by Alejandra Matos

­IN MEMORIUM: Democracy Now has released a profile on the 40th anniversary of Rubén Salazar’s death. The video, on democracynow.org, includes footage of Salazar’s final TV interview and features discussion with L.A. Times reporter Robert López, University of Southern California professor Félix Gutiérrez and Rodolfo Acuña.

After trying for years to obtain files on the Salazar case, López may be one step closer. In an Aug. 19 article, he reported that the Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca has agreed to turn over “thousands of pages on the slaying” to the civilian watchdog agency that monitors the sheriff’s department so a report can be prepared.

por Melissa Souza

• There are conventional and alternative options for treating equine kidney failure. Integrative medicine combines a little of both; however, alternative approaches that are holistic in nature are being sought more and more by veterinarians and horse owners alike. Holistic treatments take the whole horse, his environment, and his relationship with other animals and humans into account when deciding on treatment options.

Equine Kidney Failure

• When kidneys begin to fail, it’s due to nitrogen and other waste products from the blood that can’t be successfully removed. Adequate levels of water and electrolytes can no longer be balanced, so dehydration is common. A horse can experience heatstroke when the kidneys aren’t functioning properly. Without sweating, body temperature increases and blood can even be deflected to the skin and lungs. Colic is often a culprit of kidney failure, but even natural toxins in certain plants can create the illness.

Alternative Therapies Versus Conventional Medicines

• Holistic remedies are commonly used to treat a variety of illnesses in horses—treating kidney failure is no exception. Where conventional medicines like fluid therapy or diuretic agents don’t work, alternative medicine is employed. Among holistic options are orthomolecular medicine, homeopathy and natural supplements.

Orthomolecular Medicine

• During the 18th century, scientists began to look at the link between diet and health more closely in humans, and now veterinarians are paying attention. Orthomolecular therapy focuses on balancing the biochemistry of the individual; orthomolecular medicine implements vitamins, amino acids, trace elements or minerals natural to the body in appropriate amounts. This holistic approach is believed to be a beneficial way to prevent and treat kidney disease.

Homeopathy

­• Prescribing waterbased solutions with diluted ingredients is the system of medicine known as homeopathy. It’s believed that any substance producing a negative reaction in a healthy animal will, in turn, cure those symptoms in a sick animal. Homeopathic remedies treat the cause of the disease. With homeopathic remedies, knowing the cause of the kidney failure is key to proper treatment.

Herbal Medications

• Many herbal supplements look to plants and plant extracts for their tonics. Isolating a plant type can lead to specialized nutrition for any number of conditions in a horse.

Chinese herbalists believe supplements can allow for lower dosing of pharmacological ingredients if they’re required for treatment; other herbalists solely utilize herbal medications. The kidney is a major component of Chinese medicine and can be supported in many ways through herbal treatment.

­­by the El Reportero’s news services

Hugo Chávez

The results of Venezuela’s ­26 September legislative elections pave the way for an exciting couple of years until the presidential race in 2012. The opposition did as well as expected, given that the playing field was not level. Despite appearances, President Hugo Chávez is only slightly bruised, and will use the result to rebuff those critics who accuse him of undermining democracy.

The vote is a very useful barometer of where the electorate stands after a difficult two years. Chávez, a consummate reader of the public mood, now has a full two years to rebuild and recover some lost support. The opposition has an even bigger challenge to find someone capable of challenging him in 2012. Venezuela, meanwhile, remains as polarised as ever.

by José de la Isla

HOUSTON — A story is circulating that Jerry Brown — California’s attorney general, former governor (1975 to ’83) and current gubernatorial candidate — plans to basehis pitch to Latino voters on having marched in the 1970s with César Chávez.

When the Field Poll found his GOP opponent Meg Whitman’s standing had jumped from 25 to 39 percent among Latino voters, several pundits observed, “So who’s César Chávez?” After all, Brown was last governor 27 years ago. Gary Taylor’s book, “Cultural Selection: Why Some Achievements Survive the Test of Time — And Others Don’t,” explains why.

The process of remembering begins when somebody dies and a survivor promotes the story or accomplishments of the deceased so that others don’t forget. Stories about successes spread until they become part of the culture and survive as memory through each retelling.

That is how we accumulate knowledge and understanding and even wisdom sometimes.

The survival of remembering is a lot like natural selection in evolution. Yet, most worthy accomplishment stories die of someone to do the retelling.

After Brown followed Ronald Reagan as California governor in 1975, he pulled MarioObledo away from a Harvard Law professorship by appointing him Secretary of Health & Welfare. Obledo had been a co-founder in 1968 of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) and had already helped set a new civil rights platform for the nation.

He pioneered the Armendáriz defense during the draft and forced Selective Service to operate more legally and less arbitrarily.

As counsel for a group of drug-abuse workers, one of the first national organizations to advocate for more treatment and less criminalization was launched.

Obledo’s open-door policy was universally known. Many got in to see him (especially good, humble, salt-of-the-earth types with reasonable beefs) who otherwise would never have made it past a receptionist intern on the first floor. If a Spanish-speaker or foreign-language-speaking person called, he wanted that person responded to in his native language. “Just in case my mother calls,” he explained.

Then a series of stinging accusations rocked Sacramento. It was alleged that the newfound access to government was something else. A chain of inferences were made to connect state support for drug-rehabilitation programs to a prison gang, then to organized crime and a drug-related murder. All this was tied to Obledo’s tenure in office because a murder victimhad made an appointment to see an Obledo aide in Sacramento.

The Readers Digest was chief among media enflaming the story, along with some local Sacramento newspapers that passed along the sensationalistic, unsubstantiated rumors and allegations like tabloid news and other histrionics.

The governor, the secretary himself, the attorney general, a regulatory commission and several newspapers undertook lengthy investigations. All of them, of course, uncovered absolutely no wrongdoing.

The intended guilt-by-association assertions did not even leave behind the usual cow-pie smell.Obledo was that clean.

So why would serious professional people, who are not circus clowns, go to such absurd lengths to construct such an imaginary story. Taylor answers that others compete against a version of reality at odds with their point of view. Heroic stories, survive after the hero dies — like those passed on by Plato, St. Paul, and James Boswell — because the survivors pass along the story well enough to make it part of the culture.

That’s why it’s important to remember Mario Obledo, who fought the good fight and who won for all of us. He was an originating member of Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow Coalition, a successor group of Rev. Martin Luther King’s crusades, and Obledo served as national president of the League of United Latin American Citizens. He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1998 by President Bill Clinton

for his many accomplishments.

Citizen Obledo passed away Aug. 19, at age 78, in Sacramento. Among his survivors, I hope, are those who retell his story. Hispanic Link. E-mail ­joseisla3@yahoo.com.