Free Republic

EDITORIAL A Tragedy of Two Cities Times Headlines Los Angeles' Toilet-to-Tap Fear Factor Los Angeles is home to multimillionaire movie execs and billionaire developers. When it comes to the overall value of its goods and services, L.A. County does better than Switzerland, Sweden or Austria. It is also the poverty capital of the nation. To measure the widening gap between the region's haves and have-nots, the United Way of Greater Los Angeles crunched numbers from dozens of government and private studies. Its recently released report, "A Tale of Two Cities: Promise and Peril in Los Angeles County," found that the...

Bilingual ed foes: TUSD used threats By Howard Fischer CAPITOL MEDIA SERVICES PHOENIX - Foes of bilingual education charged Tuesday that TUSD uses threats of deportation against parents who are unwilling to sign papers to put their children into bilingual programs. At a press conference at the Capitol, Maria Mendoza, who chairs English for the Children of Arizona, said parents are being pressured by teachers and others who enroll youngsters to put their children into Spanish-language bilingual programs "because if they don't do so, they will be deported." She provided no names, saying "those parents are afraid to speak out."...

<p>Is the U.S. romp through Afghanistan the last hurrah of a culturally hollowed out superpower? It is difficult to believe otherwise after considering the facts laid out by Patrick J. Buchanan in his new book, "The Death of the West."</p>

News Published Wednesday, November 28, 2001 Poor belie our golden reputation Census 2000 data shows Third World poverty in huge parts of California By Jack Chang CONTRA COSTA TIMES ----------------------------------------------------------- Countering traditional perceptions of California as a golden land of economic opportunity, a study released today shows the state is one of the poorest in the country and claims poverty levels comparable to Third World countries. Over the past three decades, California's ranking in one poverty measure has risen steadily, from 16th-poorest among states in 1980 to its current ranking of second behind Washington, D.C., according to a report by ...

Burgeoning Inequalities = Brazilianization? The Houston economy rebounded rapidly from the oil and real estate recession of the mid-1980s, but it was a recovery into a strikingly different kind of economy. Good paying blue-collar jobs are disappearing, and income gaps are widening based primarily on educational attainment. Survey findings confirm that a fundamental shift occurred in the underlying structures of the Houston economy. From 1982 through 1987, respondents with high school educations or less were receiving steadily increasing incomes: the proportions reporting incomes above $35,000 grew from 16 percent in 1982 to 21 percent in 1987. However, during the 1990s, ...