Right Here

School daze:The Baltimore City school system announced, with the opening of school, that they had a deficit $52 million and may start increasing class size and firing newly hired teachers. (Baltimore Sun)

Be it ever so humble: The just-released National Low Income Housing Coalition study of housing and utilities costs declared that a worker must earn $15.21 an hour to afford the average cost of rent and utilities and have money left over for food and other necessities. This is defined as a two-bedroom rental unit at fair market rent while paying no more than 30% of income in rent. Maryland is the fifth least affordable rental area and had the greatest increase in costs since last year.

Police procedure: A US District Court judge issued an order to the mayor and police chief of Washington, DC to make public the findings of their investigation and admit to what they did wrong in the arrests of 400 people during the IMF-World Bank demonstrations last September. (Washington Post)

What color is your parachute? The Transportation Security Administration announced its intent to color code all airline passengers according to their supposed risk. If green, you’re clean, but 8 percent are expected to be coded yellow and detained for additional screening while 1-2 percent coded red will not be allowed to board. (Washington Post)

President Shrub announced a set of proposals this week to expand the repressive provisions of the Patriot Act. These include expanding the use of the death penalty and allowing federal police to seize private records and to compel testimony. (NY Times)

One step in place:Congress voted to defeat the White House proposal that would cutback overtime pay for hundreds of thousands of workers as well as outsource almost 850,000 government jobs.

Poll Watch More Americans have expressed disapproval of the United Nations than in the last 50 years. The USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll indicates that the UN’s refusal to support the US invasion of Iraq is a major factor. (www.usatoday.com)

Hands up, you're free: An Associated Press poll this week found that 51 percent of people believe that it will be necessary for everyone to give up some civil liberties in order to be protected against terrorism. One-third believe that people’s legal rights have already been violated.

This bird is sinking: Perhaps the most significant poll results this week appears in the Washington Post/ABC News which found that 60 percent of a national sample “disapproved” of Shrub’s proposal to allocate $87 billion to supporting the war machine.

Over There

Power to the people? As expected, France, Germany and Russia rejected the Shrub administration proposal regarding the rebuilding of Iraq. They called instead for greater power for the Iraqis and for the UN (Associated Press). Secretary of State Powell declared any curtailment of American power was “unacceptable.” (NY Times)

“His beard was somewhat grayer”: Establishment journalists having little to say about the appearance of a new installment of a bin Laden in your face tape recording became obsessed with tonsorial observations. That’s what’s so great about a free press.

This Week in History

Margaret Sanger is born (1879); The typewriter ribbon was invented (1886); Genocide of Armenians begins in Turkey (1915); Eugene Debs was sentenced to 10 years in prison for publicly opposing the first world war and while still in prison polled over 900,000 votes for president (1918); Over 1,000 Boston police officers strike when 19 labor leaders are fired for union organizing (1919); Luna 2, the Soviet space probe, became the first to reach the moon (1959); Prisoner rebellion at Attica Prison with New York state police killing 39 prisoners and hostages (1971); The democratically-elected, socialist government of Chile was overthrown in a CIA coup (1973); Plowshares activists hammer on the nosecone of a missile at a GE plant in King of Prussia, PA (1980).

Bumpersticker of the week

Bush/Cheney ‘04 - Because the Truth Just Isn’t Good Enough