Cooperatives: Then and Now
Rural-Urban Connections in Building a Cooperative Food System
Feeling Lost and Confused? Maybe You Should Come to This Workshop
Senior Workers Benefits
Participatory Credit Union Proposal
7pm Dinner
9pm Social/Musical Event,
Night on the Town

SUNDAY 6/22
8am OPTIONAL: Morning stretching in Audubon Park for early risers
9am Continental Breakfast
Open Space on Continuing Education Opportunities
10am USFWC
Membership Meeting and Elections
WORKSHOPS
Community Connections: Anti-Oppression in Coop Planning & Practices
Effective Online Tools for Dummies
Open space

12:30pm Lunch
1:45pm Session 3: International and Intercooperative Connections
Speakers: Aaron Dawsom, Lisa Russell, Equal Exchange; more TBA
2:45pm WORKSHOPS
Building the Cooperative Movmement in New Orleans (Part 2)
The Role of Politics and Principles in Building an Inclusive Movement
Argentinian Cooperative Movement and Cooperative Fund Experience
Visualizing a New Economy: Local and Regional Federations
Swimming
in the Mainstream: Alliances with Small Business & City Gov't
Union-Coops Roundtable
4:15pm CLOSING EVENT
Bringing the Conference Back: Sharing Practical Applications
5pm Dinner

DEMOCRACY AT WORK

3rd National Conference of
Worker Cooperatives and Democratic Workplaces
June 20-22, 2008
Loyola University in New Orleans

Speakers and workshops
Panel presentations and discussions
One-one-one consultations with experts
New Orleans Cooperative Showcase event
Party hosted by New Orleans emerging co-op community
Volunteer Work Week with local projects afterward: June 23-26
Membership meeting and elections for the US Federation of Worker Co-ops
And most important: an opportunity to meet and talk with each other and be inspired!


THIS EVENT IS OPEN TO PUBLIC.
Supervised childcare and Spanish translation will be available.

Registration is affordable and scholarships are available.
There are discounts for USFWC members and New Orleans residents.

For more information on travel and lodging, a schedule of events, and a listing of workshops and presenters, check out the conference website: www.usworker.coop/conference2008

Register online at: www.usworker.coop/conference2008/register or call (415) 379-9201 to request a registration form. Registration deadline is May 20, 2008.

this week at Zeitgeist on Oretha

ZEITGEIST MULTI-DISCIPLINARY ARTS CENTER
1618 ORETHA CASTLE HALEY BLVD.
(Across from Cafe Reconcile in the Saturn Screen Printing Building)
New Orleans, Louisiana 70113
(504) 827-5858Â
www.zeitgeistinc.net
zte@bellsouth.net
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CONCERT:

Saturday May 3rd @ 8:30 p.m.:
JAMES SINGLETON will present a concert that will begin with the James Singleton String quartet. Matt Rhody is the first-call bad-ass violinist in town. huge sound, chops to burn, and tons of ideas. his experience is wide-rangeing from classical to jazz. Similarly, Dave Rebeck is a great violist. he is often heard with Klezmer Allstars, LPO, and everything else including bluegrass. Hello again Helen. Gillet has done everything from french musette to indian ragas. her classical chops are way up as well. " I wanted to do an acoustic project. really whisper.With these great string improvisors in town it seemed like an obvious combination. String quartet with BASS, damn it hell YEAH. They actually beat me to it because they already were in a classical string quartet together. I called them individually and booked a rehearsal 6 weeks in advance. i had finished 2 pieces for the band and my 18-year-old pitbull became terminal. i had a minor breakdown over the loss and didn't write any more music for a while. with the rehearsal looming and schedules hard enough to coordinate, i simply wrote viola and cello parts for some of my best older pieces. it ended up feeling so good we made a record." The quartet will play, and then have 3 guest soloists. strings plus Bourgeois. then strings plus Satoru Ohashi. "Satoru moved from japan to New Orleans and learned a lot of trumpet in a hurry. he sat in one night at Donna's and just tore me up. i instantly knew he could go way way out there with me. we had a great trio. we played a handful of gigs with Cuccia and electronics. it was freakadelphia. then he took me to japan and we played traditional! ballin' the wall! last time i saw him was in the saint anne parade carnival day." ...then strings plus mr. Peake on laptop and percussion. and then all together don't you just know it? "For 30 years the festival has been a great ritual for me. it brings the listeners together from all over. and the random peripheral events are a HUGE part of it. trying the latest new youngbloods on for size. really stretching for special moments. and in New Orleans you always get the gutbucket."
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FILM:Â

Tuesday, May 6 through Thursday, May 15 @ 7:00 p.m.
TAXI TO THE DARK SIDE by Alan Gibney.

2008 Academy Award-winner, best documentary.

From the director of Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, Alex Gibney’s Taxi to the Dark Side is a gripping investigation into the reckless abuse of power by the Bush Administration. By probing the homicide of an innocent taxi driver at the Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan, the film exposes a worldwide policy of detention and interrogation that condones torture and the abrogation of human rights. This disturbing and often brutal film is the most incisive examination to date of the Bush Administration’s willingness, in its prosecution of the “war on terror,” to undermine the essence of the rule of law. The film asks and answers a key question: What happens when a few men expand the wartime powers of the executive to undermine the very principles on which the United States was founded. Incorporating rare and never-before-seen images from inside the Bagram, Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay prisons, and interviews with former government officials such as John Yoo, Alberto Mora, and Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, interrogators, prison guards, New York Times reporters Tim Golden and Carlotta Gall (who wrote the first stories about the homicides in Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan) and the families of tortured prisoners, the film dissects the progression of the Administration’s policy on torture from the secret role of key administration figures, such as Dick Cheney, Alberto Gonzales and others to the soldiers in the field. In the face of thousands of prisoners passing through the system, an astonishing number of admitted homicides, and a hastily drafted law -- the Military Commissions Act -- that grants immunity to government officials for crimes against humanity while denying the fundamental right of habeas corpus to others, Taxi to the Dark Side forces us to ask why, in the face of so much evidence of the ineffectiveness of cruelty as a means of obtaining information, we sought to insist on its use? Have we, by pursuing such ruthless means, lost the moral high ground in the war on terror and made ourselves less safe? Even more important, have we compromised our own sense of humanity, our democratic values and our effectiveness as a world leader?  $7 general / $6 students & seniors / $5 Zeitgeist members and children 16 and under.
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FILM & CONCERT:

Tuesday through Thursday, May 6 through 8 @ 9:00 p.m.Â

NOTE BY NOTE is a feature-length documentary that follows the creation of a Steinway concert grand, #L1037--from forest floor to concert hall. It explores the relationship between musician and instrument, chronicles the manufacturing process, and illustrates what makes each Steinway unique in this age of mass production. Each piano's journey is complex -- spanning 12 months, 12,000 parts, 450 craftsman, and countless hours of fine-tuned labor. Steinway & Sons pianos are the instrument of choice for top musicians around the world -- partly because of their uniqueness in the marketplace, mostly becuase of their quality. Based in Queens, the company continues to employ first-generation immegrants, rely on tools of techniques forged 150 years ago, and build unique personality riddled pianos. Simply stated Steinway is an anomaly in today's digital world. The award winning film asks key questions. "It takes a universal subject," says director Ben Niles, "and explores its origins and he people whose livelihoods depend on it--craftsman and musicians alike." In our age of mass-production and consumption, what is the role of the musician--both an instrument's craftsman and its player? Musically, what have we gained? More importantly, what are we loosing?
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The star of the film - STEINWAY L1037- the piano actually made in the film will be here @ Zeitgeist each night through the generous efforts of Steven O. Kichen @ Hall Piano Co. and Jim Browne, Argot Pictures. Each night after the film there will be a concert by a major area jazz musician on the piano. Tuesday, May 6 will feature a concert with Tom McDermott and Larry Siebert. $10 general/$9 students & seniors/$8 Zeitgeist members includes the film and the concert. or see just the film Wednesday or Thursday for  $7 general / $6 students & seniors / $5 Zeitgeist members and children 16 and under.