Happy Birthday MLK

Attacking the Organizers

Attacking the Organizers, Progress Illinois

Archpundit's response:

"...You also don’t get Ted Stevens getting earmarks for you. You make $12,000 instead of $64,000 a year. You work on issues like removal of asbestos instead of what time the bars close or whether to ban books at the library.

"Community organizing is what ordinary people do in order to clean up messes made by politicians and their failed policies. ..."

Taking back the farm!

South Central Farmers are trying to buy back their community farm!

The City of LA sold the land, but South Central Farmers are trying to buy it back: www.southcentralfarmers.org

More about their story here

Celebrating a life of standing one's ground

Edith Macefield, 1921-2008: Ballard woman held her ground as change closed in around her

Kathy Mulady,
Seattle P-I

"Edith Macefield died at home, just the way she wanted. ...

"The Ballard woman who captured hearts and admirers around the world when she stubbornly turned down $1 million to sell her home to make way for a commercial development died Sunday of pancreatic cancer. She was 86.

" 'I don't want to move. I don't need the money. Money doesn't mean anything,' she told the Seattle P-I in October.

"She continued living in the little old house in the 1400 block of Northwest 46th Street even after concrete walls rose around her, coming within a few feet of her kitchen window. Cranes towered over her roof. Macefield turned up the television or her favorite opera music a little louder and stayed put.

" 'I went through World War II, the noise doesn't bother me,' she said in October. 'They'll get it done someday.' ..."

Read the whole article

Political deaths reach 60 in Zimbabwe

Yesterday, reports came out that Abigail Chiroto, 27, the wife of the recently elected mayor of Harare who had been abducted recently from her home, was found brutally beaten to death.

A profile of Tonderai Ndira, MDC organizer killed in March:

"It is clear that the change we were waiting for is here.
If we do not get it, the people must rise up and fight for their victory." Tonderai (BBC)

Sokwanele!

I would like to help you in your efforts to achieve democracy in Zimbabwe

"Great Lakes Danger Zones?"

I just tuned in to the tail end of This is Hell on the radio:

Their guest, Sheila Kaplan, from the Center from Public Integrity, has unearthed a study blocked from release from the CDC about the harmful levels of toxicity in the Great Lakes that all residents near the Great Lakes should be aware of...



From the article:

The Center for Public Integrity has obtained the study, which warns that more than nine million people who live in the more than two dozen “areas of concern”—including such major metropolitan areas as Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, and Milwaukee—may face elevated health risks from being exposed to dioxin, PCBs, pesticides, lead, mercury, or six other hazardous pollutants.

In many of the geographic areas studied, researchers found low birth weights, elevated rates of infant mortality and premature births, and elevated death rates from breast cancer, colon cancer, and lung cancer.

finally a blueprint.

http://www.barackobama.com/pdf/ObamaBlueprintForChange.pdf