Hunger spreads across U.S.
Oregon Gov. Tom Kulongoski lived on $21 worth of food for a week — the average weekly food stamp budget for his state’s residents — during Hunger Awareness Week, April 20-27. Oregon Food Bank spokesperson Jean Kemp-Ware said the governor’s initiative dramatized the plight of 425,000 Oregonians who rely on food stamps to stave off hunger each month.
A new spirit in the air
The overwhelming response condemning the reprehensible comments of radio “shock jock” Don Imus is a reminder, if one were needed, that racism and sexism remain a virulent presence in the United States. But it also demonstrated that the 51 seconds of Imus’ comment concerning the Rutgers University women’s basketball team did not go unchallenged.
A critical time for immigrant rights
May Day demonstrations across the country accelerated grassroots pressure to make legalization and social justice, instead of punitive and profit-oriented measures, the priority in the public and congressional debates on immigrant rights.
EDITORIAL: Privatization = 250,000 displaced New Orleanians
Some 250,000 refugees from Hurricane Katrina still cannot go home, nearly two years after the levees broke. The Rev. Jesse Jackson and New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin led a march April 28 by former city residents demanding that relief dollars be released so that the evacuees, scattered still from coast to coast, can come home and reclaim their homes and their land.
Organizing heats up to defend womens rights
Last November, South Dakota voters overturned a state abortion ban by a 12 percent margin. The April 18 Supreme Court anti-abortion ruling shows the court is “farther to the right than these conservative ‘red states’ voters,” says Kathi Di Nicola, media relations director for Planned Parenthood of Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota.
Full confidence
Bush has “full confidence” in Paul Wolfowitz, head of the World Bank and designer of much of the ideological justification for the Iraq war. Wolfowitz is under a cloud because he put his girlfriend in a top job and set her (excessive) salary, not to mention his nose-thumbing at the world community. This is the latest in a long line of Bush’s “confidence” tricks.
Is immigration the problem?
Roy Beck, head of the anti-immigration group Numbers USA, has been circulating a slick video. Over 1.8 million viewers have seen its frightening picture of the U.S. overwhelmed by immigrants. But beneath the surface is a mix of inaccuracies and misdirection. The facts don’t support Beck.
Port plan a win-win for clean air, jobs
In a move that could ultimately affect all U.S. ports, the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach — together the country’s biggest port complex — earlier this month announced proposals to slash air pollution from the trucks that ply their harbors by over 80 percent within five years.
Bush court deals blow to womens rights
“Not since Bush v. Gore has the Supreme Court made such a political decision, or one that so completely distorts and disregards the U.S. Constitution,” National Organization for Women (NOW) President Kim Gandy declared, responding to the high court’s April 18 ruling upholding bans on a vaguely defined type of late-term abortion.
In wake of VT shootings: Experts say mental health care in shambles
Mental health care advocates and medical experts say the April 16 shooting deaths of 32 students and faculty members at Virginia Tech, followed by the suicide of the student who did the killing, raise larger questions about the nation’s broken mental health system.
