OCR Text |
Show Thursday, March 25, 1999 The Daily Utah Leader of Labor Party T TTT XT n says u was uniair in Letting Employees Go Dave Hancock Assistant News Editor Gary Holloway may be the only person in the United States who thinks Congress has never been more bipartisan. "There is certainly bipartisan agreement in both the House and Senate," said Holloway, who is a national leader of the Labor Party. "Both parties agree it is all right to screw people over." This is why so few members of the working class vote, said Justin Elardo, who introduced Holloway and is a graduate student in the University of Utah's department of economics. The Student Labor Action Committee and the Heterodox Economics Student Association hosted the seminar, titled "Why Workers Need Unions: Why Unions Need a Labor Party," Wednesday. "American voters are a very apathetic group," Elardo said. "Two-thirof those who don't vote are members of the working class. The main political parties are simply not addressing the issues they are interested in." Holloway agreed American voters are tremendously apathetic, but did not, in fact, encourage them to vote in the existing political climate of the system. "There is not a difference between the Republican and Democratic parties," he said. "Both just run society for their bosses." This is why a new Labor Party is so necessary in the United States, Holloway said. "We are offering a new vision of politics for the American voter." The chief focus of the Labor Party right now, said Holloway, is health care. "For most workers in the U.S.," he said, "health care is prohibitively expensive. In fact, this is the only major industrialized country in the world without some form of nation- ds two-part- y - 3 City Divided Over Drag Queen Easter Party Plans O T Chronicle al health care." It should not be seen as a coincidence, said Holloway, that the United States is also the only industrialized country in the world without a political party designed to specifically address the needs of working-clas- s people. Health care may not remain the primary focus of the party for long, Holloway said. "We obviously have to keep an eye on which way the political winds are blowing and address real issues that will have a real impact on the lives of working class individuals," he said. SAN FRANCISCO (AP) San Francisco's world-clas- s reputation as a place where a guy can be himselfor herself, for that matter has been sorely tested by a group of drag queens who dress like nuns. The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence are planning an Easter block party, an idea some Roman Catholics find offensive. In their glittery makeup and false eyelashes, the "nuns" have shimmied and sashayed in their habits for 20 years, raising money for AIDS, breast cancer, youth groups and gay rights since the 1980s. Block parties in San Francisco's mostly gay Castro District are com Two issues of particular importance are what he described as the bipartisan agreement that Constitutional rights end at the workplace door and the minimum wage. "We spend fully of our a in hours where we waking place have no right to free speech," he said. "That is absolutely wrong." "Right now, the minimum wage is an absolute joke," he said. "You cannot support yourself, much less a family on the minimum wage." The current buying power of a dollar means a minimum wage of approximately $10 per hour would be appropriate, said Holloway. Holloway also emphasized the role the Labor Party would play in reinvigorating the American union movement. "Unions are about much more than simply getting more money for workers," he said. "It is all about gaining dignity and respect, as well as a sense of control over one's own mon, and when the Sisters sought a permit to close down a block of Castro Street for a party on their anniversary, the request got unanimous approval from the Board of Supervisors earlier this month. But last week, the Archdiocese of San Francisco and the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights protested. Issuing a permit to a group that "mocks Catholics" showed "extraordinary insensitivity to people of all faiths," archdiocese spokesman Maurice Healy said. On Tuesday, Mayor Willie Brown and two other city officials backtracked, asking fellow supervisors to reconsider. "I would hope that the Sisters could select some other day on which to do their thing," Brown said. Supervisor Alicia Bccerril proposed another date: April 11. But it turns out that's the day the Greek Orthodox Church celebrates Easter. The Sisters said they're not backing down. The party with its picnic baskets, performances and bonwill go on, Sister Ann net contest R. Key, one of the few women in the order, said Wednesday. "Not everyone does exactly what the Catholic Church docs or says to do on Easter Sunday," she said. The Associated Press QM Chronicle one-ha- lf Editor-in-Chie- f t Stephen Spencer Named i CNN Intern Moscow Bureau Congratulations! Chronicle Chief Photographer Kyle Green Named Intern For The km. life. "It is in unions that individuals can be educated about the fact that the evils they suffer from are systemic problems and that they do not suffer their burden alone." This is what workers at the U were trying to do recently when they sought to be recognized as a see labor page f V VNYilrvr 5 Device Allows Paralyzed to Use Brain Waves to Spell Messages Scientists have developed a way to let paralyzed people use their brain waves to maneuver a ball on a computer screen and spell out U mes- sages. Electrodes and wires were wired to the scalp of two patients with advanced Lou Gehrig's disease. They learned to maneuver the ball by varying the strength of a specific kind of brain wave. It took five steps to choose each letter. The process is slow: a proficient speed is about two letters per minute. But "it is reliable and precise enough to allow the patient to communicate," scientists from the University of Tuebingen in Germany, the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and elsewhere wrote in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature. The technique differs from one reported last October, which uses a electiny brain implant rather than conthat trodes to pick up signals trol a cursor. The Associated Press He is a Polio r OHI VWVii WlUfcW a big .its'' z" AfiftW rlimhpr Me wtremrd el capitan 19 Hours frZitninutes; oaMsjaight cUwb of spac&moU J ?r06n v , - r vn-- s 'tit,: x -- f-v- r ri tv t rwv iE |