This Week - May 26, 2005:

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Something Positive Is Goin’ On...
Good News Roundup

Villaraigosa’s Landslide Victory
Los Angeles has turned a corner with the election of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, a Latino union leader who was defeated in the 2000 election by James Hahn’s cocaine-focused smear campaign, described by Drug Policy Alliance as “flagrant drug-baiting, and thinly veiled race-baiting.” This time, he was again accused of not hating druggies enough:

“As a member of the City Council, Antonio Villaraigosa was a champion of harm reduction programs, voting for needle exchange and pharmacy sale of syringes. In October 2003, he was the opening speaker at a Drug Policy Alliance event to publicize the danger of hepatitis C and to promote disease prevention strategies for drug users and other at-risk communities.” – drugpolicy.org

This time the incumbent’s African-American constituents jumped the fence, over the firing of police chief Bernard Parks, who answered by running against Hahn in the primaries. Jon Wiener writes in The Nation, “Villaraigosa knows his key political task is cementing a progressive alliance between Latinos and blacks. If he can do that, he will point the way to a new liberal-left coalition and make political history not just for LA but for the country. ”

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Landless Peasants Bring Demands to Lula
In a mass demonstration of logistical genius and political savvy, 12,000 landless peasants walked across Brazil in a 17-day march that ended this week in the capital, protesting Lula’s failure to fulfill promised land reforms. They brought him a message of deep disappointment and announced that they are considering withdrawing their critical support for Lula in the next election. Along the way, the marchers formed discussion groups to address topics ranging from sustainable farming to economics every afternoon. “Through a mass consultative process, they created a list of 16 demands that ranged from settling the promised 430 thousand families, releasing the frozen funds so that real land reform could be accomplished, doubling the minimum wage, and defending Amazonian biodiversity, to renegotiating the debt, opposing the FTAA, and refusing to expand the WTO.” Deborah James of Global Exchange reports that Brazil’s landless peasants movement has organized over 1.5 million members across the country, and successfully settled tens of thousands of families illegally by taking over unproductive land and founding communities with their own water treatment systems, housing and schools.
For more info see:Landless Workers’ Movement.

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Back to the 1950’s?
The Sex Ed Bush Wants

ROCKVILLE, Md. - Maryland's largest school district is scrapping sex education materials that have come under fire for implying that homosexuality is a biological trait and for demonstrating how to put on a condom.
The Montgomery County school board voted Monday to rethink its curriculum, weeks after a federal lawsuit was filed by two groups who said it did not do enough to stress abstinence or give opposing views on homosexuality.

Gone from the curriculum will be materials that imply homosexuality is a biological trait, excluding viewpoints of those who believe same-sex attraction can be overcome.

Also dropped was a seven-minute video that was to be shown to 10th graders, in which a woman puts a condom on a cucumber to demonstrate its use.

The school system had planned to launch the pilot program for 8th and 10th graders on May 9 but suspended it for the rest of the school year after U.S. District Judge Alexander Williams issued a 10-day restraining order.

It was unclear how the board's action will affect attempts to reach a settlement in the lawsuit brought by Citizens for a Responsible Curriculum and the Virginia-based Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays.

The district's curriculum will be rewritten by professional educators and consultants, and a 27-member citizens advisory committee will help oversee the process. The board will consider the revisions next school year.

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Operation Falcon or Operation Fascist?

There's only one way to make sure that the machinery of state-terror is operating at maximum efficiency; flip on the switch and let er rip. That was thinking behind last month's massive roundup of 10,000 American citizens in what was aptly-christened Operation Falcon.

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N.C. Church Calls For Koran To Be Flushed Down Toilet
The Council on American-Islamic Relations is demanding a church in North Carolina take down a sign that reads "The Koran needs to be flushed." The pastor of the church - the Rev. Creighton Lovelace - defended the sign saying "My creed is the Bible, which tells me I am supposed to stand up and defend my faith. I don't hate Muslims, I just hate their false doctrines." Ibrahim Hooper of CAIR responded by saying "Christians often ask themselves, 'What would Jesus do? I don't think Jesus, who is loved by Muslims and mentioned frequently in the Koran, would use such hate-filled and divisive rhetoric."

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FBI Documents Show Detainees Complained of Koran Abuse in 2002
Newly declassified documents released by the FBI have revealed detainees at Guantanamo Bay began complaining that the Koran was being desecrated by U.S. interrogators at the jail as early as 2002. The documents were obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union and include numerous summaries of FBI interviews with prisoners. One detainee interviewed in August of that year, accused guards of flushing the Koran down the toilet. Others reported the Koran being kicked, withheld as punishment and thrown on the floor. The news comes on the heels of controversy over a Newsweek article by journalist Michael Isikoff saying that government investigators had corroborated an almost identical incident. Newsweek ultimately retracted its story under intense government pressure. We'll have more on this in a few minutes.

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Justice for Janitors

We will have a short conversation with DJCJ about the Justice for Janitors rally held last week in Torrey Pines. To listen to the interview we had last week with the SEIU’s head organizer Mike Wilvoch go here

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Friends For Peace in Africa: Interview with Okot Nyormoi
We spend the last part of the hour discussing the political situation in Northern Uganda with Friends For Peace in Africa Organizer Okot Nyormoi.