Health care: beyond markets
Opinion As the United States moves into the 21st century, nowhere are the long-term adverse consequences of its political choices during the previous century more in evidence than in health care.
Who wants to cut Social Security benefits?
Opinion Sometimes the news makes me laugh out loud. Here’s a good one: “On Social Security,” reported The New York Times last week, “45 percent said a proposal to permit people to invest their Social Security withholding money in private accounts was a bad idea; 49 percent said it was a good idea.”
Hands off the NAACP
Opinion I think that it is fair to say that most of us were taken aback by the audacity of the action. A few short weeks prior to the November presidential election, it was announced that the Internal Revenue Service was investigating the NAACP to see whether they had violated their tax exempt/tax deductible status (their 501(c)(3) designation).
Pete Seeger: Standing Tall at 85
'Seeger understood early the power of song as a force for social change.' Pete Seeger turned 85 last May 3 and could be forgiven if he hung up his five-string banjo and relaxed with his wife Toshi at their home up the Hudson River in Beacon, New York. But that is not Pete Seeger’s way.
UN report shows effects of poverty, war on children
UNICEF’s annual State of the World’s Children report presents a grim picture for the holiday season. The United Nation Children’s Fund reports that more than half of all children face deprivation as a result of poverty, war and the HIV/AIDS crisis.
Nursing home closing bad for residents, workers
Workers’ Correspondence After 35 years of service in the New Haven, Conn., community, Atrium Plaza, otherwise known as Winthrop Health Care, one of the city’s largest nursing homes with a population of 240 beds and 285 employees, has closed its doors to the public.
Who will pay for the falling dollar?
The declining dollar is featured on business and editorial pages from The New York Times to local newspapers, and it has even made it onto television’s “The Daily Show.”
Mary, Joseph and the shepherds
On Dec. 16, Mary and Joseph, looking for shelter and hospitality before the birth of Jesus, will visit the offices of Sens. Michael DeWine and George Voinovich and Reps. Marcy Kaptur and Paul Gillmor in Toledo, Ohio, to ask for just U.S. immigration policies for recent immigrants.
U Penn grad students fight for their rights
PHILADELPHIA — Following the successful campaigns at universities across the country, graduate student employees at the University of Pennsylvania are working to gain union recognition.
International notes
Korea: U.S. manipulated intelligence / Nigeria: Huge port layoffs threatened / Switzerland: Demand affordable health care / Mexico: Workers’ rights at risk
