Found these you tube videos of our small presence at the Oct. 27th Rally and March

Several cheerleaders were unable to make it to the October 27th rally and peace march in downtown Salt Lake City -- there were just 3 of us to perform.

A bus load of people came down from Idaho to attend our event - a couple of them asked about starting their own radical cheerleader squad in Boise! We'd love to help . . .

10-27-2007 Peace Rally and March

10-27-2007 Peace Rally and March

 

Last night's Rocky Roast was the most fun I've had in a long time, and that's saying a lot, 'cuz I've had a lot of fun, especially when cheerleading, on a fairly regular basis in my life -- I make having fun one of my top 10 priorities. I laughed til I cried several times during the evening. Rocky would turn back to us and comment on the things that the roasters would say -- like when Babs DeLay made a comment about Rocky's "horrible" tie, he turned to us and said, "It's true -- she's always hated my ties." 

We led Rocky up to the stage, and beforehand we joked around -- he mentioned sneaking over to Squatter's while we waited to bring him up. A couple of times he tried to wheel his chair off-stage when the roasting got a bit embarassing and Piper wheeled him back into place. It felt as if we'd been casual buds with him for years, just hanging out together on stage.

Our performance went well -- I don't think there were any mess ups, and we got many compliments afterwards from attendees.

These photos were taken by my friend, cameragirl84109:

Reception before the Rocky Roast

On stage with Rocky

Pom Poms not Bomb Bombs has some performances coming up.

We'll be at Earth Jam on April 22nd (don't know the time yet) and we have been asked to perform for the "Rocky Roast and Toast", Salt Lake Acting Company's fundraiser.












                        Dress – Funky Chic

Hors d’oeuvres provided by Lori Tolbert Catering
Desserts provided by Carlucci’s

Green fuel  school

from the article:

Science teacher Shea Wickelson said alternative fuels came up while students were studying global warming and pollution. By the end of the year, the budding scientists were making their own biodiesel to run the bus the school had purchased with the help of another grant.

Birth Control Not Bans Pro-choice rally at the Capitol

Have you taken any video of peace rallies or other peace related events in the past few years?  Marshall Thompson, the soldier who walked 500 miles through Utah to try to end the Iraq war and some film-producing relatives are making a documentary about the peace movement in the U.S. and about Marshall's walk. This is very low budget, with no investors, and they'd love any contributions of peace activities. More info here.

I've really been enjoying a new web service called Common Circle. It's similar to MySpace without the ethical issues. For one thing, it's not owned by wacky-righty Rupert Murdoch. But there are several other differences as well:

CommonCircle is a place for people from all walks of life, but the common goal we all share is a desire for positive social change and a strong belief in the 10 key values of the Green Movement; being:

1. Grassroots democracy
2. Social justice and equal opportunity
3. Ecological wisdom
4. Non-violence
5. Decentralization
6. Community-based economics and economic justice
7. Feminism and gender equity
8. Respect for diversity
9. Personal and global responsibility
10. Future focus and sustainability

We're a little different to most social networking services that have sprung up in recent times. For starters, the server the site is hosted on and our offices are all powered by 100% renewable energy - a wind and sun mix.

There are no external investors in CommonCircle - we're a true grass roots community steered by our members. We want and crave your input to help make CommonCircle a useful tool for you in your social activities and activist campaigns. Aside from your own profile page, we offer many features:

-Have an opinion or news? Post items on your very own blog
-Organizing an event? Publicize it using the events feature
-Forming or have a group? Our groups feature is just for you.
-Stuff/services for sale or trade? Try our free classifieds
-Looking for conversation? Post to our forums, or use chat
-Pictures to share? The gallery feature is awaiting you
-Wanting opinions? Try the CommonCircle polls
-We also provide guides for using each of the above features.

..and this is only the beginning! Tell us what you want from CommonCircle and we'll try to make it happen!

Whether you're an activist, community group, green business, or just want to connect with people who, like you, share an increased awareness of the state of our world and want to see things change - to make things change; we look forward to providing you with the tools to enhance your experience! Let's redefine the world together; one action at a time!

A few weeks ago I was asked about raising activist kids from a Salt Lake Tribune reporter. I'm not sure that I'm exactly an expert, but I was willing to talk about my experiences.

The story was in today's paper . The bit that included me and my kids is below, with my comments or corrections in red:

Jennifer Killpack-Knutsen, a member of Salt Lake's Radical Cheerleaders, a group that brings levity to potentially volatile situations, has experience with consciousness-raising. It wasn't until she was in college (well, actually it was 9/11; college is when I first felt the urge but did nothing) that "I realized that I could actually do something other than complain about the state of the world. But it's also therapeutic, one of the best things I ever did. I learned that doing anything at all, even if it's small, helps me feel less frustrated by things that are out of my control."

Killpack-Knutsen takes her daughter Terra, 3, to rallies in her stroller.(It's actually my ultr-supportive husband who does the strollering so that I can play cheerleader) "She enjoys watching all the goings-on and seeing people we know. But [daughter] Autumn is 12 and she's becoming less interested. So at the last event I went to, I gave her a camera and paid her to take pictures." (I hired her to take photos that I could post on my blog)
 

   Killpack-Knutsen also makes sure her daughters have opportunities to pursue individual interests. "I'm a vegetarian based on my concern for health (health wasn't a major concern, it was more about the environment and for spiritual reasons) and environment, but I realized it would be hard for Autumn to have to take special food to school. So I decided I just wouldn't cook meat at home but let her eat what she wanted elsewhere. When she was 8, she told me she wanted to be a vegetarian for a different reason - she cared about animal rights."

October 26, 2006 (we started close to 7 pm)

Attending: Keisha, Jenni, Raphael

We decided to make 2nd and 4th Thursdays at 7 pm at Free Speech Zone a permanent thing for now (with a few exceptions, see below) to keep from having confusion and uncertainty about meetings.

The holidays are coming up, so we decided to meet the 2nd Thurs. in November (Nov. 9) and the 5th Thursday (Nov. 30) since the 4th Thursday is Thanksgiving. We thought it might be a good idea to have not to have meetings/practices in December due to busy holiday schedules, but that can be changed if we need to.

Stuff coming up to think about: Buy Nothing Day (November 24); Give Peace a Dance (Valentine's?); Utah Legislative Session (begins mid January); Black hoodie decorating work party -- start looking for used plain black hoodies paint for winter/colder gigs. (Dates to be determined)

Upcoming work meetings/practices:

November 9th: (7 pm FSZ) This will be our last chance to get together before Buy Nothing Day, so we thought we could get together to sing anti-consumerism carols and decide on outfits and plan anything else we wanted to do for this event.

November 30th: (7 pm FSZ) We thought this could be a working meeting. Everyone bring two "regular" cheers that we can renovate radical cheerleader style together, or even bring in a radical cheer or two to re-do the PPnBB way. It's time to get some fresh and new cheers added to our repertoire.

December: Anyone want to meet in December? Or should we wait until January?

Beginning in January we'll be back to 2nd and 4th Thursdays to keep things predictable.