Gray Panthers of Metropolitan Washington

The RAP Spring 2011 Volume 38 #2

2011-03-31T23:01:00.000-04:00

Spring 2011 Volume 38 #2

AGE & YOUTH IN ACTION

The RAP

GRAY PANTHERS OF METROPOLITAN WASHINGTON

General Membership Meeting

Saturday, April 16, 2011

2:00 - 4:00 PM

Tenley-Friendship Library

4450 Wisconsin Ave NW

Washington D.C. 20016

Tenleytown/AU Metro

Fighting Back Against the Budget Cuts

• Roger Newell, Teamsters Union

• Linda Leaks, Empower DC

• Joan Drake, Convenor, GPMW

Letter to Joan Drake from President Obama

I received this reply to my letter to the President voicing my concerns about threats to Social Security.

THE WHITE HOUSE

Washington

March 21, 2011

Dear Joan:

Thank you for writing. I have heard from many Americans about issues affecting older Americans. Today's economic climate further intensifies the unique challenges faced by seniors, and I appreciate your perspective.

My Administration continues to support older Americans encountering unfair treatment, financial hardship, or

difficulty obtaining health care. The historic Affordable Care Act strengthens Medicare by providing free

preventive care and improving care coordination. It gradually closes the "donut hole gap" in prescription drug

coverage, and provides individuals who fall into this gap a $250 rebate. This law also helps prevent and eliminate

elder abuse, neglect, and exploitation.

Additionally, the Affordable Care Act implements unprecedented measures to fight waste and fraud, and to

improve the quality and outcomes of care for Medicare beneficiaries. It ends unwarranted subsidies to private

insurance companies, and takes important steps to reduce unnecessary hospital admissions, improve patient safety, modernize payment systems, and streamline record keeping.

It also realigns incentives to reward medical providers for the value, not the volume, of their care. For resources and information on how to prevent, report, and stop Medicare fraud, visit: www.StopMedicareFraud.gov.

To learn more about the Affordable Care Act, please visit: www.HealthCare.gov.

By protecting Social Security from risky privatization plans, we are preserving solvency and maintaining it as a

reliable income source for seniors. The American Recovery and Retirement Act included an additional payment to supplement Social Security benefits for seniors struggling to make ends meet and I have called on Congress to extend this relief again. Together, we will ensure all our citizens, not just a privileged few, can retire with dignity and security.

Finally, as we work to keep America's promises to senior citizens, we are helping ensure older Americans can continue to enrich communities across our Nation through service and community involvement. By expanding the Senior Corps and implementing the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act, we are creating more opportunities for seniors to share their knowledge and experience with younger generations.

Thank you again for being in touch. To find assistance for senior citizens and their families, visit www.Eldercare.gov, or call 1-800-677-1116. For help with Medicare, call 1-800-MEDICARE. Additional information and resources are available at www.usa.gov/Topics/Seniors.shtml.

Sincerely,

Barack Obama

Gray Panthers Membership Meeting

The Gray Panthers General Membership Meeting will be held Saturday, April 16, 2011, from 2:00 - 4:00 PM at the Tenley-Neighborhood Friendship Library, 4450 Wisconsin Ave NW Washington D.C. 20016. (Tenleytown/AU Metro)

The topic will be ‘Fighting Back Against the Cutbacks!’.

Speakers will include:

Linda Leaks, member of GPMW steering committee and a co-founder of EmpowerDC is a community organizer with over 30 years experience of building movements for tenants and housing rights in the District; and Roger Newell, a senior staff member of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, has been active in the labor movement for over 25 years and works to further understanding the impacts of policies of globalization and structural adjustments on neighborhoods.

No Nukes is Good Nukes

The entire world watched as tragedy played out in Japan last month. I imagine that everyone kept the Japanese people in their hearts and prayers. As the horrific scenes were televised and web cast one could not help but think of how little control we have over the forces of nature. That is except for when it comes to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Nuclear power is a force of nature that we like to think we have tamed. But all it takes is for an unexpected, or more aptly, unplanned for, natural disaster to show us that this is not the case. The situation at Daiichi is still not under control and already there has been radioactive poisoning of the air, water and food in Japan.

As it is many Japanese people will suffer from some radiation poisoning leading to shortened lives and some workers have been seriously harmed. Here in the U.S., where the wind carries nuclear fallout from Japan in 3 days we may also have widespread poisoning from future fallout if the situation is not stabilized at Daiichi.

Chernobyl led to bird deaths in California, documented by Dr. Dave DeSante of the Institute for Bird Population and deaths in the U.S. were significantly correlated with the amount of Iodine-131 in milk in those regions (Gould and Goldman 1990). Their findings indicate that a linear dose response curve to radiation exposure underestimates the effects of low –level exposure by a factor of about 1,000 when comparing ingesting radioactive particles to being exposed to a brief pulse of radiation from an x-ray.

The U.S. has 104 nuclear reactors. Two of these, Diablo Canyon and San Onofre are the same type of reactors as Daiichi and also sit on fault lines in tsunami territory. In addition to these threats, hurricanes, tornadoes, flooding, heat waves/droughts and human error and neglilence are all threats to the safety of nuclear reactors. There are 3 million Americans living within ten miles of a nuclear reactor.

After one year of operation these sites hold the equivalent of 1,000 times the radioactivity that was released by the Hiroshima bomb. Sites have been found to leak radioactive material. Nine sites have been found to have radioactive tritium levels above 1,000,000 picocuries/liter in nearby ground water. Tritium has a half-life of 12+ years and will remain in the environment for the next century.

There is no safe method of disposing of nuclear waste (i.e. spent fuel). There is about 55,000 tons of nuclear waste in the U.S with about 2,000 metric tons added yearly. Even a volcano at 2,400°F is not hot enough to melt uranium oxide with a melting point of 5,189°F and there are no acceptable long-term storage strategies. The U.S. National Academy of Sciences reports that the radioactivity from waste stored from 1983 would take 3 million years to decay to background levels. The nuclear industry now promotes “reprocessing” o f nuclear waste as a green technology.

This reprocessing is in itself a dangerous and polluting process. The waste from the reprocessing will increase by a factor of twenty or more, including low-level uranium waste and plutonium-contaminated waste and will not reduce the need for storage and disposal of radioactive waste.

In addition the waste from reprocessing would make it easier for terrorists to acquire nuclear weapons materials and the Energy Department recently released an industry estimate that a reprocessing plant with an annual capacity of 2,000 metric tons of spent fuel would cost up to $20 billion to build—and the U.S. would need two of these to reprocess all its spent fuel with the charges passed on to the American taxpayer.

The good news resulting from the disasters in Japan is the renewed efforts of advocates for nuclear abolishment. It is crucial that President Obama hears from us as he is seeking $36 – 55 billion in funding for nuclear energy.

Other good news is that there are dietary changes we can make that protect us from radioactive poisoning. With the ever growing contamination of our air, water and food from nuclear power plants and other sources making some of these changes will help to ensure that fewer people get cancer and other harm from future exposure. Here are some of these foods:

Sea vegetables – Bind radioactive particles and eliminates them from the body. Kelp and dulse are good sources of iodine, which inhibits absorption of radioactive iodine. *

Spirulina and Chlorella help to enhance immune systems and have radio protective effects.

Miso soup has an active ingredient called zybicolin that binds and eliminates radioactive elements.

Green and black tea have ingredients that are radioactive antagonists.

Clay binds to toxins and helps to eliminate them. Can be used in a soaking bath or in very small doses internally.

*A reasonable daily dose of kelp would be 1-2 teaspoons of granules or 5-10 tablets. Other high iodine foods include: seafood, beef liver, pineapple, eggs and whole wheat.

Note: Taking kelp as a source of iodine is much safer than drinking iodine or eating potassium iodide, which can be especially dangerous for pregnant women and can cause allergic reactions.

Advocacy groups:

http://www.beyondnuclear.org/

http://www.nirs.org/

http://prop1.org/

http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/en/campaigns/nuclear/

http://www.uspirg.org

http://www.ucsusa.org/

Angela Flynn

Steering Committee Elections

Dear Panthers: Time to stop growling & get organized!

That's right -- our local Gray Panther Steering Committee 2011 elections are approaching fast! We invite you to consider running for office or nominating candidates of your choice for the several slots to be voted on at our next Election Day in September 2011. Candidates may run at large or for one of the following offices: 2 Co-Conveners, Secretary, & Treasurer.

Please contact Angela Flynn by phone at 202-290-1084 or by email at angelaflynn80@msn.com to put your name or your candidate's name forward.

Wishing you all the best and urging you to keep writing Congress & the President to voice your concerns about Social Security & Medicare, I am, Sincerely Yours, Joan W. Drake, Convener, GPMW.

Musings on the Daily Headlines

War, termed a half-century ago by President Kennedy as one of the “common enemies of man,” lurks anew in our headlines. In addition to the frightfully long and destructive interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. has taken on military action against Libya this Spring.

Day one alone of the assault on Libya with over 100 cruise missiles (each costing over a million dollars) directed at targets rang up over $130 million in federal dollars spent – none of which was planned on when last the government budgeted. And it is expected that the current military effort against Libya will cost the U.S. a minimum of $30 million dollars a week. This in a time in which we are told in the headlines that government spending is out of control and needs to be cut back virtually across the board. To believe the headlines we can’t afford health care, public broadcasting, social security, unionized workers . . . (feel free to add to the list, almost nothing is off limits).

What could we do with 30 million a week instead? Just locally, where the DC government is reporting a 300 million dollar budget shortfall, we could invest money, not just gimmicky theories, in education of children in our public schools. There, we could address building repair and textbooks. Or we could forego selling off public property (school, parks, etc) altogether and put them to use for the common good.

We need above all to get past the reflexive tendency to open fire – and drain our treasury – at the expense already suffering people elsewhere in the world. In Libya as in so many places in the world, we add death and destruction to an already serious toll in human suffering, and we do it often as not to enrich our own private sector at the expense of our own suffering people. One writer in California recently calculated a “‘Lockheed/ Martin tax’ of $260 per tax paying household in the United States.” That’s how much tax money goes to a single corporation from your household each year, primarily through Pentagon budget allocations. What if you kept the $260 for some of your pressing needs and Lockheed Martin got nothing from Uncle Sam.

We need to rethink our spending habits alright, remembering that war is our common enemy and the biggest squanderer of our money around.

Paul Magno

The Cradle of Civilization Tour

The Cradle of Civilization Tour, sponsored by Mirico, Henderson Travel Service and Ukimwi Orphans Assistance, is holding an essay contest that will award 10 young people – 5 males and 5 females – with a trip to the beautiful and vibrant country of Tanzania in East Africa.

This vibrant land is home to lions, elephants, zebras, baboons, leopards,ostriches, gazelles, wildebeests, flamingos and one of the world’s largest animal migrations. You will go on safari to see many of these animals; visit schools and orphans in 4 different cities; and see archeological finds that make Africa the “Cradle of Civilization”! You will get classes in Swahili, African history and anthropology; and you will also visit Ukimwi sites.

Ukimwi (AIDS in Swahili) Orphans Assistance, is an organization founded by Dr. John Rutayuga that for the last 20 years has been providing support to children and families that have been orphaned by AIDS, especially educational support. Their website is: www.ukimwiorphansassistance.webs.com.

To be eligible, you must: Be between the ages of 13 to 18; responsible; a student in good standing; have 100% support of your parent or guardian to make the trip; collect the most school supplies and/or write a 500 word or less essay on one of the following topics: 1) What is the “Cradle of Civilization and what does it mean to you? 2) How can travel to Africa increase your educational experience and help you achieve your goals? Or 3) How can you help children who have been orphaned by AIDS in Africa?

FOR MORE INFORMATION: contact Michele & Rick Tingling-Clemmons, 202.388.1111.

Rick & Michele Tingling-Clemmons

Call for Worldwide Support of the People of Bahrain

After Tunisia and Egypt, the specter of civilian-based revolution is looming at the doorsteps of autocratic regimes all across the Arab World. On February 14, dubbed the "Day of Rage," Bahraini activists organized a mass rally in Manama to call for political reform in Bahrain, where the Khalifa Dynasty has ruled for nearly 200 years. Bahraini authorities have responded brutally to the protest, killing as many as 9 people so far and injuring many others. Yet the people press on. And the world is watching.

If you would like to be more than a distant bystander, please join our international movement to put pressure on the Khalifa Royal Family by boycotting their lucrative airlines, Gulf Air and Bahrain Air, along with the whole state-run tourism industry in Bahrain. Sign the petition (below) and check out our event page on Facebook www.facebook.com/?ref=home#!/event.php?eid=195471790471362> .

Also, please support an International Arms Embargo 2011-02-28> against the Kingdom of Bahrain. Call and write your government officials to demand that they implement an arms embargo until democratic and human rights reforms are implemented.

Lou Wolf

MEMBERSHIP APPLICATION

REMIT YOUR DUES RENEW YOUR MEMBERSHIP TODAY ON THIS FORM

REGULAR INCOME: $30 FAMILY:$50 SUSTAINING MEMBER: $40 AND UP**

REDUCED INCOME: $15 LOW INCOME: $10*

* NO ONE IS DENIED MEMBERSHIP BECAUSE OF INABILITY TO PAY

* * SUSTAINING CONTRIBUTIONS ARE USED TO SUPPLEMENT LOW-INCOME MEMBERS

ALL CONTRIBUTIONS TO GRAY PANTHERS ARE TAX DEDUCTIBLE

NAME_________________________________________________________________

ADDRESS______________________________________________________________

TELEPHONE E-MAIL _____________________________

PLEASE MAKE CHECKS PAYABLE TO GRAY PANTHERS OF METRO WASHINGTON

PO Box 34062

Washington, DC 20043-4062

e-mail <gpanthers@capaccess.org>

202-290-1084

GRAY PANTHERS OF METROPOLITAN WASHINGTON

PO BOX 34062

WASHINGTON, DC 20043-4062

GPMW MEMBERSHIP MEETING JANUARY 29 2011

2011-02-02T11:13:00.001-05:00

The GPMW held their quarterly membership meeting on Saturday, January 29th at St Stephen's Church in Columbia Heights, Washington D. C.

We were pleasantly surprised to find invited guest speaker John Hughes, the new General Manager of WPFW, had arrived early and was able to start the evening's program. (WPFW was off the air as, just as for many of us, they were out of power. We hope everyone managed to keep warm and safe during our extreme weather event of last week.)

Mr. Hughes has resided in Washington D. C for five years and was formerly employed with Howard University's WHUT-TV as their chief operating officer. He brings a long history of public communications experience to WPFW from his years in Atlanta, Georgia working for Georgia Public Broadcasting.

Mr. Hughes reported that he sees his work at WPFW as reconfirming the core team, giving the station and the community an idea of direction for the coming years and committing to WPFW's motto--Jazz and Justice. He also had to report the not-so-great news that WPFW is underfunded and staff are working with 50% salaries. Their fund drive, a New Day A'Coming, runs from 2/3 - 2/29, and we strongly encourage those of us who can to offer our support for the station that brings us such diverse programming as Amy Goodman and Askia Muhammad. Listen to 89.3 FM in the coming weeks for pledge drive information and to keep entertained and connected, of course. One can also find more ways to contribute at http://www.wpfw.org/index.php?db=content/Support&tbl=Support&id=1

Our moderator, Michele Tingling Clemmons,gave a rousing introduction to the rest of the evening. Michele is a member of the National Gray Panthers Board and filled us in on the many activities underway. One project has seen results. In response to President Obama's State of the Union Address and potential cuts to Social Security, the Gray Panther national office, National Board members, and local networks developed an editorial and submitted it to national and local publications. The message: Tell Obama to Keep the Promise--No Cuts to Social Security. The editorial has been published in papers ranging from San Francisco to Massachusetts.

You can join in the action and find the sample editorial here-- http://graypanthers.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=155&Itemid=29

In addition to sending out the editorial, the board members met with members of Congress to educate them on the many benefits of Social Security.

To keep up on news and actions on the national level, please pay a visit to http://graypanthers.org. You will find information on our current issues and ways to get active, find events, and connect with local Gray Panthers all over the country.

Another sad sign of the times, the National Gray Panthers are facing funding cuts as well. Susan Murany, the Executive Director, moves to working on a part time basis until more funding is secured.

Mark Anderson, with We Are Family (WAF), started out our next round of speakers. We Are Family serves more than 500 seniors by providing 4,500 monthly grocery bags, more than 650 round trip rides, and close to 400 outreach visits as well as many other services. Many of these services are provide by a volunteer roster that exceeds 700 people. We Are Family sees itself as a bold experiment in building caring, just and inclusive communities. They offer services in Shaw, North Capitol Street, Adams-Morgan, Petworth and Columbia Heights neighborhoods.

Mark started out his community service in his early years by forming Positive Force, a socially conscious activist collective of punk rockers, back in 1974. We Are Family was born in 2004, and Mark reports that he has had his life transformed from his experiences with WAF. He has found that "What we do is maybe not as important as how we do it".

A big concern for WAF currently is gentrification, and they work to keep people in their homes as rising housing costs lead to the very real fear of losing homes for people on fixed incomes. WAF hopes to awaken a sense of community and to work on the simple premise--those who need receive; those who have give. You can find out more and connect with WAF at http://www.wearefamilydc.org/

Next up, Joni Eisenberg, host of WPFW program "To Heal DC", and recipient of the GPMW Geraldine Brittain award for Outstanding Community Service, shared with us her ideas for getting more effective messages on the airwaves, and ways to recruit our youth, and she recalled her early work with the Committee for a Nation Health Service with Gray Panthers founder, Maggie Kuhn. Joni has a 3 0-year background in public health with a focus on community empowerment, elimination of racial and ethnic health disparities, healthcare access and wellness. You can learn more on these topics by tuning into "To Heal DC" on Mondays from 11:00 am - 12:00 noon on WPFW, 89.3 FM.

Our last speaker, Lou Wolf, currently with Rock Creek Free Press, shared with us the many lessons he has learned from his investigative work with Covert Action Quarterly and his travels around the world. He reported that the news media often use disinformation tactics to mislead the public. They use slogans and mythologies to keep us entrained in their message rather than truly reporting the events occurring.

We finished the evening with a discussion on the looming crisis due to budget cuts and on what we can do to educate and activate people. One easy way to undertake action is to write letters to the news media, Congress, clergy, and others to educate them on important issues. A good resource to get you started is the already referred to Action Page of the National Gray Panthers -- http://graypanthers.e-actionmax.com/alertlist.asp . We also expressed the need for more community forums as a way to get people educated and involved.

On this note, please be sure to partake in EmpowerDC's upcoming National Day of Action called: Have a Heart--Save Our Homes on Monday February 14th. the District of Columbia "Have a Heart" demonstration will take place at the Hart Senate office Building at Constitution and 2nd Streets SE.

For more information and/or to sign-up, cal Linda Leaks at EmpowerDC 202-234-9119 x101.

linda@empowerdc.org

Below is more on this important event:

Tenants and concerned supporters are urged to get involved and say no to these proposed devastating cuts.

Deep Cuts Threats Future Of Affordable Housing (Low Cost Housing)
The New Republican majority of the US House of Representatives have not waited any time in cutting federal assistance to low income people.

On January 5, shortly after receiving the gavel from the Democrats, the new speaker of the House,John Boehner (R-OH), received approval from fellow legislators to make a 21 percent across the board cut of the federal discretionary budget except, of course, the military budget.

If a 21 percent cut is adopted by the Senate, according to the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, (www.cbpp.org) nationally, 750,000 low income tenants could loss their Section 8 based assisted housing, 500,000 Housing Choice Vouchers could be lost, and 25 0,000 Section 8 Project-based units could be lost. in addition to the likely devastating cuts to the section 8 subsidy, we are also looking at major cut to public housing and other housing programs.

Because the United States Congress did not adopt a budget for fiscal year 2011, it approved a Continuing Resolution (CR) in late December 2010 to keep the federal government running at its FY 2010 funding level.

If the 21 percent Budget cut is adopted By the Senate whICH returned to work on January 25, 2011, HUD (Housing and Urban Development) - funded housing assistance to low and moderate income tenants could be eliminated by March 4, 2011 upon expiration of the Continuing Resolution.

In the District of Columbia more than 5,000 low and moderate income families who live in a project-based Section 8 unit or live in public housing are facing the risk of losing their housing assistance if the 21 percent cut to the discretionary funding budget is adopted by both Houses of Congress.

Take action and say no to harmful cuts on February 14 at the Hart Senate Office Building, Constitution Avenue and 2nd Street SE .
---------------------------------
Angela Flynn
Admistrative Assisant
angelaflynn80@msn.com

GPMW READY FOR 2011

2010-12-29T12:47:00.000-05:00

With a reinvigorated Steering Committee (see below) and with an Administrative Asssistant replacing the former Executive Director to handle office matters, GPMW is getting its act together. The next Steering Committee meeting is set for January 13 at 6:30 pm at the office, 1500 Massachusetts Avenue NW, Suite 732.

Angela Flynn is the newly hired AA who has already prepared a new brochure for GPMW based on the National GP brochure and who should soon have a website with the help of a volunteer.

The Steering Committee members are:

Joan W Drake (Convenor)

Jennifer Babcock (Secretary)

Nzingha Tinglng-Clemmons (Treasurer)

Joseph H Flynn

Rose Marie Flynn
Linda Leaks

Paul Magno

Irving Riskin

John Steinbach

Michele Tingling-Clemmons

Richard Tingling-Clemmons

Louis Wolf

Ex Officio Steering Committee Members:

Angela Flynn, Administrative Manager

Alice Wallerstein, Communications

Joan W. Drake has been elected to the National Board of the Gray Panthers where she will join Michele Tingling-Clemmons who is already a Board member.

Our new mailing address is:

PO Box 34062

Washington DC 20043-4062

2010-10-21T10:18:00.000-04:00

GPMW HOLD ANNUAL MEMBERSHIP MEETING AND ELECTION

On September 30 at 6 pm GPMW and friends gather for the annual Steering Committee election and a general membership meeting. The event was held at the Stewart Mott House on Capitol Hill. Susan Murany, Executive Director of the National Gray Panthers spoke of activities at the national level.

One of the chief events was the awarding of the Geraldine Brittain Award to Joni Eisenberg, host of the "To Heal DC' program on WPFW. She was introduced by Michele Tingling Clemmons, a longtime friend and a member of the National Board of the Gray Panthers . Certificates of Appreciation were awarded to: Irving Riskin, longtime member of the Gray Panthers of Mongtomery County and an organizer who worked with Maggie Kuhn; Michele and Richard Tingling Clemmons, advocates for Single Payer Healthcare and supporters of Statehood for the District of Columbia; John Steinbach for his advocacy for Immigrants in Northern Virginia and for his anti nuclear efforts in conjunction with the late Louise Franklin Ramirez, his wife.

2010-10-21T09:48:00.000-04:00

WOMEN OF PEACE AWARDS

On August 1 2010 the Women of Peace Awards were given at Busboys and Poets at 5th and K Streets NW. Susan Murany, Exectutive Director of the National Gray Panthers, welcomed the attendees and spoke of Maggie Kuhn, founder of the Gray Panthers. Joan Drake, convenor of the Metropolitan Washington Gray Panthers, and Ann Wilcox , local Executive Director, described recent activities of the Gray Panthers including the sponsoring of Colman McCarthy's Peace Forums.

The first recipient was Eve Tetaz, peace activist Gael Murphy of Code Pink presented the award. Linda Leaks of EmpowereDC gave the next award to Walda Katz Fishman, US Social Forum organizer. Carolyn Dungee Nicholas, daughter of longtime DC actiivist Hilda Mason and author of the biography "Hilda" received her award from Angela Flynn, member of the Statehood Green Party and of GPMW. Ms Nicholas is also an activist on elder abuse issues.

GPMW SELECTS EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

2010-02-12T11:17:00.000-05:00

Ann Wilcox, a lawyer and local activist, has been chosen as the Executive Director of the Gray Panthers of Metropolitan Washington. She has jumped right in, attending meetings, making plans, and joining Susan Murany, National Executive Director, and Michele Tingling-Clemmons, Regional Natninal Board Member, in making plans for the 40th Anniversary of the Gray Panthers.

2009-10-28T16:25:00.000-04:00

GPMW CHANGES

Luci Murphy has found it necessary to resign as Convenor and member of the Steering Commiittee. as of October 18 . We are very grateful for all the thought and time she has given us and the troubles she has seen us through. She remains a dedicated Gray PAnther.

Thank you, Luci.

Also, Mary McCall has resigned from the Steering Committee. We are appreciate all the service she has given us.

The Hiring Committee has been interviewing applicants for the position of Executive Director. It hopes to have made a decision by the middle of November.

2009-07-27T09:20:00.000-04:00

GPMW SUPPORT SINGLE PAYER RALLIES

On July 26, members of GPMW attended a rally at Malcolm X Park in support of Single Payer health care. Speakers included Joel Segal, aide to Senator Conyers, and Rick Tingling-Clemmons, GPMW members. On July 30, GPMW will attend a national rally at 1 pm at the Upper Senate Park outside the Capitol building. Rep. John Conyers will be one of the speakers. This action will be followed by visits to repesentatives and senators . please joi us

2009-07-27T09:09:00.000-04:00

GPMW holds Membership Meeting

On June 26 GPMW elected a new steering commitee, with Jennifer Babcock as new member, at the Stewart Mott House. Louis Wolf and Nia Kuumba were recipients of the the Geraldine Brittain Award, and Florence Pendleton, former Shadow Senator for DC, received certificate of appreciation and recognition for her work through the years. A highlight of the meeting was he appearance of Dr Margaret Flowers, president of the Maryland Physicians for a National Health Plan (single payer, of course). Dr Flowers had been arrested earlier for speaking out at a Senator Baucus Health Care Forum on Capitol Hill.

2009-05-29T13:44:00.000-04:00

GPMW MEMBERSHIP MEETING AND GERALDINE BRITTAN ANNUAL AWARD
Presentation on Single Payer Health Care

On Friday June 26 the Gray Panthers of Metropolitan Washington will hold their annual Steering Committee election and General Membership meeting. This will be held at the Washington Home of Stewart Mott, 122 Maryland Avenue NE, from 5:30pm to 8:00pm. It will begin with a time to "meet, greet, and eat", and at 6 pm the election will take place. Any new business can be brought up after this, and then the Annual Geraldine Brittain Award willbe presented to Nia Kuumba and Louis Wolf. Also, a Certificate of Appreciation will be presented to Florence Pendleton, former DC Shadow Senator.

Following these events, Dr, Margaret Flowers will give a presentation on Single Payer Health Care and the its difficulties in gaining acceptance. This will be followed by discussing and strategizing about Single Payer Health Care.

The meeting and presentation are open to all.

GP Board and Steering Committee News

2008-08-09T11:44:00.000-04:00

GP CONVENTION HELD IN DETROIT

Luci Murphy, GPMW Convenor, and Michele Tingling Clemmons, National Board member for the Northeast Region, attended the GP National Convention held in Detroit in September 25-28 2008. Plans for the coming year were discussed, and campaigns for Universal Health Care, the Environment (which includes Adequate Housing), and Peace were laid out. GPMW Health Task Force Chair, Beverly Hummel, was given a Maggie Kuhn Leadership Award at the Convention which was accepted by Michele.

EXECUTIVE BOARD MEETS

On March 21, the Executive Committee composed of Luci Murphy, Convenor, Joan Drake, Coconvenor, Rose Marie Flynn, Corresponding Secretary, (Joe Flynn, Recording Secretary was unable to attend), Nzingha Tingling Clemmons, Treasurer, and Michele Tingling Clemmons, National GP Board member, met to discuss matters such as updating signers for our two banks accounts, one a money market fund at Calvert and the other a checking account at Independence Federal Savings Bank. Since the death of Geraldine Brittain, long time treasurer, Rose Marie Flynn had been the only signer at Independence Federal and John Steinbach the only signer for the Calvert account. Also, our income tax 990 Form was reviewed. The report was prepared by Beth Gundlach of Networth Internatioal Solutions Ltd. Our form was more complicated as a consequence of the wonderful gift left to us in 2007 by Geraldine Brittain.

STEERING COMMITTEE MEETING HELD

A t the March 29 Steering Committee meeting, it was decided that the next Steering Committee Meeting would be on April 25, at 11am, at our office at 1500 Massachusetts Avenue NW, Suite 732. At that time, criteria for the Annual Geraldine Brittain Award will be discussed, and place and time of the June membership meeting will be decided. Also, requirements for the Executive Director we expect to hire were discussed and solidified. Alice Wallerstein will do her usual excellent job of telephoning to remind Steering Committee members of the April meeting.

NATIONAL GP BOARD MEETING IN LAS VEGAS

Michele Tingling Clemmons, GP National Board Member for the Northeast Region and GPMW member, attended the Board meeting recently held in Las Vegas. She will give a report at our Annual Membership Meeting in June. Plan to come! Information will be mailed out in May.

Contact Information for Gray Panthers of Metropolitan Washington

2008-05-16T11:14:00.000-04:00

Gray Panthers of Metropolitan Washington

Office:

1500 Massachusetss Avenue NW Suite 732

Washington DC 20005

gpanther@capaccess.org

(202)290-1084