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Banned Books Week

By Peter Rothberg

I wasn't surprised to read that the American Library Association (ALA) reported at least 513 actual and attempted book bannings in the US in 2008. Here's the list of the ten most frequently challenged books of last year.

What did surprise me is this interactive map showing exactly where the bannings have taken place. Would you have guessed that many of the bluest states have been just as guilty as the cradle of the Confederacy? New England's puritanical heritage seems to be holding sway with the Eastern Seaboard awash in incidents of censorship.

Along with the locations of each incident, the map notes the offending titles and offer brief summaries of the cases against these tomes. The controversies range from predictable fears about magic-related YA fiction to traditional opposition to classics like Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. The transgressions range from the use of profanity and slang, to allegedly offensive depictions of racial or religious groups, to portrayals of homosexuals as anything other than mentally ill.

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September 29, 2009

CO2 Is Green

By Peter Rothberg

An article in yesterday's Washington Post exposed the coal and oil industry interests behind recent national TV ads arguing against climate change legislation.

The ads tout the benefits of increased levels of carbon dioxide, and it's true that some CO2 is necessary for survival. But the Supreme Court has ruled CO2 a pollutant and most scientists regard the substance as a dangerous greenhouse gas requiring strict regulation.

Moreover, a recent assessment of climate change consequences in the United States from thirteen federal science agencies found that global warming from increased levels of carbon dioxide is "already affecting water, energy, transportation, agriculture, ecosystems, and health." The report notes that dramatically reducing heat-trapping emissions will help avert the worst consequences of climate change. These findings are consistent with research from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the National Academy of Sciences and the world's most prominent scientific societies. A recent United Nations Environment Programme review of the scientific literature concludes "the pace and scale of climate change may now be outstripping even the most sobering predictions."

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September 26, 2009

Protesting the G-20

By Peter Rothberg

A Federal Judge in Pittsburgh ruled last week that six peace and justice groups can protest at this week's G-20 summit of the industrialized world's leading Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors.

Acting on a lawsuit brought by the Center for Constitutional Rights and the Pennsylvania ACLU, the Judge said that one of the groups, Code Pink, will be allowed to use Point State Park, centrally located in downtown Pittsburgh, for several days preceding the G-20, where it has created a Women's Tent City to educate people about the policies of the G20 and their relationship to the suffering of women and children as refugees and victims of war. The city also granted permits for a march and rally by the G6 Billion group; for another march by the group Bail Out the People; and for permits for a group of artists to use a city park.

Estimates from organizers vary widely but numerous other antiwar, environmental and anti-poverty groups plan to demonstrate this Thursday and Friday in Pittsburgh to coincide with the meetings. In response, the city, after losing its law suits, has brought in approximately 4,000 extra police for the summit.

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September 22, 2009

Demanding a Public Option

By Peter Rothberg

The fight for meaningful healthcare reform continues and Arkansas has turned into a crucial battlefield. In a state where polls show eighty percent of state Democrats supporting a pubic option, Senator Blanche Lincoln and Congressman Mike Ross, a leading Blue Dog, have consistently stood with the insurance industry in opposing the government plan.

In response, the indefatigable Jane Hamsher, a peerless political blogger and tireless advocate for a public option, has created an ad to remind Lincoln and Ross that Democratic voters, not Blue Cross Blue Shield CEOs, are the ones who put them in office.

Here's the ad, produced by FireDogLake Action:

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September 18, 2009

No New Powers for the Fed

By Peter Rothberg

In just 10 months, the Federal Reserve has handed trillions of taxpayer dollars to the banks without telling taxpayers who got the money and whether we'll ever get it back. The Fed colluded with the banks to inflate bubbles and helped spark the biggest crash since the Great Depression. Since then it has been funding billion dollar CEO bonuses for the banks that sit on their boards of directors.

Moreover, in some important respects, the Fed seems to not even know what it's doing itself, as this Congressional questioning of Federal Reserve Inspector General Elizabeth Coleman seems to suggest.

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September 11, 2009

Fighting for the Public Option

By Peter Rothberg

In an address to a joint session of Congress tonight, President Obama will try to build momentum for his healthcare reform, pitching what Robert Gibbs says will be a fresh argument for the public option. I agree with my boss, Katrina vanden Heuvel, who argued in a post that Obama " will be most persuasive if he speaks with passion about his principles and priorities--and draws some lines in the sand."

The President would also do well to take some cues from former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, who has become one of the clearest debunkers of fallacies underlying the arguments put forth by critics of reform.

In this video, Reich clearly explains what exactly the public option is as well as neatly unpacking the fake compromise of "so-called healthcare cooperatives, which would be too small and scattered to have the scale and bargaining leverage of a public option."

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September 9, 2009

The Fight for Food

By Peter Rothberg

The emergence of food as a political and social issue worth organizing around is demonstrated by the abundance of projects, initiatives, blogs, campaigns and efforts to realign food production and consumption around goals of social justice, equality and nutrition.

Slow Food USA's Time for Lunch campaign officially kick-offs on Labor Day with a National Day of Action featuring more than 280 scheduled Eat-Ins in all 50 states. There'll also be a virtual march on Washington with citizens encouraged to send a clear message to Congress to protect children against food that puts them at risk. The campaign seeks to have Congress update the Child Nutrition Act, which is up for reauthorization later this month, to get legitimately nutritious food into school lunch programs. Slow Food USA chapter leaders have been working diligently to reach out to schools, PTA groups, churches, legislators, and community and fraternal organizations to bring as many people as possible to the table on Labor Day. More than 40 percent of local Eat-Ins are being organized by other organizations – or concerned citizens – that support the goals of the campaign.

In New Orleans, the scene of numerous innovative social programs in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, ReThink has been working with chefs, farmers, architects, and artists to create twelve recommendations for changes in the New Orleans public school cafeterias. The recs included the standard (though important): buy local food, increase vegetarian options and use food garbage for composting, to things like banning sporks, redesigning eating spaces and the elimination of styrofoam trays. The group also created a video food game, apparently the first of its kind -- The Ultimate Lunch Tray. In related NOLA news, Dayo Olopade's " Green Shoots in New Orleans" from The Nation's new special issue on food chronicles how a frustrating quest for food security has led some residents to start growing their own.

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September 3, 2009