Indian trade unionists tour U.S.
Workers' Correspondence SEATTLE — Three union organizers from India toured nine cities in the U.S. in December and spoke about several issues, including the effects of U.S. outsourcing to their country from the standpoint of workers on the ground there.
Coming of age in Texas
“The Education of Shelby Knox,” an official selection of the 2005 Sundance Film Festival, will premiere nationally on the 18th season of the PBS documentary series P.O.V., announced Cara Mertes, P.O.V. executive director.
A Caribbean mob story
Book Review The Mafia in Havana By Enrigue Cirules Ocean Press, 2003 Softcover, 200 pp., $17.95
Spy Girl: A look at South Koreas mindset
Movie Review Spy Girl Directed by Han-Chun Park South Korea, 2004 Recently released on DVD
No mandate from women of color
OPINION Millions of people worked as hard as they possibly could to turn the country onto a different path and still the village idiot was elected.
EDITORIALS
A grotesque inaugural / Socialism saves lives
A failing grade: Charter schools and education reform
Charter schools are a major aspect of the political right wing’s education reform agenda, which also includes vouchers and privatization. Turning failing schools into charter schools is one of the No Child Left Behind law’s sanctions, but in 2003 the first national comparison of reading and math test scores for students in charter schools versus regular public schools showed that charter school students often did worse than their counterparts regardless of family income, race, ethnicity or school location.
Babies have a right to live
The Cuban Ministry of Health recently announced Cuba’s best-ever infant mortality rate (IMR). In 2004, out of every 1,000 babies born, only 5.8 died during their first year of life.
Chief exonerated 150 years too late
A Washington state “retrial” found Chief Joseph Leschi of the Nisqually tribe innocent of murder charges, clearing Leschi’s name some 150 years after his execution. Leschi was railroaded and hanged in 1858 for allegedly killing a white man.
Pentagons toxic cocktail: rocket fuel in water
The chemical is call perchlorate — ammonium perchlorate to be exact. It is used in rocket fuel and explosives. There are millions of pounds of this toxin in drinking water and soil nationwide, especially near military installations.
