SURVIVAL: Strategies & Actions for a Nuclear Weapons Free World

Event including screening of the Journey of Repentance documentary by Ashley Michael Karitis, expert panel on nuclear weapons, and live teleconference with Steven Leeper from the Hiroshima Peace Culture Foundation will take place on March 28th and April 11th.

Sunday, March 28, 2010
1:30 - 5:00pm
Urban Grace Church
904 Market Street
Tacoma, WA

Sunday, April 11, 2010
1:30 - 5:00pm
Seattle University, Campion Ballroom
Seattle, WA

There are 30,000 nuclear warheads in the world and 15,500 are currently deployed or triggered. One of the largest nuclear weapons stockpiles is at Bangor Naval Base in Bangor, WA., 20 miles west of Seattle.....

Join us in this multimedia event that will update you on nuclear weapons and the implications they have on the economy, the environment, your health, and international law.

1.30-1.50pm - OVERVIEW and introduction

2pm - WORLD PREMIERE of the short documentary that followed Tacoma's own Journey of Repentance to Japan; directed by Ashley Michael Karitis

3pm - EXPERTS PANEL on NUCLEAR WEAPONS that will include:

-the local and global presence of nuclear weapons
-health and environmental consequences
-how the stockpiling of nuclear weapons violates international law
-the economics of nuclear weapons

4pm - LIVE TELECONFERENCE WITH STEVEN LEEPER FROM THE HIROSHIMA PEACE CULTURE FOUNDATION

-a LIVE video conference from Hiroshima to answer your questions about the upcoming Non-Proliferation Treaty Review in May 2010 at the UN

4.30pm - STRATEGIES & ACTIONS - What can YOU do and how YOU can get involved!


EVENT INCLUDES FREE FOOD AND REFRESHMENTS! Please try to bring 10 friends to help educate our communities about the dangers of nuclear weapons.

EVENT SPONSORS include City of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Hiroshima Peace and Culture Foundation, and the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum

**PARKING in Tacoma** is available on Market and 9th streets. Behind the church, "Court D" or paid parking on 9th Avenue is also available

Be a part of the documentary!

The filming is done, and our film crew (i.e. Ashley) is settled back in Bend, OR; but the editing, production, and promotion still lie ahead before we complete the documentary on the Journey of Repentance. What do we need to get there? Your support.

Below is a list of the things we need in order to get this process rolling for a target completion in January 2010! I’ll come back and revise this list to let you know what we have acquired and what we still need. If you can provide any of the below, please contact Tamara at tpowerdrutis@gmail.com.

Living Quarters for Ashley starting on October 28st and going through New Years
We have some options out of town, but depending on where her office / work space is we might be looking for something in the city. If you have, or know someone with, a spare room with some smalls amenities (microwave, single stove top, small refridgerator) that Ashley could stay in for this time. There is no expectation of providing food/etc for her during this stay.

Editing Machine and Software
If you have a MacBook Pro, a MacPro, iMac, or a fast PC with an operating system that can handle editing that you would be willing to loan to us for this project between November and January, it would be well taken care of, used only for editing, and much appreciated! Otherwise, we’re looking at purchasing a computer to fill this need, which could run anywhere from $1000-$2000, so donations are welcome.

Monitor
If you can provide a desktop monitor for the editing process, we are looking for a 24-30inch screen

Tape deck
If you are a filmmaker or know a production company in the area, we are in need of a tape deck for two/three days in order to digitize our 35 hours of footage which are all on MiniDV tapes. We would provide our own external hard drive.

Office-like Work Space for Ashley
Somewhere in the Tacoma/Seattle area, ideally a small office space that is not being used. Ashley promises not to get in your way!

External Hard Drive to store footage on
http://www.amazon.com/LaCie-Desktop-External-Designed-301304U/dp/B0010YWPZ8/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1250878164&sr=8-2 (This one is cheaper because it uses USB for the connection)
OR
http://www.amazon.com/LaCie-FireWire-External-Poulton-301315U/dp/B00170M64K/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1250878164&sr=8-3
(this one is more expensive because it uses a faster connection, firewire)

General Office Supplies
Donations are greatly appreciated. Will provide a more detailed list in the near future.

Stipend
We are hoping to be able to provide Ashley with a stipend from $500-$1000, all dependant on funding. Donations GREATLY appreciated.

Additional post-production costs
This includes sound mixing, color correction, and festivals submissions costs.

Graphics Designer for DVD art and Cover
A graphic designer for the cover and DVD art will be needed around November/December.

DVD Authoring/Duplication
Details on cost coming soon

Assistance in acquiring all of the above is greatly appreciated. If you have any questions, suggestions, or donations, please contact Tamara at tpowerdrutis@gmail.com.

9 Months: Our Nuke Free Baby

Now, just because we`re heading home in less than a day (we arrive in SEATAC before we leave Tokyo, apparently), don`t go getting comfortable and thinking this Journey is done. It`s not, we`re just getting started.

But beginning on August 12th the mission is no longer peace, the mission is no longer apologies, the mission is not even reconciliation (although each remains important to our group in particular). No, mission from this day forward is ensuring that there is never another Hiroshima, never another Nagasaki. Starting August 12th, we begin preparations for the 2010 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treat review, which will take place in New York on May 10th. We have nine months to leave out the kitchen sink and focus on this one effort: to ensure that no more nuclear weapons are used in our world. It doesn`t matter what you think about the Just War doctrine, it doesn`t even matter whether you think it was right or wrong for the US to drop the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki; what matters is that we as a world cannot continue to improve the technology which brought hell to earth 64 years ago, which deported an entire community from Bikini indefinitely, which has left countless of our own country treating radiation sickness in Nevada.

What can you expect from the 18 of us in the next nine months? Dialogue with our leaders, mayors, the Bangor Commander. Presentations and panels, including visits from the Hibakusha we`ve met while here in Japan, discussion groups, and video screenings of a documentary based on this very journey. Direct preparations for the NPT Review Conference, including sending as many people as we can from as many backgrounds and perspectives to New York, and getting support from all our communities for the Hiroshima Nagasaki Protocol. You can expect this and much more, and we need your help. Stay posted for ways that you can get involved in the action.

For now, check out the text of the Hiroshima Nagasaki Protocol at http://www.2020visioncampaign.org/filestorage/409/File/2/Hiroshima-NagasakiProtocol.pdf.

From Hiroshima to Hope

(UPI Photo/Jim Bryant)

We’ve spent the last four months preparing for a trip that begins tomorrow, and yet somehow I still spent most of the afternoon and evening frantically tying up loose ends and packing my bag. My phone has been ringing off the hook: where can I get a copy of the medical release form? Do we have time for a photo op before we go through the metal detectors? Who still has space in their bag to carry peace cranes? What size of liquid soap can we take carry on? But at last I’m ready – or as ready as I’ll ever be – to begin the journey of repentance.

Tonight, as I sat on the floor surrounded by all the belongings I would need for the next 13 days, I realized just how many people have been involved in the JOR, and how few of that number will be physically traveling to Japan. I thought of the family members of delegates who have been attending meetings and working behind the scenes to prepare everything from gifts to our Web site, the translator who got a call at 5pm this evening with a rush order of documentary release forms to be taken from English to Japanese text, the donors who have made it possible for all 18 of us to travel to and around Japan, the students of Holy Rosary Catholic School who folded hundreds of beautiful cranes for us to deliver for them, and the 500+ individuals who have signed a statement of remorse. I have the privilege of being one of 18 who are able to go – but the Journey of Repentance continues on here at home while we are gone.

Although being with us in spirit is an incredible gift, there are also ways that you can be part of our mission here in the States. Gatherings, memorials, and discussions are going on all across the US to continue sharing the memories and understanding gained in the last 64 years. On August 6th on the shore of Green Lake, an annual lantern floating ceremony, From Hiroshima to Hope, occurs to honor the victims of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The event beings at 6:30pm, just south of the Bathhouse, with music and speakers. You can learn more by visiting http://www.wingluke.org/hth09/.

Delegates Retreat

Journey of Repentance participants met last weekend at the Bainbridge Island Buddhist temple to prepare both logistically and spiritually for the trip. We began by listening to and reflecting on a recording of a speech by Hiroshima’s Mayor Akiba from August 6, 2002. In it, he speaks of the continued agony of the Hibakusha, and reminds us that one reason for this is that “their experience appears to be fading from the collective memory of humankind. Having never experienced an atomic bombing, the vast majority around the world can only vaguely imagine such horror…” These word, and others like it, have heavily influenced our journey. We have been asked to listen compassionately to the experiences that we cannot imagine ourselves.

We have been asked to remember so that history cannot repeat itself.


Not everyone who takes part in our Journey of Repentance is able to travel with us physically to Japan. Everyone, everywhere, has an opportunity to hear the testimony of the Hibakusha. The Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations has made available the stories of several victims of the A and H Bombs.

Reading Hiroshima

Several participants on the Journey of Repentance recommended that I read Hiroshima by John Hersey, and I recently had the opportunity to take their advice. Although I finished reading Hiroshima over a week ago, the images and vivid memories of the people interviewed remain burned in my thoughts.

Hersey begins on the morning of August 6th, 1945, when the first atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Nearly a hundred thousand people died from the blow, and another hundred thousand were injured and would experience both physical and social repercussions for years, some for a lifetime. The true stories of six hibakusha (explosion-affected persons) are told through their perspectives and reflections of others. Hersey guides us through the hours, days, months, and ultimately decades following the bombing, showing us through the eyes of a clerk, a physician, a mother, a German priest, a surgeon, and a Methodist Pastor what the true impact of atomic weapons can be.

What makes Hiroshima truly devastating is the tremendous difference between reading the facts and hearing of the heartbreak and devastation within everyday lives. Some of the most piercing stories told were not even the focus of the book, rather the people who these six hibakusha came into contact with during and after the bombing:

A diocesan secretary standing in the window of a mission house looking out over the destruction and weeping, then later running back into the fire; “Leave me here to die.”

The image of a woman with her breast sheared off, a man with a burned face, and a woman with a badly broken leg sharing a corrugated iron lean-to as black rain begins to fall on the city.

Reverend Tanimoto reminding himself that the bodies he rescues from the river, burned so badly that their skin comes off with his every attempt, are human beings.

But it is also a story of hope, as the victims of the first atomic bombing labor tirelessly to rebuild their lives, learn to heal and serve each other, and travel across the world sharing their stories with others to ensure that such suffering never occurs again.