Salon / By Tracy Clark-Flory
Oral sex with a condom or dental dam: It’s one of those things things that sexual health educators preach but which people rarely practice. A reminder of that came earlier this week with the release of a CDC report noting that “adolescents perceive fewer health-related risks for oral sex compared with vaginal intercourse” and, as a result, young people may “be placing themselves at risk of STIs or HIV before they are ever at risk of pregnancy.”
By Carolyn Zellander
This November, Californians will their first opportunity in more than 30 years to abolish the death penalty. Last April, Proposition 34, also known as the Savings, Accountability, and Full Enforcement for California Act (SAFE California), qualified for the November Ballot. If approved by voters, the new law will convert sentences of death row inmates to life in prison without the possibility of parole. [Read more…]
By Carlos Batara
Ring. Ring. Ring.
Over the past two weeks, my immigration law offices, probably like many others, has received tons of calls regarding Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA).
Most callers’ interests are very low. They only want to know if they qualify for deferred action . . . and, of course, employment authorization.
To me, that’s unacceptable. I refuse to address DACA in such limited terms.
I’ll assess their situation to determine if they technically qualify for DACA on one condition. They meet with me so I can explain present flaws, future dangers, and other possibilities for legalization before they apply for deferred action. [Read more…]
By Shadab Zeest Hashmi
Betrayals
Who stepped on my wings
my tea-stained
dog-eared wings
when I was climbing up the library ladder? …
[Read more…]
By Herman Baca / August 29, 2012 / Committee on Chicano Rights (CCR)
Forty years ago on Labor Day weekend (Sept 1-5, 1972), two months before the Richard Nixon/George McGovern presidential election, a call was issued by Reyes Lopez Tijerina, Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzales, and Jose Angel Gutierrez, for a national convention in El Paso, Texas. The purpose; to create a national political party for Chicanos… La Raza Unida Party (LRUP).
Numerous individuals from San Diego joined thousands of others from thru-out the U.S. to journey to El Paso to attend and partake in the convention. At that time Chicano movement activists perceived the convention as being the most important political event to be ever be organized by Chicanos in the history of the U.S. Over 3,000 Chicanos from 18 states, the majority from the Southwest, but some as far away as Washington, D.C., Maryland, Rhode Island, Minnesota, Illinois, Wisconsin and Nebraska convened at the historic national convention to discuss strategy and policy to create the new national Chicano political party. [Read more…]
By Kit-Bacon Gressitt / Excuse Me, I’m Writing
Following his lackluster speech at the Republican National Convention in Florida last week, GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney reportedly went off script Friday to make what appeared to be a well-scripted campaign stop in the Hurricane Isaac-flooded town of Jean Lafitte in Jefferson Parish, Louisiana.
Some news media outlets suggested the trip was an opportunity for Romney to appear presidential while comforting flood victims and praising emergency responders, but an unnamed campaign advisor contradicted that interpretation. [Read more…]
Editor: This is a Reader’s Response to Jim Bliesner’s article, “Whatever Happened to Downtown Artists? The Experiences of Three Creative Souls Who Survived .
By Remigia Bermúdez
I take my hat off to Jim Bliesner for all that he has done and continues to do for humanity, including but not limited to, the Arts (locally and globally), job creation, non-profits creation, financial institutions’ re-investments into our communities, higher level educational institutions and a host of other avaunt-guard ideas and ideologies that enhance our livelihoods in the San Diego-Baja California transnational region. [Read more…]
Alternet / By Brigid O’Farrell
Attacks on hard-working people are nothing new in America. Sixty-five years ago, Eleanor Roosevelt, first lady and architect of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, wrote these words : “Labor Day this year is not a day for rejoicing for the labor groups, or for those who are interested in good labor conditions throughout the nation.” In 1947 she was worried about the Taft-Hartley Act, which was the first major legislation to weaken unions since the New Deal. The rights of the people who drive the economy and form the backbone of the country were under siege.
How true her words ring today. And nowhere are they truer than in California.
[Read more…]
by Lorena Gonzalez (This Labor Day message originally appeared U-T San Diego on August 30, 2012)
As a single mom, on my busiest mornings I struggle to ensure that everyone’s teeth are brushed, breakfast is eaten, lunches are made, the kids get to school on time and I get into work. On those mornings, it’s the barista at the local coffee shop who quickly passes me a hot cup of coffee with plenty of room for milk that makes things a little more bearable. She is my daily reminder that no matter what we do, work connects us all; we depend on one another’s work.
On this Labor Day, let’s recognize the women and men who do the work that keeps America strong.
That’s pretty much all of us. Our work makes the work of others possible. We rely on the teacher to inspire our children. The teacher depends on the bus driver to get the students to class on time, in one piece. The bus driver counts on the mechanic to keep the buses running and safe. The mechanic relies on the mail carrier to deliver the parts at the bus yard. And so on it goes. [Read more…]
By Steven Rosenfeld / AlterNet
I was nervous getting onto the flight to Denver. Since 2004, I have been a national radio producer, investigative reporter, author and consultant—writing about how elections are won, lost, bungled and improved, with a big focus on voter registration. But I had never snuck into a meeting of right-wing voting vigilantes who are the frontline of a national voter suppression strategy, and where the main speaker was a man whose new book I’d aggressively debunked days before, in an AlterNet article lauded by a leading election law blog and Washington Post.
By Frank Thomas
This article is a continuation of the series on PV power generation. Previous articles were Learning from the Cascading Power Failures that Brought Down the Power Grid in India by Deb Severson and Power to the People or Power to the Corporations by John Lawrence.
The evidence is substantial that distributed local PV power plants have the lowest transmission loss and cost as well CO2 pollution footprint of all available energy sources. In Germany, more than 98% of all PV power plants are decentralized. [Read more…]
By Kit-Bacon Gressitt
Sandman Slim, otherwise known as James Stark, thinks of himself as a monster. But for fans of Richard Kadrey’s Sandman Slim supernatural revenge series, Stark is a beloved monster — half angel, half human, and avenger through and through. And fans will be thrilled with the release this week of the fourth novel in the series, “Devil Said Bang.”
[Read more…]
