In The 1960s, Black Voters Had To Pass This Test To Vote

You’re in Louisiana, sometime before 1965. You’ve got ten minutes to answer all of the questions on this poorly-worded test. You’ve also got white test administrators breathing down your neck, waiting for you to throw your hands up in resignation, or better yet–respond to their intimidation with aggression. If you don’t finish in time or fail to answer all of the questions correctly–their “correctness” determined by the eyes of a single administrator–you will not be allowed to vote. This intentionally confusing test, along with a slew of other tactics to prevent black people from voting in the 1960s, exhibits precisely why the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was so necessary. And seeing as it’s effectively been gutted thanks to the most conservative Supreme Court in recent memory, similar intimidation devices might very well resurface in the Deep South.

Continue Reading

“Right To Work”: The Most Dishonest Phrase In America

The Article: The Most Dishonest Words in American Politics: ‘Right to Work’ by Steven Wishnia in AlterNet.

The Text: “Right to work” is the most dishonest phrase in American political discourse. It sounds like it’s defending people’s right to earn a living. But as used by its supporters, it means making it impossible for workers to form an effective union, couched in the language of “freedom” and “choice.”

Specifically, it means laws banning “union shops,” in which everyone in a workplace has to join the union or pay a fee to cover the cost of union representation. Twenty-four states have such laws. All were in the South and West until last year, when Indiana and Michigan enacted them. Michigan’s law was rammed through the Republican-dominated legislature in a lame-duck session last December.

The Michigan law was “pretty devastating for the labor movement,” says Erin Johansson of American Rights at Work. It came in the state where the United Auto Workers’ six-week occupation of General Motors plants in Flint in 1937 won the victory that opened the doors for unions throughout American industry, the state whose union labor defined the working-class prosperity of World War II to the 1970s.

Continue Reading

One Rabbi Fights The Feds To Open A Pot Shop

Even though medical marijuana is legal in 18 states and the District of Columbia, the feds will stop at nothing to prevent its success–even at the risk of harming those who need it. Despite DC-denizen Rabbi Jeffrey Kahn possessing all the necessary licenses and documents to operate a medical marijuana dispensary, in the eyes of the federal government all of Kahn’s paperwork is meaningless. To Kahn, federal obstinance to the dispensing of medical marijuana aided only in the premature death of his cancer-stricken mother, and is preventing him from running a successful,local business.

30 Incredible Images From Egypt’s Anti-Morsi Protests

The blossoms of the Arab Spring sure didn’t last very long. A year after his election, Egyptians from all over have concentrated in Tahrir Square–the same place where a series of mass uprisings ousted Hosni Mubarak from his presidency–to protest the Mohamed Morsi administration. Citing his inability to improve economic conditions and fix various security issues, around 22 million Morsi opponents–with the help of Egyptian military personnel–have petitioned successfully for his immediate resignation.

Prev Next 1 of 31

Like this gallery? Share it!

And if you liked this post, be sure to check out these popular posts:

But even as children took to the streets and painted the word “Leave” on their foreheads in protest of the Muslim Brotherhood-touted politician, Morsi supporters also ensconced themselves in the demonstration fray. It’s uncertain what will happen next in the so-called centerfold of Arab democracy, but whoever assumes an ensuing position of leadership shouldn’t sit too comfortably; if the Arab Spring has proven anything, it’s that this new wave of participants has no problem giving ineffective leadership the boot.

The Touch-Screen Generation

The Article: The Touch-Screen Generation by Hanna Rosin in The Atlantic.

The Text: On a chilly day last spring, a few dozen developers of children’s apps for phones and tablets gathered at an old beach resort in Monterey, California, to show off their games. One developer, a self-described “visionary for puzzles” who looked like a skateboarder-recently-turned-dad, displayed a jacked-up, interactive game called Puzzingo, intended for toddlers and inspired by his own son’s desire to build and smash. Two 30?something women were eagerly seeking feedback for an app called Knock Knock Family, aimed at 1-to-4-year-olds. “We want to make sure it’s easy enough for babies to understand,” one explained.

The gathering was organized by Warren Buckleitner, a longtime reviewer of interactive children’s media who likes to bring together developers, researchers, and interest groups—and often plenty of kids, some still in diapers. It went by the Harry Potter–ish name Dust or Magic, and was held in a drafty old stone-and-wood hall barely a mile from the sea, the kind of place where Bathilda Bagshot might retire after packing up her wand. Buckleitner spent the breaks testing whether his own remote-control helicopter could reach the hall’s second story, while various children who had come with their parents looked up in awe and delight. But mostly they looked down, at the iPads and other tablets displayed around the hall like so many open boxes of candy. I walked around and talked with developers, and several paraphrased a famous saying of Maria Montessori’s, a quote imported to ennoble a touch-screen age when very young kids, who once could be counted on only to chew on a square of aluminum, are now engaging with it in increasingly sophisticated ways: “The hands are the instruments of man’s intelligence.”

Continue Reading