The American Civil Liberties Union is spearheading an effort to keep professional baseball teams from giving an admissions discount to people who present a church bulletin.

†

Promotional material for the Bonds Between Women and Water conference, to be held at the University of Minnesota, Duluth, September 28-30, 2000:

The Bonds Between Women and Water will bring together scholars, artists, policy makers, and members of the community to explore the multiple and diverse ways women and water are connected. The theme of the conference will stress the bonds between women and water, and how those bonds find expression in cultural, artistic, and spiritual ways that enable compassionate action on behalf of both women and water. It will also explore the treatment of both women and water in patriarchal culture and the impact of this on the health and well-being of women and water regionally, nationally, and globally. Plenaries, panels, and special programs will present and weave together the practical, spiritual, scientific, medical, recreational, cultural, and artistic interconnections of women and water. Possible topics will include: the role of women as water gatherers; water quality and women's health; water goddesses in world religions; water as a spiritual symbol in women's lives; images of women and water in art, poetry, and music.

This highly interdisciplinary conference will include concurrent sessions in a variety of disciplines: Women's Studies, Sociology, Anthropology, Philosophy, English, Religious Studies, Public Policy, Biology, Medicine, Environmental Studies, Geography, Engineering, Interdisciplinary Studies, etc. Because of its setting in Duluth, Minnesota, the conference will highlight regional water issues affecting women, as well as the natural setting of the conference—the many rivers and streams and aquatic life of Duluth, and of course, Lake Superior. Also, regional artists, musicians, poets, and dancers will give expression to the connections of women and water in live performances of their works. But the conference will also be national and international in scope, showing the interconnections of women and water around the globe.

†

The Boston Herald, March 28, 2000:

As long as cowboys and cops have captured the imagination of kids, the finger gun—thumb up, index finger out—has been a trusty sidearm in the minds of American school children.

But in a nation shocked and on-guard after a series of school shootings, that innocent gesture prompted a swift response from the principal of the Blackstone Elementary School in Boston, officials said yesterday.

The students in a second-grade classroom were responding to a visiting drama teacher and play-acting to show different emotions in a class last week, Boston School Department spokeswoman Tracey Lynch said.

When asked to show anger, one child raised a hand, fingers pointed in the shape of a gun. Three more copied.

The teachers told the children that the gesture was not an appropriate response to anger. One educator reported the incident to Principal Mildred Ruiz-Allen.

Before class was over, Ruiz-Allen visited the children to talk to the kids and stress that the finger gun—and what it might represent—was not appropriate outside of the classroom drama lesson.

"When she heard about it, the principal went to the class before it was out and met with the kids to talk about what was appropriate and what was not," said Lynch. "She wanted the kids to be able to distinguish between play acting and know the gesture was not suitable outside of their lesson."

[Ed: The same week, four kindergartners in Sayreville, New Jersey, were suspended for playing cops and robbers, also using their fingers as guns.]

†