Health
In addition to being a health, economic and legal issue, Proposition 19 has now become a civil rights issue. According to two reports released within the last week by the Drug Policy Alliance and partnering civil rights organizations, blacks and Latinos are arrested anywhere from 2 to 13 times as often as whites for personal possession of marijuana.
Five weeks after their release from a Zimbabwean jail, the four members of Allen Temple Baptist church’s AIDS ministry team are already planning their next visit to the Southern African nation.
Two measures on the ballot this November give voters the chance to decide the future of public safety funding in Oakland. If either Measure BB or Measure X passes, the city can again collect funds for a slew of public safety programs that currently have no revenue to support them.
Xiao’s current research involves the designing of a new model of tree wells—the area right around the tree root—that are integrated into the city’s drain system. This will allow the tree roots to become the cheapest water purifier. “The new well will save at least 20 percent of water in terms of irrigation as well,” Xiao said.
The It Gets Better Project serves as a digital chorus of solidarity and support for LGBT adolescents and teens all over the world. The video project, which in less than a month has turned into an international phenomenon, was spearheaded by Seattle-based advice columnist Dan Savage in the wake of a sequence of gay teen suicides in September. Each teen death has been traced to peer bullying, and to the harsh reality of being a gay teenager in America.
In 2004, Lorrain Taylor, the mother of two twin sons murdered in 2000, founded an advocacy group she called the 24/7 Gospel—now called 1,000 Mothers to Prevent Violence—and part of its mission is the support group, the Circle of Prayer and Empowerment, or COPE. The group meets every other Saturday, near Lake Merritt, at Regeneration Church. Her main job at these support groups is to hear the survivors of these loved ones mourn, as well as to simply invite family members to come and sit with others and talk, or just listen. Reaching out to families of homicide victims is Taylor’s full-time job now. When needed, she shows up to their doorsteps with groceries, a smile, a hug, kind words.
West Oakland residents, business owners and city leaders openly refer to their neighborhood as the city dump. Although the mounds of trash may not be as prevalent as it once was thirty years ago, illegal dumping is still a large problem. Every year, Waste Management, the city’s waste removal company, continues to haul away tons of trash from streets and sidewalks. Although the city has a law that fines dumpers $1,000, it’s difficult to enforce.
Two intrepid reporters at our sister site, Richmond Confidential, created an interactive tool to help people navigate the health care reform changes that affect them. You can click through to see what happens if you are uninsured, have a pre-existing condition, or want to extend coverage to children up to 26-years-old.
“I put love into this food,” said Lawana Wyatt, who has worked with food services in Oakland for the past 13 years, as she instructed a member of her staff on how much food to add to each plate when the students arrived. Although Wyatt is enthusiastic about school lunch on any given day, she knew that Thursday’s meal was really something special. “It’s not every day that we can get organic food,” she said. “I think it’s a good idea. I really hope the kids come.”