From New America Media: Romney’s record on diversity as Massachusetts governor gives a strong hint of what his White House would look like. When it came to appointing minorities and women to judicial posts, his record was atrocious. The Massachusetts Women’s Bar Association repeatedly lambasted him for his near-exclusive white male state house. Romney, partly in response to the public pounding and partly with an eye on a presidential run where he knew his state record on diversity would be closely scrutinized, made a slew of appointments of minorities and women to the state bench in his last year in office.

 

From New America Media and Korea Times: Brand new apartments, theaters and parks are popping up as has, apparently, a new department store hawking Chanel and Armani. Sidewalks are bustling with activity and, at last, the final touches are being applied to the exterior of a massive showpiece hotel. This is clearly not the Pyongyang of old.

The premise of the Road Runner/Wile E. Coyote cartoon is that of a nature show, an organism attempting to satisfy its biological needs. Struck with hunger, Wile E. Coyote goes out into the world, tracks and chases down his food. However, he does not possess the proper physical attributes to catch his prey, the Road Runner. But rather than taking this cartoon as mere entertainment for the family, it also raises important issues lying in the heart of the unease in our culture. 

From New America Media: The Tahrir Square of today is a place of rampant violence and sexual assault, perpetrated by the state terror apparatus and street thugs alike. The recent toll: 40 dead, 2,000 seriously wounded and countless others intimidated, beaten and raped.  Women risk their dignity and personal safety by going to Tahrir, a place where rapists roam freely and assault at will. One of the more vocal and prominent victims among them is Egyptian-American journalist Mona Eltahawy, who had her left arm and right hand broken before being sexually assaulted by Egyptian riot police.

 From New America Media and FinalCall.com:  On the streets of the nation’s capital, random downtown workers were asked, “Would America be better if the distribution of wealth was more equal?” A majority, 60 percent, of Americans said society would be better off, according to the 2011 American Values Survey conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute.



 

From New America Media:  As the U.S. Supreme Court prepares to review the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), California health experts are confident that the state will continue to lead the way on health reform. California has the highest number of uninsured persons of any state. Through the work of health and consumer advocates, the state has focused on building the infrastructure for future coverage expansion and implementing as many of the changes as fast as it can. 

From New America Media and ColorLines: Can GOP voters stomach a presidential candidate who talks about undocumented immigrants without calling them “illegals”? Such are the questions the Republican party has been grappling with in the days since Newt Gingrich, the GOP’s most recent frontrunner, broke away from the pack during CNN’s national security debate last Wednesday and uttered a fairly startling set of words on immigration.

From New America Media: In less than nine months, Mexicans will go to the polls to elect a new president, and already the tantalizing question has set social media here all abuzz: Is Mexico ready to elect a woman? Josefina Vazquez-Mota, a popular lawmaker for the ruling National Action Party, known as PAN, is consolidating her standing as a favorite to win the nomination.

From New America Media: The excuses some Democrats give for their chill toward backing President Obama’s re-election bid would fill up a legal pad. The Blue Dog and moderate Democratic congresspersons and senators representing shaky swing and conservative districts are scared stiff that if they rub shoulders too close with Obama, they will be signing their political obituary for re-election.

 

There is, perhaps, no greater venue for illustrating exactly how vast a disparity exists between the haves and have-nots right now than at the sale of million-dollar artworks. Lending support to the gathering of disgruntled art handlers who have been locked out of Sotheby’s auction house in New York since August, Occupy Wall Street protestors have made things very uncomfortable for the auction house and its clients during the two biggest sales weeks of the year.