Oct. 7, 2006

School is barely open a month and six young girls and a principal are dead. Five girls remain in the hospital with gunshot wounds. The tragedy for the families and communities is profound.

Habeas corpus is a legal protection embedded in centuries of English common law that guarantees a prisoner the right to petition the court if unlawfully imprisoned. It’s guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution.

Until now.

The weekend before the Aug. 8 Missouri primary, half a dozen St. Louis volunteers went to Kenett where a historic state rep. race was going on. We volunteered to help Pat Allen, who would have been the first African American woman state rep. in southern Missouri. Though her opponent won the primary, the campaign was an important learning experience and in many ways a victory.

I was taught by my parents that nothing is free; everything has a cost to someone. How can a society provide free quality education? Were my parents wrong all this time and I didn’t know it?

Just a couple of months ago Virginia Sen. George Allen, one of the more nasty reactionary incumbents up for re-election this year, was being talked about as a potential GOP presidential candidate for 2008. As for the Virginia election, people said it was Allen’s to lose, against newcomer Democrat Jim Webb, who is a critic of the Iraq war.

A major battle over economic and political direction was fought in last month’s Democratic primaries in Brooklyn, N.Y. Nearly 2 million people live in central and downtown Brooklyn. Seventy percent are African Americans, Afro-Caribbeans, Latinos, Asians and Arabs, overwhelmingly working-class and many poverty-stricken.

Aware of the connection between art and politics, many artists over the years have lent their names to social change. A couple films at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival document the ordeals of two world-famous artists sharing many similarities, albeit years apart.

Anne is best known as “The Union Maid” from her lifelong dedication to the labor movement. Her continuing concern for work and workers is reflected in both her opening cut and “Too Much Monkey Business,” her hilarious and completely updated version of the old Chuck Berry song. Here she presents a great take on contemporary working-class frustrations.