May 5, 2007

Some 250,000 refugees from Hurricane Katrina still cannot go home, nearly two years after the levees broke. The Rev. Jesse Jackson and New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin led a march April 28 by former city residents demanding that relief dollars be released so that the evacuees, scattered still from coast to coast, can come home and reclaim their homes and their land.

Of all the lies the Bush administration used to justify its attack on Iraq, the tale about Saddam Hussein’s regime trying to import uranium from Niger for a nonexistent nuclear weapons program — cited by Bush in his 2003 State of the Union speech — has been the one that has come back to haunt the president the most.

Greetings from France
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I stand here just as proud, just as united and just as determined as the workers that stood up in this great city over 100 years ago. Keep on fighting for workers at Comcast and keep on fighting for all workers of the world.

A few days ago, according to Pravda (the former paper of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union now specializing in National Inquirer-like gossip), a newly rich 35-year-old Russian billionaire banker, Andrei Melnichenko, paid Jennifer Lopez $3 million to perform at a birthday party for his wife.

May Day demonstrations across the country accelerated grassroots pressure to make legalization and social justice, instead of punitive and profit-oriented measures, the priority in the public and congressional debates on immigrant rights.

Worldwide, supporters of Mumia Abu-Jamal, on death row for 25 years now, are hopeful that the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia will grant him a new trial on May 17.

The overwhelming response condemning the reprehensible comments of radio “shock jock” Don Imus is a reminder, if one were needed, that racism and sexism remain a virulent presence in the United States. But it also demonstrated that the 51 seconds of Imus’ comment concerning the Rutgers University women’s basketball team did not go unchallenged.

It’s a good thing that the feel and backdrop of Ken Loach’s “The Wind That Shakes the Barley” (written by Paul Laverty) makes 1920 Ireland look like an Irish Shangri La.