Newsitem List
One week after Hurricane Rita blew through East Texas, many residents of Walker, Montgomery, San Jacinto and surrounding counties were still without electricity. Those who did have electricity still experienced rolling black outs for four or more hours daily in the extreme heat of the Indian Summer. They were the lucky ones. Those without any electricity quickly began to realize just how dependent they were upon it. They couldn’t take a hot shower. They couldn’t watch TV or read after sunset....
Posted: Tue, Oct 4, 2005 9:36pm PDT
Last night (Mon, Oct 3) at Berkeley's Unitarian Fellowship MALIK RAHIM, former Black Panther, community activist from and speaker on the Common Ground Wellness Center in Algiers, New Orleans, said that he was "NOT POLITICAL" and that, "HE WAS GOING TO RUN ANYONE, WHO COMES TO NEW ORLEANS TALKING ABOUT POLITICS, _OUTTA TOWN_!!"...
Posted: Tue, Oct 4, 2005 1:56pm PDT
Enemies were in abundance in the first two years of our struggle at Trinity Plaza, but last week another one bit the dust. As reported in last week's Bay Guardian, Ken Garcia is leaving the San Francisco Chronicle. A quick sidetrack here: the Chronicle posted a $67-million loss last year, and the Hearst family brought in hit man Frank Vega to bust up the unions (see Steve Zeltzer, "The Coming War At the San Francisco Chronicle," Beyond Chron, January 3, 2005 for an in-depth analysis...
Posted: Tue, Oct 4, 2005 8:16am PDT
President Bush's bankruptcy bill, passed by Congress in April, is taking effect later this month. Four congressmembers are now calling for victims of hurricane Katrina to be exempt from certain provisions of the law. We speak with the Consumer Federation of America....
Posted: Tue, Oct 4, 2005 8:08am PDT
A new study shows that the child tax credit does not benefit almost half of African-American and Latino children - and it turns out that the children who see the least benefit from the credit are in Mississippi and Louisiana. We host a debate with the Children's Research and Education Institute and the Heritage Foundation....
Posted: Tue, Oct 4, 2005 8:07am PDT
Nurture The Grass Roots! Support mission and Gulf Coast disaster relief team heads out on October 21st, bringing resources and volunteer crew seeks assistance, supplies, and donations....
Posted: Mon, Oct 3, 2005 11:56pm PDT
We speak with the District Attorney of Orleans Parish, Eddie Jordan about the grossly exaggerated reports of multiple murders and criminal mayhem in New Orleans in the days after hurricane Katrina hit. Jordan says, "I'm pleased that there was very little bloodshed, but it seems to me that the national media outlets had an obligation to verify the charges [of violence] being made by some of the evacuees and some of the public officials."...
Posted: Mon, Oct 3, 2005 7:06am PDT
RN's from SEIU Local 790 (San Francisco General Hospital) go to Kelly Air Force Base in Texas to provide medical disaster relief to Hurrican Katrina evacuees, in an airplane hangar there. This is a nightly "dispatch" from there by Meg Brizzolara, a new denouncer of FEMA and the Red Cross and old enemy combatant....
Posted: Sun, Oct 2, 2005 9:19am PDT
I went to the planning board meeting on the Megaplex the other night, and the only people really supporting that thing are the business people and a handful of their friends. Everyone who spoke out against the project was an average resident. One guy who seemed to just be a regular guy supporting the Megaplex, let it slip that he had actually worked on the development of the project! The city officials seem completely bought off. This event seems like a healthy response to the outrageous...
Posted: Sat, Oct 1, 2005 2:43pm PDT
The basic rule of thumb that if you cannot afford to itemize deductions on your income tax form, you cannot afford a house is as true today as ever. A house is just forced savings and if you do not need the tax write-off, you are better off renting. The World Socialist Website has a good analysis of the pending bubble burst of the California housing market, which means now is a good time to sell if your house is not a tax writeoff....
Posted: Sat, Oct 1, 2005 5:33am PDT
Social Strike invites you to come organize with us!
We are having weekly meetings on Sundays at 3 pm. The next one is this Sunday, October 2, at 3030b 16th Street (meetings will be held at this location through the end of October)...
Posted: Fri, Sep 30, 2005 3:34pm PDT
Just back from NEW ORLEANS, bay area members of the
Common Ground Collective are giving two report backs
in San Francisco…JUST IN: MALIK RAHIM FROM COMMON GROUND IN SF THIS
TUESDAY...
Posted: Fri, Sep 30, 2005 1:37pm PDT
A month after hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, displaced New Orleans residents at the Radisson Hotel in New York City speak out about the lack of aid they have received and the continued difficulty of receiving any type of relief from the Red Cross....
Posted: Fri, Sep 30, 2005 7:29am PDT
We speak with Richard Walden, president and founder of Operation USA, a Los Angeles-based relief agency. In an Op-Ed in the Los Angeles Times this week titled "The Red Cross money pit," Walden writes that despite, "Giving so high a percentage of all donations to one agency (The Red Cross) that defines itself only as a first-responder and not a rebuilder is not the wisest choice."...
Posted: Fri, Sep 30, 2005 7:18am PDT
Rather than examining things like the potential losses for Historical Black Colleges, or the many many many unique and tragic outcomes of the storm in a place like New Orleans, the NYTimes tries to downplay it now, and focus on how the reality supposedly didn't live up to the fears. This is a typical disinfo tactic - focusing on how things are actually better than everyone thought is way to try to sway perceptions that way, while ignoring the actual situation on the ground....
Posted: Thu, Sep 29, 2005 8:13am PDT
Salvation Army Set To Close Important Drug Treatment Center...
Posted: Thu, Sep 29, 2005 12:16am PDT
Yesterday I drove to the Algiers Red Cross distribution point which is located in the southern section of the Algiers neighborhood near the middle-class white section of town. As soon as I walked in, I noticed a frowning young man in a khaki shirt and black hat with a sidearm and corporate logo prominently displayed....
Posted: Wed, Sep 28, 2005 11:25pm PDT
A month after Hurricane Katrina, serious questions remain about the fate of hundreds of prisoners in New Orleans. Human Rights Watch says there are 517 unaccounted for, while prisoners and their lawyers say many were abandoned in the flooding jails. We'll speak with Human Rights Watch's researcher, as well as a man who was in the Orleans Parish Prison during the storm, and two lawyers fighting to discover what exactly happened inside the jails....
Posted: Wed, Sep 28, 2005 6:38am PDT
The stories out of New Orleans in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina were little short of sickening: armed gangs terrorising evacuees in the Superdome and convention centre, bodies piling up by the dozen amid the stench and human waste, bodies stuffed into a freezer, children raped, murdered and thrown into waste bins....
Posted: Tue, Sep 27, 2005 10:53pm PDT
frustrated commuter calls on Social Strike organizers to broaden their campaign...
Posted: Mon, Sep 26, 2005 10:42am PDT