Alaska Peace Center Committed to nonviolent conflict resolution, working for peace within ourselves, our community, and our world

The Alaska Peace Center booth goes on the road this Sunday!  — To the Renewable Energy Fair at Chena Hot Springs.  

10am to 4pm, August 14.

Come on out, if you have the time!  It is an inspirational, eclectic gathering of scientists, engineers, activists, businesses, and politicians. A great opportunity to connect in person with people involved in energy development, application and policy.

The focus this year is Hydrogen!

How we make it an energy standard ?

The Tanana Valley State Fair opened yesterday and runs through August 7th. Hours are from noon to 10 pm. Our booth is in the Borealis Pavilion near the large door at the east end. The Fair is the biggest opportunity of the year to interact with our community. All booth-sitting slots are filled, but most have only one volunteer. Stop by to say hello, or hang out for a while. Participate in our bean poll, where fairgoers can allocate 20 beans across a half-dozen budget categories to indicate how they would prioritize the national budget. While not exactly a scientific sample, the results are quite interesting compared to how our tax dollars are actually allocated in the current budget.

The 9th Annual Peace Feast on Saturday June 4th at Pioneer Park was a great opportunity for people to come together, relax in the summer sun, share ideas and interests, and find out about each other’s activities. As we emerge from all the restrictions of the covid pandemic it was great to have a meeting in each other’s presence. It was also nice that the weather was lovely! Our community is blessed with a multitude of small organizations working quietly to make all our lives better, and we heard short, insightful introductions to nine of them this year (see below for a list). Kudos to all the presenters and thanks to all who attended. We are always grateful for people’s support.

Coming up quickly is the Tanana Valley State Fair, which runs from July 29 through August 7. Our booth at the Fair is by far the largest opportunity of the year to interact with our community. Booth-sitters are needed, and we are very thankful for the people who have already volunteered. There are still 5 shifts (3 to 4 hours long) that need to be filled. All volunteers get a free day pass to the Fair. Check out the volunteer schedule and volunteer if you can! To volunteer please contact Maia Genaux at 907-388-0560 or at mg88morgan@gmail.com.

Organizing the Peace Feast and maintaining a presence at events such as Earth Day, Arbor Day, the Tanana Valley Fair, and the Renewable Energy Fair requires a lot of organizing, a lot of help and enthusiasm from many people, and, yes, money. Maintaining a website, maintaining our obligations as a charitable entity in the State of Alaska, maintaining an office where we can keep things and organize from, publicizing our events, booth fees at the Fair, all require a certain amount of money. We greatly appreciate the people who have already responded financially to our recent newsletter. If you would like to make a donation you can send a check to Alaska Peace Center, 3535 College Road Suite 203, Fairbanks, AK 99709-3722 or donate through PayPal. We very much appreciate your support.

Organizations and their spokespeople introducing themselves at the 2022 Peace Feast:

Fairbanks Climate Action Coalition Interfaith Working Group – Charley Basham
First Alaskans tribunals – Carrie Farr
FCAC Renewable Energy Working Group – Mike Musick
Meals on Wheels – Violet Toney
Alliance for Reason and Knowledge – Robert Shields
Roaming Root Cellar – Erica Moeller
Chena Tool Library – Melissa Kellner

“Every war eventually ends with diplomacy. The question is how long the killing goes on before the diplomats stop it.”

We should not underestimate the very grave danger we are all in from the potential for this war to escalate into a nuclear conflagration.

Russia needs to cease military operations and pull its troops out of Ukraine.  The United States, Western Europe, and Kyiv need to be prepared to listen honestly to Russia’s security concerns and to take concessions.  We should call on President Biden to begin good faith negotiations with all concerned parties, respecting each party’s security concerns.

Peace, please.

For a better understanding of the issues at stake, please see the March 3 & 24, 2022, posts at www.alsakapeace.org.   

View or download it here. Look for it soon in your inbox and, if you have provided us your USPS mailing address, in your mailbox. A big “Thank You” to editors Violet Toney and Maia Genaux, and to all who contributed.

9th Annual Peace Feast

Saturday, June 4, Noon to 2 pm

Square Dance Pavilion, Pioneer Park

Celebrating Peacemakers in Our Community
Come Help Us Celebrate!

Free barbeque! Please bring a dish to share and eating utensils if possible.

We’ve worked hard all winter and dealt with the December snowcalypse, months of icy roads, and more recently, floods. Soon it will be summer and we can take a day to relax. The Peace Feast is an opportunity for people working to make Interior Alaska a better place to live to come together, relax in the summer sun, share ideas and interests, and find out about each other’s activities. Our community is blessed with a multitude of small organizations working quietly to make all our lives better. We’ll be featuring short presentations from a sampling of these organizations that are improving the quality of life in our community.

The Square Dance Pavilion (aka picnic shelter) is between the Dance Hall and the Pioneer Air Museum.

The Alaska Peace Center works for peace, justice and sustainability – individually, in our community and globally – with a commitment to nonviolent conflict resolution. For more information, contact info@alaskapeace.org.

The Alaska Peace Center monthly meeting will take place at 7 pm on Thursday, June 2.

The link to join the meeting is:

https://us06web.zoom.us/j/82408901547?pwd=WjZLZ2FMRGZXaWFibjJSdGNUY2xtUT09

This link will be used for all monthly meetings this winter (first Thursday of each month) through June 2022.

More Zoom specifics: Meeting ID: 824 0890 1547, Passcode: 492648

All welcome! The primary topic will be finalizing plans for Saturday’s Peace Feast at Pioneer Park

7:00 pm via Zoom

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/82408901547?pwd=WjZLZ2FMRGZXaWFibjJSdGNUY2xtUT09
Meeting ID: 824 0890 1547
Passcode: 492648

All welcome! It’s time for the election of board members. New board members are needed. Board members serve two-year terms. We gladly anticipate fresh board energy, possibly moving the organization in new directions! Please contact apcboard@alaskapeace.org if you are able to help steer us by serving on our board of directors. ****** We Need You! *******

There are many upcoming events to plan for as well: Arbor Day on May 16, the 9th Annual Peace Feast on June 4, and the Tanana Valley State Fair in August.

The Nuns, the Priests, and the Bombs

documentary via Zoom, April 29, 2022, 7:00 pm

We’ll watch the documentary “The Nuns, the Priests, and the Bombs” via Zoom. This is about nuns and priests breaking into the storage facility for radioactive elements at Oak Ridge, Tennessee. These elements are the ingredients from which nuclear bombs are made and the facility is intended to be one of the most secure sites in the nation. The activists intention was both to call attention to these obscenely destructive materials in the center of our country, and to show that the security of these materials was not as good as has been advertised. The ease with which they got into the site and the length of time they had to wait to be discovered and arrested was quite embarrassing to the officials in charge of the facility. You can see the trailer at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kL6qxsvo_qc. More information and a synopsis can be found at http://www.passionriver.com/the-nuns-the-priests-and-the-bombs.html. The movie is 1 hour and 27 minutes long and we will have time for discussion afterward.

Here is the link to the Zoom meeting:
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/81364808482?pwd=U0hpcmRJbEFQeFF4SzdEdE4xL2lKZz09

Meeting ID: 813 6480 8482
Passcode: 948893

Geist Road and University Avenue, today, Saturday, April 16, 2022, 1:00 – 2:00 pm

We will meet again this afternoon to demonstrate for peace in Ukraine. Intersection of Geist Road and University Avenue, Saturday, April 16 from 1:00 to 2:00 pm

War is a terrible thing and my heart goes out to all the Russians and Ukrainians killed and wounded, and their loved ones, and all those who have already lost homes and livelihoods. Government pronouncements and the media provide a steady stream of denunciations of Russia’s invasion. Certainly the invasion should be condemned, but we should also acknowledge that the U.S. and NATO played a large role in escalating tensions. We have backed Russia into a corner and have failed for decades to give any credence to Russia’s legitimate security concerns.

In the midst of all the propaganda from both sides I think we can agree that the solution to violence is never more violence. Every war ends in a political solution. We should strive toward that solution and try to leave out the war part as much as we can.

STOP THE WAR IN UKRAINE!
Russian Troops Out! / No NATO Expansion!
Real Diplomacy, not Killer Sanctions!
Remove US Nuclear Weapons from Europe!
Cease Fire/Neutrality for Ukraine!

Below are links to a small part of the barrage of news and analysis that has arrived over the last few days.