Abstract

THE BEAT

This article presents information related to social and economic issues. An activist on the left wing of Canada's New Democratic Party, Sarah Polley joined the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty's fight to block cuts in social spending and in 1996 lost two teeth when activists clashed with police. Polley now spends much of her time in Hollywood but prefers Toronto. After Proposition 209 restricted affirmative action, University of California Law School went from a 1994 first-year class that included forty-six African-Americans and fifty-seven Latinos to a 1999 first-year class with two African-Americans and seventeen Latinos. In February a 28-year old upstate New York dairy farmer shot himself dead after opening his milk payment check. Suicide has become the No. 1 unnatural cause of death for farmers, as prices for milk and other commodities have collapsed under pressure from federal farm policies that favor agribusiness and punish family farmers.