By Earl Ofari Hutchinson, Pacific News Service. April 1, 2000. The arrest of Jamil al-Amin, once known as H. Rap Brown, on charges of killing one deputy sheriff and wounding another, calls to mind the rhetoric of violence that marked Amin's career as a Black Panther some 30 years ago. PNS commentator Earl Ofari Hutchinson reflects on the way violence obliterates good work in the public mind.
By James Porteous, AlterNet. April 1, 2000. Five offbeat, timely reviews of Web sites on the arts, politics and news -- with a dash of the absurd thrown in for good measure. This week: Bad Art for the Few É Virtuetv.com É E-Nough Already and more.
By Donella H. Meadows, AlterNet. April 1, 2000. "Now that soaring gas prices have caught our attention, it's time to ask, Why is our government the only one in the civilized world with a stupid, short-term energy policy? Why do our elected officials consider a European or Japanese-type energy tax not only unpassable but undiscussable?"
Public Campaign. April 1, 2000. The Public Campaign's biweekly collection of bizarre, outrageous and downright hilarious statistics about dirty money in politics. This week: "Percent of Americans who favor federal safety regulation of guns: 73; Number of votes current U.S. House of Representatives has taken on proposed legislation that would require federal safety regulation of guns: 0."
By Will Durst, AlterNet. April 1, 2000. "According to scientists at the German University of Ulm, men have better hypocampuses than women, which makes us better navigators, with a much more developed sense of direction. And there you were swearing you could hear the shrinking of our genitals over the unfolding of every map."
By Ben Geman, Boston Phoenix. April 1, 2000. The press and the police hyped the links between the WTO tumult in Seattle and Boston's recent "Biodevastation" protests. Turns out they were right -- sort of. There was an important and clear link between Biodevastation and the WTO protests, but it had nothing to do with smashing store windows and rioting in the streets. Rather, it had to do with globalization and corporate power.
By Cynthia Cotts, Village Voice. April 1, 2000. "Has The Advocate, the biweekly magazine for gays and lesbians, sold out? Critics say yes, pointing to budding indicators of a corporate mind-set. The most recent sign came last week, when The Advocate's parent company was taken over by Planet Out, an online gay community that has raised $19 million in financing to date."
By Will Durst, AlterNet. April 1, 2000. "In Boston, attempting to unseat 37-year Democratic Senate veteran Edward Kennedy, Republican contender Jack E. Robinson III has issued an 11 page report detailing all the dirt he and his staff could dig up on ... himself. "
By Scott Harris, AlterNet. April 1, 2000. Consumer activist Wenonah Hauter says that rising gas prices are caused in part by rising oil costs, but also by oil company insiders covertly making big bucks at the expense of consumers.
By L.A. Kauffman, AlterNet. April 1, 2000. "New York City is on the verge of an explosion. With the March 16 police shooting of Patrick Dorismond, the number of unarmed black men gunned down by the NYPD in the last year has risen to three. People here are beyond grief, even beyond anger, so sickened and fed up with the out-of-control police force that they're ready to shut the city down."
By Jedediah Purdy, TomPaine.com. April 1, 2000. In Appalachia, all of history and politics run through coal. But whereas traditional underground mining used to be the lifeblood of the region, it is being replaced by strip-mining, which often entails "mountaintop removal" -- literally blasting the tops off some of the oldest mountains in the world. Jedediah Purdy examines the politics, history and sometimes armed struggle that have made the coal industry what it is today.
By Jason Vest, SpeakOut.com. April 1, 2000. As activists gear up for protests against the IMF and World Bank in Washington, they are facing an abnormal hurdle in their planning -- DC cops. Washington's Metropolitan Police Department has been monitoring activists' e-mails and has dropped in on at least one meeting to intimidate protest organizers.
By Bob Young, Willamette Week. April 1, 2000. If you believe his critics, Jon Entine is one of this country's most dangerous thinkers, a man whose theories on race are so lethal they've been compared to deadly weapons. Entine is a mild-mannered Jewish liberal, who has written the unspeakable: Black people are genetically superior athletes. If the evidence overwhelmingly supports this conclusion, why are we so afraid to talk about it?
By Barbara Ehrenreich, The Progressive. April 1, 2000. "It's odd, given employers' lack of concern about the rest of their employees' private lives, that they take so much interest in pee tests. But the fascination with urine remains un-dimmed through the ages, despite the fact that drug testing doesn't work, even on the employers' rather Scrooge-like terms."
By Vikki Kratz, Shewire.com. April 1, 2000. Who can have access to your Internet voice communications and pinpoint your physical location by tracking your cell phone calls? The FBI can, thanks to new Federal Communication Commission regulations. Internet privacy groups are now questioning how far law enforcement should be able to go when it comes to surveillance, and they've taken their queries to court for a judge's decision.
By Jim Motavalli, E Magazine. April 1, 2000. Fuel cell cars, producing only drinkable water out of their tailpipes, are an unambiguous improvement over internal combustion. The promise these cars hold -- to be both environmentally friendly and technically superior to conventional vehicles on the roads today -- has fueled an international race to get a fuel cell car to market.
By Rachel Rinaldo, AlterNet. April 1, 2000. Protesters will soon converge in Washington to protest against the World Bank and the IMF in what many are calling the Sequel to Seattle. And like in Seattle, a Web-based Independent Media Center will spring up to document the events and bypass the mainstream media, giving hundreds of camcorder-, notebook- and microphone-toting activists an outlet for their information. The IMC hopes to draw at least as much traffic as it did in Seattle -- over 2 million viewers.
By Marc Cooper, LA Weekly. April 1, 2000. A new generation of activists that came of age in Seattle is now taking their fight to upcoming protests in DC, Boston, LA and other cities all over the country. Their politics are not always clearly defined, but there's a common sense of urgency these young activists share, a belief that the economic and social imbalances of the world are volatile, intolerable and immoral. Veteran journalist Marc Cooper takes a long, hard look at the new activist landscape.
By Russell Morse, Pacific News Service. April 1, 2000. Voting for the first time can bring a heady feeling of becoming a real citizen, a participant in the business of running the country. But for Russell Morse, just turned 19, the experience seemed like a confusing exercise in futility.
By Mary Spicuzza, deleted. April 1, 2000. As ravers and anti-drug activists debate whether Ecstasy causes brain damage, both sides may be ignoring a serious and immediate problem few can deny: cracking teeth.
By Eileen Parks, Shewire.com. April 1, 2000. Politicians certainly don't seem to, say youth vote advocates. But organizations like MTV's Rock the Vote aren't giving up -- pointing out to young people that voting is just as important, and effective, as protesting the WTO in the streets of Seattle.
By Jake Ginsky, MotherJones.com. April 1, 2000. WireTap:A new movement of gay rappers is emerging on the scene -- breaking through barriers in both gay and hip-hop cultures. Tired of being pushed into the margins, rappers like Dutchboy -- a hip-hop MC in San Francisco -- are ready for a little mainstream love.
By Yvonne Fide, HipMama.com. April 1, 2000. WireTap:"When I first made the appointment, I thought that they would tell me that I'm not pregnant, give me some protection, tell me to talk to my parents and send me on my way. But that wasn't what happened. I watched the test strip as one dot appeared, and within thirty seconds there were clearly two blue dots. No mistaking it -- my life was permanently altered."
By Sophia Mostella (16), L.A. Youth. April 1, 2000. "In my family we usually don't express emotions, especially sadness. Dealing with my brother's death was the most tender moment ever shared in my family, and the most heartbreaking."
By Salim Muwakkil, In These Times. April 1, 2000. The Rev. Jesse L Jackson has been considered the steward of Martin Luther King Jr.'s progressive legacy. But even those who consider him an ally are suspicious of his enthusiasm for capitalist solutions and corporate connections. Is Jackson's embrace of corporate capitalism a betrayal of the progressive ideas held by his mentor?
By Tamara Straus, AlterNet. April 1, 2000. Adam Smith is smiling in his grave. His conviction that markets are self-regulating proved true earlier this month when drkoop.com, the once flush healthcare Web site founded by former U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, was deemed to have little chance of survival. It's an Internet riches to rags story par excellence -- with all its shoddy undertones, false promises and unsettling scandals -- and may signal the beginning of a major dot-com shakeout.
By Norman Solomon, AlterNet. April 1, 2000. "Oh Elian, how we love you! Kids your age usually aren't interesting to those of us in the media profession. They may suffer from hunger, poverty, racism and a host of other dangers, but the chances are slim that a spotlight will fall on their unimportant little lives. Not like you, Elian. You're so special, because we have made your ordeal a mesmerizing tragedy, a riveting psychodrama ..."
By Roger Naylor, Las Vegas CityLife. April 1, 2000. "Color me curious but, if it's true that all you really needed to know you learned in kindergarten, why don't people walk into restaurants and order a paste and booger fajita?"
By Erin Aubry Kaplan, LA Weekly. April 1, 2000. What do hip-hop, black history and Japanese samurai culture have in common? Forest Whitaker explains in an interview devoted to his new movie, "Ghost Dog."
By Don Hazen, AlterNet. April 1, 2000. It goes without saying that the commercial intrusion into public life has gone far beyond epidemic proportions. But to make sure you realize just how ridiculous it is, a creative team at New York University will soon be staging the 4th Annual Schmios Awards -- a mock award ceremony that pokes fun at the outrageous world of corporate advertising.
By Christina V. Tormey, Hartford Advocate. April 1, 2000. Today many Americans believe in government conspiracies, and why not? Numerous reports of CIA and U.S. military mind-control, assassination and drug-running conspiracies have recently come to the public eye, and even the most trusting of citizens are suspicious about secret goverment projects. How much truth is there behind the paranoia?
By Karen Cook, Village Voice. April 1, 2000. Activists hope you'll cut up your Discover Card to protest the company's financial role in backing China's ecologically devastating Three Gorges Dam.
By Michael Lindemann, GS Report. April 1, 2000. These days, no week goes by without the announcement of some new study further clarifying the reality of impending climate change. But if the press and public have acquiesced to the idea of climate change, they have not begun to grapple with its implications.
By Cecil L. Bothwell III, AlterNet. April 1, 2000. "We have become more godlike than ever in our individual ability to wreak change and simultaneously more convinced than ever that our actions are meaningless. Could there be a better formula for corruption and abuse?"
By Phil Jacobsen, AlterNet. April 1, 2000. "Growing up I had a best friend with multiple personalities: CBS, NBC, and ABC. Four if you counted PBS. At fourteen I called the Coast Guard and told them they needed to find an uncharted desert isle where seven stranded castaways were living without a boat, a plane, a motor car, or a single luxury."
By Scott Harris, AlterNet. April 1, 2000. A look at the personal history and politics of newly elected Russian President Vladimir Putin as he confronts his nation's economic crisis and conflict in Chechnya.
By Mark Weisbrot, AlterNet. April 1, 2000. "How many people know the hideous story of how we supported and financed the slaughter of tens of thousands -- innocent civilians, teachers, health care and church workers -- in Central America in the 1980s? Apparently not enough, or we wouldn't be doing the same thing, little more than a decade later in Colombia."
By Mad Dog, AlterNet. April 1, 2000. "If scientists at the Defense Department have their way we'll soon be slapping a patch on our arm -- much like the nicotine patch -- in lieu of downing a Big Mac, fries and large Coke. Think of it as a self-feeding Power Bar only better -- after all, you don't have to taste a patch."
By Russell Mokhiber, Robert Weissman, AlterNet. April 1, 2000. Mokhiber and Weissman detail the various ways that the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank are breaking the backs of small nations, plunging millions into poverty, fostering severe depressions and destroying the environment.
