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This wall calendar for 2008 has was a BuzzFlash bestseller last year in its 2007 version.

Produced by the Syracuse SYRACUSE CULTURAL WORKERS (Peace and Justice Publisher since 1982), this reminds you everyday of activists working toward peace -- and what motivates them. (And it is 100% union printed, to boot.)

"SYRACUSE CULTURAL WORKERS (SCW) is an educational and cultural organization founded in 1982. Our mission is to help sustain a culture that honors diversity and celebrates community; that inspires and nurtures justice, equality and freedom; that respects our fragile Earth and all its beings; that encourages and supports all forms of creative expression.

We see cultural work as an essential part of and support for political and economic change. Many of our materials celebrate movements for social change and their leaders, thus helping to legitimize history that is largely ignored or trivialized by commercial media and school textbooks. SCW also helps to unite socially concerned artists with a growing audience hungry for meaningful artwork."

January, for instance, is dedicted to "Every Vote is Sacred": "The mother-daughter team of Sheri Myers and Sophie Goldstein bring us this creative, engaging (and factual) look at the 2004 Ohio presidential election fraud, and use that as a springboard to ignite our activism in 2008. With iconic inspiration from Lady Liberty, the rallying cry is Onward! Let’s make fair and transparent US elections a reality."

Here are descriptions of three more months:

MARCH

The Faith Quilts Project
Beginning soon after 9/11/01 and continuing over the next 5 years, thirty-eight lead quilters, having attended workshops in collaborative quilt-making and dialogue facilitation, worked with varied faith communities on fifty-seven faith quilts which now hang permanently in churches, mosques, temples, synagogues, and community centers in the Greater Boston area. We Bostonians is a quilt created by Clara Wainwright which features the self-portraits of diverse people representing many faiths.


APRIL

Polar Bear
In this captivating image by Inupiaq photographer Joseph Napaaqtuq Sage, the polar bear almost seems to be asking, “why are you destroying my world?” For now the impact of global warming is mostly at the northern and southern areas of earth where we don’t see it and don’t register the urgency. As Chief Oren Lyons of the Onondaga Nation says “eventually we will share the fate of the great white bear it will just take longer.” Every eco action, large and small, makes a difference!


MAY

Block the WTO!
This silkscreen print by Latina artist Favianna Rodriguez honors the life and early death of Korean farmer/activist Kyang Hae Lee. Lee killed himself at the September, 2003 World Trade Organization meeting in Cancun, Mexico. His ultimate sacrifice was a profound testament to the crushing burden so-called “free trade” policies place on the world’s small farmers.

A great year round reminder that activism should be a daily commitment.



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