LA Progressive: This Week’s Articles — April 18 to 24, 2010

April 25, 2010 By admin

Articles by H. Scott Prosterman, Sikivu Hutchinson, Anthony Samad, Walter Moss, Ivan Eland, Diane Lefer, Tom Hall, Ron Wolff, Rev. Irene Monroe, Mario Solis-Marich, Ed Rampell, Norman Solomon, Carl Matthes, Tina Dupuy, Andrea Christina Nill, Randy Shaw, Joseph Palermo, Michael Sigman, Caitlin Frazier, Paul Hogarth, Michelle Waslin, Sikivu Hutchinson, David A. Love, Shamus Cooke, Joseph Palermo, Jonathan Coopersmith, Carl Bloice, Linda Milazzo, Natasha Minsker, Romona Riptson;, Bob Letcher, Tom Degan, and Natalie Davis

Mitch: Plutocracy’s Patsy

April 24, 2010 By Tom Degan

Tom Degan: I have spent enough time in Kentucky to know that it is chock full of good, decent, and honorable citizens. Knowing this as I do, another perplexing question forces itself on my consciousness: Why would such wonderful and lovely people consistently send a flaming jerk like Mitch McConnell to represent them in Washington? It just doesn’t make any sense!

Goodbye, Right-Wing Friend, Goodbye

April 24, 2010 By Natalie Davis

Natalie Davis: Progressives and right-wingers don’t speak the same language (and the Right insists that everyone speak theirs and live under its rules and worldview). When I resist that, I AM THE BAD ONE. If I get angry at inequality, something obviously is wrong with ME. Of course, I reject that notion wholesale: Each of the two sides sees the other’s view as completely immoral, not merely as “misguided” or “wrong.”

Moist!

April 24, 2010 By Ed Rampell

Ed Rampell: The audience, which included many African-American women, by and large loved the performances and philosophy. In a kind of “call and response” the performers adroitly riffed with the responsive spectators, incorporating some improv into their show since, as Jimmy Durante wisely noted: “Everyone wants to get into the act!” (Especially the sex act.)

CARS Catalyzes Cultural Community

April 24, 2010 By Michael Sigman

Michael Sigman: Community Arts Resources’ mission emphasizes the development of public space in Los Angeles, a concept that may seem oxymoronic to Angelenos who have panic attacks when they have to walk more than a few feet to their valet-parked cars. Bergin/Paley helped with the design for the new Grand Avenue Civic Park, slated for 2012 opening, which will feature a fountain plaza, performance lawn, community terrace and event space, along with a children’s garden and an area for community markets.

As Death Penalty Cases Fade, L.A. County Pays to Buck the Trend

April 24, 2010 By Natasha Minsker

Natasha Minsker and Ramona Ripston: Los Angeles County, home to California’s largest trial court system, has been feeling the pain of those court closures in more significant measure than most. It recently laid off more than 300 staff and is moving forward with shutting down 12 courtrooms. But meanwhile, a parallel trend is stalking the county that’s exacerbating the budget crisis. Astoundingly, Los Angeles County has become the leading death penalty county in the United States. In fact, in 2009 more people were sentenced to death in Los Angeles County than in any other state, including Texas, the longtime leader in this grim statistic.

10 Questions for T People from the Parkie They Heckled

April 24, 2010 By Robert Letcher

Robert Letcher: Eighth, how can you act so angry and unaware on the world’s stage (it’s not yours or ours anymore—so you can’t just take it home), yet hope not to be dismissed as ugly Americans who can no longer think well and creatively enough to compete in anything except war games made with real wars?

Slum Housing: LA’s Hidden Health Crisis and a Model Response

April 23, 2010 By Diane Lefer

Diane Lefer: Slum housing has a negative impact on residents’ health–even when the building doesn’t collapse on top of you while you sleep which is what happened to some tenants of slumlord Frank McHugh. But today, more than 3,000 low-income families enjoy better health and almost as many now live in improved housing thanks to the Healthy Neighborhoods, Same Neighbors Collaborative, a groundbreaking partnership among community organizers, grassroots nonprofits, and tenants from South Los Angeles and downtown, all working in coordination with city and county agencies, legal professionals and health care providers.

From an Economy of Consumption to an Economy of Sustainability

April 23, 2010 By Walter G. Moss

Walter Moss: As we face the simultaneous challenges of creating more jobs and a more sustainable environment for our children and grandchildren, are we not capable of new thinking? Are we not capable of demonstrating that yes, we can evolve toward an economy that evidences more of what Schumacher thought it should — Beauty, Truth, and Goodness?

Friday Feedback: Whither Sustainability?

April 23, 2010 By admin

Friday Feedback: “How do we take seriously his advice to deemphasize material consumption?” ANSWER: By personally taking seriously his advice -getting kicks from living life, not collecting or wasting goods. In some cases new technology is already massively helping: instead of humongous material resources to move people or goods, we can much more readily move information.

President Obama Campaigning for Deadbeat Democrats

April 23, 2010 By Anthony Asadullah Samad

Anthony Samad: I fell out of love years ago with the Democratic Party because of the way they disrespect black folk. Blacks “default” to the Democratic Party and get little (or nothing) in return. The Democrats think African Americans don’t have a choice but to vote for them, and they don’t have to work to keep their vote. And blacks often give their vote away before most Democrats can do something to earn it, thus earning the title as the Democrat’s “doormat constituency.”

The Bluest Eye Revisited

April 23, 2010 By Sikivu Hutchinson

Sikivu Hutchinson: Perhaps no other book in contemporary American literature has captured the ontology of black female childhood experience and imagination as devastatingly as Toni Morrison’s 1970 novel The Bluest Eye. In the novel, Morrison’s preteen female protagonists bear fierce witness to the psychological disfigurements of racism, sexism, and segregation. They comment on the mystery of adulthood and the savagery of being dehumanized as young black girls in a culture that exalts the blue-eyed Barbie ideal. Speaking from an era in which racial progress was equated with the enfranchisement of black men, the female voices of The Bluest Eye quietly historicize the trials of black women in apartheid America.

Sarah & Michelle’s Excellent Tea Party

April 23, 2010 By H. Scott Prosterman

H. Scott Prosterman: Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachman are pretty women who know how to work a crowd. They wink, they squeal, and say, “Goshdarnit;” and they don’t confuse tea with sympathy. Ole Miss had lots of pretty women on campus in the early 1960s when a major riot broke out over the admission of a black student, James Meredith. At the time, those women were big on both tea and sympathy, until Meredith showed up to enroll. Then, those cute, pretty, demure, Southern sorority girls picked up bricks & rocks, and helped in the effort to kill a few people and shoot more than 20 federal marshals. The next day they put their baby-dresses and hoop skirts back on, and went back to being sweet-natured Ole Miss sorority girls.

Facing Opportunities and Obstacles in Space

April 23, 2010 By Jonathan Coopersmith

Jonathan Coopersmith: The Obama administration is discarding older NASA technologies in a quest for a new start. A historian of technology says that progress depends on finding ways to explore space at tolerable prices

Obama’s Nuclear Achievements Are Less Than Meets the Eye

April 23, 2010 By Ivan Eland

Ivan Eland: Despite all the hoopla about President Barack Obama’s summit on nuclear security and a new arms control deal, the eventual results of his laudable efforts will probably be modest and will likely be dwarfed by the damage to nuclear security done by George W. Bush’s prior administration. . . . but at least Obama has refocused world attention on what is still the only existential threat in U.S. history—nuclear war—and the improbable, but potentially disastrous, threat of nuclear terrorism. In its pursuit of nation-building and military social work in overseas quagmires, the Bush administration had neglected both.