Recently in Soc 204 Category

Poison Pill Slipped Into Indian Health Bill. Michelle Chen. In These Times. 7/09/2008.

Pro-life amendment used to derail legislation.

When it comes to their health, American Indian women face extraordinary barriers -- from high disease risks to increased incidents of sexual violence. They now face another obstacle, rooted in the political battleground of abortion.

Why Children Are Not 'Little Adults'. NY Times. 7/10/2008.

Earlier this week, the nation's leading pediatric group issued guidelines suggesting that some high-risk children be given cholesterol-lowering statin drugs that are typically prescribed for middle-aged men. The news shocked many pediatricians, who predicted a backlash from the public and doctors.

Borrow a Muslim? A 'living library' to prick stereotypes. Mark Rice-Oxley. Christian Science Monitor. Mark Rice-Oxley. Christian Science Monitor. 6/ 04/2008.

In 12 countries, people check out people for a 30-minute conversation to challenge their own prejudices.

Hippie town's homeless attack portends trend. Evelyn Nieves. AP. 7/17/08. BOLINAS, Calif. (AP) -- Ricky Green wandered into this town some months ago, a stranger just a bit stranger than most. He had shed his middle-class respectability - a job as a graphic artist in the 'burbs - strapped a guitar over his shoulder and landed here on what he told people was "a spiritual journey."

New Criminal Record: 7.2 Million. Darryl Fear. Washington Post. 6/12/2008.

The number of people under supervision in the nation's criminal justice system rose to 7.2 million in 2006, the highest ever, costing states tens of billions of dollars to house and monitor offenders as they go in and out of jails and prisons.

Plutocracy Reborn. The Nation. 6/11/2008.

Chart One: Re-creating the Gap that Gave Us the Great Depression

The most precise data on the income of America's most affluent have come, in recent years, from the work of economists Emmanuel Saez and Thomas Piketty. Their most recently updated figures for income inequality in the United States, available online from the Emmanuel Saez home page, cover the years 1913 (the first year of the modern federal income tax) through 2006.

Race and Extreme Inequality. Dedrick Muhammad. The Nation. 6/11/2008.

The current presidential campaign has sparked a lot of conversation about race, but it has primarily been at the symbolic and interpersonal level. It has failed to probe the underlying substance of racial economic disparities and the slow rate of progress toward equity in wealth and wages. Too many Americans naïvely see the strong presidential candidacy of Illinois Senator Barack Obama as evidence of the resolution of the racial divide.

The Rich and the Rest of Us. John Cavanagh & Chuck Collins. The Nation. 6/11/2008.

Over the past three decades, market-worshiping politicians and their corporate backers have engineered the most colossal redistribution of wealth in modern world history, a redistribution from the bottom up, from working people to a tiny global elite.

Falling like a ton of bricks. Nick Mathiason. Guardian/UK. 6/15/2008.

After 15 years of continuous growth, the housebuilding industry is coming apart. With his company's shares down 90 per cent, Mark Clare, boss of Barratt, tells Nick Mathiason he suspects a 'short-selling conspiracy' - but hints he needs to raise cash

New homes slump worst since 1945. Nick Mathiason. Guardian/UK. 6/15/2009.

The number of homes built in Britain this year will plunge to its lowest level since 1945 and plummeting construction activity is expected to lead to the loss of 100,000 jobs. The country's most senior housebuilders confirm that completions will be around 100,000, some 70,000 less than last year.

We won't be Berlusconi's scapegoats, say Gypsies. Tom Kington. Guardian/UK. 6/15/2008.

Tom Kington in Rome meets families evicted by the city's new right-wing mayor at their isolated camp and hears them demand 'a few rights'

.Inside the RUF: at last the child soldiers of Sierra Leone have their say. Hannah Strange. Times Online/UK. 6/16/2008.

The trial of the rebel leaders behind a devastating civil war is soon to come to a close. The child soldiers who knew them tell their stories

Study: Language barrier can keep children from getting healthcare. Patrick McGee. Huston Star-Telegram. 6/16/2008.

Children from homes where English is not the primary language have far more health problems than other kids in the U.S. and have less access to health insurance.

The impact goes beyond those youngsters and their families, said study author Dr. Glenn Flores, director of general pediatrics at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas.

Illegal dumping plagues some Los Angeles neighborhoods. Robert J. Lopez. LA Times. 6/16/2008.

For Alex Rodriguez, the rats and stench are the worst things about the rubbish routinely dumped on the street and alley in his South Los Angeles neighborhood.

Price rises hit Indonesia parents. Lucy Williamson. BBC. 6/04/2008.

Financial pressures in Indonesia are driving more families to give up their children, a report says.

FRANCE: Noble Ignorance Fails the Minorities. Hilaire Arvil. IPS. 6/04/2008.

PARIS, Jun 4 (IPS) - According to the French constitution, France has no minorities. French law makes it illegal to record citizens' ethnic origin or religion. But in the face of mounting discrimination, France recently introduced corrective institutions. However, the system is still in its infancy.

Chinese illegal immigrants discovered in Texas border town. CNN. 6/06/2008.

LA JOYA, Texas (AP) -- Local police are accustomed to dealing with illegal border crossings but were astounded by the video of 15 Chinese immigrants unfolding themselves from the back of a sport-utility vehicle near this small border town.

HEALTH-SOUTH AFRICA: Children in the Path of the (AIDS) Pandemic. Kathryn Strachan. Inter Press Service. 6/06/2008.

JOHANNESBURG, Jun 6 (IPS) - There is barely a path leading down the steep incline and through the dense bush to the Mabuyakhulu homestead. It would be easy to pass by without finding 13 year old Zanele* and her eight year old sister Andiswa who stay there on their own.

HEALTH-CUBA: Free Sex Change Operations Approved. Dalia Acosta. Inter Press Service. 6/06/2008.

HAVANA, Jun 6 (IPS) - New horizons opened up for transsexuals in Cuba with the approval of a Public Health Ministry resolution that establishes guidelines for their health care, including free gender reassignment operations.

Former nun helps Mexico 'femicide' victims recover. Sara Miller Llana. Christian Science Monitor. 6/05/2008.

Linabel Sarlat runs a support center to help bring economic and spiritual renewal to the women of Anapra, Mexico.

Americans $1.7 trillion poorer. Tami Luhby. CNN. 6/05/2008.

Americans' net worth falls for the second straight quarter as home and stock prices decline, but it may not hurt consumer spending, experts say.

Solving the global food crisis starts with women's rights. Yifat Susskind. The Progressive. 6/03/2008.

Solving the food crisis means empowering women.

James Byrd, Jr.:10 Years Later, 'Horrific Death' in Jasper Won't Fade From Memory. Bill Hanna. Star-Telegram - TX. 6/08/2008.

Ten years after the brutal dragging death of James Byrd Jr., his family is unwilling to let his memory quietly fade away.

U.S.-born children feel effects of immigration raids. Anna Gorman. 6/08/2008.

Federal agents say they try to act humanely when a parent is arrested, but advocates charge that youngsters are often traumatized and are sometimes left without supervision.

In Burma (Myanmar), how many cyclone orphans?. Christian Science Monitor. 6/09/08.

Aid groups are trying to curb child labor and reconnect families - without the help of surnames.

Japan's Ainu hope new identity leads to more rights. Takehiko Kambayashi. Christian Science Monitor. 6/09/2008.

URAKAWA, JAPAN - While Friday's parliamentary decision to recognize the ethnic Ainu as Japan's indigenous people is a major step for a country long proud of being ethnically homogeneous, for many members of the long-discriminated-against minority it's not enough.

FRANCE: Noble Ignorance Fails the Minorities. Hilaire Avril. IPS. 6/04/2008.

PARIS, Jun 4 (IPS) - According to the French constitution, France has no minorities. French law makes it illegal to record citizens' ethnic origin or religion. But in the face of mounting discrimination, France recently introduced corrective institutions. However, the system is still in its infancy.

Racist Incidents Give Some Obama Campaigners Pause. Kevin Merida, Wa. Post. 5/13/2008.

Danielle Ross was alone in an empty room at the Obama campaign headquarters in Kokomo, Ind., a cellphone in one hand, a voter call list in the other. She was stretched out on the carpeted floor wearing laceless sky-blue Converses, stories from the trail on her mind. It was the day before Indiana's primary, and she had just been chased by dogs while canvassing in a Kokomo suburb. But that was not the worst thing to occur since she postponed her sophomore year at Middle Tennessee State University, in part to hopscotch America stumping for Barack Obama.

Sex trade traffickers get busy among cyclone orphans. Anne-Claire Duffay. The First Post/UK. 5/14/2008.

Sex trade traffickers are preying on child survivors of Burma's devastating Cyclone Nargis, writes Edward Loxton for The First Post. At least two suspected traffickers have been arrested in Rangoon since the cyclone hit, according to UNICEF's child protection officer in Burma, "A broker came to a shelter and tried to recruit children," she told the French news agency AFP. "The police intervened and made arrests."

How do Muslims view women's rights?. Christian Science Monitor. 5/16/2008.

Many Muslims believe that women should have the right to vote and to hold any job outside the home that they qualify for.

Some rural communities pushed to the edge by high cost of fuel. Tom Kizzia & Tom Hopkins. Anchorage Daily News. 5/16/2008.

Last winter, old people in Emmonak sometimes brought six-gallon plastic jugs to the tank farm at 20 below. They would pull the jug home on a sled, carrying enough stove oil to heat their house for the rest of the week.

Racial Shift in a Progressive City (Portland) Spurs Talks. William Yardley. NY Times. 5/29/2008.

PORTLAND, Ore. -- Not every neighborhood in this city is one of those Northwest destinations where passion for espresso, the environment and plenty of exercise define the cultural common ground. A few places are still described as frontiers, where pioneers move because prices are relatively reasonable, the location is convenient and, they say, they "want the diversity."

Boys not better than girls at maths, study finds. Anthea Lipsett. Guardian/UK. 5/30/2008.

Boys are not innately better at maths than girls, and any difference in test scores is due to nurture rather than nature, researchers suggested today.

By Rowan Wolf. 5/01/2004. Published at Portland Indy Media; Correspondences; Panopticon

Comments from Abuzaid in Iraq, Bush, and the Pentagon, all express disgust over the abuse (I'd call it torture) of prisoners being held at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. We are told it is "under investigation." Actually, it has been "under investigation" since January. The US public is being led to believe that this is an isolated incident by some rogue US soldiers. The story emerging paints a very different picture.

HEALTH-AFRICA: UNICEF Reports Five Million Child Deaths Every Year. Steffanie Nieuwoudt. IPS. 5/30/2008. (Report)

CAPE TOWN, May 30 (IPS) - When four-year-old Alice Were suddenly developed a fever, her mother Miriam took her to the local medicine woman close to her house in Kangemi, a poor, cramped settlement on the outskirts of the Kenyan capital, Nairobi. Two days later, Alice was unconscious. Her frantic mother rushed to hospital with the child in her arms. But it was too late. Alice died of malaria.

Undocumented immigrants face Juan Crow. Roberto Lovato. The Progressive. 5/19/2008.

Immigrants held in immigration detention facilities are not just dying because of bad management, callous guards and understaffing.

Food stamp recipients pinched by high food prices. Dawn Babwin. Associated Press. 5/16/2008.

CHICAGO (AP) -- Danielle Brown stands outside a South Side market at midnight, braving the spring chill for her first chance to buy groceries since her food stamps ran out nearly two weeks ago.

The Other Karen Tribe Antonio Graceffo. Boxun News. 5/22/2008.

The Long neck Karen (Karen-Padaung) are not actually Karen at all, but they are also refugees, escaping the genocidal madness in Burma. They have become a symbol of tourism in Thailand's Mae Hong Son province. On the Burmese side of the border, agents of the junta gather the Karen, Akha, Lihsu, Lahu and other tribal people into human zoos.

Trail of Tears was trail of betrayal. Mark Anthony Rolo. The Progressive. 5/25/2008.

The Trail of Tears began 170 years ago this week. We should recall it not as an aberration but as a logical outgrowth of an inhumane policy. And we should insist, in its memory, that Indian treaties and Indian sovereignty be honored.

Native American health suffers due to inequality. Donald Wame. The Progressive. 5/20/2008.

How long you live should not depend on how rich you are.

But recent studies show that richer you are, the longer you live.

For American Indians, this is not news.

Mom forced to live in car with dogs. Thelma Gutierrez & Wayne Drash. CNN. 5/20/2008.

SANTA BARBARA, California (CNN) -- Barbara Harvey climbs into the back of her small Honda sport utility vehicle and snuggles with her two golden retrievers, her head nestled on a pillow propped against the driver's seat.

More than 2 million U.S. youths depressed: study. Reuters. 5/13/2008.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - More than 2 million U.S. teenagers have suffered a serious bout of depression in the past year, including nearly 13 percent of girls, according to a federal government survey released on Tuesday.

African Women Making Change. Ann Jones. Mother Jones. 5/13/2008.

It's like the old days of the women's movement in the U.S. and the informal consciousness-raising get-togethers that blew the collective mind of my generation.

Utah Mine Disaster Was Preventable, Report Says. Ian Urbina. NY Times. 5/09/2008.

The general manager and possibly other senior staff at the Crandall Canyon Mine near Huntington, Utah, where 9 miners died in August 2007, hid information from federal mining officials that could have prevented the disaster and should face criminal charges, according to a Congressional investigation whose results were released Thursday.

Child Labor Rings Reach China's Distant Villages. David Barboza. NY Times. 5/10/2008.

LIANGSHAN, China -- The mud and brick schoolhouses in the lush mountain villages of this remote part of southwestern China are dark and barebones in the best of times. These days, they also lack students.

System of Neglect - Immigrant Detention. Dana Priest & Amy Goldstein. Wa. Post. 5/11/2008.

As Tighter Immigration Policies Strain Federal Agencies, The Detainees in Their Care Often Pay a Heavy Cost

The Myth of the Stay-at-Home Mom. Paul Nyhan. Seattle Post-Intelligencer. 5/13/2008.

The media buzzed in recent years with reports of mothers opting out of the work force to raise their children. It turns out the revolution among mothers has been canceled -- and maybe never even started.

Many Hispanics Are Hit Hard by Economic Slump. Many Many Hispanics Are Hit Hard by Economic Slump. Peter Goodman. NY Times. 5/13/2008.

DALTON, Ga. -- In his first years in the United States, Carlos B. Jacinto endured the itinerant life of a Guatemalan migrant worker, from picking fruit in Florida to moving logs at a sawmill in Washington. Eventually, he settled here in northern Georgia and erected a middle-class American life.

New Look at Death Sentences and Race. Adam Liptak. NY Times. 4/29/2008.

About 1,100 people have been executed in the United States in the last three decades. Harris County, Tex., which includes Houston, accounts for more than 100 of those executions. Indeed, Harris County has sent more people to the death chamber than any state but Texas itself.

Global press freedom declines in 2007: study. The Age / AU. 4/30/08.

Global press freedom declined in 2007 for the sixth year running, with worrisome restrictions imposed in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Vietnam, the rights group Freedom House has stated in a report.

UN: Biofuel Production 'Criminal Path' to Global Food Crisis. Environmental News Service. 4/29/2008.

GENEVA, Switzerland - The United States and the European Union have taken a "criminal path" by contributing to an explosive rise in global food prices through using food crops to produce biofuels, the United Nations special rapporteur on the right to food said today.At a press conference in Geneva, Jean Ziegler of Switzerland said that fuel policies pursued by the U.S. and the EU were one of the main causes of the current worldwide food crisis.

Chevron Complicit in Abuses in Burma - Rights Lobby. Marwaan Macan-Markar. Inter Press Services. 4/20/2008.

BANGKOK - An environmental group is warning U.S. energy giant Chevron to clean up its act in Burma or face legal proceedings where the multinational's links to gross human rights violations in the military-ruled country could be exposed.

Blocking the Transmission of Violence. Alex Kotlowitz. NY Times. 5/04/2008.

LAST SUMMER, MARTIN TORRES WAS WORKING AS A COOK IN AUSTIN, Tex., when, on the morning of Aug. 23, he received a call from a relative. His 17-year-old nephew, Emilio, had been murdered. According to the police, Emilio was walking down a street on Chicago's South Side when someone shot him in the chest, possibly the culmination of an ongoing dispute. Like many killings, Emilio's received just a few sentences in the local newspapers. Torres, who was especially close to his nephew, got on the first Greyhound bus to Chicago. He was grieving and plotting retribution. "I thought, Man, I'm going to take care of business," he told me recently. "That's how I live. I was going hunting. This is my own blood, my nephew."

Multinationals Make Billions In Profit Out of Growing Global Food Crisis. Geoffrey Lean. Independent/UK. 5/04/2008.

Speculators blamed for driving up price of basic foods as 100 million face severe hunger

Reports Find Racial Gap in Drug Arrests. Erik Eckholm. NY Times, 5/06/2008.

More than two decades after President Ronald Reagan escalated the war on drugs, arrests for drug sales or, more often, drug possession are still rising. And despite public debate and limited efforts to reduce them, large disparities persist in the rate at which blacks and whites are arrested and imprisoned for drug offenses, even though the two races use illegal drugs at roughly equal rates.

Food Rationing Confronts Breadbasket of the World. Josh Gerstein. NY Sun. 4/21/2008.

Many parts of America, long considered the breadbasket of the world, are now confronting a once unthinkable phenomenon: food rationing. Major retailers in New York, in areas of New England, and on the West Coast are limiting purchases of flour, rice, and cooking oil as demand outstrips supply. There are also anecdotal reports that some consumers are hoarding grain stocks.

Load Up the Pantry. Brett Arends. Wall Street Journal. 4/21/2008.

I don't want to alarm anybody, but maybe it's time for Americans to start stockpiling food.

No, this is not a drill.

Biofuels starving our people, leaders tell UN. Allegra Stratton. Guardian/UK. 4/28/2008.

The leaders of Bolivia and Peru have attacked the use of biofuels, saying they have made food too expensive for the poor.

Scientists: Smog contributes to premature death. AP. 4/22/2008. Link to report summary

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Short-term exposure to smog, or ozone, is clearly linked to premature deaths that should be taken into account when measuring the health benefits of reducing air pollution, a National Academy of Sciences review concludes.

The Great Shopping Spree, R.I.P.. Robert J. Samuelson. Newsweek. 4/28/2008.

For two decades, it's been driven by rising debt levels. At the end of 2007, household borrowing was a dizzying $14 trillion.

Bangladesh children toil to survive. Al Jazeera. 4/14/2008.

It was a routine raid by Bangladeshi police on a textile factory in a shadowy suburb of the capital, Dhaka.

Despite Tough Times, Ultrarich Keep Spending. Christine Haughney & Eric Konigsberg. NY Times. 4/13/2008.

Who said anything about a recession? Sometime between the government bailout of Bear Stearns and the Bureau of Labor Statistics report that America lost 80,000 jobs in March, Lee Tachman spent roughly $50,000 last month on a four-day jaunt to Miami for himself and three close friends.

NBC Universal, ad agency to create product-centered programs. AP. 4/18/2008.

BURBANK, Calif. (AP) -- A newly formed NBC Universal production unit is teaming up with an advertising agency to create programs around sponsors' products, the company said.

Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon's Hidden Hand. David Barstow. NY Times. 4/20/2008.

In the summer of 2005, the Bush administration confronted a fresh wave of criticism over Guantánamo Bay. The detention center had just been branded "the gulag of our times" by Amnesty International, there were new allegations of abuse from United Nations human rights experts and calls were mounting for its closure.

Child brides 'sold' in Afghanistan. BBC. 4/15/08.

In northern Afghanistan it appears some parents are being driven by poverty and hunger to marry off their daughters at an early age. Jenny Cuffe investigates for Radio 4's Seven Days.

Immigration agents detain hundreds at poultry plants. CNN. 4/17/2008

Federal immigration agents fanned out across five states Wednesday, detaining hundreds of employees of Pilgrim's Pride, one of the nation's largest poultry companies.

Wall Street Winners Get Billion-Dollar Paydays. Jenny Anderson. NY Times. 4/16/2008. Hedge fund managers, those masters of a secretive, sometimes volatile financial universe, are making money on a scale that once seemed unimaginable, even in Wall Street's rarefied realms.

Illegal immigrants pay billions in taxes. CNN. 4/15/2008.

NASHVILLE, Tennessee (AP) -- The tax system collects its due, even from a class of workers with little likelihood of claiming a refund and no hope of drawing a Social Security check.

Robots seen doing work of 3.5 million in Japan. Reuters. 4/08/2008.

TOKYO (Reuters) - Robots could fill the jobs of 3.5 million people in graying Japan by 2025, a thinktank says, helping to avert worker shortages as the country's population shrinks.

Credit crunch costs '$1 trillion'. Stevern Schifferes. BBC. 4/09/2008.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has warned that potential losses from the credit crunch will reach $945bn (£472bn) and could be even higher.

As income gap widens, recession fears grow. Tami Luhby. CNN. 4/09/2008

Incomes fell for poor and stagnated for middle-class families since late 1990s, making it tougher for them to weather economic downturn.

For Many, a Boom That Wasn't. David Leonhardt. NY Times. 4/09/2008.

How has the United States economy gotten to this point?

It's not just the apparent recession. Recessions happen. If you tried to build an economy immune to the human emotions that produce boom and bust, you would end up with something that looked like East Germany.

Globalization, trade and recession take a toll on Martinsville, Virginia. Tony Pugh. McClatchy. 4/10/2008.

Food prices stir poverty concern. Al Jazeera. 4/11/2008.

The price of coarse rice, the staple food of poor Bangladeshis, has more than doubled in a year [EPA]

The International Monetary Fund has said that rising food prices threaten to undermine gains made in cutting poverty and could further strain the global economy.

Foreclosure Machine Thrives on Woes. Gretchen Morgenson & Jonathan Glater. NY Times. 3/30/2008.

As Jobs Vanish and Prices Rise, Food Stamp Use Nears Record. Erik Eckholm. NY Times. 3/31/2008,

Driven by a painful mix of layoffs and rising food and fuel prices, the number of Americans receiving food stamps is projected to reach 28 million in the coming year, the highest level since the aid program began in the 1960s.

Who Are We? New Dialogue on Mixed Race. Mireya Navarro. NY Times. 3/31/2008.

Jenifer Bratter once wore a T-shirt in college that read "100 percent black woman." Her African-American friends would not have it.

Oregon's healthcare lottery. Rajesh Mirchandani. BBC. 3/30/2008.

In what is believed to be the first such move, a US state is running a lottery in which the prize is health insurance.

Women face bias worldwide - UN. BBC. 4/05/2008.

Women are discriminated against in almost every country around the world, a UN-commissioned report says.

Blue Collar, Bare Cupboards. Sasha Abramsky. In These Times. 3/28/2008.

Ten miles outside Eugene in west central Oregon, little wooden houses and mobile homes make up the town of Alvadore. The homes are too far apart to give the town--population 1,358--the appearance of a city, yet too close together for it to come off as true countryside. Old, domestically manufactured cars line the streets, as well as a few rundown mom-and-pop convenience stores.

Rich clients' assets to hit $75 trillion by 2012: study. Reuters. 3/27/2008.

LONDON (Reuters) - Wealth held by rich investors with assets over $1 million is set to grow 50 percent in the next five years to $75 trillion, according to a report published on Thursday.