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Coast-to-Coast Peace Pie Deliveries Celebrate Mother’s Day Department of Peace supporters across the country honored Mother’s Day on Friday by delivering homemade “peace” pies to the local offices of their U.S. representatives and senators, urging support for landmark legislation to create a U.S. Department of Peace and Nonviolence. This is the fourth year the event has been sponsored by The Peace Alliance, the nonprofit, nonpartisan, organization that leads the growing grassroots movement to create a U.S. Department of Peace. In addition to the national grassroots peace pies, the Peace Alliance delivered 435 pies at the nation’s Capitol, one to each member of the House of Representatives.
The pies, representing the federal budget, all had a tiny slice cut out to show how little money is needed—less than 1% of the federal discretionary budget—to create the Department.
Peace Alliance Pie Chart [1] “It’s time to give peace a piece of that pie,” said Peace Alliance Managing Director, Wendy Greene, “Right now, we spend relatively miniscule amounts of money on programs and policies that proactively address the root causes of violence, and billions upon billions dealing with the after-effects. It’s time to change that.”
Kathy Kidd, National Field Director of The Peace Alliance, said, “This is the 4th annual ‘Peace Wants a Piece of the Pie’ event, and each year we increase the scope. Last year 250 pies were delivered around the country. This is the first year that we have delivered information and pies to every single member of the House, here in D.C.” Legislation and Support
Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) has continually introduced legislation to establish this new, cabinet-level department, since 2003. Most recently, he introduced H.R. 808, on February, 5, 2007. Kucinich is the 2003 recipient of the Gandhi Peace Award, an annual award given for "contributions made in the promotion of international peace and good will." [2] H.R. 808 has 68 co-sponsors, and has been endorsed by over 50 organizations including: the American Psychiatric Nurses Association, Amnesty International, National Organization for Women, Pax Christi USA, Physicians for Social Responsibility, September Eleventh Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, Tikkun, and Veterans for Peace.[3]
www.merylannbutler.com Meryl Ann Butler is an artist, author and educator who counts First Lady Dolley Payne Todd Madison as well as two signers of the Articles of Confederation among her ancestors. Mary Ball, mother of George Washington is in the ancestral lineage of Butler's great grandmother, Blanche Ball. Grateful to know that the blood of America's founding mothers and fathers runs in her veins, Butler has been newly filled with matriotism as a direct result of the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections. Lest she appear too uppity, it should be revealed that she also has family ties to James Butler Hickok, better known as Wild Bill. Butler has been actively engaged in utilizing the arts as stepping-stones toward joy-filled enlightenment for the past two decades. A native of NYC, her response to 9-11 was to pen an invitation to healing through creativity, entitled, "90-Minute Quilts: 15+ Projects You Can Stitch in an Afternoon" (Krause 2006). They don't call quilts "comforters" for nothing! www.90minutequilts.com Butler was faculty advisor for "The Love for All Mankind/Anti-Apartheid Quilt" project at ENMU (1993), now in the collection of the Hon. Nelson Mandela. As Arts Advisor for the Center for Improving U.S.- Soviet Relations (CIUSSR) Baltimore, MD; her activities included the "First U.S.-Soviet Childrens' Peace Quilt Exchange" (1987-88), an historic project chronicled in the media of both countries. Citizen diplomacy trips to the U.S.S.R. in 1987 and 1988 included lectures and presentations to fashion designers, craftspeople and artists in Odessa, Moscow, Kiev and St.Petersburg, in which she focused on the topic of creating global peace through international art exchanges. Butler is the proud mother of a daughter and seven stepchildren (all grown), and a passel o' grand younguns. It is to these new generations that she dedicates her political activism. Archived articles www.opednews.com/author/author1820.html Older archived articles, from before May 2005 are here.,
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