Whew! After half a year of hard work, Southern Girls Convention 2001 finally happened this past weekend in Auburn, Alabama. As you may have noticed from my extended absence, it was absolutely exhausting, long, hard work, but it was totally worth it. Over FIVE HUNDRED totally rad feminist women and boys came from all over the country (and Canada too!) for over 60 information-filled workshops, tables with all kinds of information, four music shows (including an outstanding hardcore show at Olde Auburn Ale House), and an amazing chance for community, networking, and meeting lots of rad kids from the South. Although as organizers we were constantly running around exhausted and dealing with crises, everyone told us that they had an amazing time and the positive feedback was more than enough to keep us going on vicarious great experiences.

Auburn hasn’t seen so much diversity or political consciousness in a long time. Queer punk girls were lounging outside of Foy Union, everyone from PIRG to SURGE to Planned Parenthood were hosting tables, and a group of Radical Cheerleaders coordinated a spontaneous march and took over the downtown Taco Bell in support of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers’ campaign for tomato pickers.

I can’t write here how challenging, exhausting, uniting, empowering, and wonderful the experience of organizing SGC2001 and carrying it through have been. But it’s been all that and more. I don’t want to organize any more conventions for a long time, but I am super-psyched about going to next year’s SGC and experiencing it from a participant’s-eye-view. I hope, I pray that SGC will be an on-going, transformative presence in the South for a long time to come.

A coalition of stakeholders has joined forces to ensure communication and coordination between seven of the organizations that voted No Confidence in the Board of Trustees recently. This is one of the most positive developments I’ve seen in a long time. Hear Hear! award goes to Martin Olliff: When you speak with a united voice … people aren’t able to say it’s just a few malcontents. Indeed. Building a powerful network of information and self-defense between University shareholders, is the only way that the Board is ever going to be taken down.

I’m not one to continue picking on Bill Clinton, but this one was too good to pass up: our OWN Bobby Lowder has been unearthed in an old SALON Daily Clicks | Newsreal report of Clinton fund-raising scandals! Read on…

… If the most recent list of party contributors — issued in the last week of the campaign only after intense pressure — is any measure, the Feds, and the rest of us, have a lot to think about.

Most immediately noticeable is that about half of the more than 1,000 individual contributors are not properly identified. Under the law, big-money donors are supposed to list their names, addresses, and, more importantly, their occupation and employer. Disclosing such affiliations is supposed to allow the public to see what interests are backing the candidates and make it harder for businesses, trade associations and unions to use individuals as a curtain to hide behind.

So, who are Bobby and Charlotte Lowder from Montgomery, Alabama? They each gave $50,000 to the DNC. No information other than their address is provided. When I called the phone number listed for them, no one picked up, and there was no answering machine. …

Huzzah and kudos to the Lee County residents near Chewacla state park, who have filed suit against the Martin Marietta Materials quarry for ruining Chewacla creek with limestone run-off.

The Plainsman is out today, and once again full of articles good enough that they have abolutely no business being in a student newspapers. I mean, I’m a huge fan of student run newspapers, but usually the content is not as good as The Plainsman has been over the past few years. I will mourn it when its newly elected editor, Napo Too many students call it the Complainsman Monasterio ruins it. Let’s hope he preserves some of the existing staff (like, say, stellar journalist Ryan Lee, who barely lost the editorial election to Napo). That said… Eat this, Bobby Lowder! theplainsman.com | The Auburn Plainsman Online | Newspapers file suit against board