There are many causes -- local, national and global -- that compete for our attention. The genocidal horrors taking place in Darfur seem remote and abstract and painful to comprehend. But there is a very good reason for us to devote attention to the problems in Darfur: paying attention to the suffering is the only way to make it go away.

One essential -- and missing -- ingredient in the global struggle against genocide is political will. Nicolas Kristoff of the New York Times recently wrote:

Before he died, Senator Paul Simon said that if only 100 people in each Congressional district had demanded a stop to the Rwandan genocide, that effort would have generated a determination to stop it. But Americans didn't write such letters to their members of Congress then, and they're not writing them now.Finding the right policy tools to confront genocide is an excruciating challenge, but it's not the biggest problem. The hardest thing to find is the political will.

Links to the Kristoff editorial and a discussion of issues can be found at http://www.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/11/29/105830/84 ) A more personal and very compelling account of life in the region can be found at http://www.rhaarsager.blogspot.com, a weblog created by Dennis Haarsager and his younger brother Rob.

A small subcomittee of the Social Action Committee is working on a plan to find some political will. In the Spring, we hope to screen a movie about the situation in Darfur (http://www.darfurfilm.org/index.html ) and possibly bring in speakers to help raise awareness on the issue. We would like to find people from other churches and groups, and students from the universities to help us in the effort.

Our group will meet again January 12 at 5:30 at One World Cafe. In the meantime, we want to enlist others to join us. If you would like to become involved, please contact social action.

The Kenworthy has decided to postpone its showing of "WalMart: The High Cost of Low Price," which was originally scheduled for December 1st.

The Kenworthy will show the film in January or February, along with a panel discussion about the proposed supercenter in Moscow.

Pullman Alliance for Responsible Development will be showing the film in Pullman on November 30th. Check out their web site for details: www.pullman-ard.org.

Message to Everyone Concerned about the Proposed Development of a WalMart Supercenter in Moscow:

On Tuesday, November 29th at 7:00 the Social Action Committee of the Unitarian Universalist Church of the Palouse will host a meeting for those who would like to be a part of the community opposition to the proposed WalMart Supercenter in Moscow. The Meeting will be held at the Unitarian Church in Moscow at 420 East Second Street.

Leaders of the Pullman Alliance for Responsible Development will give a presentation about the structure of the organization they set up to oppose the WalMart Supercenter in their town, and will be available to answer questions.

We are looking for concerned citizens who would like to participate in the effort. We need letter writers, petition distributors, flier distributors, neighbor persuaders, and members of local churches, schools, universities and organizations.

We are also looking for attorneys, web designers, public-relations experts and others who want to help lead and coordinate this effort. If you can help provide leadership or expertise, please send an email to nomoscowsupercenter@yahoo.com.

For more information about WalMart and its impact on communities, go to http://pullman-ard.org/paws_campaign_docs/paws.php.

For More Information Contact Peggy Jenkins at 877-2208.

The church sanctuary was filled to capacity (every chair and bench taken) on Friday night, November 18, during our first inaugural mUUvie Night.

The Social Action Committee sponsored the showing of Robert Greenwald's new film Wal*Mart: The High Cost of Low Price. See walmartmovie.com for details.

If you had to miss the mUUvie Night, you can see the film some time in January or February (the exact date has not been set yet) at the Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre downtown Moscow.

Social Action Committee Meeting Wednesday, November 16, 2005

Present: Norm Wall (student guest), Leslie Leeper, Patti Pomerantz, Jill Maxwell, Mary Jo Hamilton, Judy LaLonde, Peggy Jenkins, and Daniel Leong

Norm Wall presented information on the Darfur working group at the University of Idaho. A group of students associated with Xi Alpha have been passing out informative brochures - their information comes from the savedarfur.org website. They feel that the best way we can support their cause is to contact our elected officials and recommend action by the US government. We talked about having a showing of a movie about Darfur. Perhaps the Interfaith Group could be asked to support this action (their next meeting is December 7), and the Palouse Peace Coalition might be interested as well. A Darfur subgroup will be meeting on Monday, November 28 at 7 PM at One World Cafe to plan an action.

Social Action survey: We received 40 surveys back. Mary Jo volunteered to go through them and to try to collate the responses. There were also a lot of written comments.

Walmart movie: The showing at the Campus Christian Center was to standing room only. Many people took the petitions that Peggy had made. The next showing is Friday, November 18, 7 PM in the UU church. It will also be shown at the Kenworthy on December 1. We are asking that the petitions be returned the night of the Kenworthy showing. We will have extra petitions there that night. The Pullman Alliance for Responsible Development (PARD) welcomes members from Moscow at thePullman Against WalMart ("PAW") Meetings. PAW meets every Wednesday at 7 PM at the Congregational Church at College and Opal Streets in Pullman. The PARD website is pullman-ard.org. We decided that we need a fact sheet to hand out to interested people. Judy LaLonde agreed to work on this.

The Climate Change group met on Monday, November 14 at 5:30 PM at One World Cafe. Von Walden suggested that we have a Sunday service challenging everyone in the congregation to assess their household energy use and then to reduce it. Al Poplawsky talked about a program run by the Sierra Club called Cool Cities. It involves cities doing an energy use survey and setting up programs to reduce the amount of energy used. Mary Jo volunteered to check on energy conservation programs at PNWD, UUA and Avista. The group will meet again at 5:30 PM on November 28 at One World Cafe.

Patti Pomerantz said that she had been thinking of staying after the 11 AM service on Sunday mornings to offer various types of programming such as New UU. She could devote one Sunday a month to a Social Action topic.

Sojourners Alliance: we will try to meet with some of the board and staff after the first of the year.

Alternative school: Peggy talked with Jennie Hightower, a counselor at the school. She will ask the teachers about what sort of help our group could provide to them.

Friday, November 18 Josh Ritter will be performing at the Peace Vigil in Friendship Square. This would be a good place to hand out some fliers for the Walmart movie later that evening.

Our next meeting will be Wednesday, January 18, 7 PM.