The British medical journal Lancet recently took greater notice of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) than all western media outlets combined. A group of physicians reported that about 4 million people have died since the "official" outbreak of the Congolese war in 1998 (1). The BBC reported the war in Congo has claimed more lives than any armed conflict since World War II (2).
Guillermo Martinez was only 20 years old when he was shot in the back at close range by an agent of the U.S. Border Patrol in the state of California on December 30, 2005. Scores of migrants have been shot by U.S. immigration enforcement officers. Most fail to make the headlines. But Martinez's death comes at the same time as a series of measures to further criminalize migrants-measures that are likely to increase the chances that more young men and women lose their lives on what has become the world's most contradictory border.
What do you get when you cross two high-powered progressive-minded citizen activists with the information superhighway? The answer: a new book called "Crashing The Gate: Netroots, Grassroots, and the Rise of People-Powered Politics."
For anyone who watches television, surfs the Internet or reads a newspaper these days it's nearly impossible to avoid. Deconstructive, divisive rhetoric spews forth from almost every major media outlet without fail. Thanks to Internet chat rooms and discussion boards you even have the chance to anonymously insult others in real-time.
In the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina there was no healthcare infrastructure. The members of the Common Ground Clinic who headed to
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