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Special program to honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. By KATHERINE ZEHNDER NEWS-PRESS STAFF WRITER
TV Santa Barbara will air a special two-hour program today honoring the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The special will air on channels 17 and 71 at 10 a.m. The program will be hosted by E. Onja Brown-Lawson, President of the Martin Luther King Junior Committee of Santa Barbara (MLKSB). The program includes guest speakers and messages from elected officials and members of the community, as well as winning essayists and poets reading
their work. Pastor J.B. Ficklin of Greater Hope Missionary Baptist will begin the program with an invocation. Wendy Sims-Moten MCed the program, which has a theme that “The ultimate measure of a person is not where they stand in moments of comfort and convenience, but where they stand in times of challenge and controversy.” The program will kick-off at the eternal flame located at UCSB. The eternal flame pays tribute to Dr. King, and is one of only two eternal flames which honor him, according to Dr. Hymon Johnson.
The flame also honors former President John F. Kennedy and former Senator Robert Kennedy. Dr. Johnson is a professor at Antioch University in Santa Barbara, and also served UCSB as a professor and administrator. The flame sits on the lawn of Buchanan Hall and was gifted to the campus by the class of 1969. Dr. King stood for four universal principles of peace, love, justice and human interconnectedness. “The large house in which we live demands that we transform the worldwide neighborhood into a worldwide brotherhood.
Together we must learn to live as brothers, or together we will be forced to perish as fools,” said Dr. King. “Dr. King often talked about the brotherhood of man, and that we should all live as brothers,” said Dr. Johnson. “Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy,” said Dr. King. Freedom is the connection between justice and peace, as pointed out by Dr. Richard Lawrence. “Freedom to stand up and take to the streets, and insist that our freedom is worth dying for, as so many have done in
the fight for civil rights,” said Dr. Lawrence. “We have to get this right. Love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power without love is reckless and abusive. Power standing alone, reckless, abusive, destructive. Both power and love need each other,” said Dr. King. If you are unable to catch the 10 a.m. airing, the program can also be live streamed at any time on TV Santa Barbara’s Youtube channel at https://www.youtube.com/watch ?v=xtevyY0OsCc&t=1702s COURTESY PHOTO
email: kzehnder@newspress.com
The return of the Rincon Classic
COURTESY PHOTOS
A surfer appreciates the view Saturday at the Rincon Classic, which drew surfing enthusiasts this weekend from Santa Barbara and Ventura counties. Surfers, including the one pictured here, enjoyed spectacular waves at the Carpinteria event. The longtime surfing tradition, which was held in-person for the first time since 2019, continued Sunday. For more about Rincon, go to rinconclassic.com.
By KATHERINE ZEHNDER NEWS-PRESS STAFF WRITER
Today marked the second and final day of the 40th year of the Rincon Classic. Magic was in the air before the sun even came up. Conditions were as good as they could get, with a swell that was three and a half feet bigger than usual. “It was the perfect size swell. Just right the size. Not too small, not too big. The goldilocks size in conditions,” Chris Keet, co-founder of Surf Happens, told the News-Press. This is Surf Happens’ 22nd year hosting the event. “There were a lot of perfect tens today,” said Mr. Keet. Vela Mattiva got a perfect 10 in the 17 and under division. Cole Robbins got two perfect tens in different heats. Makenna Burke got a perfect 10 in the women’s division. Tony Luna won the Legends division. “When we all come together everything works out no matter what. Sometimes adversity makes things going right even better. It’s been a blessing,” said Mr. Keet. email: kzehnder@newspress.com
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Agency to track those who seek religious exemptions to vaccine mandate By BETHANY BLANKLEY THE CENTER SQUARE CONTRIBUTOR
(The Center Square) – An obscure agency of the U.S. government, whose stated mission is to reduce recidivism and work with criminal justice partners to enhance public safety, will begin tracking all federal employees who file for religious exemptions to President Joe Biden’s COVID19 vaccine mandate on federal workers and contractors. Religious rights groups question whether the tracking plan will be used to discriminate against federal employees and contractors of faith. “The federal government has no business to create a database of people who file religious exemptions,” Liberty Counsel founder and Chairman Mat Staver told The Center Square. Liberty Counsel, a religious freedom legal aid nonprofit, the state of Florida and other groups sued the Biden administration after the president on Sept. 9 issued by executive order a mandate that all federal employees and contractors receive the COVID-19 vaccine as a condition of employment and/or contract with the federal government for services. After Pres. Biden’s executive order was issued, the Safer Federal Workforce Task Force issued guidance to federal agencies on how and when to grant religious or medical exemptions, which are required by law to be reasonably accommodated. It also provided guidance to agencies on how to track documents related to religious exemption requests. Now, the federal government, through the Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency for the District of Columbia (CSOSA), will oversee religious accommodation requests for all federal workers and contractors subjected to Pres. Biden’s mandate. CSOSA is a part of the executive branch. Formed in 1997, the CSOSA “assumed the adult probation function from the Superior Court for the District of Columbia and the parole supervision function from the District of Columbia Board of Parole (which was disbanded).” An independent entity within CSOSA that supervises
pretrial defendants, the Pretrial Services Agency for the District of Columbia, will now oversee the newly created “Employee Religious Exception Request Information System,” according to a public notice filed in the Federal Register. The PSA will process religious accommodation requests and store information about every federal employee, volunteer, intern, contractor, and consultant who falls under the mandate and requests a religious exemption. “The primary purpose of the secured electronic file repository is to collect, maintain, use, and – to the extent appropriate and necessary – disseminate employee religious exception request information collected by the agency in the context of the federally mandated COVID-19 vaccination requirement,” the notice states. And the PSA will use a secured electronic file repository “to log, track, and manage employee religious exception request information while leveraging technology to protect and secure the privacy of the records maintained in the system.” Records may include an employee’s religious affiliation, date of birth, job title, home address, age, where they work, and copies of their accommodation requests and notes and decisions related to them, according to the notice. Unless Pres. Biden’s federal employee vaccine mandate is struck down by the courts, or CSOSA’s proposed rule is halted by a judge, the new tracking system is slated to begin Feb. 10. Unlike other federal agencies’ public comment periods that often last months, CSOSA’s lasts for 28 days. The Federal Register states the “new system will be effective upon publication. New or modified routine uses will be effective February 10, 2022.” But a federal agency that oversees parolees and works with criminal justice partners now being tasked with tracking religious exemptions is raising red flags for those who’ve fought against an administration that hasn’t been open to those seeking religious exemptions. In a lawsuit challenging Pres. Please see mandate on a2
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