From Ecology of Absence blog: Oh, what a fine evening it was for seven young men to congregate on the steps of the house at 1215 Wright Street in Old North St. Louis. No finer point for commerce could be found within blocks, and business seemed to be as good there as it usually is.

From ACC Blog: Gondolfi Declares Candidacy for 20th Ward Alderman
Campaign trumpets "participatory politics"

Community activist Galen Gondolfi is entering the race for alderman of the 20th Ward. Filing Monday at the St. Louis Board of Elections, Gondolfi made official his intention of seeking the post in the March 6, 2007 primary election.

November 15, 2006. St. Louis, Missouri. Students at Roosevelt High School will receive awards for essays and art work at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, November 15, 2006.

The National Conference of Organized Resistance is an annual event that brings together people from all backgrounds for a weekend of learning and discussing local and international social justice issues through workshops, panel discussions, and skillshares.

We are currently seeking workshop proposals for the 10th Annual NCOR, held March 9-11, 2007 at American University in Washington, D.C.

Read on for more details. Thanks!

Rumsfeld Resigns from Department of Defense

Claire McCaskill wins Missouri Senate seat while Stem Cell Initiative passes. The Smoking tax is defeated. Minimum wage increases. Democrats take control of the House of Representatives. And now, Donald Rumsfeld has resigned from the office of Secretary of Defense. What else might happen in the next few days?

[ View Election Results | Discuss your election ideas ]

Brad Will, 36, a documentary filmmaker and reporter for Indymedia in New York, Bolivia and Brazil, was shot 10/28 when pro-government attackers opened fire on a barricade Oaxaca, Mexico. He died with his video camera in his hands.
10/30 Update: Paramilitaries forcibly enter Oaxaca; many reports of protesters surrounded by armed government forces and police, activists worldwide plan protests at Mexican embassies.
IMC Global Story | IMC US Story | Mexico IMC | Portland IMC Call to Action | Infoshop News, (story URL) | E-blockade of Mexican Consulate (2nd link)

Jeff Suppan has become the latest American sports star to enter the political arena on the right-wing of the political spectrum. I will cheer for Jeff Suppan and my St. Louis Cardinals tonight, and I have to take my hat off to him because he has really came through during the playoffs for the Cardinals, but other than that I am angry with him …

Anuradha Mittal is the director of the Oakland Institute, a California-based research and education institution. She is an expert on trade, agriculture and development in India (her native country) and globally. Confluence had a chance to talk to her at the Reclaim the Commons events last April.

See Related: GM Cotton Disaster in India

A St. Louis activist, "Anna," known to many of us, sent me the following accounts and photos of Occupied Palestine:

Yesterday I awoke to find a fellow ISMer shouting, "everyone wake up! Incursion in Askar!" … We rushed to a taxi and then into Askar refugee camp. The air was filled with smoke. We heard sporadic gunfire and suddenly the taxi driver stopped. He looked at us as if he was ashamed of his fear. He said he could go no further…

Anti-racist activists have reported to Media Mouse that the St. Louis, MO-based white supremacist Council of Conservative Citizens, a racist group with origins in the segregationist White Citizens’ Councils of the south and active recently in Grand Rapids, were effectively disrupted in Jackson, Michigan by the combined presence of a large number of anti-racists and rain. The Michigan Council of Conservative Citizens scheduled the first of two rallies it plans in the state in order to build support for the passage of the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative (MCRI) 7/30/06 in Jackson. Anti-racist activists report that they showed up shortly before 2:00pm to the Council’s “Anti-Affirmative Action Rally” to find that the fifteen anti-racists essentially matched the small crowd of Council of Conservative Citizens members and their supporters and the group was consequently easily able to halt the scheduled proceedings of the rally.

Details experience of one St. Louis County voter as he uses the new ES&S iVotronic election machine.

As clips of hurricane-strength winds uprooting trees across St. Louis in late July made national news, many commentators spoke of the awesome power of nature. But this storm was not an act of god. It was an act of Exxon-Mobile and its friends. And they are not gods, even if they are treated as such by the White House.
MORE: Local accounts after storm | Way of living unsustainable