Chicago Sun-Times

SEQUESTER PAIN GOES BEYOND AIR TRAVEL

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 02:19:53 -0500

When the sequester federal spending cuts forced flight delays because of the furlough of air traffic controllers, the normally deadlocked Congress acted in less than a week to give the Federal Aviation Administration flexibility to avoid the furloughs. The aggravations of business travelers are heard in Washington. But Congress can’t seem to hear the tribulations of the less fortunate: † Chicago hospitals are facing a 2 percent cut in Medicare support, which will leave some seniors with less care. † 125 AIDS-afflicted families will lose their subsidized housing in Chicago because of the sequester. † 460 teachers and teachers aide …

South Side isn’t ready for health emergencies

Wed, 24 Apr 2013 13:43:11 -0500

As this is written, everyone wounded in the terror bombings at the Boston Marathon has survived his or her wounds. This remarkable testament to effective medical response stems largely from Boston’s exceptional health-care capacity. But as demonstrated by the fertilizer explosion in West, Texas, the chaos wreaked by Superstorm Sandy, the shootings in Aurora, Colo., and Newtown, Conn., and the horrible gun violence that savages Chicago, every community must ask if it has the capacity to answer emergencies. And in South Chicago and other neglected poor communities, the answer is surely no. The remarkable response in Boston was exemplary, but …

Reparations in order for 1963 bombing

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 02:15:43 -0500

It was terror that shook the nation. On Sunday, Sept. 15, 1963, a bomb exploded in the basement of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala. Four little girls, all dressed in white — 14-year-olds Addie Mae Collins, Carole Robertson and Cynthia Wesley, and 11-year-old Denise McNair — died in the explosion, and are remembered in history. Congress now is considering offering them posthumously a Congressional Gold Medal. But there was a fifth little girl caught in the blast — 10-year-old Sarah Collins Rudolph — the younger sister of Addie Mae. Partly blinded, she staggered from the basement bleeding …

Unhealthy obsession with testing is behind rampant school cheating

Tue, 09 Apr 2013 10:46:00 -0500

The Atlanta public school cheating scandal is but “the tip of the iceberg,” reports Bob Schaeffer, public education director of the National Center for Fair and Open Testing. A new FairTest survey reports confirmed cheating incidents in 37 states and the District of Columbia in just that last four years. It also lists 50 ways adults in public schools artificially boost test scores. When everyone cheats, you know something is wrong with the test. In fact, high-stakes testing — in which jobs and even the existence of schools depend on the results of a standardized test — is a perverse …

45 years after King, struggle goes on

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 02:14:10 -0500

April 4 will mark the 45th year since the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis. Dr. King, 39, at the time, has now been gone from us longer than he was with us. A monument celebrates his life on the mall in Washington. He is remembered as the man with a dream at the March on Washington. In 1968, however, Dr. King was far from the favored celebrity he is today. He was under fierce criticism for opposing the war in Vietnam. Former colleagues were scorning his commitment to nonviolence. When he went to …

Michigan ‘czars’ strip away citizens’ rights

Sat, 27 Apr 2013 06:10:30 -0500

Imagine Gov. George Wallace of Alabama in 1963 appointing an emergency manager in Birmingham with broad powers to dismiss elected officials, renegotiate contracts, sell assets and become sole authority of the city’s pension funds a month after the voters rejected the emergency manager law in a statewide referendum? What would Dr. King have written from his Birmingham jail cell? Emergencies can force people to come together. They can also be used by the powerful to impose policies that would otherwise be rejected. Author Naomi Klein called this the “shock doctrine,” using a crisis to overcome democratic resistance. The state of …

More youth priced out of college

Sat, 20 Apr 2013 06:20:16 -0500

Morehouse College, one of the most distinguished historically black colleges — with graduates like Dr. Martin Luther King, former Atlanta Mayor Maynard Jackson, film director Spike Lee and others — literally shut down for spring break this week. As its 2,000 students took their break, every member of the faculty and staff was furloughed without pay as the college struggles to balance its books. The crisis at Morehouse, which will hit other historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) even harder, results from the combination of foul economic times and continued cuts in support for students and colleges at the federal …

Time to restart U.S.-Venezuela relations

Sat, 13 Apr 2013 06:17:09 -0500

Last week, President Obama sent a small delegation — featuring U.S. Reps. Gregory Meeks and William Delahunt — to attend the funeral of President Hugo Chavez in Venezuela. In doing so, he wisely ignored both the provocative comments from Venezuela suggesting that the U.S. was implicated in Chavez’s death, and the negative comments of conservatives like Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen who called the effort “weak and irresponsible.” On the contrary, the gesture was respectful and respected. And it can hopefully open a new page on our relations with Venezuela and the hemisphere. We have every good reason to have good relations …

Court misses white racial entitlement

Sat, 06 Apr 2013 06:17:47 -0500

In oral arguments before the Supreme Court on the Voting Rights Act, Justice Antonin Scalia slandered the act as a “racial entitlement,” arguing, “whenever a society adopts racial entitlements, it is very difficult to get out of them through the normal political processes.” So, the right-wing justice intimated, the conservative “Gang of Five” on the Supreme Court had every right to step in and overrule the 98 senators who voted unanimously to reauthorize the act (including the senators of every state and jurisdiction required to seek pre-clearance of any changes in their voting laws). The justice proved once more that …

Voting rights act as needed as ever

Wed, 27 Mar 2013 06:11:52 -0500

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court will hear a challenge to the Voting Rights Act in the case of Shelby v. Holder. On the same day, across the street in the congressional rotunda, a statue honoring Rosa Parks will be unveiled. And one week later, the nation will celebrate the 48th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, the march from Selma to Montgomery that helped spur President Johnson to champion the act. The Voting Rights Act has helped fulfill the nation’s commitment to inclusion — to a big tent democracy that guarantees to all citizens the right to vote. Yet many fear that …

Guns, not the Klan, are the real threat

Wed, 20 Mar 2013 06:22:27 -0500

Chicago suffers unbearable levels of gun violence, yet the victims remain largely silent. They travel from funeral home to graveyard rather than march from church to gun shop. The president is applauded when he calls for action on gun violence, but before his plane leaves the tarmac, more are shot, including even the sister of one of the young children standing behind him during his address. If we are to free ourselves of this terror, we will have to change our minds. Victims of tyranny have three options. They can adjust, they can resent but turn anger inward, or they …

Obama knows what ails Chicago

Wed, 13 Mar 2013 06:17:19 -0500

On Saturday, family and friends gathered to mourn the loss of Hadiya Pendleton, shot to death last month at age 15 in a South Side park. Michelle Obama graced the memorial with her caring presence, a mother comforting a brokenhearted family for the unbearable horror that took place about a mile from the Obama home in Kenwood. The first lady’s presence brought dignity, stature and the reassurance of concern and compassion from the highest level of government. Now, the White House will give national attention to the violence that is scarring Chicago. Hadiya’s parents, Cleopatra Cowley-Pendleton and Nathaniel A. Pendleton, …

Come home, Mr. President

Wed, 06 Mar 2013 06:13:48 -0500

Chicago is in a state of emergency. Lives are being lost. Fear is growing. Local officials, ministers and community activists are working diligently but cannot break the cycle. We’re seeing more than one funeral a day. Our children are traumatized. Many are afraid to go to school. In this crisis, we need the president’s leadership. President Obama can provide the knowledge, vision and inspiration to bring us together to address the crisis. He can speak to the children to calm their fears. Mr. President, as you know, last week, 15-year-old Hadiya Pendleton, an honor student who performed in your inaugural …

Dr. King’s lesson: It’s up to us

Sat, 23 Feb 2013 06:16:07 -0500

‘We the people declare today that the most evident of truths — that all of us are created equal — is the star that guides us still; just as it guided our forebears through Seneca Falls and Selma and Stonewall; just as it guided all those men and women, sung and unsung, who left footprints along this great mall, to hear a preacher say that we cannot walk alone; to hear a King proclaim that our individual freedom is inextricably bound to the freedom of every soul on Earth.” President Barack Obama offered a bold vision in his inaugural address …

We’ve come a long way, but we have far to go

Sat, 16 Feb 2013 06:15:06 -0500

When President Barack Obama is sworn in for his second term, his hand will rest not only on President Abraham Lincoln’s Bible, but on Dr. Martin Luther King’s, too. As the ceremony falls on the federal holiday celebrating Dr. King’s birth, the civil rights leader would no doubt be proud as an African-American president is sworn in on the steps of a Capitol built by slave labor, about 170 miles from Jamestown where slave ships landed. We have come a long way. But Dr. King would not be satisfied. He marched to his own drummer, and wanted to be remembered …

Aim for a rational discussion on guns

Sat, 09 Feb 2013 06:13:31 -0500

The president is committed to reforming our gun laws; a working group headed by Vice President Joe Biden is considering a broad agenda. The proposals mentioned, not formally announced yet, already are being strafed by politicians in both parties. Before everyone goes to the barricades, it would be worth trying to have a rational discussion. The reforms under consideration include the basic: reinstating the ban on the sale of assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. They include good governance: bolstering state reporting on felons, drug abuses, the mentally ill for the FBI database, strengthening mental health screening. They include what many …

Make 2013 a year of renewal, not ruin

Sat, 02 Feb 2013 06:11:21 -0500

The new year begins with a bad hangover from 2012’s inane debate over the “fiscal cliff.” The furious debate focused only on how much damage would be done to the economy and who would pay the price, how much and what would be cut, who would pay higher taxes and who would suffer the most. But this headache can’t define 2013, which must be a time to renew, not to ruin. Whatever final agreement comes out of the fiscal cliff will slow an economy already struggling to grow. The challenge is to turn to what can be done to rebuild, …

Faith is stronger than the sword

Sat, 26 Jan 2013 06:13:24 -0500

Christmas decorations light the streets. Malls are full. Christmas music fills the air. But this year, there is a somber undercurrent to the celebration. We will all hug our children a little harder. Our hearts will be in our throats as they go out to play. After the horror of Newtown, we remember how precious and how vulnerable they are in a country that is drowning in guns. Some good news can be told, however. Violent crime, teenage pregnancy, binge drinking and cigarette smoking are down. Yet, one in five children in the U.S. is now living in poverty — …