Compiled by the El Reportero’s staff

The State Assembly today approved and sent to Gov. Schwarzenegger SB 933, legislation authored by Sen. Jenny Oropeza to ban retailers from imposing surcharges on those who use debit cards. Assemblywoman Fiona Ma (D- San Francisco), a proponent of the measure, presented the bill on the Assembly Floor. The bill passed with a bipartisan vote of 45 to 24.

Senate Bill 933 would close a loophole in current law by prohibiting a retailer from imposing a surcharge on consumers who elect  to use their debit card or prepaid cards when making a purchase. A 1985 statue prohibits a retailer from charging a surcharge on a consumer who elects to use their credit card when making a purchase. Had debit or prepaid cards been in existence when the law passed, those forms of payment would have been included in the statute.

State-of-the-art technology to help California gambling addicts help themselves

The California State Attorney’s Offi ce unveiled this week, an innovative web-based computer program for all of California’s licensed cardrooms that is intended to help addicted gamblers break “their spiral of debt and addiction” by allowing them to voluntarily exclude themselves from gambling establishments.

“This system serves as a safety net for gambling addicts fi ghting to end their spiral of debt and addiction,” Brown said. “These are people who have chosen to help themselves, and we’ll assist them in keeping their pledges not to gamble.

An estimated one million Californians suffer from problem or pathological gambling, and more than 1,000 of them have signed up for the Attorney General’s Self Exclusion Program, which allows problem gamblers to voluntarily exclude themselves from licensed cardrooms. So far, the program applies only to card rooms and not to the California lottery, tribal casinos or horse racing, but if the cardroom program is successful, it can be expanded.

To join the Self Exclusion Program, a problem gambler fills out a form, has it notarized, attaches a photograph and chooses to be excluded for one year,five years or his or her lifetime. The Self Exclusion form can be found at http://ag.ca.gov/gambling/ exclusion_self.php.

In other state news, the State Attorney Offi ce also announced a half-milliondollar settlement with the operator of a sham nursing school in Los Angeles that created “the illusion it was training future nurses” by pretending to offer an accredited nursing program and tricking graduates into believing they had qualified to become registered nurses.

As many as 300 students paid $20,000 each to enroll and attend classes at RN Learning Center, which advertised its fast-track program for earning a bachelor of science degree in nursing in less than two years.

In the settlement negotiated by Brown’s offi ce on behalf of the Board of Registered Nursing, Junelou  Chalico Enterina, owner and operator of RN Learning Center, which operated on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles, agreed to close his business and pay victims restitution of $500,000. He also agreed never again to open a nursing school in California.

by Ernesto López Hispanic Link News Service

With tempers flaring and emotions running high, members of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists packed a general meeting room in Denver during the group’s annual convention June 24, demanding answers to concerns about the organization’s financial woes and dwindling membership. Its officers tried to allay their fears, insisting the association is not exactly in debt despite raiding the scholarship and reserve funds to make ends meet. Leaders acknowledged that if an extra $125,000 is not raised by year’s end, NAHJ could indeed be in the red.

NAHJ asking members to dig deep into their own pockets — even in this recession in which many have lost or are in fear of losing their jobs — to sustain NAHJ’s future.

Members barraged NAHJ’s leaders with a series of concerns and criticisms. It had not adequately communicated its financial woes, they complained. NAHJ executive director Iván Román tried to calm the tense crowd.  “I am very hopeful that we are going to make it,” he said. “Please be patient.”

His answer echoes a concern cutting through the entire journalism profession as it tries to contend with the double whammy of a dragging national recession and changing public habits relating to how people choose to get their news.

Massive staffing cuts, financial balance sheets and increasing public indifference about affirmative action show that Hispanics, blacks and other racial and ethnic groups are taking the  biggest hits.

Overall, in a country that’s nearly a third nonwhite, whites still comprise 85 percent of newspersons working for daily newspapers. Hispanics, 15 percent of the population, make up less than five percent of journalists working for the daily press. NAHJ officials say the organization’s future in-  cludes a commitment to reaching ethnic parity in the business using their annual conventions as a major tool to recruit and train more Latinos but to depend on them no more as “cash cows.”

In past years, convention profits ranged as high as $300,000. This year, NAHJ will do well to break even after the final accounting. Corporate and foundation sponsors pitched in with only $400,000 to cover its program costs this year, just half of the $800,000 collected in 2007 during its San Jose, Calif., convention.

Attendance has declined consistently since 2006, when 1,800 people converged on the Fort Lauderdale, Fla., convention. This year, only 700 showed up. Founded in 1982, the association now counts 1,340 members, down several hundred from a few years ago. Forty percent of those are students, who pay only $35 in annual dues versus $75 for regular, associate and academic memberships. “I am going to cut to the chase,” said Dino Chiecchi, NAHJ financial officer who did not seek reelection at the convention. “We are in a difficult bind.” Chiecchi said the association had to borrow and cut “to survive.” The sum of $75,000 was borrowed from the student scholarship fund and another $75,000 from the association’s reserve account after a $300,000 shortfall in 2009.

NAHJ officials had hoped to return the funds, but the organization’s finances prevented that from happening.

Staff, already lean, was pressed to take three-week “furloughs” this year.

“We are screwed,” NAHJ board member Brandon Benavides said during a June 21 panel meeting

Executive director Iván Román framed the association’s dilemma more genteelly, but with no less urgency. “Having a profit from the annual conventions is what helps sustain NAHJ’s programs year-round. If there isn’t a profit, it makes it difficult to stay afloat.”

Ricardo Pimentel, who completed his two-year term as NAHJ president at the convention, maintained that the association is not in the red — yet. He urged members to contribute to the “Denver Challenge,” a fund drive to raise $25,000 to receive benefit of a matching grant. “We are not in the red. If we do nothing for the rest  of the year, then we will be,” said Pimentel, who is editorial page editor at the  Milwaukee Journal. “We are suffering as an industry. It has been two years  f people losing jobs and being fearful, but we will get through this.” Hispanic LInk.

(Ernesto López is a spring journalism graduate from Point Loma Nazarene University in San Diego, Calif. He wrote for theconvention newspaper Latino Reporter. Email him  at: mr.lopez@ymail.com)

by Jorge Mújica Murias

According to some people who are supposed to know what they are talking about, everybody left Arizona before knowing that Judge Susan Bolton was about to strike down the worst parts of SB1070. They left because the did not want to be arrested for being suspiciously Brown while driving or walking the streets of Phoenix and Tucson, and those who did not want to meet in person Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

No one knows exactly how many left, but a poll by the New York Times tried to know why by asking three questions: “1. SB 1070 is already working and illegals are already leaving”; 2. “They are leaving because they fear to be unjustly persecuted”, and 3. “I do not know”. The first answer was the favorite of one out of every three respondents, and only two in one hundred live out of this world and “did not know”. The largest portion, almost 7 out of every 10, knew it very well and opted for the “fear to be unjustly persecuted.

Nobody knows, either, where did they go, but nobody relieves they left for México, as supporters of the law wanted, According to the last report of the U.S. Census office, as a fact, “Hispanics have been leaving Arizona since the recession started; approximately 40,000 left in 2008”, it says, making clear that “those who left did not go back to México, but dispersed to states more amiable to immigrants.

In other words, event partially stroke down, SB 1070 had the same effect that 15 years ago Proposition 187 had. Then California governor Pete Wilson forced hundreds of thousand Mexican immigrants to leave for México… but México del Norte, meaning all over the United States.

And Into the United States

And as we all very, very, very well know, immigrants will keep coming here. A few days ago, in its last “socio-demographic report”, the Mexican National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI) stated that last year five Mexicans out of every one thousand left the country for a foreign land. In numbers, this means one thousand 465 Mexicans a day, and when INEGI says “a day”, they include “weekends, vacations and holydays”.

Altogether, in the whole year, some 535 thousand Mexicans left for other lands in 2009. In a reverse motion, the National Occupational and Employment Poll (ENOE), states that some 214 thousands Mexicans went back to their country. Adding and subtracting, México lost about 321 thousand citizens in 2009.

Just to state the obvious, including recession and all, most of them did not go to South Africa to be there during the Soccer World Cup, nor to Bora Bora even with its wonderful climate. They came here to México del Norte.

Reinforcing the obvious, INEGI states that “Most Mexicans who left the country are between 20 and 30 years of age, their most productive years,” and that “economic motives are among the most important causes determining the change of residence; for the youth, these include seeking better employment opportunities and improved wages.” INEGI sounds here like they just rediscovered the Moon. It is obvious that when the same job pays six times over the wages on the other side of the border, everybody runs North…

To compound the problem, it so happens that Arizona is arresting people going south. As absurd as it may sound, the Border Patrol in the Nogales area is arresting people “to catch those with criminal dockets or who are involved in (guns and people) trafficking, according to Guadalupe Ramírez, chief of the border authority in that city.

With this “strategy”, the theory that the undocumented were going to “deport themselves” sounds more wrong than ever. The Border Patrol enters the information of each detainee into a database before deporting them, unless they are real criminals, drug or weapons dealers.

Our good friend Isabel García, from a Human Rights organization in Tucson believes this operation is only good to increase the numbers for  the Border Patrol, but the whole thing is so absurd that even William Gheen, president of the Americans for Legal Immigration, a very anti immigrant organization, is asking President Barack Obama a “safe passage” policy, a special program that “allows undocumented immigrants to depart without negative consequences.”

In short, those who complain today that there are Mexican and other immigrants from Alaska to  Alabama should rememberproposition 187, and realize that SB 1070 will only increase the tendency: more than even, they will now find Mexicans in every small town and corner of the United States.

And that’s good for us, because the more common “gringos” get to know us, the more they will realize that we are just common folk, normal human beings, and we will have more acceptance among them. www.mexicodelnorte.com

by Dr Peter Harro, Chairman, IDTechEx

It can only fly for 15 minutes but it is a breakthrough all the same. Improved batteries have finally made a manned electric helicopter a reality. It follows rapidly on announcements of all electric fixed wing aircraft from Germany (PC-Aero), France (EADS), Italy (Sky- Spark), China (Luneec) and the USA (Sonex etc) and an historic 24 hour flight by Solar Impulse powered entirely by the sun. Solar Impulse has the wingspan of an Airbus (over 200 feet) and carries 11,628 solar cells to power four motors.

For a few years, allelectric power assisted gliders and hang gliders have been available. Advantages of electric aircraft include improved manoeuvrability due to the greater torque from electric motors, increased safety  due to decreased chance of mechanical failure, less risk of explosion or fire in the event of a collision, and less noise. There will be environmental and cost  benefits associated with the elimination of consumption of fossil fuels and resultant emissions. As with on-road vehicles, the problem is range – the best range of both being 160- 400 km (about 100-250 miles) in practicable manned con- figuration.

Some of the fixed wing pure electric aircraft and other electric flying vehicles are now available in kit form. The SkySpark pure electric fixed wing aircraft has reached 155 mph(300 kph) though 100 mph is more typical of such aircraft, and they have flight time of 1 to 3 hours. The SkySpark experiment is based on a two-seat Pioneer Alpi 300 powered by a 75 kW (100.5 horsepower for the nostalgic) electric motor using brushless technology and lithium polymer batteries.

Electric helicopter

Sikorsky Innovations, the technology development organization of Sikorsky Aircraft, has officially introduced “Project Firefly,” an all-electric helicopter  technology demonstrator.

Chris Van Buiten, Director of Sikorsky Innovations, says, “Our objectives with Project Firefly are to provide a proof of principle concept to validate the benefits of an electrically powered rotorcraft; to develop the technologies to enable the manned flight of that technology, and to drive future development of improved, state-of-theart ‘green’ technologies and practices.

In building the demonstrator, the Innovations team replaced the legacy propulsion system of an S-300CTM helicopter with a high-efficiency, 142 kW (191 horsepower) electric motor and digital controller from U.S. Hybrid,  coupled with a lithium ion energy storage system from GAIA. The two GAIA 135 Ah lithium polymer hold it aloft for 15 minutes. Most other electric aircraft also employ lithium polymer traction batteries of one chemistry or another because of safety and light weight, with no heavy metal casings. GAIA uses lithium iron phosphate and lithium nickel cobalt aluminum in the cathodes of its traction batteries.

Integrated sensors provide real-time aircraft health information to the helicopter pilot through a panel integrated interactive LCD monitor. Eagle Aviation Technologies, LLC, executed the custom airframe modifications and assembly of the demonstrator aircraft.

“Many of the most significant advancements in aviation have been enabled by transformations in propulsion technology. It is exciting to be at the forefront of the exploration of electric propulsion technology for rotorcraft,” said Mark Miller, Vice President, Sikorsky Research & Engineering. “Through the electrical conversion, propulsion efficiency of the aircraft has been increased roughly 300 percent from baseline. Electric propulsion also inherently simplifies the complexity of the propulsion system by reducing the quantity of moving parts, increasing reliability while reducing direct operating costs.”

“World fuel reserves are continuing to dwindle as demand increases. This inversion of the supply/demand cycle will increase operating costs of all fuel-based vehicles, especially in the aviation industry. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the commercial helicopter market, where the critical role rotorcraft play could be threatened by spiraling fuel costs,” said Mark Miller, Vice President, Sikorsky Research & Engineering, in a statement.

by Jonathan Farrell

Dozens of people showed up on the front steps of the main California Pacific Medical Center campus on California Street at Maple on Aug. 12 to protest the ambitious “Master Plan” to upgrade healthcare services in San Francisco.  

The California Nurses Association and the Coalition for Health Planning among others organized the rally that Thursday afternoon. They were met by two dozen uniformed security personnel strategically placed at various points at the main and side entrances and by members of the press.  

By building a state-of-theart facility at Cathedral Hill and rebuilding St. Luke’s Hospital in the Mission District CPMC hopes to meet 21st Century demands for health care in the San Francisco area.  

Yet, Registered nurses and senior citizens from throughout SF protested at the main campus at 3698 California Street voicing strong opposition to CPMC’s proposed plans.  

The CNA and hospital workers unions see the Master Plan expansion as an elimination of critically needed skilled nursing beds at its California St. and St. Luke’s campuses. “Our protest today is about the fate of skilled nurs  ing programs at CPMC,” said labor union rep Nato Green.

Green told El Reportero that if CPMC gets its plans approved that would translate to a 30 percent reduction in services for seniors. “The City’s senior population is increasing and CPMC wants to reduce skilled nursing programs, just as it wants to reduce the number of hospital beds,” said Green.  

CPMC spokesman Kevin McCormack was present. He told the press that skilled nursing services would continue, especially as construction work gets underway. “We just released a plan draft to the Planning Dept. as well as an Environmental Impact Report,” said McCormack.  

“In it contains all the required details, yet we did not include the number of hospital beds in the EIR,” he said.

The nurses and hospital workers unions fear that in the big plans of the Master Plan scheme the needs of seniors and low-income people will be left out. Reducing hospital beds and skilled nursing programs will put a large portion of the City’s  opulation at risk.  

Not to have the tally of hospital beds mentioned in the submitted plan draft raises concern. “We don’t trust them (CPMC), “ said Green.

McCormack told El Reportero that the issue of hospital beds is exaggerated. “We already addressed that issue before assuring that beds will be provided,” said McCormack.

On average the number of beds used is less than 90. Yet CPMC in its dialog with the Health Commission plans on maintaining 100 beds. McCormack sees the  issue as simply a labor dispute.  The new facilities when  completed will be non-union. Workers will be allowed to join a union if they wish.   

Despite the recession economy union workers are being offered a 2 percent wage increase and will have full benefi ts. Average salary is about $130,000 per year.  We have been in stalled  contract negotiations since 2007,” said McCormack.  

A review hearing of the draft plans will take place on Sept. 23rd. Nato and the nurses’ union hopes City Hall will take a more critical analysis of the Master Plan future of CPMC.

Students advocate for a pasage of the DREAM Act.

By Michael Marcell

Some 300 undocumented students and supporters of the DREAM Act marched a circle around Capitol Hill July 20 in an effort to get legislation to the floor before the Oct. 8 congressional recess.

The DREAM Act, S.729, would enable an individual who entered the United States before his or her 16th birthday, has lived in the country for five years with no criminal record or final order of exclusion, deportation or removal and who has already obtained a diploma from a U.S. high school or its equivalent with concurrent acceptance into an institution of higher education to receive in-state tuition and the ability to apply for federal work study programs and government student loans.

The bill would also facilitate an expedited path to citizenship for those individuals who complete an associates degree or receive an honorable discharge from the military. Sen. Richard Durbin (DIll.) spoke in support of the DREAM Act at the Capitol Hill Presbyterian Church before the protest.

Durbin, the bill’s sponsor, said he does not see the passage of the DREAM Act as a consolation prize in the absence of comprehensive immigration reform. “I want the DREAM Act passed, and I’m working privately with my colleagues on comprehensive immigration reform with the DREAM Act as the lead part of it,” he said.

Durbin said the issue s about timing and he and other members of Congress are waiting for the right moment to push reform. The students were unimpressed by talk of political strategy. Some drove from as far as California, were living in the storage rooms of local churches and forewent the comforts of a shower for several days.

Rosario López, a University of North Carolina- Chapel Hill graduate who emigrated from Mexico City as a child, is one of 17 undocumented students who risked deportation by refusing to leave the atrium of the Hart Senate Office Building.

“We want our leaders to take risks because we have shown them we are willing to take risks as well,” she said. “We were risking arrest, we are risking deportation and we are no longer afraid. They need to step up.”

López and 16 others were detained by the U.S. Capitol Police, charged with disorderly conduct, and released the same evening. Protest spokesperson Juan Escalante said the goal of the sit-ins was to have students arrested and brought into deportation proceedings to raise awareness of the issue.

Four other students who refused to leave the offi ce of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) in the Russell Senate Offi ce Building were arrested later that day and released the following afternoon on the condition that they would not return.

As of right now, ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) has not been contacted by D.C. authorities, Escalante said.

In other news:

Franken Bill Protects Children of Families Captured in ICE Raids

by Tiana Pugh

Democratic senators Al Franken of Minnesota and Herb Kohl of Wisconsin are rallying support for a bill they introduced June 22 to protect children of parents who are on the verge of deportation.

The bill, the Humane Enforcement and Legal Protections (HELP) for Separated Children Act requires Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to take adequate steps in protecting the children’s best interests during raids and the place-ment of their parents in detention centers.

Their proposal specifi – cally states that ICE must “keep state and local authorities in the know, … allow parents to arrange for care of their children, protect the kids during interrogations… (and) allow parents to participate in family court proceedings.”

His determination to keep children “safe, informed and accounted for” stems from raids such as the December 2006 sweeping of Swift &Company meatpacking plant in Worthington, Minn. During the raid, a second- grade child came home from school to find his parents missing and his two-year old brother sitting alone. The children were neglected for a week until their grandmother was informed and came to their care.

Another sweep in June 2007 of Jackson Heights Manufactured Home Park in Shakopee, Minn., left a seven-year-old girl wandering in a park in search of her parents. A neighbor called the authorities and learned the girl’s parents had been detained.

“Four million U.S. citizen-children have at least one undocumented immigrant parent,” said Franken. “Forty thousand of those children live in Minnesota.”

Kohl said, “It is essential that children are protected and cared for when their parents are detained.”

The bill is endorsed by several Minnesota groups, faith and community leaders. Hispanic Link.

by the El Reportero’s news services

Juan Manuel Santos was sworn in Saturday as the 59th president of
Colombia, which despite major security gains remains the Western
Hemisphere’s only nation beset by a politically based armed conflict.

A reminder of that was the absence of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez
among the 14 Latin American and Caribbean leaders, including Felipe
Calderón of Mexico and Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil, attending
Saturday’s ceremony on the carpeted cobblestones of Bogota’s central
plaza.

Chávez broke diplomatic relations with neighboring Colombia two
weeks ago after outgoing President Alvaro Uribe’s government presented
the Organization of American States with video of alleged Colombian
rebel camps in Venezuela.

Also attending was President Rafael Correa of Ecuador, which severed
ties with Uribe’s government in 2008 after the Colombian military
raided a guerrilla camp a mile inside its territory, killing a rebel
chief and 25 others.

The new president vowed to unify his country around the goals of
prosperity for all and of thwarting the nation’s leftist rebels.

Castro permits economic reforms to “perfect” Cuban Revolution

Cuba’s President Raúl Castro announced a series of “adjustments to the
socialist model” on 1 August during the opening of the biannual session
of the national assembly. His main message was the need to streamline
the State.

Castro said the “bloated” state sector would be shorn of some 1m
employees in a phased reduction which will run in tandem with a plan to
increase private enterprise, allowing more Cubans to become
self-employed and  hire their own workers. Castro said this was one of
the “structural and conceptual changes” he promised in a major policy
speech three years ago.

Mexico car bomb triggers debate on escalation & shift to terrorism

The news that, for the first time ever, a car bomb had exploded in
Ciudad Juárez, prompted two intertwined debates. The first hinges on
whether this event marks the beginning of a new phase in Mexico’s drug
war; the second, on whether it can be considered as the onset of a
terrorist phase in the violence practised by the  drug gangs.

The second debate is of particular importance because it has
repercussions that go far beyond Mexico. There are signs that it may
resurface again in Colombia with the accession to power of Juan Manuel
Santos on August 7.

by Esther J. Cepeda Hispanic Link News Service

When I finished listening to President Obama’s address on immigration reform, I wished I could get the last 45 minutes of my life back.

His speech at American University – to squelch talk that he’s ignoring his campaign promise to pass comprehensive reform – brought no fresh ideas to the table, shot down immigrant activist demands for a moratorium on deportation, offered nothing substantive on Arizona’s anti-illegal immigrant law, and failed to put a timeline on any action.

How many times have you heard the platitudes he trotted out – a nation of immigrants, one of the great challenges of our time, the system is broken, the need for a bipartisan solution?

The president’s speech was supposed to be about accountability – for securing the border, employers who hire illegal immigrants, those  here illegally.

Yes, he touched on these topics. He even went out of his way to make clear he would not consider a moratorium on deportations until reform measures were solidified – openly dissing the activist groups he’s been courting since his presidential run.

At a speech-viewing rally in Chicago’s Douglas Park, a cadre of activists yelled in anger when he said such “an indiscriminate approach would be both unwise and unfair … and could lead to a surge in more illegal  immigration and ignore those waiting in line to come here  legally.”

José Herrera, an organizer with the Immigrant Youth Justice League, vowed: “From today on, there will be a different response…There is anger. We will mobilize people to demand the moratorium…”

Completely lacking was any discussion of accountability for the legislators who are hiding under a desk somewhere or venting on TV pundit shows because they don’t want to tackle the tough compromises needed to enact bipartisan reform.

Also absent was any discussion of accountability for a president who has seen fit to take over a failing car company, reform the supposedly immovable health care system, and kick the asses – and wallets – of the global company hemorrhaging oil into our gulf.

What, exactly, was the point of declaring the immigration issue is “held hostage to political posturing and special interest lobbying” if not to call on legislators to get to work and present a proposal  by a certain date?

Sure, it might feel good to say that our southern borders are more secure today than they have been in 20 years. But when the president himself admits the current system makes a mockery of all the immigrants who are trying to come here legally, he makes a mockery of his every-  once-in-a-while devotion to this issue.

My beef is he did not exhibit any leadership on an issue he says has been at the top of his agenda since he was in the Senate.

Obama spoke of the need to end the “patchwork of local laws that divide the country” but never once indicated who should lead the effort, how progress should be defined, or set a deadline to enact  a well-reasoned bipartisan reform.

There’s no end to the disagreements that have shaped the immigration reform battle. But there should be an end to speculation about when the country will get around to doing something about it. Obama must make himself accountable to the businesses, citizens and immigrants with a timeline and a plan for when this will actually happen.

(Esther J. Cepeda is a Chicago-based journalist who writes regular  commentaries on Hispanic issues. Reach her at eejaycee@600words.com)