Articles Posted in the Human Interest Category
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Groups Allege California Prison Policies Amount to State-Sanctioned Torture
Earlier this month during Oakland’s monthly First Fridays/Art Murmur event, a candlelit vigil was held by a couple dozen protesters – many wearing T-shirts with the message “Stop Torture CA” – to bring attention to California state prison solitary confinement policies which they say amounts to state-sanctioned torture.
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Roe v. Wade: Still Controversial After 40 Years
On January 22, 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade legalized abortion. In the case, Jane Roe, a pseudonym for Norma Leah McCorvey brought a class action suit challenging the constitutionality of a Texas criminal abortion law…
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You’re Going Where? A Glimpse of Life Inside the Hermit Kingdom
I tried to break the news to my father as casually as I could – almost as an afterthought. “I won’t be reachable for a while,” I said. “I’ll be out of town traveling through China and North Korea.” Dead silence on the other end of the line. Followed by, after a long pause, “I didn’t think I heard you correctly.”
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At the Edge of the World
At the Edge of the World chronicles the controversial Sea Shepherd Antarctic Campaign against a Japanese whaling fleet. The international volunteer crew, under-trained and under-equipped, develop a combination of bizarre and brilliant tactics with which to stop the whalers.
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It’s Never Too Late
Sometimes we find that close family relatives seem to have been air-brushed out of our lives. Recollections of why we lost touch have long been erased from our memory banks, but a good guess as to why we no longer see them is likely due to a long-forgotten family feud.
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Helping the Elderly: California’s Long-Term Care Ombudsman Program
Californians are getting older. The number of state residents over 60 grew from 1.6 million in 1950 to 4.7 million in 2000. By 2020, nearly 20 percent of California’s population is expected to be 60 or older. By 2050, that number is expected to be 25 percent.
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Slipping Away: Mentally Ill Homeless Receive No Care
For the past three years, Irma Garcia has been battling far more than homelessness on the streets of South San Francisco. Garcia struggles with mental illness, including severe depression. Her greatest challenge, however, is the lack of a support system.
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Propaganda: North Korea Perspective on US, Western Civilization
On a trip to visit family in Seoul in April, I was approached by a man and a woman who claimed to be North Korean defectors. They presented me with a DVD that recently came into their possession and asked me to translate it. They also asked me to post the completed film on the Internet so that it could reach a worldwide audience.
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California State of Mind: An Intimate Portrait of Pat Brown’s Legacy
Gov. Jerry Brown is making a ‘hail Mary’ pass to save California’s public schools from $6 billion in budget cuts with Proposition 30, a measure on the November ballot that will temporarily increases taxes for the state’s highest earners.
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Volunteers Prepare Emergency Food Aid for Global Consumption
Hundreds of volunteers, young and old, donned hair nets and gloves June 27 in an effort to reach an ambitious goal of preparing 100,000 emergency food aid packages in ten hours for national and global distribution and consumption.
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Teenagers and Social Media
For the vast majority of teens, social and other digital communications media are a daily part of life. Two-thirds of teens text every day, half visit social networking sites daily, and 11 percent send or receive tweets at least once every day.
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From Raisin in the Sun to Clybourne Park
Juneteenth, also known as Freedom Day or Emancipation Day, is a holiday in the United States commemorating the announcement of the abolition of slavery in Texas in 1865. Celebrated on June 19, Juneteenth is a combination of the words June and nineteenth. While it is a celebration, it should also be a remembrance of race and real estate, part of the dark side of Black history in this country.
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Women’s Rights Activists, Atheists, Protest Pope Crackdown on Nuns
The LCWR is under investigation by the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith, the Vatican agency charged with overseeing orthodoxy, which Benedict – then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger – led for more than 20 years, for its endorsement support of President Obama’s health care reforms including a mandate that provides insurance coverage for birth control.
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Islamophobia in the Workplace
I was surprised then to learn that although Muslims make up only two percent of the U.S. workforce, they filed nearly 25 percent of religious-discrimination claims in 2009. According to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), during the past fiscal year, it received a record high of 100,000 charges of discrimination, a slight increase over fiscal year 2010.
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Gender Inequality Looms Large
on International Women’s DaySteinunn Guðjónsdóttir was the event’s keynote speaker. Ms. Guðjónsdóttir is Project Manager of Shelter for Trafficked Women and Women Exiting Prostitution, in Iceland. She is in the US as part of an international visitor leadership program organized by the State Department, and researching domestic- and gender-based violence. She stated, “Violence against women is a symptom of gender inequality. We must address this.”
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Occupy DC: A Warm Place for Protest
in the Heart of Wintertime WashingtonExcept for a single taser incident, protesters interviewed Friday by Fog City Journal couldn’t recall any clashes with the authorities. One Dallas protester brought some Texas twang to the scene, located in McPherson Square, a park a few blocks from the White House. Volunteers run a small library. On Friday there was a free dinner of donated stew and raspberry cheesecake. A couple of denizens smoked dope in a pipe fashioned from a whole red apple.
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Michael Goldstein Remembered
Eileen Hanson, mistress of ceremonies, painted a sensitive and authentic picture of a “complicated person,” who could be “sweet,” but also “really bitchy.” According to Hanson, Michael loved gossip and the “blood sport that is San Francisco politics.”
The Hunger Site
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