V-Day Censored At A Local High School

From the Daily Sundial:

Vagina, a six-letter word that has caused an uproar at Cleveland High School. The school's administration has deemed the word "obscene." This is an accreditation year for the school, which is why such a commotion is not surprising.

A special Vagina Day edition of the school's newspaper Le Sabre was distributed on Feb. 14. The newspapers were dispensed during first period, with one headline reading, "Have a Happy Vagina Day!" Administration officials intercepted the stack of papers from being delivered to the rest of the school.

Immediately following, Principal Robert Marks spoke with Editor in Chief Richard Edmond to discuss why he was pulling the paper. He claimed Edmond's own political agenda was a factor in why the paper in itself was so "obscene."

Edmond said that Marks told him the paper was "a piece of shit" that should be handed out on Hollywood Boulevard."

Edmond said the staff understands that they are producing a newspaper for a high school audience, but they are also aware that an anatomical diagram of the vagina is something each high school student has seen in their Los Angeles Unified School District mandated Health class.

An announcement was made during second period instructing teachers to not pass out the paper, as remaining papers were to be collected by the deans and vice principals. However, supportive teachers passed out the papers willingly, seeing no problem with the articles.

During third and fourth period, newspapers were still in circulation despite the efforts made by teachers and the administration.

The faculty was divided in their initial reaction to the issue. Some teachers were reported to have been ripping up the issue in front of their classes, even taking issues already in the possession of students to do so.

A number of students were passing out stacks of papers during lunch as administrators were ripping papers out of the hands of interested students as they were reading them.

Journalism advisor Coleen Bondy, who didn't want to be quoted, was instructed by Marks to not distribute any remaining issues she had in her classroom during fifth period.

Members of Congress Try To Live On Food Stamps For One Week

U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan, D-Ohio, shops for food on a $21-a-week budget at a grocery store in Washington. Ryan later said he made some poor shopping choices.

The Washington Post reports:
A pork chop and a bag of peanuts proved too tempting for Rep. Tim Ryan, D-Ohio, one of four members of Congress who has struggled for the past week to subsist on $21 worth of food — the equivalent of benefits received by the average food-stamp recipient.

Last Friday night, in New Hampshire to deliver a commencement speech, Ryan succumbed to a pork chop in the hotel restaurant because he feared he would otherwise be too weak to give the address.

Afterward, as he rushed to catch a flight back to Washington, airport-security officials confiscated jars of peanut butter and jelly from his carry-on luggage, leaving him with nothing but a small bag of cornmeal to eat in the final days of the "Food Stamp Challenge," which ended Tuesday.

"It just showed me that when you're living on food stamps, you're really one event away from disaster," he said. "If you drop a jar of sauce or jam, you can lose an opportunity to eat. Some people are constantly living on that edge."

So Monday, in the Cleveland airport on his way back to Washington from a funeral, Ryan bought a bag of peanuts. "I feel bad I couldn't do it the whole time, but I certainly got the point," said the lawmaker, who lost four pounds during the week and ended his test early, with dinner at a Washington restaurant Monday night.

He said he came away with two conclusions: He made some poor choices when he shopped for the $21 worth of food, and the country's food-stamp program is not sufficient for the 26 million Americans who rely on it.

Reps. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., and Jo Ann Emerson, R-Mo., co-chairmen of the House Hunger Caucus, called on lawmakers to join them in taking the challenge to raise awareness of hunger and what they say are inadequate benefits for food-stamp recipients. Only Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., and Ryan took them up on it.

"I've been a little low on energy, but I feel guilty about complaining about anything," said McGovern, who took the challenge with his wife; each lost about five pounds. "For us, this is an exercise that ends Tuesday. For millions of people, this is their life."

Food-stamp benefits are roughly $1 a meal, or $3 a day. With that budget, the lawmakers said, they found that starchy foods are attractively priced and that there was little chance for variety.

"No organic foods, no fresh vegetables — we were looking for the cheapest of everything," McGovern said. "We got spaghetti and hamburger meat that was high in fat — the fattiest meat on the shelf. ... It's almost impossible to make healthy choices on a food-stamp diet."

McGovern said he faced down many temptations at several receptions and fundraisers — duck rolls, crab cakes, red wine. "Every time I thought, 'I wish I could have that scallop wrapped in bacon,' at the back of mind I thought, 'Why are you complaining? This is the way people live every day.' "

McGovern and Ryan blogged about their experiences and received hundreds of comments from people nationwide, including food-stamp recipients who offered recipes and tricks to stretch meals.

"I was so deeply touched by the comments," said McGovern's wife, Lisa. "I was even struck by the angry remarks. One person was dismissive, but he gave a recipe for a biscuit. That was remarkable. ... It showed me there are people out there who are struggling, and it's neighbors and friends. You don't have to look to some faraway place to see it."

McGovern and Emerson have introduced legislation that would add $4 billion to the annual federal food-stamp budget, which was $33 billion last year. The proposal could be incorporated into the new farm bill.

McGovern said Monday that he had not given a lot of thought to what he will eat as he returns to his more typical diet. "I want a cup of coffee — or five," he said. "... And not lentils. I've had enough lentils for three years."

GOP Challenging Voter Registrations

The Washington Post reports:

Republicans yesterday continued to challenge the validity of tens of thousands of voter registrations in Ohio and other key states in the presidential election while a coalition of civil rights and labor groups sued the GOP, contending the Republican efforts were aimed at removing eligible minority voters from the rolls.After initially saying he would not contest a Wednesday ruling halting the challenges, Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell (R) worked with other election officials who asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit in Cincinnati to allow GOP challenges to 35,000 voters from mostly urban and minority areas to proceed before the election. As of late last night, the court had not ruled.

Also yesterday, Republicans in Wisconsin attempted to challenge the registrations of 5,600 voters in Milwaukee but were turned down in a unanimous decision by the city's bipartisan election board.

The Republican challenges in Ohio, Wisconsin and other battleground states prompted civil rights and labor unions to sue in U.S. District Court in Newark, saying the GOP is violating a consent decree, issued in the 1980s by Judge Dickinson R. Debevoise and still in effect, that prevents the Republicans from starting "ballot security" programs to prevent voter fraud that target minorities.

Judith A. Browne, acting co-director of the Advancement Project, which filed the lawsuit along with the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, said the Republican "challenges were, and currently are, used to disenfranchise minority voters."

But Republicans denied that they were targeting black voters. Bobby Burchfield, an attorney for the Republican National Committee, told Debevoise that "troubling reports" of fictitious names such as Mary Poppins appearing on Ohio's rolls prompted the challenges.

Debevoise, who scheduled a hearing for Monday, expressed concern that widespread challenges on the fear of fraud could unnecessarily disrupt polling places.

The legal maneuvering is a testament to the legalization of presidential politics that resulted from the bitterly disputed presidential contest in 2000 between George W. Bush and Al Gore, which deadlocked in Florida. Both parties have embarked on litigation over voting rules in many states and have thousands of lawyers poised for Election Day.

The move in Milwaukee, a heavily minority and Democratic stronghold, is part of a national effort by Republicans in many battleground states to challenge voter registrations.

A similar effort by a former Nevada GOP operative to question 17,000 Democratic voters in Las Vegas was rejected earlier this month by election officials there. Republicans have also filed plans in Florida and Colorado to place watchers who can challenge voters in those key states on Election Day.

Challenge rules vary by state. In general, challengers must supply evidence that the voter may not be eligible. Grounds can include that a voter is not a U.S. citizen, is not a resident of the state or county where he or she is registered, or is younger than 18. The complaints are settled by election board members or precinct judges.

Republicans argue that their program -- the most robust in recent history -- is necessary because unprecedented voter registration drives by Democratic-leaning interest groups have produced thousands of phony registrations. But Democrats say that the GOP's Milwaukee challenges are a perfect example of the party trying to imply fraud where none exists. Lawyers for John F. Kerry's campaign successfully argued before the election board there that the analysis the GOP used to challenge voters was riddled with mistakes.

Courts in the past found that Republicans used tactics that were aimed at intimidating minority voters and suppressing their votes. The consent decrees in New Jersey stemmed from several incidents in the 1980s.

In 1981, the Republican National Committee sent letters to predominantly black neighborhoods in New Jersey, and when 45,000 letters were returned as undeliverable, the committee compiled a challenge list to remove those voters from the rolls. The RNC sent off-duty law enforcement officials to the polls and hung posters in heavily black neighborhoods warning that violating election laws is a crime.

In 1986, the RNC tried to have 31,000 voters, most of them black, removed from the rolls in Louisiana when a party mailer was returned. The consent decrees that resulted prohibited the party from engaging in anti-fraud initiatives that target minorities or conduct mail campaigns to "compile voter challenge lists."

Undeliverable mail is the basis for this year's challenges in Ohio. Republicans also sent mail to about 130,000 voters in Philadelphia, another heavily black and Democratic stronghold.

The civil rights groups and labor unions, which are backed by the Democratic Party, also charged that GOP plans to put challengers in thousands of precincts nationwide on Election Day are race-based. In several Florida counties, for instance, GOP challengers will disproportionately be based in black precincts.

Republicans said their plans involve putting challengers in precincts won handily by either Bush or Gore and has nothing to do with race.