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Graduate Student Conference — Latino Folk Culture and Expressive Traditions

The NY Folklore Society Graduate Student Conference, Latino Folk Culture and Expressive Traditions will take place Saturday, November 20th at New York University, 20 Cooper Square, 4th Floor, New York, NY.

For over 65 years, the New York Folklore Society (NYFS) has held an annual conference, typically with guest speakers, such as master artists and academic scholars, who have addressed a particular theme. This year, in collaboration with NYU’s Latino Studies and Latin American Studies Departments, NYFS seeks to encourage young scholars to continue their studies and become active contributors to the fields of folklore, ethnomusicology, anthropology and more.

Theme: Latino Folk Culture and Expressive Traditions

Preliminary Schedule (Subject to Change):

9:00 – 10:00 a.m. Registration
9:30 – 10:00 New York Folklore Society Annual Meeting
10:00 – 11:45 a.m. Latino Music and the Negotiation of Identities
1:30 – 2:45 Representations and Depictions
3:00 – 4:00 p.m. A Statewide Community Conversation on Latino Folk Culture with Latino comunity leaders and artists from throughout New York State
4:30 – 5:30 Juan Flores, Director of Latino Studies, NYU “Afro-Latino Perspectives on Folklore”
6:00 Performance by Raquel Rivera y Los Ojos
6:45 Reception

For registration information, please E-mail or call the Society at 518-346-7008.

Registration:

$20.00 for Members of the New York Folklore Society
$25.00 for non-members
Free for Students

Perspective, Work, , ,

New Database Tracks Outsourcing, Safety Violations, Discrimination

From Working America: AFL-CIO Releases Database That Tracks Outsourcing, Safety Violations, Discrimination

The AFL-CIO and Working America released Oct. 7 a searchable database detailing outsourcing numbers, safety violations, and discrimination cases for more than 400,000 corporations and subsidiaries.

The groups’ Job Tracker searches for information by zip code, company name, and industry.

“Because of Job Tracker, corporations who have taken advantage of lax trade policies in America and abroad will no longer be able to hide behind the veils of bureaucracy,” said Karen Nussbaum, executive director of Working America. “Every night on our neighborhood canvasses, we hear from people who want to know which companies are profiting off the loss of their jobs. Corporations have created a global race to the bottom and working people won’t stand for it.”

The interactive database uses data from dozens of public sources to allow visitors to find out which companies have exported jobs overseas, violated health and safety codes or engaged in discriminatory or other illegal practices, Nussbaum said.
On a conference call to release the database, speakers noted that both experts and the general public now will be able to easily search through a huge compilation of data on corporate outsourcing.

Drawn From Several Sources

Detailed results are drawn from sources including the Labor Department’s Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) records, Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act notices, Occupational Safety and Health Administration records, and other agencies.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka noted the impact of trade and tax policies that make it even easier for corporations to outsource jobs. Trumka pointed to the benefits of the tool for workers as they rebuild the economy.

“We must demand that our leaders show that they stand with working families—fighting to create jobs, rejecting unfair trade deals and putting us on a path to make things in America again,” Trumka said. “For the first time, working people have one place to see the real impact of the failed policies of the past that gave corporations the ability to ship American jobs overseas. With this new data as a benchmark, working people will have the ability to separate the economic patriots from the corporate traitors at the ballot box.”

Trumka said it has “been excruciating” to find information about what companies are outsourcing and to what extent. “This allows anyone to see who is a bad actor in their community,” he said.

Nussbaum said that six researchers spent three months developing the database…

Christian Witness, Events, PNCC, ,

Lectures on Christian Division and Reconciliation in Scranton

From Eirenikon: Ecumenical Symposium at the University of Scranton (also at First Things)

A symposium to be held at The University of Scranton on Friday, Oct. 15, will bring together scholars and clergymen involved in the work of ecumenism — the effort to bring into full, sacramental unity Christian bodies that have been long separated and sometimes hostile to one another.

At the beginning of the new millennium, a document issued by the Vatican sparked intense debate through ecumenical circles because of “its candid re-emphasis on singular and exclusive claims of the Catholic Church and its direct reference to what it called the ‘defects’ of other, non-Catholic Christian communities,” said Will Cohen, Ph.D., assistant professor of theology and religious studies at The University of Scranton.

Dr. Cohen explained, “Although the document’s main focus was on relations not between divided Christians, but between Christianity and other faiths, its comments on inter-Christian relations sparked intense controversy and debate, both within and outside the Catholic Church — debate about the nature of the Church, its purpose, the basis of its unity and the meaning of Christian division.”

The event begins with a panel discussion entitled “The Church of Christ and Ecumenism 10 Years after Dominus Iesus: a Symposium on Christian Division and Reconciliation” that will bring together theologians from Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Polish National Catholic and Anglican traditions to discuss Dominus Iesus ten years after its publication and to consider current prospects and challenges of ecumenical dialogue. The panel discussion, which will take place from 3 to 5 p.m. in room 406 of the DeNaples Center, is sponsored by the University’s Education for Justice Office and the Department of Theology and Religious Studies

In addition, a Catholic Studies Lecture will be presented by Monsignor Paul McPartlan, the Carl J. Peter Professor of Systematic Theology and Ecumenism at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. … Monsignor McPartlan will focus his presentation on the progress of these two dialogue commissions in a paper titled, “An Exchange of Gifts: Catholic-Orthodox and Catholic-Methodist Dialogue.” The lecture will take place at 7 p.m. in the Moskovitz Theater of the DeNaples Center. Monsignor McPartlan’s address will be followed by a question-and-answer period.

Afternoon speakers include the Right Reverend Anthony Mikovsky, Ph.D., pastor of St. Stanislaus Cathedral in Scranton, Pa., and Bishop Ordinary of the Central Diocese of the Polish National Catholic Church (PNCC), as well as a member of the PNCC-Roman Catholic Dialogue; Reverend Dr. Ephraim Radner, professor of historical theology in Wycliffe College at the University of Toronto and a member of the Covenant Design Group, established in 2007 by Archbishop Rowan Williams of Canterbury with the aim of developing an Anglican Covenant that would affirm the cooperative principles binding the worldwide Anglican communion; and Reverend Dr. John Panteleimon Manoussakis, the Edward Bennet Williams Fellow and assistant professor of philosophy at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass. and an ordained deacon in the Greek Orthodox Church.

Both the afternoon panel discussions and the Catholic Studies Lecture are free and open to the public. For additional information, please contact Dr. Cohen at The University of Scranton at 570-941-4545.

Events, PNCC, Poland - Polish - Polonia, , , , , , ,

Events

Polish-American Buffet at the Albany Polish Community Center, 225 Washington Ave Ext., Albany, NY on Friday, October 8th from 4-8pm. Call 518-456-3995 for more information.

Film Screening: The American Polish Central Committee of Lawrence County will show the movie “Nine Days That Changed the World — Pope John Paul II” at 5 p.m. Sunday, October 10th at Holy Trinity Polish National Catholic Church, 1708 S. Jefferson St., New Castle, PA as a part of the October celebration of Polish-American Heritage Month. The documentary is about Pope John Paul II’s historic nine-day pilgrimage to Poland in June 1979 just before the disintegration of Communism in Eastern Europe. The public is invited to the free showing, and refreshments will be served. More information about the American Polish Central Committee.

Ziti Dinner and Basket Raffle: Saturday, October 16th, 5-7 p.m at Resurrection of the Lord Polish National Catholic Church, 35 Zerby Ave., Edwardsville, PA. Adults pay $8; $4 for children 10 years old and younger. Salad, meatballs, ziti, bread, homemade deserts, and beverages served. Takeouts available. For more information call Margaret, 570-288-9350, Dorothy, 570-287-5843, the Rev. Pawel, 570-283-2686, or Rich Manta, 570-696-3668.

Harvest Festival/Dożynki at the Albany Polish Community Center, 225 Washington Ave Ext., Albany, NY on Sunday, October 17th from Noon until 8pm.

Christian Witness, Current Events, Events, Perspective, Political, , , , , ,

Jobs Crisis March

Are you concerned about the crisis of jobs? If so, join Interfaith Worker Justice at the One Nation Working Together rally in Washington, D.C. on Saturday, October 2.

The rally, at the Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall from noon to 4 p.m., will have terrific speakers, music and informational tables. Four hours is not too long to make a stand for jobs. Please bring your friends and family. The turnout for the rally will demonstrate the extent of concern about the unemployment crisis. The bigger the turnout, the louder message, which will mean more media coverage and greater political impact.

If you want to meet up before the rally and go together, meet at IWJ’s Capitol Hill townhouse at 404 4th Street, NE at 11 a.m. After the rally, plan on stopping by the townhouse around 4:30 p.m. for some snacks and fellowship. Again, the address is 404 4th Street, NE – a short walk up Massachusetts Avenue from Union Station.

Current Events, Events, Poland - Polish - Polonia, ,

Katyń Massacre Exhibit on display in Buffalo

Katyń Massacre Exhibit at the Buffalo and Erie County Central Library from Wednesday, September 29 at 8:30am through October 18 at 6:00pm. The library is located at 1 Lafayette Square, Buffalo, New York.

Information on the 70th anniversary of the Katyń Forest massacre will be highlighted with an exhibit at the Buffalo & Erie County Public Library. There are numerous local connections to the massacre. The exhibit lists two Buffalo-born men who were killed in the massacre. A number of current local residents are descendants of others who were among the 20,000+ murdered and buried in Katyń by the Soviet secret police.

The exhibit was featured earlier this year at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC during the month of April coinciding with the tragic plane crash that killed nearly 100 of Poland’s leadership personnel in Smolensk, Russia. The Buffalo News did a video on Katyń and the exhibit.

The tragedy thrust the story of Katyń onto the front pages of newspapers around the world, spurring interest in this massacre that had been covered up for decades by the Soviets.

The exhibit was prepared by Andrzej Przewoźnik, a Polish historian, for the Council to Preserve the Memory of Combat and Martyrdom and the New York City based Kościuszko Foundation. Ironically Przewoźnik was one of those killed in that plane crash on April 10.

A CIA spokesman, Benjamin Fischer wrote the following about Katyn:

“One of the earliest – and certainly the most famous – mass shootings of prisoners of war during World War II did not occur in the heat of battle but was a cold-blooded act of political murder. The victims were Polish officers, soldiers, and civilians captured by the Red Army after it invaded eastern Poland in September 1939. Strictly speaking, even the Polish servicemen were not POWs.

The USSR had not declared war, and the Polish commander in chief had ordered his troops not to engage Soviet forces. But there was little the Poles could do. On 28 September, the USSR and Nazi Germany, allied since August, partitioned and then dissolved the Polish state. They then began implementing parallel policies of suppressing all resistance and destroying the Polish elite in their respective areas.”

This exhibit is being brought to Buffalo through the efforts of the WNY Division of the Polish American Congress and the Kościuszko Foundation, WNY Chapter and the Polish Legacy Project of Buffalo-WWII.

On Sunday, October 17th at 2pm Andrzej Wajda’s Oscar nominated film “Katyń” will be screened in the library. The film contains English subtitles.

The exhibit is located in the open area on the main floor of the library.

Events, Political, , , ,

Human Service Nonprofits and Government Collaboration

The Urban Institute Center on Nonprofits and Philanthropy and the National Center for Charitable Statistics announces the upcoming release of Human Service Nonprofits and Government Collaboration: Findings from the 2010 National Survey of Nonprofit Government Contracting and Grants on Thursday, October 7, 2010 from 9:00 – 10:30 am at The Urban Institute, 2100 M Street NW, 5th Floor, Katharine Graham Conference Facility, Washington, DC 20037

Please join The Urban Institute for the release of findings from the first national survey documenting the extent of government contracting and grants with human service organizations and problems experienced by nonprofits that contract with governments at the local, state and national levels. There will be discussion of the impact of the recession on these nonprofits and the interaction of contracting problems, such as late payments, and the cutbacks organizations have made to keep their programs operating during the recession.

A panel of experts from the nonprofit and public sectors will talk about the realities on the ground, policy implications and the future of nonprofit-government relations. Additional information and a formal invitation from the Center on Nonprofits and Philanthropy will be forthcoming. Please contact Pho Palmer with questions at (202) 261-5397.

Current Events, , ,

NY Labor — Working Teens Website

New website for teens who work

Teens looking for jobs have a new web site that will offer them tips on how to apply, interview and more.

There are a lot of rules for teens who work, so the State Labor Department has put together a new website that answers questions about work papers and hours.

Department spokeswoman Michelle Duffy says this is the time of the year the job market could pick up for teens.

“We’re hoping with the holiday season, October starts to pick up with retailers in particular starting to hire for the holiday season and then they start to really ramp it up in November and then December is the peak hiring time,” said Duffy.

Duffy says parents and kids are often calling the labor department to get information on that first job.

Current Events, ,

Taking advantage of the neediest – scams and unemployment frauds

From the Texas Workforce Commission: TWC Reminds UI Claimants that Filing is Free, Warns Against Fee-for-Filing Scams

The Texas Workforce Commission (TWC) warns Unemployment Insurance (UI) claimants to be aware of unscrupulous business operators who may try to charge a fee to file unemployment claims. Filing for unemployment benefits through TWC, as always, is free.

Claimants who sign on for so-called “fee-for-filing” scams could later discover unemployment claims were never filed on their behalf. They also may have given their Social Security numbers to someone they believed to be a TWC employee.

Claimants should always seek online UI information through Texas Workforce or by using the e-mail form found on TWC’s website.

TWC wants to ensure that UI benefits go to only those who qualify and to ensure that no one is taken advantage of by someone illegally posing as a TWC staff member or by unscrupulous business operators.

UI claimants also are reminded that TWC unemployment staff never perform home visits, ask for Personal Identification Numbers (PIN) or use text messages to contact claimants. Claimants should only give personal information when filing for benefits online at www.texasworkforce.org or when speaking to an unemployment benefit customer service representative on the Tele-Center phone filing system.

It is critical that UI claimants do not pay for a government service that is free.

The UI program, funded through employer taxes, provides temporary, partial-income replacement to workers who have lost their jobs through no fault of their own. TWC administers and oversees the collection of taxes from employers and the payment of UI benefits to qualified claimants.

From the Plattsburgh Press Republican: State Labor Department warns of job scams

The New York State Labor Department warns job seekers of a growing number of online employment scams that promise high pay for little work.

Scammers are using social-media sites such as Facebook and e-mails designed to lure desperate job seekers. The Labor Department was notified of the scam by several people searching for employment that used its Facebook page.

Labor Commissioner Colleen Gardner said the idea that these predators would target such vulnerable people in such difficult economic times is appalling.

“These ‘jobs’ are not endorsed by the Department of Labor,” she said in a press release. “If you want real jobs, we have them for you. I encourage all unemployed New Yorkers to use our new Job Bank and visit a local One-Stop Career Center.”

Labor Department Press Officer Michelle Duffy said the scam artists target people in different ways.

Some ask the victim to pay a fee for an interview that may never take place. Others will ask for personal information before they will provide additional details about the fictitious job, to use that information for identity theft.

The Labor Department released the information today because Sundays and Mondays are the busiest days for the unemployed to go online to certify for benefits and look for jobs.

The Labor Department offered some tips to avoid becoming a victim.

  • Don’t open any unsolicited e-mails or unscanned attachments, even if the attachments are from people you usually communicate with.
  • Don’t “friend” recklessly, and be especially wary of unsolicited invitations in your Facebook and Twitter accounts.
  • Never provide personal information, except to a completely trusted and secure site.
  • Remember the old saying, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
  • Finally, if you feel you’ve been a victim, contact your local law-enforcement agency.
Events, PNCC, Poland - Polish - Polonia, , , ,

Events, today and upcoming

Polka Fest to benefit Holy Spirit Polish National Catholic Church, 1 – 5 p.m. today, Saturday, September 18th, at the East Herkimer Fish & Game Club, Pine Grove Road, East Herkimer. Featuring Bill and Ed’s Polka Band. Admission $8.

Annual Spaghetti Dinner and Basket Raffle 4-7 p.m. September 25th, Holy Cross Polish National Catholic Church, 17 Sheridan St., Heights, Wilkes-Barre. Open salad bar, dessert and beverage included. Adults pay $8; $4 for children 12 and younger at the door.

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