Feature Archives

On Wednesday March 21st, the California Faculty Association announced that members had authorized a strike. Faculty at San Francisco State University, San Jose State University, and five other California State University (CSU) campuses could walk out of classrooms as soon as the beginning of April. In the past four years, the faculty has only received a 3.5 percent pay raise, while CSU execs have gotten in 23 percent pay hikes.

Cathy Webster, a Chico grandmother, was one of six activists who reported to prisons throughout the country on March 21st. Cathy Webster trespassed on the U.S. Army base formerly known as the School of the Americas in order to protest the teaching of counter-insurgency techniques and torture to Latin American soldiers. In the same spirit as the civil rights movement, she used non-violent civil disobedience to shine a spotlight on the teachings of the school, which was renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC) in 2000.

Members of the Ghandi Peace Brigade and Code Pink have been holding vigil outside of Nancy Pelosi's San Francisco residence since March 11th demanding that the Speaker of the House stop funding the war. On March 13th, SF police ordered that Camp Pelosi tear down their tent but the activists are holding strong, refusing to leave, and they are asking others to join them. The Raggie Grannies have stepped in to offer support. A teach-in was held at 11:30am on March 14th at Pelosi's office in the SF Federal Building. On March 19th, several activists were arrested in the halls outside Pelosi's office after attempting to speak with her.

Each year, the week of the Bay Area Anarchist Bookfair and the BASTARD conference of anarchist theory includes more and more events. This year, the Anarchist Bookfair took place on two days, on Saturday, March 17th from 10am to 6pm and on Sunday, March 18th from 11am to 5pm at the San Francisco County Fair Building in Golden Gate Park, near Ninth Avenue and Lincoln Way. The BASTARD conference took place on Sunday, March 18th from 10am to 6pm at UC Berkeley's Dwinelle Hall.

This week organizers form the Dissent! Network in Germany will be presenting an infotour in the Bay Area to publicize the preperations to protest the G8 Summit in Heiligendamm from the 4th to the 7th of June 2007. Events are scheduled for San Francisco (Flier), Berkeley, Fresno, Santa Rosa and Sacramento.

The Infotour will include both a history of the G8 and the past resistance against the G8 in Germany.

The state of California had been planning to increase the fees that it charges to organizations that it licenses to issue medical cannabis ID cards on March 1st. However, at the last minute, the Department of Health announced that the fees would be raised by $66 on April 1st, rather than by $142 in March. The new fee for Medi-Cal patients will be $33 dollars, but people such as seniors and veterans will still have to scramble to pay the more expensive fee because they receive federal- rather than state- benefits. Americans for Safe Access says, "It is important now to encourage Boards of Supervisors in counties that have not yet implemented ID card programs to implement (them) immediately, so that there is equal protection across the state regardless of where one lives."

Thursday, March 8th is International Women's Day - a day on which women on all continents to come together to celebrate their various struggles for equality, justice, and peace. A number of events were held around the Bay Area and the Central Valley, including screenings of two different films about sweatshops, events that focused on struggles of women in Mexico, and an evening of poetry, music and dance with local activists and artists.