Friday, September 13, 2024
Home Blog Page 511

Attorney General Brown seeks to block Bush admin. attack on contraception and abortion rights

by the El Reportero’s staff

SACRAMENTO — California Attorney General Edmund G. Brown Jr. last week joined a lawsuit against the United States Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) to halt the implementation of a Bush Administration “midnight regulation” that could potentially “endanger a woman’s right to contraception,” including emergency contraception given to rape victims, a Brown’s declaration said.

“California has carefully and thoughtfully struck a balance between the right to use contraceptives and the right of healthcare providers to abstain from administering them,” Attorney General Brown said. “This illegal and stealth regulation threatens to erode women’s hard fought privacy rights,” the release said.

Poised to take effect on the day of President-Elect Barack Obama’s inauguration, the regulation under-cuts state contraception laws and jeopardizes billions of dollars in federal public health money.

On December 19, 2008, ­DHHS issued the regulation, one of several highly controversial “midnight regulations” issued in the waning days of the Bush Administration. The regulation purports to implement three federal funding restrictions designed to force states to permit healthcare providers to refuse to provide certain health care to which the providers have a religious, moral or ethical objection. If California does not comply with the new federal regulation, it stands to lose millions, if not billions, in federal funding.

Arts commission could lose jobs funding

According to a statement from the San Francisco Arts Commission, the legislative action surrounding jobs funding for the arts in the Economic Recovery Package in Congress is picking up speed. Americans for the Arts has been working with Congressional leaders to build support for this emergency funding for local and state arts organizations to prevent job losses during this recession.

Last week the House Appropriations Committee approved a plan that included $50 million in supplemental grants funding for the National Endowment for the Arts, and a number of other provisions that can benefit the arts. This week, the House will be considering the recovery legislation on the fl oor, and a number of votes are expected.

The Senate will be starting their debate on the bill on Friday and continuing through next week. While the Senate Appropriations Committee did not include an arts jobs funding provision in their version of the bill, advocates still have several opportunities over the next few days to change the fi nal outcome. Amendments could be made to the Senate bill or the House arts funding provision itself could prevail in the final House/Senate conference bill.

Commissioner Luis R. Cancel is asking the public to ask your member of Congress and Senators to support the arts in the legislation.

Our Lady of Guadalupe and the girl from ‘the bottom’

by Tim Chávez

“Am I not here, I who am your mother? Are you not in my shadow, under my protection? Am I not the fountain of your joy? Are you not in the fold of my mantle, in my crossed arms? Is there anything else you need?”

— Our Lady of Guadalupe, in speaking to St. Juan Diego, Dec. 11, 1531 About a couple of months ago, Vita Hernández Chávez sent a check for $3,000 to benefit a Nashville church she would never see. The place of worship, however, was named for someone who had always been a central part of her life and those of her three sisters — and the Mexican people for almost five centuries.

Vita was married in Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church in Topeka, Kan., in a barrio called “The Bottoms.” It was located next to the John Morrell meatpacking plant and the maintenance yard for the Atchison Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad. In her neighborhood lived the hardest workers who received the least wages.

The church was a refuge of respect and protection from a mainstream society that denigrated the Hispanic presence needed to feed Topeka’s and the nation’s prosperity. That same history is being repeated in present-day Nashville, this time under the scourge of the heinous 287(g) deportation program.

Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church in Nashville opened last fall as a new refuge for the mushrooming Hispanic population in this Southern city and the oppression levied by local politicians seeking re-election.

A month ago, Our Lady’s was in danger of closing. The debt amassed to open the church and a depressed economy that stifled expected donations put Our Lady’s on the fiscal edge with an approaching June 30 deadline.

So from her bed, Vita Chavez got involved. Her gift and her story spurred an incredible response. Two churches in an adjacent, politically conservative county contributed $125,000. The nuns at the local Dominican campus gave $500. And a six-year-old named Elizabeth gave everything — $7 from her piggybank, money she had saved from the tooth fairy and tasks like cleaning the family car. Elizabeth said she gave because it was something God would like, and she wanted her friend from school to still have a place to go to church.

Miracles continue to happen. The latest came in the early morning hours of June 7. In her sleep, Vita Hernández Chávez passed from this world to the next, reunited with her sisters Rita, Paulina and María and their mother Luz Olmos Hernández, who died in 1960. The eulogy at Vita’s funeral invoked the following truth: much good for this nation still comes from Mexico.

Two of the sisters had three children and two had four. Together, the sisters are a model for the new wave of Hispanic immigrant women. Family needs came first. But once their children were old enough, two sisters headed into professional careers. Vita, the first of her family to graduate from high school, became a medical office administrator at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center. Rita was a librarian for the Alamogordo School District in New Mexico. They brought extra income into the family to send their children to college.

Paulina and María had dropped out of high school to support their younger sisters and brothers. That still happens in Latino families. The dropout rate is highest in this nation for Latinas. Somehow, we must convince parents to keep their daughters in high school. We’ll be working on that miracle in the coming months at Our Lady’s in Nashville.

In December 1531, in her only appearance in this hemisphere, Our Lady of Guadalupe told an Aztec Indian named Juan Diego to build a church to recognize her love for the suffering indigenous people. They had just survived three years of butchery from the Spanish conquest. The hilltop where she appeared was a wasteland five miles north of Mexico City.

The four sisters from Topeka would tell you that if not for the protection of the Holy Mother, they could not have survived the bigotry and poverty of their childhoods.

These women are our martyrs. That’s why we adore them so, why churches dedicated to Our Lady of Guadalupe exist across this country. Her presence assures us that good ultimately will prevail.

A memorial to the four sisters will be established inside Our Lady’s of Nashville as a place of inspiration for Hispanic women and teens. In gratitude to the Holy Mother, another $7,000 is being donated in Vita’s name to Our Lady’s to address its debt. ­Still, the church will have to take out a loan from the diocese, with monthly payments burdening the working-poor congregation.

Her white high school classmates didn’t expect much from a Mexican girl from “The Bottoms.” But she raised a family, had a long professional career, sent her children to college and into teaching careers in step with her beloved husband, Natalio, and encouraged her youngest child, that’s me, into a writing career.

Vita was very political and blunt. Honest, humorous, inspirational and giving to the end, she left everyone feeling special. In her new beginning, our loss is heaven’s gain. And four extraordinary sisters – under the protection of Our Lady of Guadalupe — have made it home. Hispanic Link.

(Tim Chávez is a regular contributing columnist with Hispanic Link News Service. He publishes a political blog at www.politicalsalsa.com. Contact him at timchavez787@yahoo.com to contribute to Our Lady’s in Nashville). ©2008

In Mexico’s drug war, the enemy is us

by Raúl Yzaguirre

Raúl YzaguirreRaúl Yzaguirre

As the eyes of the world remain focused on violent conflicts in the Middle East, one the United States’ closest international allies is under siege.

Mexico is embroiled in a widening war with our hemisphere’s most powerful drug cartels. That’s the message Mexico’s President Felipe Calderon delivered during a visit to Washington this week.

Authorities in Mexico report that more than 5,500 people were killed in 2008 in the wake of an unprecedented campaign to take down the kingpins who have been operating criminal empires in that nation with virtual impunity for years.

Tragically, President Calderon’s noble and resolute quest is a quixotic one. To paraphrase an old saying,

Mexico’s closest ally in this pursuit, the United States, also happens to be his worst enemy.

The growing power of Mexico’s drug cartels is directly related to the huge demand for drugs in the United States. Simply put, our fellow Americans are the cartels’ best customers and consequently the financiers of the ongoing slaughter of law enforcement personnel and innocent bystanders in Mexico.

The United States also is a major source of the increasingly powerful weaponry being used by drug traffickers, whom experts say have more powerful and sophisticated weapons than the federal troops and police assigned to combat them.

Mexican officials report that 90 percent of the guns they confiscate are purchased at stores and gun shows, then smuggled into Mexico.

Last month, outgoing Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates (whom President-elect Obama has announced will remain in that post) pledged that the U.S. will redouble its efforts to supply money, training and equipment to help Mexico “confront these criminals and protect our citizens” as part of the Merida Initiative.

The initiative is the latest in a series of unsuccessful efforts to stem the flow of illegal drugs into the United States and it is expected to cost about $1.4 billion. This week, President-elect Barack Obama announced that he supports the program.

Unfortunately, as with every other U.S.-backed international anti-drug initiative that’s come before it, the Merida Initiative is doomed to fail. A case in point: Mexico’s cartels are now the main suppliers of illegal drugs into the United States. That wasn’t always the case. Our southern neighbor earned this dubious distinction after the United States helped cripple the powerful Colombia based cartels of 1980s and 1990s. In other words, even though we won some battles in Colombia but we’re losing the war in Mexico.

The Merida Initiative will fail because the root cause of this crisis is not international drug traffi cking but drug addiction and drug abuse in the United States, which are fundamentally public health issues.

The current policy of attempting to control the supply of drugs entering the U.S. is a proven failure. Relying on stepped up law enforcement to curtail U.S. demand for drugs has only clogged our courts and prisons and produced more drug abuse.

­Mandatory drug rehabilitation, more education and prevention initiatives, and more research are the only proven solutions. Without a solution, the killing in Mexico will continue.

Mexico’s drug lords give law enforcement authorities and anyone else who stands in their way a choice: “Plomo o Plata.” Literally, lead or silver. (The lead is meant for the whole family.)

Mexico may be supplying the drugs, but the United States is providing the lead and the silver.

(Raúl Yzaguirre is executive director of Arizona State University’s Center for Community Development and Civil Rights. He served for 30 years as head of the National Council of La Raza, the nation’s most influential Latino advocacy organization. E-mail: raul.yzaguirre@asu.edu). ©2009

We must demand for the abolition of the Federal Reserve

by Marvin Ramírez

“Whoever controls the value of money in our country is absolute master of all industry and commerce…” President James A­. Garfield

The economy is in shamble, but as long as the mainstream media keep making us believe that things are being worked out, by projecting a climate of ‘no worry, Obama is going to fix it,” the population is going to find itself unprepared for the worse that is coming.

I recently saw a newspaper headline that said: “consume less, export more, and elaborates on some of the causes,” of the real financial crisis.

Are we doing that? Of course not. We are being duped into believing that more bailouts will solve the financial and therefore the credit crisis, when in fact, according to some of the best financial analysts and economists, we are sinking, and no more credit system is going to save the ship.

But it will be up to the United States, as the global leader, to pull the planet out of this tailspin and, to do so, experts say, North Americans will have to rebuild the engines that drive our economic growth. They say we’ll have to throttle back on consumption and rev up production, borrow less and export more. We’ll also have to figure out how to supervise global financial markets so they don’t melt down again and make sure that, when prosperity returns, it is more broadly shared, writes Tom Abate, Chronicle staff writer.

“For over a quarter-century the global economy has been driven by U.S. consumers spending aggressively beyond their incomes by borrowing,” Mark Zandi, with Moody’s Economy.com, said. “It will take time to adjust,” he was quoted saying in the Chronicle.

As long as we continue using money with no value, our future will continue growing dark.

A very brief history of the gold standard.

If you would like to learn about the history of money in detail, there is an excellent site called ‘A Comparative Chronology of Money,’ which details the important places and dates in monetary history. During most of the 1800s the United States had a bimetallic system of money, however it was essentially on a gold standard as very little silver was traded. A true gold standard came to fruition in 1900 with the passage of the Gold Standard Act.

The gold standard effectively came to an end in 1933 when President Franklin D. Roosevelt outlawed private gold ownership (except for the purposes of jewelry). The Bretton Woods System, enacted in 1946 created a system of fixed exchange rates that allowed governments to sell their gold to the United States treasury at the price of $35/ounce. “The Bretton Woods system ended on August 15, 1971, when President Richard Nixon ended trading of gold at the fixed price of $35/ounce.

At that point for the first time in history, formal links between the major world currencies and real commodities were severed”. The gold standard has not been used in any major economy since that time.

A little bit more than a year ago, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that OPEC’s members have expressed interest in converting their cash reserves into a currency other than the depreciating U.S. dollar, which he called a “worthless piece of paper.”

An internet commentator responded: “And he’s absolutely right. Anyone who knows the history of the Federal Reserve knows the dollar has dropped in value since 1913 from 100 cents to less than 4 cents. This is fiat currency for you. When you make something out of nothing, it then becomes worth nothing. Meanwhile the central banks get REAL assets, such as natural resources and property, as collateral on the monopoly money they lend to govern- ments.

Fiat currency only helps the elite. The sooner people realize this, the sooner we can turn things around in this society for the better.

Another commentator said: In Section 8 – Powers of Congress: “The Congress shall have Power … To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures.”

U.S. Congress delegated this power to a private central bank called the Federal Reserve Bank in 1913. The same year Income Tax was established to pay the Federal Reserve for the interest owed on debt.

We don’t need the Federal Reserve Bank to continue printing our currency, and then lending it to our government with interest.

The U.S. Government can print all the money it needs without ever going into debt or having to pay interest on debt. Meanwhile, the infrastructure created would generate profits that could be used to eliminate the majority of taxes. Moreover, value-backed money would not cause infl ation as long as government projects paid for by the newly created money would expend the economy. President Abraham Lincoln issued such money. They were called Greenbacks and they were in circulation as late as 1996, said the online commentator.

­We all need to unite and force our Congress and Senate members, to abolish the Federal Reserve Bank, which is the real cause of our misery and the U.S. bankruptcy.

 

Special workplace benefits help relieve stress, improves bottom line

by the University of Michigan

ANN ARBOR, Michigan – While thousands of American workers are losing jobs these days, many more are stressed out.

For those fortunate to still have jobs in this down economy, however, companies can help alleviate workplace stress—and possible violence—among workers by providing complementary alternative benefits, say University of Michigan business professors.

“We encourage business to consider offering employee benefits packages that sustain the health, reduce the stress and improve the camaraderie of its work force,” said Cindy Schipani, professor of business law at Michigan’s Ross School of Business. “It would seem that a healthy, less-stressed and collegial work force would be less prone to resolve conflicts by violence.

“Not only might stress reduction contribute to a more peaceful society, reduction of employee stress together with the promotion of good health may positively affect the bottom line.”

Prior research has shown that about 75 percent of Americans list work as a significant source of stress and more than half say their work productivity suffers due to stress.

Workplace stress is estimated to cost U.S. businesses about $300 billion a year through absenteeism, diminished productivity, employee turnover, and direct medical, legal and insurance fees.

In a new study, Schipani and Ross School colleague Norm Bishara examined companies on the Forbes magazine list of the “best companies to work for” that offer complementary alternative benefits—those benefits above and beyond traditional benefits that “create value in the workplace by implicating employee stress reduction and positively impacting health.”

Complementary alternative benefits may include flexible work hours and working from home; employer-paid health care premiums; subsidized health care classes and health club memberships; onsite fitness centers and medical and dental clinics; paid leave time and special services for new parent employees; laundry and dry-cleaning services, valet parking and grocery delivery; and discounted tickets to after-hours social activities, such as movies, plays, museums, sporting events and amusement parks.

Schipani and Bishara examined a number of companies on Forbes’ “best companies to work for” list from various industries.

They found that in 2007 these companies, all of which offer generous complementary alternative benefits, enjoyed a significant reduction in employee turnover, compared to the industry average. The average cost savings for the firms examined as a group was about $275 million.

“From a pure business perspective, complementary alternative benefits are attractive because reducing stress and, therefore, reducing costs associated with things like absenteeism, sick time and premature turnover, can increase profits,” said Bishara, assistant professor of business law and business ethics.

In addition to helping lower employee turnover, increase worker productivity, reduce employee health care costs and promote healthier and less stressful lifestyles for employees, complementary alternative benefits nourish a sense of community among workers, the researchers say.

“Such benefits may be used to build camaraderie and understanding among employees, help promote employee loyalty to the firm by providing enviable treatment of employees, and serve as an example for society and perhaps even as a model for future government action,” Schipani said.

“In all, companies can play a direct role by taking care of their work force through employment practices designed to reduce stress and promote camaraderie in the workplace.

“In addition to improving the lives of their employees and benefitting shareholders, ­providing employees ways to reduce stress and promote health may also have a positive impact on society.”

Mexico’s Calderón touches many bases on D.C.

by Anne Wakefield

Then President-elect Barack Hussein Obama meets in Washington with Mexican President Felipe CalderónThen President-elect Barack Hussein Obama meets in Washington with Mexican President Felipe Calderón

Mexico President Felipe Calderón made the most of his July 12-13 visit to Washington, sharing his visions and needs with two U.S. Presidents (one about to be inaugurated, another packing his bags), key Capitol Hill legislators and The Washington Post.

Following a tradition since 1980 of Mexico presidents meeting every four years with U.S. Presidents-elect before they’re sworn in, Calderón m­et first with Barack Obama.

At the session, Obama expressed his commitment to advance cooperation on a range of issues, including security, the economy and immigration. He underscored his commitment to work with Congress to fix the broken U.S. immigration system and foster safe, legal and orderly migration.

On trade and the economy, Obama proposed creation of a consultative group to work on a host of issues, including NAFTA, energy and infrastructure. He committed to upgrading NAFTA‘s labor and environmental provisions.

Obama applauded steps Calderón has taken to improve security in Mexico, expressing support for the Mérida Initiative and efforts in the border states in both the United States and Mexico to eradicate drug-related violence and stop the flow of guns and cash.

He said he intends to ask the Secretary of Homeland Security to lead an effortto increase information sharing to strengthen those efforts. He pledged to take more effective action to stem the flow of arms from the United States. Obama noted that his economic recovery plan includes substantial investments for port of entry modernization and improvements on the Mexican border to facilitate legal trade and commerce.

The meeting was held over lunch at the Mexican Cultural Institute in Washington, D.C. It lasted for one and a half hours.

America’s Voice director Frank Sharry observed, “Obama clearly understands that a close, working relationship with Mexico is a foreign policy imperative.

The best way to reduce migration pressures is to bolster job creation and the economic ­base of Mexico while legalizing the undocumented population in the United States.

“The meeting is yet another signal that immigration reform is a priority for the incoming administration,” he said, Hispanic Link.

Chávez will celebrate anniversary with summit

by the El Reportero’s news services

Hugo ChávezHugo Chávez

CARAC­AS, Venezuela – Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez will celebrate 10 years in power next week by holding a rare summit with some of his closest leftist allies in Latin America.

Venezuelans will be asked in February whether or not Hugo Chávez should be allowed to run for a third term.

Venezuelans will be asked in February whether or not Hugo Chávez should be allowed to run for a third term.

Attending will be leaders or representatives from a group called the Bolivarian Alternative for the Peoples of Our Americas, better known as ALBA. Chávez and his allies started the group a few years ago in attempt, they said, to counterbalance United States influence in Latin America.

Chavez announced the gathering Monday on state-run Radio Nacional de Venezuela, commonly called RNV. He called it “an extraordinary summit of ALBA .”

Bolivian President Evo Morales, Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, Cuban Vice President Carlos Lage, Honduran President Manuel Zelaya and Dominica Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit will attend, RNV said on its Web site.

Daniel OrtegaEvo Morales­

­Cuban President Raul Castro will not be there because he is on a trip to Asia, El Universal newspaper said.

Ecuador minister resigns

Sources inside the ruling Acuerdo País (AP) confi rmed on Jan. 29 that the Interior Minister Fernando Bustamente, had resigned in order to run for Congress in the upcoming general elections on April 26. Bustamente is not the only political heavyweight interested in a congressional seat.

Daniel OrtegaDaniel Ortega

Gustavo Larrea, the security minister, is also interested in going into congress and he resigned from the cabinet on Jan. 28. A return to congress for both men would give President Rafael Correa tighter control over the Acuerdo País bloc in the new congress, ensuring that it is made up of a solid base of loyal supporters. This would make the congressional bloc distinct from the broader Acuerdo País movement which, judging from the chaotic party primaries it held on Jan. 25, is far from united behind Correa.

The Brazil bounce

Amid the encircling economic gloom two bullish pieces of data stand out from Brazil. The first is the recovery in bank lending in December. The second is the optimistic forecast from wholesalers about new vehicle sales in 2009.

 

­

Latino groups blamed for causing foreclosures

by José de la Isla

Aracely PanameñoAracely Panameño

A Jan. 5 Wall Street Journal story by Susan Schmidt and Maurice Tamman mugged some Latino leaders connected with housing advocacy. Congressional Hispanic Caucus members and CHC’s separate but closely allied nonprofit public policy institute came under close scrutiny for the appearance of an overly close association with troubled mortgage lenders. The article said congressional representatives and the institute received contributions for dubious purposes.

Schmidt and Tamman asserted Congressional Hispanic Caucus members “received ­donations from the lending industry and saw their constituents moving into new homes, pushed for eased lending standards, which led to problems.”

At least $2.3 million in political contributions were made to members of the Hispanic Caucus at the height of the subprime mortgage expansion in 2005.

Countrywide Corp., Washington Mutual, and New Century Financial, Ameriquest Mortgage Corp., Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were among the companies mentioned that contributed and participated in an internship, research and advocacy program, called Hogar, administered by the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute.

Aracely Panameño, of the Center for Responsible Lending, was said to have attempted to warn Hogar with data about shortcomings in housing lending practices and impacts on Latinos.

The biggest judo chops were saved for California Congressman Joe Baca, the immediate past chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and a longtime advocate for opening up first-time homebuyer opportunities.

Roughly 9,200 families in San Bernardino, Calif., Baca’s district, lost homes to foreclosures.

AmeriDream Inc., a nonprofit housing company and an Hogar sponsor, provided a $25,000 charitable contribution in October 2008 to a foundation set up by Baca. Baca backed AmeriDream’s seller-financed down-payment assistance program with money that originated from home builders who made donations to the nonprofit.

The program was out-lawed last year through new housing legislation. Now Baca is cosponsoring a bill to allow similar, but not the same, approach for seller-financed down-payment assistance to low-income Federal Housing Administration borrowers.

The WSJ story’s tone and impression was that of borderline wrongdoing or at least ethically challenged activity. Lapses in good judgment, yes. Coming under the soft, romantic sway of money, probably.

But having Latinos take the brunt of the subprime mess is taking it too far.

There’s no question subprime schemes front-loaded Latino clients, although so far data is unavailable by ethnicity. Nationally 1.5 million homes (not just Hispanic households) were lost and another 2 million families with subprime loans are in danger of losing theirs in the near future.

Esther Aguilera, president of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute, told WSJ she was shocked by the story’s conclusions and its accusations. They missed the point about the root causes of the housing crisis and “protections for families from unscrupulous predatory lenders,” she said.

Ed González of the Real ­Estate Associates Latinos in Houston, told me by e-mail that lending fundamentals were clearly compromised during the go-go years. Now, he asks “who/what made the decision to over look or minimize lending guidelines?”

There is plenty of blame to spread around and other aspects to investigate. But, for scapegoating purposes one would have to believe Latinos were turning the dials on world banking vaults and making puts and calls on hedge funds and packaging mortgages on Wall Street for Europe and China.

So trying to hang the jacket on what seems like an “Industrial-Latino Housing complex” is, to say the least, going too far. While it may have uncovered some of those reaching into the cookie jar, they are not the ones who baked the bad batch.

Getting little attention is another damage done by this housing collapse. It is one affecting many families of this generation who will now look at the American Dream thing as just another scam. Hispanic Link.

Boxing

Friday, Jan. 30 — at TBA, South Africa

  • ­Francois Botha vs. Ron Guerrero.

Saturday, Jan. 31 — at Guadalajara, Mexico

  • Marco Antonio Barrera vs. John Nolasco.
  • Jorge Solis vs. Monty Meza Clay.

Friday, Feb. 6 — at Salisbury, MD (ESPN2)

  • Yusaf Mack vs. Chris Henry.

Saturday, Feb. 7 — at Anaheim, CA

  • (Showtime) WBC/WBA/IBF super flyweight title: Vic Darchinyan vs. Jorge Arce.
  • Antonio DeMarco vs. Almazbek Raiymkulov.

Friday, Feb. 13 — at TBA, USA (ESPN2)

  • Jesus Gonzales vs. Richard Gutierrez.

Saturday, Feb. 14 — at TBA, USA

  • (HBO) Alfredo Angulo vs. Ricardo Mayorga.
  • WBA/IBF/WBO lightweight title: Nate Campbell vs. Ali Funeka.

Saturday, Feb. 21 — at Atlantic City, NJ

  • (HBO-PPV) WBO welterweight title: Miguel Cotto vs. Michael Jennings.

Saturday, Feb. 21 — at Youngstown, OH

  • (HBO-PPV) WBC/WBO middleweight title: Kelly Pavlik vs. Marco Antonio Rubio.

Friday, Feb. 27 — at Hollywood, FL (ESPN2)

  • Glen Johnson vs. Daniel Judah.

March pro women’s reproductive rights

by the El Reportero’s staff

Bobi CéspedesBobi Céspedes

“Unite to Fight the Right Wing” is the theme of a protest against anti-abortionists who plan to march on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade in San Francisco.

The counter-demonstration makes common cause between women, immigrants and queers, all targets of bigotry by ultra-conservatives. Saturday, Jan. 24, 2009 at 10:30 a.m., at Market and Embarcadero Streets in San Francisco. For more information, call 415-864-1278 or email. bacorrinfo@yahoo.com.

City College of San Francisco Board of Trustees to meet

The Board of Tr­ustees of the San Francisco Community College District (City College of San Francisco) will hold its regular monthly business meeting on January 29 at 6 p.m. in the Auditorium at the College’s 33 Gough Street facility. The public is invited to attend.

This meeting will be videotaped and telecast Wednesdays at 8:30 p.m. on EaTV Cable Channel 27, beginning Feb 4.

For further information, visit the City College of San Francisco website at www.ccsf.edu.

Events at La Peña Cultural Center

  • Tardeada. Mexican Music Jam Session. Café Lobby 3 – 6 p.m. FREE Sunday, Jan. 25
  • CD Release & Birthday Party for Bobi Cespedes.
  • Celebrate the release of Bobi Céspedes’ new CD, Patakin. Enjoy danzones, sones, rumbas, boleros, and original music with Bobi, joined by Jose Roberto Hernández (guitar), Sandy Perez (percussion), Lichi Fuentes & Eric Rangel (vocals), Marco Diaz (piano), Saul Sierra (bass), and Roberto Razon (tres). 8 p.m. $15 adv. $20 dr. Friday, Jan. 30. 105 Shattuck Ave. Berkeley, Ca. 94705 * 510-849-2568 www.lapena.org.

Yank Tanks – American cars in Cuba

­Chus Alonso y Potaje EnsembleChus Alonso y Potaje Ensemble

Description: Yank Tanks is a fi rst look at the phenomenon of classic American cars in Cuba. Like an exotic, endangered species, these colorful cars roam around this island paradise trapped in a 1950’s time warp. As beacons of individuality in a sea of government conformity they represent freedom for those who own them.

Owners who will do almost anything to keep them running. Seeing these old cars in recent films and photographs one wonders how they have maintained them after decades with no spare parts and an embargo by the United States.

After repeated trips to Cuba, the Schendel brothers succeed in taking a close look into the underground world of Cuban cars, finding along the way a gallery of eccentric characters – the curators of the largest, living, automobile museum in the world.

The Tiburon Film Society will present the following film at the Bay Model located at 2100 Bridgeway in Sausalito. For info call (415) 332.3871 on Tuesday, Feb. 3, 2009 @ 6 p.m.

Chus Alonso and Potaje Ensemble

Chus Alonso and Potaje Ensemble bring the music of their new CD, Flamenco Cat, to East Bay audiences.

Alonso’s compositions mix a spicy blend of contemporary flamenco and Latin American music, and build bridges between musical worlds. Originally from Spain, Alonso moved to California in his mid twenties. Alonso states, “Having one foot in southern Europe and the other in the Americas, I’m passionate about exploring the historical ties connecting Spain’s flamenco and folkloric music with the musical traditions of Cuba and Latin America.”

In 1992, Alonso founded Potaje, an ensemble that seeks to foster a transatlantic cultural exchange building bridges between fl amenco and genres such as Latin, jazz, and contemporary­ music. Saturday, Feb. 7, 2009, 8 p.m. 105 Shattuck Ave. Berkeley, Ca. 94705 * 510-849-2568 www.lapena.org.

 

1...510511512...599Page 511 of 599

SELECTIONS

POPULAR TICKETS

POPULAR CATEGORY

ABOUT US

Welcome to our Marvin J. Ramirez website! We are an innovative newspaper located in the heart of San Francisco. With a relentless passion for telling powerful stories, we inform our community with truthful news, insightful analysis, and compelling reporting.

Contacto: lreportero@aol.com

FOLLOW US

© Copyright 2023. Agenciadigital.pw. All rights reserved.