Apr 23, 2005

The April 11 issue of Business Week had the following headline: “Will the UAW cut GM some slack?” adding, “The union faces a tough call on whether to help carmaker pare health care costs.”

ROCHESTER, N.Y. — After a long battle, SEIU Locals 1199 and 200 have successfully renegotiated their collective bargaining agreements with Strong Memorial Hospital and the associated University of Rochester (UR).

SANTIAGO, Chile — It was with a heavy heart that I arrived in Chile. Compańera Gladys Marin, president of the Communist Party of Chile (CPC), had died March 6 of a brain tumor. She was 63. Communist and workers party representatives came from around the world to pay tribute to this revolutionary heroine. My party — the Communist Party USA — asked me to represent it at Marin’s funeral.

Just do your job; One vote made the difference

On John Paul and Benedict; New union can’t lose; Those ‘worthless IOUs’; A rose would be a rose…; Holocaust lessons; Mothers against police crimes

During the 2004 election, class and race deeply cut into easy generalizations about “the women’s vote.” White women were the largest electoral bloc, with 41 percent of the vote, and swung towards Bush in the largest percentage difference of any configuration. Bush increased his voter share among white women by a whopping 10 percent over 2000. While women of color only gave Bush 24 percent of their votes, 55 percent of white women voted for Bush in 2004. As the Women of Color Resource Center states bluntly, “Had it been up to women-of-color voters, the current resident of the White House would be packing his bags and heading back to Texas.”

Arnold Schwarzenegger famously enjoys eating lunch, often at the fanciest restaurants in town. But he is hell-bent on ensuring that California workers don’t get to eat lunch at all. Why? To benefit big corporate contributors who have lined his campaign coffers with millions.

In his book “No Pity: Individuals with Disabilities Forging a New Civil Rights Movement,” Joseph Shapiro tells the story of Evan Kemp Jr., the former chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), who left his Washington, D.C., headquarters and flew to a distant city. Upon his arrival at the airport, Kemp, who used a wheelchair for mobility, discovered that the city that had invited him to speak had sent an ambulance to transport him to the event because they didn’t have any form of accessible transportation. Kemp refused the proffered ambulance on the reasonable ground that he was not the least bit sick, and promptly returned to Washington on the next available flight, his speech never delivered.

George Frost Kennan, a major architect of U.S. post-World War II policy, died recently at the age of 101. In the predictable chorus of media praise, Kennan was hailed as both the theorist who developed the “containment doctrine” against Soviet “expansion,” and the wise diplomat who eventually became a critic of Cold War policies. For anyone who remembers the nearly $10 trillion spent by the U.S. on Cold War activities, including the big “containment wars” in Korea and Vietnam and “little” counter-insurgencies that cost millions of lives, there is much to bury and little to praise in Kennan’s career.

“Riding the Bus with My Sister,” starring Rosie O’Donnell and Andie MacDowell with Anjelica Huston directing (Sunday, May 1, at 9 p.m. EDT/PDT on CBS), is inspired by the autobiographical book by Rachel Simon about her sister Beth.