This just came in, I voted, and it did take about five seconds.
Ed
CNN is running a straw poll about whether Wal-Mart should sell the morning
after contraceptive pill. According to widespread rumor, Wal Mart is
monitoring the results, which may therefore influence their decision. There
is a concerted campaign for people to cast yes votes and it seems to be
working. Since Feb 3, the percent saying yes has shifted decisively, from
47% to 51%. So everyone should go to the CNN site and vote. It takes about
5 seconds!!! See below for web address and details of recent voting.
Should Wal-Mart be required to stock the "morning
after pill"?
Feb 3 Feb 6
Yes 47% 51%
No 53% 49%
Total votes : 110894 144686
PLEASE VOTE!!!!
Click this link,
http://www.cnn.com/2006/LAW/02/01/walmart.contraception.ap/index.html
The poll is on the lower right side of the article.
DISTRIBUTE WIDELY. CHANGE THE OUTCOME!
Zubow
PCCY Child Healthwatch Helpline
215-563-5848 X17 (voice)
215-563-9442 (fax)
[EMAIL PROTECTED] .org
www.pccy.org
***
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/03/opinion/03fri2.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
New York Times February 3, 2006
Editorial
No Help to Democracy in Haiti
Haiti was a deeply troubled democracy when the Bush administration took
office. Now it is an even more deeply troubled nondemocracy. One thing
contributed to Haiti's present plight, our colleagues Walt Bogdanich and
Jenny Nordberg reported Sunday, was a "democracy building" program financed
by the United States government and run by the International Republican
Institute.
The I.R.I., whose chairman is Senator John McCain and whose president is a
former Bush administration official, is one of four institutes (the others
are affiliated with the Democrats, the United States Chamber of Commerce and
the A.F.L.-C.I.O.) set up during the 1980's to channel taxpayer dollars
toward strengthening democracy in other countries. Congress intended this
financing system to move American support for democracy in other countries
out of the shrouded world of covert intelligence and into the daylight of
political training institutes.
But according to the Times report, which the I.R.I. disputes, much of the
Republican Institute's activities in Haiti from 2001 to 2003 were carried
out in a shadowy world of secret meetings and efforts to isolate and
destabilize the democratically elected government. Diplomats, including the
American ambassador to Haiti in those years, said that the I.R.I. program
worked at cross purposes with the State Department's policy of promoting
compromise between President Jean-Bertrand Aristide and his many powerful
opponents. It also undercut mediation efforts that appeared within reach of
success.
With all hopes of compromise thwarted, a rebel army led by notorious
criminals and cashiered police officers crossed into Haiti from the
Dominican Republic and drove President Aristide from office. He fled on a
United States-supplied plane after Washington made it clear to him that it
would not protect his life if he remained or defend the democratically
elected government.
That was almost two years ago, and Haiti is worse off today. Murder rules
the slums of Port-au-Prince, and a United Nations peacekeeping force
struggles even to protect itself. Dates for new elections have been
repeatedly postponed. The latest date is now set for next week. We hope this
begins to undo some of the damage done by the kind of I.R.I. democracy
building described in The Times.
***
Juventud Rebelde - Feb 6, 2006 issue
http://www.jrebelde.cu/2006/enero-marzo/feb-2/opinion_elgran.html
The Big Fix
by Dennis Kucinich
"Soon after Hurricane Katrina ripped through New Orleans and the Gulf
Coast, destroying hundreds of thousands of homes and jobs, President
Bush said the region looked like it had been obliterated by a weapon.
It was. Indifference is a weapon of mass destruction. And the Bush
Administration's indifference to the economic security of New Orleans
residents continues to this day.
"For the 500,000 evacuees still not back in their homes, unemployment
is epidemic: About one-quarter of whites, and one-half of
African-Americans, are still out of work. It's not because jobs are
scarce; in fact, there is a labor shortage in New Orleans. Most of
those who have returned from the Katrina diaspora have found jobs.
The massive unemployment is caused by the lack of housing near the
reconstruction job sites.
"The indifferent Bush Administration, through the now-infamous FEMA,
is compounding the unemployment problems of hurricane victims. FEMA
located the largest temporary housing facility for evacuees
ninety-one miles from New Orleans, in Baker, Louisiana. That's hardly
a reasonable commute, especially for low-income folks. Barry Kaufman,
business manager of Local 689 of the Construction and General
Laborers, told the New York Times he had "at least 2,000" evacuees
willing to take cleanup jobs. The trouble was getting them there; the
local's hiring hall, along with thousands of evacuees, has been
displaced to Baton Rouge, more than an hour's drive away.
"So the cleanup jobs are going to out-of-town contractors, young
single out-of-towners and undocumented workers. Not that these folks
are getting a great deal either: President Bush suspended the
Davis-Bacon Act, requiring that the area's average wage be paid on
all federal construction projects. George Miller led the fight in
Congress to roll back that suspension. But the President also lifted
the requirement that all federal contractors have an
affirmative-action plan, and the Department of Homeland Security
granted a waiver to employers from collecting the immigration status
of reconstruction hires.
"Unlike the damage caused by Katrina, these problems are entirely
man-made -- and they can be solved. Several steps can be taken to
address the employment problems the Administration has exacerbated.
First, we need to put housing near jobs. ACORN has recommended that
temporary housing facilities be re-sited in New Orleans, or as near
the city as possible.
"Second, all federal reconstruction contracts, subcontracts and
grants should require corporate recipients to hire locally. A high
standard, such as the 50 percent requirement in Senator Ted Kennedy's
bill, or the 40 percent level in the Congressional Black Caucus's
bill, should be the guide.
"Third, let's recognize that New Orleans today is an extreme
microcosm of America -- saddled with a broken infrastructure and
significant unemployment at a time when federal budget deficits are
peaking and dampening the prospects of adequate rebuilding money.
Nationally, estimates of what it will take to fix our crumbling
infrastructure exceed $1 trillion.
"Where will the money come from? Congress should direct the Federal
Reserve to make zero-interest loans available to states and
municipalities for the express purpose of modernizing and repairing
our nation's schools, water systems, bridges and streets. These loans
would be integrated into the normal open-market operations of the
Fed, which controls the nation's money supply in a similar way.
"I will be introducing the Repairing America's Infrastructure Act, a
bill that already has bipartisan support, in the upcoming session of
Congress. While creatively financing the rebuilding of New Orleans,
we can start rebuilding the rest of America's infrastructure -- and
creating good jobs, with fair wages, in the process."
***
The New Standard
Do-it-Yourself Disaster Relief Snubs New Orleans Planners
by Michelle Chen
With little useful assistance from FEMA and an abandon-and-wait attitude
from the city, irrepressible hurricane survivors assert to reoccupy their
neighborhoods and rebuild their homes - by doing it.
Feb. 2 - About two months after Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, most of
the city was still comatose, but a few corners were awakening with stubborn
grace. Undaunted by the destruction, the most resilient residents were
already hard at work reviving embattled homes, reconnecting with neighbors,
and putting down new roots.
Your privacy is strictly respected.
In the Vietnamese enclave of Versailles in New Orleans East, the lights came
back on block by block, following the people home. Residents had struck a
deal with the local utility to restore electricity to the area, beginning
with the local church and radiating out to the surrounding houses. The
community pressured the company, Entergy, with photographs, names and
addresses representing hundreds of residents who gathered regularly for mass
and were beginning to repair their damaged properties.
Since the disaster, Versailles residents have been pooling their own
resources and volunteer labor to rebuild. Since trailers from the Federal
Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) were stalled awaiting approval from the
city, residents have commuted from other areas or lived in partially fixed
houses in order to undertake repairs. The community is working with an urban
planning team to draft a rebuilding scheme for the neighborhood.
"We will be self-determined," said Reverend Vien The Nguyen, who leads the
local parish. "And we have our own plans."
In flood-worn communities, natural calamity has yielded to a maelstrom of
political tensions and uncertainty. As some displaced residents grow
increasingly disillusioned with the official channels for assistance,
returnees are relying instead on spontaneity and community solidarity to
build neighborhoods from the ground up.
"The city didn't build neighborhoods in the first place, you know."
Rebuilding on Impulse
Nguyen said that the key to revitalizing the community was people's
willingness to return even before the utilities and other infrastructure
were restored. He traces this resilience to past experiences with forced
migration. "For many of our people, they have been displaced twice in their
life prior to this -- from North to South Vietnam, South Vietnam to here,"
he said. "They are well-experienced in it."
Lance Hill, executive director of Tulane University's Southern Institute for
Education and Research, said that ultimately, post-Katrina revival turns on
a straightforward premise: "The only neighborhoods that are going to survive
are the neighborhoods people go back into and occupy. Very simple."
He noted that in New Orleans, while the scattering of residents and
destruction of neighborhoods made it difficult to organize the displaced,
"the impulse in the city has always been for people to organize themselves
in small groups based on family and community and neighborhood - and to
control it."
A similar homegrown recovery is gaining momentum in New Orleans's Lower
Ninth Ward, although that effort remains relatively decentralized compared
to activity in the Vietnamese community, in part because it was the last
district deemed safe for reentry.
"The only neighborhoods that are going to survive are the neighborhoods
people go back into and occupy."
The Common Ground Collective, a volunteer-run organizing and service
project, has set up a distribution center, health clinic,
home-rehabilitation program and other services in the area to stimulate
communities to reestablish their physical presence.
"We have to get people home first," volunteer Michelle Shin said. The aim is
to provide returnees with basic resources that the government has not
delivered, "so they can collectively have bargaining power as a [larger]
population to demand services."
Similarly, volunteers with the antipoverty group ACORN say they have
restored about 200 homes in the city since November. The group helped Ninth
Ward resident Greta Gladney begin the work of renovating her flood-damaged
house as she awaits a response to the claims she filed with FEMA and her
insurance company.
Currently, Gladney's main asset for rehabilitating her property is a
commitment that she and her neighbors made with each other to rebuild their
block. Not all residents will want to return, she acknowledged, and some
will simply sell off their properties and move on. But either way, she said,
"folks need to make decisions." While issues of safety and funding loom
large over her neighborhood, the main question is one of self-determination.
Gladney reflected: "The city didn't build neighborhoods in the first place,
you know. . Individual homeowners will decide."
***
CALLING ALL KATRINA SURVIVORS & SUPPORTERS
On February 8-9th hundreds of Katrina survivors with the ACORN Katrina
Survivors Association (AKSA) are converging on Washington, D.C
HERE IN LOS ANGELES WE WILL...
RALLY AT THE DOWNTOWN L.A. FEDERAL BUILDING,
Thursday, February 9th 11:30 AM
300 N. Los Angeles St. Downtown, LA Federal Building
Katrina Survivors are demanding:
a.. Help with HOUSING, EMPLOYMENT & SUPPORT FOR BASIC
NEEDS here in L.A. Many families are still in motels, their time there
is running out, & they have not received money to secure apartments;
b.. Adequate funding for the rehab and repair of our homes and
communities;
c.. Adequate protections for homeowners & renters trying to return;
d.. Funding to rebuild our levees to category 5 standards;
CALL ACORN FOR MORE INFORMATION
(213) 747-4211 John at ext. 211 or Peter at ext. 212
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