Month: February 2015

Poor Economy Leaves Millions of Children Needing Food Stamps

News
With one in five children needing food stamps to survive, the recession is far from over, and the federal minimum wage needs to increase to become a living-wage. Instead, Democrats and Republicans are joining together for another attack on the safety net and Social Security, in the name of austerity.

James Baldwin’s Double

Fiction
After the battle, Zane recovered in an Army hospital, but the guilt never left him. In his recurring dreams, a white-haired, bearded prophet denounces him: “That bullet had your name on it.” His life is changed forever and the image of his friend Xavier was always in his mind.

A Right Delayed Is a Right Denied

Features   Uncategorized
“We are here to let San Francisco know that we will resist these laws. We will resist any law that criminalizes the bare necessities of life activities and the basic existence of our people!”

Why Selma Was a Crucial Turning Point for Democracy

Opinion
Many former slave-holding states in the South blocked black citizens from voting by requiring literacy tests, exacting poll taxes, and using intimidation to exclude black voters. After one hundred years of struggle, the march in Selma culminated in the effort to overcome this injustice.

The Martin Luther King We Didn’t Know

Opinion
Martin Luther King believed that the founding principles of the United States required the creation of what he called “the beloved community” — a society that is not driven by making profits, but one that was built by developing relationships of mutual concern and care.

My Journey from San Francisco to Selma

Features
Bishop James Pike of Grace Cathedral thundered from the steps of City Hall: “I’ve been there, and friends, we need more bodies down there, more bodies, and especially more white bodies.” In that instant, I knew I would go to Selma.

Working Hard in America’s Twilight Economy

Features   Uncategorized
Jamie Dimond, the head of JPMorganChase, made over $9,000 an hour during the time his company committed numerous financial crimes, including stealing people’s homes and wrecking the economy. On a good day, Robert the gleaner, a Gulf War veteran who gets around on an old one-speed bike, makes about eight dollars.

Rx for Shortened Lives, Ruined Health, Damaged Minds

Features   First-person
The mental health system has a long history of subjecting mental health consumers to electroshock therapy and antipsychotic drugs that have extremely damaging long-term effects on the mind and body. Every few years, powerful new neuroleptic drugs are prescribed before the full range of their mind-damaging side effects are fully known.

A New Wonder Drug for a Brave New World

Fiction
The drug company knew about the undesirable side-effects but believed psychiatrists would prescribe the drug anyway, at least to those psychiatric clients who regularly made trouble. Enter Jonathan Baxter, who had gone off his medications several times and had been written up in his medical records as being uncooperative and argumentative.

Lost and Homeless Among the Stars

By Jack Bragen on
Fiction
When I die, or after I die, I want to look back at my life and see that I ate that cookie, I drank that vodka, I made love to that woman. I did not shy away from living because of the petty fear that death might come sooner.

Defending Freedom from Police State Abuses

Opinion
When citizens are fed up with errant police behavior to the extent that petitions are circulated for a new police reform act, we could see a change in how people are treated. We need to make the law enforcement branch of government accountable to citizens and to the law.