Chicago Tribune columnist Clarence Page puts the campaign in Newark into context with what is going on across the country. Find out why Cory Booker, Barak Obama and other younger leaders look like signs of the changing times. MORE

Join {open} SATURDAY NIGHT for Popcorn & Politics!

{open} is screening the Academy-Award nominated documentary STREET FIGHT.
(see below for a synopsis and more info).

Local elections have a significantly greater impact on our day-to-day life than national elections … and yet only about 3,000 people (5-10%) vote in the Second District City Council races. The run-offs is one of the most recent council elections were decided by FIFTEEN VOTES (yeah, 15).The LB Second District council seat is up for grabs on June 6, 2006 (hmmm … catchy date) and with 11 candidates and a winner take all format, EVERY SINGLE VOTE counts.
This is a really important election, and will directly impact the development of both {open} and the EVAD, so come down and check out the film and get the lowdown on the race from our point of view. We need your help to take both {open} and the EVAD to the next level. Second District candidate Brain U. will be on hand to talk about the issues of the Second District and his campaign.

Come down and register or re-register or sign up to get an absentee ballot (which makes it really easy to not forget to vote).

And yeah, we’ll have Popcorn … we’re debating about whether to bring some Popov.

“If somebody doesn’t want you to tell a story this much, it’s probably a story that needs to be told.”
—Marshall Curry, producer/director, Street Fight

Screening Academy-Award nominamted documentary
STREET FIGHT
Saturday, May 6
8pm
{open}
FREE + TREATS

FILM SYNOPSIS

There’s a saying that democracy is a contact sport. The Academy Award-nominated film “Street Fight” gives you a ringside seat. Even if you know the outcome from national reports, or lived in Newark at the time, this insider’s chronicle of the 2002 race for mayor in Newark, New Jersey is riveting, delivering a dramatic account of youthful energy and ideals running headlong into old-guard machine politics and racial demagoguery. These opposing forces are, of course, nothing new in American elections. But, in Newark in 2002, a black mayor was using these tactics against a black challenger. Early on, a staffer for Cory Booker, the upstart challenger in the race, warns that this election will be decided in the streets. “Street Fight” lives up to the staffer’s prediction — and to its own title — as the campaign between Booker and four-time Mayor Sharpe James devolves from dirty tricks to intimidation to the threat of worse. The film crew itself becomes a target for Mayor James’ supporters — and the mayor himself — who see everyone as either for them or against them.
MORE

Early on, a staffer for Cory Booker, the upstart challenger in the race, warns that this election will be decided in the streets. “Street Fight” lives up to the staffer’s prediction — and to its own title — as the campaign between Booker and four-time Mayor Sharpe James devolves from dirty tricks to intimidation to the threat of worse. The film crew itself becomes a target for Mayor James’ supporters — and the mayor himself — who see everyone as either for them or against them.

Early on, a staffer for Cory Booker, the upstart challenger in the race, warns that this election will be decided in the streets. “Street Fight” lives up to the staffer’s prediction — and to its own title — as the campaign between Booker and four-time Mayor Sharpe James devolves from dirty tricks to intimidation to the threat of worse. The film crew itself becomes a target for Mayor James’ supporters — and the mayor himself — who see everyone as either for them or against them.