Grassroots efforts to address the Gulf Coast's housing crisis are growing just as a federal judge has ordered the Federal Emergency Management Agency to resume rental aid to Gulf Coast residents displaced by hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon this week ruled that the Bush administration treated tens of thousands of storm victims unconstitutionally by beginning to cut off rental aid in February without providing clear reasons and by hindering applicants' due-process rights to appeal government mistakes, the Washington Post reports:

"It is unfortunate, if not incredible, that FEMA and its counsel could not devise a sufficient notice system to spare these beleaguered evacuees the added burden of federal litigation to vindicate their constitutional rights," Leon, a D.C. federal judge, wrote in a 19-page opinion.

"Free these evacuees from the 'Kafkaesque' application process they have had to endure," he wrote.

FEMA says that of the 720,590 households that have received rental assistance, only 33,889 families remained eligible for aid as of Oct. 19, the Post reports. An additional 108,088 families, most headed by homeowners, are still in FEMA trailers and mobile homes. Each household includes about three people, according to analyst estimates.

At the same time the Bush administration was unconstitutionally denying rental aid to storm victims, it was also moving ahead with plans to tear down 5,000 public housing units that suffered little storm-related damage. This week it was reported that the almost 900 families that used to live in the Lafitte Housing Development in the city's Treme community will be allowed to return to retrieve their belongings before the complex is torn down to make way for single-family homes.

Meanwhile, outrage is building against the Housing Authority of New Orleans, which oversees the city's public housing complexes. Tension deepened this week as public housing residents and community leaders fought to be heard at the HANO Resident Advisory Board consultation meeting. Common Ground, the New Orleans-based nonprofit that provides volunteer relief aid to hurricane victims, has posted to its Web site sound clips of residents' and community leaders' comments as well as a brief report on the meeting:

People chanting "People First!" tried to amend the agenda to have the residents heard before HANO's presentations. C. Donald Babers, Chairman of the HANO board, then took control of the microphone and demanded that the HANO-approved agenda be continued as scheduled.

The chanting continues over the voice of Judith Moran, Director of Development, who reads a power point presentation entitled "Vision for Redevelopment." When the slides on demolition were read, Moran had to contend with chanting of "No Demolitions!" by more than one hundred members of the packed crowd in John McDonogh Senior High School Auditorium.

There was a small bit of good news this week for New Orleans area residents in need of affordable housing, as tenants of the Woodlands Apartment complex in Algiers won a legal battle that will allow them to remain in their homes rent-free until the new year. Shortly before Thanksgiving, the tenants received eviction notices after the complex was sold, leaving many fearful they would be left homeless for the holidays. Common Ground manages the complex.

The tenants -- with help from the New Orleans Legal Assistance Corp. and the support of Common Ground and the Louisiana NAACP -- challenged the evictions in court. More than 140 residents and supporters showed up at the Algiers Courthouse on Tuesday, holding signs and voicing anger over the threatened evictions. The two sides reached an agreement that will allow the families to remain in their homes without paying rent until Jan. 4. However, the deal required Common Ground to sacrifice some of its interest in the complex; as of yesterday, only Common Ground volunteers who live at the Woodlands will be allowed on the property.

The agreement gives Woodlands residents a little more than a month to find new affordable housing in a market where rents are estimated to be as much as 70 percent higher than they were before Hurricane Katrina.

Photo courtesy of Common Ground. For more pictures of the protest, visit the organization's Woodlands anti-eviction campaign photo album.

New Orleanians -- those still living in the city as well as those displaced by last year's hurricanes -- will gather Saturday, Dec. 2 at locations across the country to help set priorities for their city's rebuilding.

Community Congress II will use interactive TV to link participants in New Orleans with those in four other cities with high concentrations of evacuees: Atlanta, Baton Rouge, Dallas and Houston. New Orleans residents living outside those cities will also be able to call into the meeting at participating libraries in more than 15 other cities nationwide.

An estimated 267,000 New Orleans evacuees have not yet returned home, according to a recent RAND Corp. study commissioned by the Louisiana Recovery Authority. That represents 60 percent of the city's pre-Katrina population.

Saturday's gathering is being organized by the Unified New Orleans Plan, which was created by the city in the wake of the disaster to include all neighborhoods in the planning for large-scale infrastructure needs. It is funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, the Greater New Orleans Foundation and the Bush-Clinton Katrina Fund.

"There is a tremendous need for additional funding to help New Orleans rebuild its parks, streets, schools, sewage and water systems," Vera Triplett, chair of the Community Support Organization board that oversees the UNOP process, said in a press release announcing the event. "This Community Congress is an important opportunity for our citizens dispersed all over the country to come together to discuss and decide the most important investments for a smarter, stronger and safer New Orleans."

The first Community Congress, held on Oct. 28, was criticized for low citizen participation and for under-representation of some segments of the community, according to Brian Denzer of the Community Gumbo show on New Orleans radio station WTUL. Denzer mentioned those problems in a post about the upcoming Congress at NOLA Indymedia:

The latest process underway to plan the rebuilding of New Orleans neighborhoods will be tested again on December 2nd. Residents and observers will be watching to see if the demographic composition of participants at the second citywide Community Congress more closely reflects the actual pre-Katrina population of New Orleans. Some groups of residents were grossly under-represented at the first Community Congress on October 28th, a fact which could be used to label the process illegitimate in the future if New Orleanians decide they don't agree with the final plans. A majority of the participants voted to finance rebuilding projects in dry neighborhoods before projects in more flooded neighborhoods. Not only was attendance at the first Congress extremely low -- approximately 200 participants -- but the demographic makeup of the group was more than three-quarters white, compared to a pre-Katrina population which was 67% black. In order to raise the level of participation at the second Community Congress, planning organizers will offer a live simulcast of the New Orleans planning presentations to displaced residents in Baton Rouge, Atlanta, Houston, and Dallas. Organizers are also promising to provide child care, meals and transportation.

Community Congress II is being facilitated by AmericaSpeaks, a nonprofit that has organized dozens of large town meetings, including a 5,000-person gathering in New York City to collect citizen input on redeveloping the World Trade Center site after 9/11. The congress will include facilitated small-group discussions, and participants will be able to cast votes using a polling keypad. Each small group will submit their ideas through laptop computers linked on a wireless network so organizers can report back on themes emerging from the entire group. Participants will see votes from all sites simultaneously.

The unified plan is scheduled to be completed by January and will be submitted to the mayor, city council and the city planning commission. Once approved by city officials, the plan will be provided to the Louisiana Recovery Authority.

For more information on UNOP and to register for the Dec. 2 event, click here or call toll-free 866-940-1095. Participants are asked to read the Road to Recovery report before the meeting.

Update from NC-8: Democratic challenger Larry Kissell has conceded to Rep. Robin Hayes halfway through the recount after finding only two new votes. You may recall that Rep. Robin Hayes, who is vice chairman of the House Subcommittee on Terrorism, said last year that Iraq was involved in the Sept. 11th attacks and he knew this because legislators have access to the secret evidence.

Over here in Tennessee, in case you are the last person to hear about it Sen. Dr. Bill Frist has decided not to run for president in 2008. Democrats everywhere were disappointed by the news.

Meanwhile (by way of TGW), incoming freshman U.S. Senator from Tennessee Bob Corker (in fact, the only freshman GOP senator) said in a Nashville Tennessean interview published Sunday that he supports a U.S. Constitutional amendment banning gay marriage because "people from Massachusetts will move to Tennessee" or something. He also opposes civil unions, but might be willing to look at allowing "certain types of visitation in the hospital." Compassion is his middle name. He also said that clean coal is "Very clean. Very, very clean. It's something that is very, very environmentally friendly." We are very, very impressed with his grasp of the technology.

Remember the controversial voter photo ID law in Georgia? The one that was ruled unconstitutional? In the November election, there were exactly eight complaints of voter fraud out of two million votes. And those complaints involved absentee ballots. So why was it again that Georgia needs this law, or now needs to amend their Constitution to make it legal? (By way of So Far, So Left.)

Back in North Carolina, a judge ordered Google to remove personal info from Google's cache about Johnston County residents. The info, which included Social Security Numbers among other things, was inadvertently posted to the county's website.

Over in Mississippi, the town of Southaven is rolling out city-wide Wi-Fi for all residents and businesses. City officials say it will be free for users of public spaces such as parks and recreation areas, and will offer affordable fee-based service to businesses and residents starting next spring.

Librarians from Mississippi and Louisiana are meeting in Baton Rouge at a summit hosted by the Southeastern Library Network to discuss rebuilding 31 public libraries destroyed by last year's hurricanes. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has donated $12.2 million to the Gulf Coast Libraries Project towards the effort.

In good news for some New Orleans homeowners, a federal judge has ruled that homeowners are entitled to coverage for water damage despite policy exclusions for flooding. The judge ruled that the language applied to natural flooding but not man-made causes such as levee failure. State Farm policyholders were excluded from the ruling because the company's definition of flooding was more specific.

The State of Florida, meanwhile, is struggling to find ways to make property insurance affordable and keep insurers in the state. Lawmakers will convene a special session in January to discuss ways to shore up the state's reinsurance and "insurer of last resort" programs and to help homeowners with triple-digit premium increases.

In Kentucky, the Secretary of State is calling for early voting and for e-voting machines with a paper audit trail. There are concerns that the new e-voting system is causing long lines and frustrating voters. Early voting would help alleviate that, and a paper audit trail would provide voters "more confidence in the integrity of Kentucky elections."

Election officials in Florida, on the other hand, oppose paper audit trails and prefer paperless systems. They say the printers are cheap, don't print correctly, jam a lot, and are less reliable than electronic systems and that they will cause more problems than they solve. Voters in Florida's 13th Congressional District may have a differing point of view. (Ed. note: many believe optical scan ballots address these concerns. County election officials don't like them because of the expense, but printers everywhere love them!)

Here's some good news for the Southeastern economy. A trade group says there is more than $60 billion of capital investment planned for 600+ industrial development projects in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, and Tennessee. Florida leads the way with $23 billion. One possible downside is that the power industry is the largest spender, with more than $35 billion planned for new electrical generating plants. Other industries include "manufacturing, metals and minerals, terminals, pharmaceutical and biotech, and alternative fuels."

Finally, the big news out of Alabama this week is the departure of University of Alabama head coach Mike Shula. As the UA Crimson White newspaper says, "football -- it's a nasty business!" That goes double in the SEC.

Earlier today, I reported on the 600,000 kids in 17 states that are at risk of losing health insurance, thanks to a $921 million shortfall in federal spending for the Children's Health Insurance Program.

In light of President Bush's request for $127-$150 billion for "emergency war spending," a number of people have emailed to support an idea I floated at DKos: the 1% For Kids Campaign.

Let's ask President Bush to take 1% of the money he's proposing for war, and use it to fund CHIP and make sure 600,000 kids have health care.

By my calculations, it would take less than 1% -- just .6% of the $150 billion figure -- to wipe out the shortfall and restore much-needed health coverage for children.

But 1% is a nice even figure, and would give the CHIP program a little extra cushion -- something Halliburton and other beneficiaries of "emergency war spending" can relate to.

What do you think? Do we have a winning campaign here?

Speaking of the problems plaguing New Orleans' justice system since Katrina, today's Times-Picayune has a story about a man who came to help rebuild the city -- and ended up spending 13 months in three different Louisiana prisons without ever speaking to a defense attorney.

Arrested for assault on Oct. 13, 2005, Pedro Parra-Sanchez didn't see a judge until yesterday, when he pleaded innocent to the charges against him. A Mexican native and legal resident of the United States, the case of 44-year-old Parra-Sanchez was complicated by the fact that he speaks little English. During his incarceration, his family fell on financial hard times and was forced to move from their California home to a trailer park.

In the end, Parra-Sanchez was not located by the courts or prosecutors but by Pamela Metzger, a pro bono defense attorney with Tulane University's criminal law clinic. She was tipped about the case by other prisoners at the St. Charles Parish jail, where Parra-Sanchez was held for the longest period of his incarceration. Metzger told the paper that her client "has been terribly wronged."

Attorneys at the clinic have discovered at least three other inmates lost in the prison system after they were arrested in the weeks after the storm, according to the Times-Picayune. All of the defendants were booked through what came to be known as "Camp Greyhound," a temporary criminal processing station set up at the city's bus terminal.

Judge Darryl Derbigny -- who called the treatment of Parra-Sanchez "unacceptable" -- next month will consider a defense motion to drop the case on the grounds that the defendant has been denied his constitutional right to a speedy trial.

As many as a third of the people now living in the New Orleans area say they may leave within the next two years due to poor quality of life in the storm-stricken city.

That's the finding of a telephone poll of 400 residents of Orleans and Jefferson parishes conducted last month by the Survey Research Center at the University of New Orleans. Susan Howell, the center's director, released the poll's findings yesterday.

The survey found that 17 percent of the residents in both parishes said they are "very likely" to leave, while 15 percent in both parishes said they are "somewhat likely" to leave. At the same time, 67 percent of Orleans residents and 65 percent of Jefferson residents said they were "not very likely" to leave, while the rest said they didn't know.

The poll may actually underestimate the number of area residents who are contemplating moving because it only included people with land-based phone lines. Consequently, it most likely excluded those people still living in trailers.

Residents who are considering leaving cited four things that need to happen in order to make them stay: controlling crime; streamlining the government bureaucracy and making government more proactive; fixing levees and taking other flood-prevention steps; and repairing damaged infrastructure, particularly streets.

Crime and public safety were the most commonly mentioned motivation for leaving, the study found. Thirty-one percent of Orleans Parish residents and 45 percent of Jefferson Parish residents said they do not feel safe in their communities. Earlier this week, even before the poll's findings were released, New Orleans Police Superintendent Warren Riley said he would ask Gov. Kathleen Blanco to extend the National Guard's stay in the city through next June, the Associated Press reports.

Other major problems continue to be availability of housing, which 71 percent of Orleans Parish residents and 35 percent of Jefferson Parish residents ranked as "poor" or "very poor." Besides housing, three other conditions are perceived much more negatively in Orleans than Jefferson Parish: the conditions of streets, control of abandoned houses, and control of trash.

The poll found some improvement in the outlook of New Orleans area residents. The percentage of people in the two parishes who say they are somewhat or very worried about what will happen to them in the next five years declined slightly since the last poll conducted in April, from about two-thirds to about one-half. But that's still high compared to Americans overall, who as the pollsters note tend to be fairly optimistic about the future.

The survey also found improvements in everyday life since April, with respondents now better able to shop for groceries, get around town and make home repairs.

But there was one notable exception to the general upward trajectory: Slightly more Orleans Parish residents -- 50 percent now compared to 45 percent in April -- say they have difficulty getting medical care. Jefferson Parish residents also reported little improvement in this area, underscoring the region's severe shortage of medical personnel.

The State Children's Health Insurance Program, by most measures, has been a big success. Jointly funded by states and the federal government, SCHIP now covers over 4 million kids, most of whom otherwise wouldn't have access to health care.

But according to a new analysis by the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, a major shortfall in federal spending for SCHIP threatens to force many children off the program, unless Congress intervenes:

17 states will have nearly $921 million less in federal SCHIP funds than they will need in fiscal year 2007 to maintain their existing SCHIP programs ...

Without additional federal funds to close these gaps, these 17 states will either have to increase state funding for SCHIP or scale back their SCHIP programs by reducing eligibility, capping enrollment, eliminating benefits, increasing beneficiary cost-sharing or cutting payments to providers.

In states that cut back their programs, significant numbers of SCHIP beneficiaries will be at risk: the $921 million in shortfalls projected for 2007 is equivalent to the cost of covering 630,000 children under the SCHIP program.

Why the federal shortfall? The Center says that one reason is the success of the program, which has expanded its reach causing costs to go up. The other reason is that Washington leaders have been slashing the program's budget:

[T]he overall federal funding level for SCHIP fell 26 percent in fiscal years 2002, 2003, and 2004 (from $4.25 billion per year in 2000 and 2001 to $3.12 billion each year from 2002 through 2004), forcing states to draw down their funds from prior years more rapidly. Finally, after fiscal years 2004 and 2005, some $1.4 billion in unspent SCHIP funds from prior years were allowed to expire and revert to the U.S. Treasury rather than being extended and redistributed to states that could use these funds to avert, or reduce the magnitude of, the approaching funding shortfalls.

The list of 17 states facing a shortfall in federal help is a diverse one, ranging from Massachusetts to Alaska (scroll down to see a table here). Four are in the South: Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi and North Carolina.

Well, at least there's another $127 to $150 billion available for emergency war spending.

For all the talk in politics about "listening to voters" and "mobilizing the grassroots," people who have worked at both the public policy and grassroots community levels know that there is a vast divide between the two worlds.

Policy decisions -- and policy wonks, no matter how good their intentions -- are often far removed from the day-to-day lives of "regular" people and the issues they face. In the fast-moving realm of politics and pundits, talking to such ordinary folks is often treated as a waste of time or, at best, a media opportunity.

From the grassroots side, even the most engaged community leaders struggle to keep track of the issues sailing through city councils, state legislatures, and the halls of Congress -- decisions which will intimately effect their lives.

The internet and blogs have begun to close the gap. In North Carolina, online activists can turn to places like NC Policy Watch to keep track of the policy debate.

But the reality is, for many ordinary folks, nothing beats a face-to-face conversation. This is a critical piece that's missing from many of the conversations about building "progressive infrastructure" -- infrastructure for who? A broad progressive movement has to go beyond the inside-the-beltway crowd, and even the "netroots" -- a growing but still very small sliver of the broad constituency that will make up any powerful progressive movement.

Progressives -- especially research, media and "idea" people -- need to find creative ways to bring their message and resources directly to the communities that will benefit most from their expertise. They should also view this as more than "outreach;" it's an opportunity to learn and enrich their own perspectives about the issues that really matter. (An example: if more progressive policy people listened to the day-to-day needs of ordinary folks, affordable child care and universal health coverage would probably be at the top of the progressive agenda.)

At the Institute for Southern Studies, we use a variety of strategies to get our investigative reports, policy research, and other information and ideas out to a broader audience: e-newsletters, print reports, community forums, this blog, etc. We also work closely with groups who we think will find our resources useful in their community work -- for example, the New Orleans Network for our Gulf Watch project.

Another group that's working to bridge the policy/community divide: the North Carolina Justice Center, an excellent policy and legal center in Raleigh, which just announced a state-wide "legislative briefing tour" in seven NC cities. The forums will talk about the 2006 budget passed in the state legislature, and what it means for the issues community people care about.

It's a good model for how policy groups can share their know-how at the community level -- and how policy groups can learn from the grassroots.

The audit of voting machines begun yesterday in Sarasota County, Florida was supposed to help clarify when happened to the 18,000 ballots which "undervotes" that didn't register a choice for Congress. But puzzling glitches and criticisms of the audit itself means the battle over the U.S. House seat, in which Republican candidate Vern Buchanan was declared the winner by a 369 vote margin, will likely continue.

As the Bradenton Herald reports:
The results of a simulated election held on spare machines didn't exactly match what state elections officials had scripted. Of four machines, the results of which were compared to actual election-day results, three had one to three fewer votes for Democrat Christine Jennings in the 13th Congressional District race.
The responses of the parties involved were predictable. Election officials, who happen to be Republican, called the discrepancies "unsurprising" and the result of "human error." Democrat Christine Jennings' campaign called them "intriguing." Bachanan's rep said it proved the Jennings' case "doesn't hold water."

Voter advocates have contended that the audit is flawed in its very design, and therefore is unlikely to be a useful tool in revealing what happened to the missing votes:

Tuesday's test was designed by state elections officials and an expert retained by Jennings to "duplicate election day as much as possible," secretary of state spokeswoman Nash said.

But critics said it was anything but, citing numerous differences.

The touch-screen machines were hung vertically instead of lying flat as they were on Election Day. Most who cast ballots in the Nov. 7 election did so once in private while standing up, not repeatedly in plain view of onlookers and video cameras while sitting down.

And the test teams, whose members appeared to range in age from the mid-20s to early 50s, also didn't accurately represent real voters, critics said.

"They're professional testers," Coffey said of the state employees.

Critics also said the 10 machines to be used in the mock elections are too few to yield any meaningful results. The county used 1,498 machines in the real election.

I had an item on my desktop from a couple of months ago about Wal-Mart's pilot program in Florida to offer 30 day fills of generic prescription drugs for $4. I had mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, it could help the uninsured, underinsured, and those without prescription benefits on their insurance. On the other hand, you have to wonder if this is a loss leader that will also put competitive pressure on locally owned and operated independent drug stores.

Wal-Mart announced yesterday that they are rolling out the program in Tennessee and ten other states ahead of schedule:

Today's announcement brought 11 new states with a total of 811 pharmacies into the $4 generics program. Along with Tennessee, the new states are California, Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Louisiana, Minnesota, Montana, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Wyoming. The program kicked off in Florida in September, with plans to spread outside the state in January 2007. However, customer demand led Wal-Mart to accelerate the rollout of the program - now available in all 3,810 pharmacies in 49 states.

According to the press release, the only state not covered is North Dakota, because Wal-Mart does not operate pharmacies there.

Wal-Mart is getting rave reviews for the program in newspapers and other media outlets across the country. In that respect they appear to have scored a public relations coup.

Wal-Mart's pricing prompted other national retailers, including Target, to offer similar discounts. Perhaps this news from a week ago was a factor in Wal-Mart's decision to accelerate the rollout:

Target Corp. expanded its $4 generic drug program to all of its U.S. pharmacies Monday, moving beyond states where it was matching a plan offered by rival Wal-Mart Stores Inc.

Target said all of its 1,287 pharmacies across the United States would offer some generic versions of drugs at $4 for a 30-day supply. The discount retailer had previously matched the list of drugs being sold for $4 at Wal-Mart, but only in states where Wal-Mart was offering the plan.

Now, Target is selling $4 generic drugs in nine states where Wal-Mart has not yet rolled out its program: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Louisiana, Minnesota, Montana, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Wisconsin.

Note the list of states mentioned by Target and the list of states mentioned in the Wal-Mart press release.

At any rate, this is how free markets are supposed work, and the competition benefits consumers, right? Well, maybe not. According to this article in the Akron Ohio Beacon Journal, drug specials are not a cure-all:

Only a fraction of all medicines are covered, said Carol Risaliti, executive director of the Stark Prescription Assistance Network, which helps Stark County residents who can't afford their medicines.

[..]It's not unusual for large retailers to sell select products at a loss as a way to lure more customers and attempt to boost overall store profits, as is the case with the $4 promotion.

Large mass merchants rely on pharmacy sales for only 5 to 10 percent of revenue, compared to 60 to 70 percent for chain drugstores and 90 percent or more for independent pharmacies, [Ernie Boyd, executive director of the Ohio Pharmacists Association] said.

[..]Patients also put themselves at risk if they fill prescriptions at numerous pharmacies, he said.

"If you start scattering your scripts all over, we can't do a good job looking for drug interactions, mistakes and wrong doses," Boyd said. "We catch three mistakes per day per pharmacist. That's 30,000 per day in Ohio, one-third of which would have injured the patients had we not caught them."

Further, the Knoxville News Sentinel here in Tennessee talked to some local pharmacists, and found that $4 prescriptions aren't necessarily all that new:

But Knoxville pharmacist Hank Peck said he's been selling $4 generic drugs to his customers long before big-box retailers Wal-Mart and Target announced their new low-price prescription programs.

Peck, the owner of Long's Drug Store on Kingston Pike, said a lot of generics sell for even less and he isn't sure why the retailers are making a big fuss.

"They're creating an awareness that's not anything new," Peck said. "A lot of things on their list are not different from what we're charging already."

Bob Boyd, a pharmacist and owner of Norwood Pharmacy off Merchants Drive, called the move "kind of misleading."

"There are a lot of $4 drugs out there already," Boyd said.

At Belew Drugs on Broadway, many customers are on TennCare. Most of the $4 drugs being offered by Wal-Mart and Target already are on a short list of medications that TennCare recipients get for free.

The National Community Pharmacists Association says that Wal-Mart's discount prescription plan is a "PR stunt" and a "Bait and Switch" tactic. From their "PR stunt" press release:

The National Community Pharmacists Association (NCPA) today said Wal-Mart’s widely publicized generic drug program will provide minimal benefit to most patients because of the very limited number of medications included on the list of drugs that are covered.

[..]“If you look at the list of medications they are offering for $4, it represents about one percent of the total number of drugs available,” said NCPA Executive Vice President and CEO Bruce Roberts, RPh. “The question people should be asking Wal-Mart is, ‘What will you be charging for the other 99 percent of the medications that people need?’”

There are more than 11,000 drugs listed by the Food and Drug Administration, and while the Wal-Mart program claims to offer more than 300 medicines, its list actually includes fewer than 150 different drugs.

For example, 12 different versions of the antibiotic amoxicillin are included on the list.

Many older medications are on the list, and newer, replacement medications that often work better or have fewer side effects are not included.

"Wal-Mart’s original list included none of the generic statins used to treat high cholesterol," Roberts said. "After much criticism, the company added the oldest and weakest one and with one of the worst profiles for side effects. Patients deserve good care. Instead they are being used by Wal-Mart just to drive traffic to their stores."

In addition to concerns about patient safety, the NCPA is concerned about "the anti-competitive aspects of Wal-Mart's action":

Wal-Mart is known for driving small-town businesses out of business through deceptive and predatory pricing practices and then raising prices on prescription drugs and other health-related products.

"Prescription medicines are not a commodity like T-shirts and DVDs," Roberts said. "Community pharmacists are in the health care business and provide a value to patients no matter what medications they are taking. We are concerned that patients will be both misled and disappointed by the limited number of medicines in this new program."

Independent community pharmacists are clearly biased, but perhaps rightly so. If you share their concerns, there are alternatives.

United Networks of America, a benefit management company, offers anyone a free, no-strings-attached prescription discount card just for entering your name and e-mail address at their website. You get their pharmacy benefit management negotiated discounts at thousands of retailers nationwide.

I have one of these cards obtained through a local affiliate, Advantage Wellness of America, who had the innovative idea to partner with local county governments to sponsor the discount program in Knox County and Blount County. The county governments get fifty cents for their general fund from every prescription filled by a cardholder, and cardholders get discounts up to 70% on prescriptions, with the average being around 32%.

You can check prices at your local pharmacy from any of the above links to see how much you could save. You might also want to check to see if there's a similar county-sponsored program in your area. If not, the UNARxCard link above is available to anyone in the U.S. The discounts are the same. I've been using the county sponsored card for a while, and it's great for those of us who don't have a pharmacy benefit with their health insurance plan.

As Chris mentioned here last week, voting problems in Sarasota County for the Florida 13th Congressional District race may change the future of e-voting in America.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California says it's time to take a hard look at e-voting and other election reforms:

This month's election fueled growing anxiety about new electronic voting systems around the country, and Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California plans to take a hard look at e-voting and a host of other election issues and rules.

[..]With the new Democratic majority in the Senate, Feinstein in January will take over the little-known Rules and Administration Committee, which oversees ethics rules in the Senate and how federal elections are run. She plans wide-ranging hearings on election reform next year, said media aide Howard Gantman.

Even before the election, Feinstein was planning legislation to require a paper trail verified by voters for all electronic systems in the nation. A similar bill in the House has the support of 216 members, two short of a majority.

California and 26 other states now have a voter-verified paper trail.

In addition, one of the first things Congress should do is get the Rush Holt Voter Confidence Act out of committee where it has languished for more than three years and on to the floor of the House for a debate -- a debate that America needs to hear. From Rep. Holt's website, key provisions of the bill include:

• Strengthening the HAVA current audit trail requirement – "a permanent paper record" – by requiring that the voters have the opportunity to verify the accuracy of that recorded vote.



• Requiring that all voting systems produce a voter-verified paper record for use in manual audits, commencing in 2006 in accordance with HAVA's original deadline. (Funding of $150 million is authorized to help states meet the cost of implementing this requirement.)



• Preserving HAVA's existing access requirements for voters with disabilities; clarifying and enhancing the security requirements demanded of systems to be used by voters with disabilities; and adding the requirement that an accessible voter-verification mechanism be provided.



• Banning the use of undisclosed software and all wireless and concealed communications devices in voting systems, and prohibiting the connection of any voting machine component to the Internet.



• Requiring random, unannounced, hand-count audits of the voter-verified paper records in 2% of all precincts, including at least 1 precinct per county. Such funds as may be necessary are authorized to fund the expense of the audits.



• Require manufacturers and election officials to document the chain of custody with respect to the handling of software; prohibit the use of software or software modifications that have not been certified or re-certified; and prohibit political and financial conflicts of interest among manufactures, test laboratories, and political parties.

Ironically, in the same election that resulted in 18,000 undervotes in the FL-13 race, the voters of Sarasota County voted to ditch their touch screen system and install a new system with a paper trail:

While many frantic shoppers are busy searching for the perfect holiday gift, Sarasota County commissioners will soon be shopping for new voting machines that will satisfy citizens' demand for a paper trail.

With 55 percent of Sarasota County voters calling for the replacement of the county's $4.7 million touch-screen voting machines in a referendum on the Nov. 7 ballot, commissioners will begin developing a plan to purchase new equipment today.

Sarasota County Commissioner Paul Mercier said it is vitally important to get citizens involved in the process of choosing a voting system because of the growing concern about the reliability of touch-screen machines following the more than 18,300 undervotes in the 13th Congressional District race.

And guess who wants to sell them new machines?

Sarasota County Administrator Jim Ley provided commissioners with a memo this week that estimates the new voting machines could cost the county $4.1 million, with an annual maintenance charge of $143,850. The county would also be required to spend about $175,000 for paper ballots in each election.

The cost estimates for the new equipment were provided to commissioners by Elections Systems and Software, Inc., the same company that produces the iVotronic touch-screen machines currently used by the county.

According to the article, the county supervisor of elections says it might be a good idea to get bids from other vendors, too.

But wait, there's more:

After the 2000 election debacle, Florida moved fast — too fast, some say — to revamp the way votes are cast in Florida. With millions of dollars at stake, corporations spent lavishly to win over local governments.

ES&S hired former Secretary of State Sandy Mortham, who also represented the Florida Association of Counties, to push ES&S machines. The former Pinellas legislator received an undisclosed commission for every county buying ES&S machines, and the Association of Counties also received a commission from the 32 counties that paid $67-million of ES&S machines.

Some have suggested that the Help America Vote Act was really a Help America Voting Machine Manufacturers Act. And now it appears they will profit even more as America spends more money fixing the problems HAVA created.

In related news, today Sarasota County is running a "mock election" to audit the voting machines:

For 12 hours Tuesday, state elections officials will try to recreate a slice of Sarasota County’s controversial election day.

A handful of electronic voting machines will be set up in a mock polling place. Workers, acting as voters, will follow a precise script, selecting candidates using the same ballot actual voters saw and noting any problems they have with the machines recording their votes.

Each machine will be videotaped.

The point of the exercise is to try and shed light on the mystery of the nearly 18,000 so-called “undervotes” in the bitter congressional District 13 race.

It’s one more step in a multi-layered effort to figure out if machines malfunctioned or if those voters simply declined to cast ballots in the contest.

Unfortunately there's no paper trail to audit, so this is about the best they can do. Critics, including losing FL-13 Democratic candidate Christine Jennings (who has not conceded), say that the test is not truly independent and that the state, having selected the machines, "has an interest in seeing the audit reveal no unusual problems."

Just as a final thought, as it stands right now the certified results in FL-13 have the Republican candidate ahead by 369 votes. After all the recounts, George Bush's official margin in Florida, the state that gave him the presidency in 2000, was 537 votes. This was out of nearly six million votes cast in Florida. When races are this close and the stakes are this high, voters must demand that every vote count and that every vote be counted.

Despite the claims of a handful of pundits that the 2006 elections show the South isn't competitive for Democrats, evidence continues to roll in that all the trends in the South point to a region that will only become more competitive in the future.

A great example is Latino voters. As the Denver Post reports today:

Latino voters leaned heavily Democratic in the recent midterm elections, indicating the heated debate over immigration reform may have cost Republicans support in some key races, an analysis released Monday indicates.

A study of exit polls by the Pew Hispanic Center (pdf) showed 69 percent of Latino voters supported Democrats, up from 58 percent in 2004. That compares with a 6 percentage- point increase in Democratic support among white voters.

As we noted earlier, this growing Latino support for Democrats happened in the South a well: exit polls from House races in Southern states found 57% of Latinos supporting Democrats.

Why is this important for Democrats? Because the South is the region where the Latino population is growing fastest. As the National Center for Health Statistics reported in May 2006:

Hispanic births are skyrocketing in the Southeast, where an increase of at least 40 percent was recorded in five states between 2000 and 2003, according to a new government report.

Among the states with the largest increases were Kentucky (80 percent), South Carolina (62 percent), Alabama (53 percent), Tennessee (53 percent) and Arkansas (40 percent), the report found.

Most significantly, the rapidly growing Latino population in the Southeast is moving more states towards becoming "majority minority" states.

Last year, the Census Bureau reported that Texas had joined California, Hawaii, New Mexico, along with D.C., as the fourth state where the majority of people aren't white. It also reported that Georgia and Mississippi are on the verge of joining them, with "minority" populations of over 40%.

The huge immigration demonstrations that rolled through the South this year -- as well as recent events like the massive labor walk-out of mostly immigrant workers at North Carolina's Smithfield Foods -- clearly show that Latino communities in the region aren't, as some suggest, afraid to be politically active.

The dramatic rise of the Southern Latino population presents both short-term and long-term challenges for the Democrats. In states with large and long-standing Latino populations, including Florida and Texas, the Pew study shows that Latino voters are having a key impact on elections. It also shows the Democrats can't take them for granted: for example, 44% of Latinos voted for Republican Kay Bailey Hutchinson for Senate in Texas, a situation that Democrats can turn around only with an expanded presence in the state.

In states where the Latino community is fast-growing but relatively new, the age and legal status of the population means their full political impact won't be felt for several years. But that raises another question: if the Democrats were to write off the South, what would be the impact on the next generation of Latino voters if the party wasn't a presence in the region?

For Democrats to ignore Southern Latino voters now, with a vague plan to swoop in later and court them when they become a dominant political presence in the future, would seem like a strategy doomed to failure -- and an example of short-sited thinking having long-term political consequences.

This weekend, the Dallas Morning News wrapped up an eye-opening, three-part series about work in the meatpacking industry.

The Morning News focuses on Cactus, Texas, which like many Southern towns is drawing immigrant workers to jobs that are dangerous and increasingly unregulated by government agencies like OSHA.

How dangerous is meatpacking? Just as dangerous as when Upton Sinclair wrote The Jungle (which celebrates its 100th anniversary this year). Fast lines, sharp knives, toxic chemicals -- and lax education and enforcement -- result in one out of 10 workers getting injured at least once a year.

And those are the official figures. Under the Bush administration, OSHA has cut back enforcement and changed the definition of injuries to make them appear lowers than they are:

The industry also maintains that total "recordable" injuries have declined 70 percent since 1990, a figure that critics say doesn't account for the full extent of problems inside plants. [...]

The agency inspects about 75 of the more than 5,000 meatpacking plants each year.

"It's been a long time since OSHA's been here," said one longtime employee at the Cactus plant who spoke only on condition of anonymity. "When OSHA is here, everything moves nice and slow." [...]

OSHA figures show a decline in meatpacking injuries and illnesses in 2002, the first year of new record-keeping that omitted a special category for repetitive-motion injuries.

The percentage of workers injured dropped to less than 12 percent, from 20 percent a year earlier.

And, as at hog giant Smithfield Foods in North Carolina, workers are routinely denied worker's comp for job-related injuries. Sometimes they're fired for even asking for compensation:

Twenty-six former employees of the Swift plant are suing the company for wrongful termination, saying they were let go as a result of filing workers compensation claims after being injured on the job. The workers list injuries ranging from slipping on greasy floors to falling off ladders to being struck by a forklift.

Swift has denied the charges in the suit, which was filed in a Dallas County court.
Many workers simply accept the risks even in dangerous situations, critics say.
Some immigrant workers, whether legal or illegal, hesitate to file complaints. Workers often don't know their rights or fear getting tied up with immigration authorities.

"We don't have a choice but to put up with it. Or let them fire us ..." said [a] longtime worker.

Despite hype around Fast Food Nation and other efforts to heighten public awareness behind what we eat, there seems to be little political will in Washington to rein in corporate agribusiness.

(H/T Confined Space)

In the chaos that engulfed New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, hundreds of people arrested for petty crimes such as passing bad checks, begging and public intoxication ended up trapped behind bars for weeks on end without ever seeing a lawyer or judge. They included people like Melinda Beane, a mother of two who was arrested for a positive drug test and then held on a warrant in a case that was subsequently dismissed, and John Rust, arrested for failing to appear in court on an outstanding charge because the system neglected to inform him of his court date, according to stories documented by Human Rights Watch.

Other people were arrested in the wake of the storm -- some on looting charges for simply taking action to help themselves and their loved ones survive, or for violating curfews imposed after the disaster. Among those locked up were youths who faced nightmarish conditions inside the Orleans Parish Prison, conditions documented in grim detail in a report by the Juvenile Justice Project of Louisiana.

These will be among the injustices addressed at a conference being held next month in New Orleans titled "Amnesty for Prisoners of Katrina: A Weekend of Reconciliation and Respect for Human Rights." The conference is being organized by Critical Resistance, a national organization with New Orleans offices that, in its own words, "works to end the reliance on prisons and policing as responses to what are social, economic and political problems."

The conference, which is set for Dec. 9 and 10 in New Orleans, is demanding amnesty for people arrested while trying to survive after Katrina and for those who were already in the system and whose cases were impacted by the storm. The organizers also want to call attention to "the dangers inherent in rebuilding New Orleans on a foundation of jail cells and militarized streets, and call for genuine public safety based on community based and designed models" of justice. They are also asking people to sign a petition demanding amnesty for what it calls "prisoners of Katrina."

The conference will begin with a human rights teach-in on Saturday, Dec. 9 at Watson Memorial Teaching Ministries at 4400 St. Charles Ave. in New Orleans. The teach-in begins at 4 p.m. and will offer workshops, a roundtable discussion with local organizers and a keynote address by noted activist, author and scholar Angela Davis, one of the founders of Critical Resistance. The following day, religious congregations throughout the city will participate in Amnesty Sunday, which will focus on themes of reconciliation, justice and forgiveness, and for the healing of the storm-battered city and its residents.

For more information, call Critical Resistance at 504-304-3784 or e-mail crnational@criticalresistance.org.

In our celebrity-drenched culture, it's nice to find places that honor the extraordinary work done by ordinary people for change.

This week, The Independent Weekly, based in the Institute's hometown of Durham, NC, featured its annual "Citizen Awards" to recognize the work of those whose efforts may fall under the big media radar. They picked some great grassroots leaders this year (we were pleased to see a few peple we've collaborated with over the years), and it's a great tradition that I hope other media pick up on.

The Arkansas Leader offers another story of good work and humility:

Here’s a small news item that missed the regular prints last month: Admirers of the marvelous work of Bobby Roberts, the director of the Central Arkansas Library System, conducted a broad but muted fund-raising effort to outfit a conference hall in the new Arkansas Studies Institute and name it after Roberts. The institute, which will be in a renovated old building on President Clinton Avenue in Little Rock, was one of many library projects undertaken with Roberts’ vision and genius. It will be a historical research center like none other in Arkansas and rarely matched in the country.

But Roberts got wind of the plan — the dedication was to be a surprise — and ordered a halt to the fund-raising and the memorial. All the money that was raised was returned with apologies. Thanks but no thanks, the director said. Quietly, letters went out from Roberts to everyone who had received the solicitations saying that he deemed it inappropriate to memorialize a public official for doing his job. He might have added, especially when he’s still alive and running the show.

The contrast with many of our political leaders is striking. In a report on federal "earmarking" last year, Facing South reporter Sean Reilly noted the role vanity plays into pork-barrel spending:

Sometimes, the plotline is as simple as following a name. This year’s budget contains $1 million for a runway extension at the Trent Lott International Airport in the Republican senator’s hometown of Pascagoula, Miss., and $6 million for various projects at the Robert C. Byrd National Technology Transfer Center, a Wheeling, West Virginia, facility named for the eight-term Democrat. Louisiana State University is in line for $300,000 to archive the papers of recently retired Sen. John Breaux, also a Democrat.

Then there’s the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville, which is up for $250,000. As it happens, the organization is also home to the Frist library, named for a foundation funded by the brother of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.).

(H/T Arkansas Times Blog)

Farmers across the South stand to lose millions of dollars as a result of a North Carolina biotech firm's quest to genetically modify rice -- and now the company is blaming the farmers and God for the crisis.

The claims by Bayer CropScience of Research Triangle Park, N.C. were contained in a 30-page response to a class-action lawsuit filed by hundreds of rice farmers in Arkansas and Missouri, the Washington Post reports. The suit is one of 15 filed against the company by U.S. rice farmers.

In August, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced that genetically engineered material had been found in the nation's rice supply. Six states produce nearly all the rice grown in the United States; besides Arkansas and Missouri, they are California, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas, according to the U.S. Rice Producers Association.

From 1999 to 2001, Aventis CropScience -- bought by Bayer in 2002 -- conducted field tests in Louisiana of a variety of long-grain rice known as LL601, but it ended the project without seeking government permission to market the product. The rice was genetically modified to withstand applications of the company's herbicide used to control weeds.

After LL601 was discovered in the U.S. rice supply, Europe cut off imports, ruining what had been expected to be a good price year for farmers. The USDA is investigating how the modified rice escaped from test plots into farmers' fields.

According to a statement from the Arkansas Rice Growers Association, trace amounts of Bayer's herbicide-resistance trait was discovered by a rice export customer in January, and the customer contacted Riceland Foods of Stuttgart, Ark. for an explanation.

Samples from several locations were collected in May and tested positive for the LL601 trait. Riceland contacted Bayer in early June, and in late July Bayer confirmed the findings. At that point, the USDA launched its investigation.

Farmers have pointed out that if Riceland had acknowledged the problem to the industry when the contamination was first discovered, farmers could have done testing before planting.

Lawyers representing the farmers said their clients has no reason to suspect they were planting contaminated seeds and were offended by the company's attempt to blame the growers, according to the Post:

"The farmers are innocent victims," said Don Downing, a principal at Gray, Ritter & Graham PC, the St. Louis firm that filed the largest suit, in U.S. District Court in eastern Missouri.

Bayer has insisted that its test plots were in full compliance with USDA rules. In response, biotech critics say that only proves the inadequacy of the rules and also raises questions about whether the department can fairly investigate the problem.

European Union officials have complained that the United States took more than two weeks to warn Europe of the contamination after Bayer informed federal authorities.

The legal battle brewing in Florida District 13, where Dem. Christine Jennings is contending that 18,000 "undervotes" cost her the election vs. Republican Vern Buchanan, could have implications well beyond Florida. After the State of Florida certified the election for Buchanan on Monday, a lawsuit filed by Jennings, and a separate motion filed by the ACLU and other public interest groups, is challenging the very use of unverified electronic voting:

Both suits allege that faulty touchscreen voting machines skewed results by improperly processing up to 18,000 ballots cast in the race. Known as undervotes, these votes show selections in all the other races on the ballot but do not have a vote recorded for either candidate in the congressional race. The Florida Department of State's election division recorded 238,249 votes overall in the race.

The lawsuits may end up casting an unflattering light on electronic voting across the the U.S., where 36% of voters cast ballots on electronic machines in the last elections. Critics have long worried about flaws in electronic machines, particularly those like the ones used in the Florida race, which do not produce a paper trail to help verify results. A bill pending in Congress would require paper records to be used on all electronic machines.

"This is a message to every other district in the country that is using these machines," said Florida ACLU Director Howard Simon. "An election meltdown may be coming to your neighborhood unless you take steps to prevent it."

Meanwhile, the Orlando Sentinel has poured over nearly all of the 18,000 "undervote" ballots, and is reporting that the evidence strongly suggests Jennings would have won they election had the problems not surfaced:

The group of nearly 18,000 voters that registered no choice in Sarasota's disputed congressional election solidly backed Democratic candidates in all five of Florida's statewide races, an Orlando Sentinel analysis of ballot data shows.

Among these voters, even the weakest Democrat -- agriculture-commissioner candidate Eric Copeland -- outpaced a much-better-known Republican incumbent by 551 votes.

The trend, which continues up the ticket to the race for governor and U.S. Senate, suggests that if votes were truly cast and lost -- as Democrat Christine Jennings maintains -- they were votes that likely cost her the congressional election. [...]

"Wow," University of Virginia political analyst Larry Sabato said. "That's very suggestive -- I'd even say strongly suggestive -- that if there had been votes recorded, she [Jennings] would have won that House seat."

David Dill, an electronic-voting expert at Stanford University, put it this way: "It seems to establish with certainty that more Democrats are represented in those undervoted ballots."

The nation's flagship universities -- including most of those across the South -- are serving disproportionately fewer minority and low-income students today than they did in the past. And, unfortunately, the situation appears to be growing worse.

That's the finding of a new report from the Education Trust, a Washington-based nonprofit that aims to make schools and colleges work for all of the young people they serve. Titled "Engines of Inequality: Diminishing Equity in the Nation’s Premier Public Universities", the report documents how flagship and other "research extensive" universities have taken financial aid resources away from the low-income students who need help to attend college in order to compete for high-income students.

"At a time when more and more low-income and minority students are preparing for college, it is disturbing that many of our most prestigious colleges and universities are turning away from them," says Kati Haycock, director of the Education Trust and a co-author of the report.

Of the 50 universities examined in the report, only 11 received an "A" or "B" grade for their efforts to provide access to minority students, and the only school among them that could be considered Southern is West Virginia University. At the same time, only 11 of the 50 schools received an "A" or "B" grade for their efforts to attract low-income students, with the University of Kentucky the only one in the South.

Meanwhile, the only Southern schools showing improvements in either minority or low-income access were the University of Delaware, University of Florida, University of Mississippi, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the University of Tennessee at Knoxville.

As a growing number of K-12 leaders are taking steps to prepare most of their students for college, plans to attend are increasing among all students -- and the gains are particularly large among minority and low-income students. Unfortunately, just as more young people are turning toward college, many colleges are turning away from them, the report observes:

Public higher education has a rich, proud tradition of serving as an engine of social mobility, and generations of striving Americans have long aspired to attend its institutions. State flagships sit atop this pyramid of opportunity, offering the hope that students from humble origins can learn alongside talented students from all backgrounds. This was America's promise: work hard, excel in school and you, too, could follow your dreams into your state's flagship university.

Over time, however, that compact has been broken, and in its place has come something quite different: the relentless pursuit not of expanded opportunity, but of increased selectivity. Rated less for what they accomplish with the students they let in than by how many students they keep out, many of these flagship institutions have become more and more enclaves for the most privileged of their state's young people.

Even as the number of low-income and minority high school graduates in their states grows, often by leaps and bounds, these institutions are becoming disproportionately whiter and richer.

The report makes several recommendations for what universities can and should do to improve access for academically talented minority and low-income students. They include ensuring university leaders know their institution's statistics on access and success, taking steps to increase the success of students already admitted, aggressively recruiting talented low-income students and students of color, reallocating institutional aid to the truly needy, reaching out to dropouts who left in good standing, and committing to preparing more high-quality teachers for high-poverty and high-minority schools.

Before the 2006 mid-terms, there was plenty of speculation about what would happen with religious voters. The "God gap" that favored Republicans in previous contests was at risk, as concern grew of a demoralized religious right.

Last week, the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life hosted an interesting conversation between two political faith activists on opposites sides of the divide: Eric Sapp, Senior Partner at Common Good Strategies (a group working to boost the faith vote for Democrats), and Charmaine Yoest, Vice President for Communications of the conservative Family Research Council.

The discussion was motivated by the volatile role values voters played in 2006. As the Washington Post reported:

[T]he national exit polls told a dramatic story of changing views in the pews: Democrats recaptured the Catholic vote they had lost two years ago. They sliced the GOP's advantage among weekly churchgoers to 12 percentage points, down from 18 points in 2004 congressional races and 22 points in the 2004 presidential contest. Democrats even siphoned off a portion of the Republican Party's most loyal base, white evangelical Protestants.

This backdrop makes the conversation between Sapp and Yoest worth the read. Their exchange, while including a fair amount of expected posturing, is also at times incisive and honest in its appraisal of where both parties stand with the "faith vote." For example, Sapp sees the Democrats as moving towards a faith strategy that's more authentic than in the past:

Instead of the old guard leadership saying, "We haven't talked about faith real well; let's poll it, figure out the message and get the talking points out," they lifted up from within their ranks the people for whom this was authentic, who had been pushing for a long time for better engagement on faith, saying, "You all know this; you take the reigns and lead."

Yoest also is fairly direct about why the religious right lost many of the supporters they had in 2004:

Both political parties need to understand it's a highly motivated constituency. The question is how are they going to vote? They are going to pay attention. We've said the values voters of 2004 were the integrity voters of 2006. They expect the people they elect to represent them and carry forward the issues they were elected on. We didn't see that as much as we would have liked.

Like many things, the 2006 election shook up the "values vote" -- an especially important shift in the South. A volatile religious voter constituency is one of many factors that will continue to make the South a very competitive region.

In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, there were countless unsung heroes who rose up to not only help those in need, but who started organizing to demand a more just reconstruction of the Gulf Coast.

One of those grassroots leaders was LaTosha Brown of Alabama, who co-founded the Saving Our Selves Coalition -- "SOS". In the latest issue of Redbook Magazine, Brown is honored along with Harry Connick Jr, Jada Pinkett-Smith, and Salma Hayek as a "Redbook Magazine Hero." You can read more in the November issue or watch the video of the award ceremony.

This holiday season, we should be thankful for leaders like LaTosha Brown and groups like SOS, who courageously stepped in to do what our leaders in Washington wouldn't or couldn't do.

Here's more from SOS:

LaTosha R. Brown co-founded Saving Our Selves Coalition, a grassroots organization of concerned citizens, community based organizations, faith based groups, activists, organizers, and small businesses that in the wake of Hurricane Katrina joined together in the spirit of community empowerment to provide relief, recovery, and supportive services to our impacted communities that may have been missed or underserved by traditional disaster response agencies.

SOS Coalition continues to work directly with Gulf Coast residents and internally displaced persons to educate, empower, and assist the survivors to rebuild their communities and strengthen their families. We are very proud of our past accomplishments but we realize that our hard work of rebuilding a fair, just and equitable Gulf Coast begins now!

Please continue to stand with us as we work to turn this tragic disaster into an opportunity to improve the quality of life in the Gulf Coast region. We need your support so that we can continue to aid Gulf Coast communities during this long rebuilding process.

You can send a tax-deductible contribution to:

Saving Our Selves
925B Peachtree St #307
Atlanta, GA 30309

The Census Bureau has a new website called American FactFinder with massive databases of census and demographic info with tools that provide a variety of ways to view it. There is also a new 2005 American Community Survey with data snapshots down to the community level:

Data from the 2005 ACS are available for geographic areas with a population of 65,000 or more, including 761 counties, 436 congressional districts, 602 metropolitan and micropolitan statistical areas, all 50 states, and the District of Columbia.

A 2005 ACS Data Profile Highlights Fact Sheet provides an easy way to view selected data at the U.S., state, and community level and compare it to the 2000 Census data. Poking around in this data for a few minutes revealed some interesting statistics about the changing demographics of the South.

For example, while Florida has the highest percentage of Hispanic population at nearly 20%, Arkansas had the highest increase in Hispanic population from 2000 (3.2%) to 2005 (4.7%), an increase of 47% in the Hispanic makeup of the overall population. The 46% increase in actual numbers of Hispanics (86,866 to 126,932) tracks with the increase in percentage of population. Drilling further down, we see that the majority of those (93,073) are Mexican.

Meanwhile, Florida's 19.6% Hispanic/Latino population is made up mostly of Puerto Ricans and Cubans. The percentage of Florida's Hispanic population increased from 16.8% to 19.6% from 2000 to 2005, a 16.7% increase in the percentage. But in terms of total numbers (2,682,715 to 3,414,414), Florida's Hispanic population increased by 27%. An increase in the percentage of Black and other minorities reduced the effect of the 27% increase.

On the other hand, while the Black population in the South is growing in numbers, the percentage of Black population as compared to the total has declined overall, presumably because of the increase in Hispanic and other minority population. The percentage of Black population decreased in Alabama, Arkansas, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia, increased in Florida, Georgia, and Mississippi, and stayed the same in Louisiana and Tennessee. (The figures for Louisiana seem off, but perhaps the data was collected before Katrina.)

So what we are seeing is an overall increase in Hispanic population across the South and a higher percentage of Hispanic population as compared to the total, while at the same time Black and white as a percentage of total population is decreasing.

Another interesting trend is that the percentage of population with at least a bachelor's degree increased across the board, with South Carolina scoring the biggest increase from 20.4% in 2000 to 27.2% in 2005.

But, poverty also increased across the board. Poverty went up the most in Tennessee, where the percentage of people living in poverty increased from 13.5% in 2000 to 15.5% in 2005. Mississippi had the highest rate of poverty at 19.9%, followed closely by Louisiana at 19.8%.

Here are the Southern state rankings in each of the categories:

Percentage of Black population (2005):

Mississippi 36.5%
Louisiana 32.5%
Georgia 29.2%
South Carolina 28.5%
Alabama 25.8%
North Carolina 21.0%
Virginia 19.1%
Tennessee 16.4%
Arkansas 15.3%
Florida 15.0%
Kentucky 7.2%
West Virginia 3.1%

Percentage of Hispanic/Latino population (2005):

Florida 19.6%
Georgia 7.1%
North Carolina 6.3%
Virginia 6.0%
Arkansas 4.7%
South Carolina 3.3%
Tennessee 3.0%
Louisiana 2.8%
Alabama 2.2%
Kentucky 1.7%
Mississippi 1.5%
West Virginia 0.6%

Percentage of college educated population (2005):

Virginia 33.2%
South Carolina 27.2%
Georgia 27.1%
Florida 25.1%
North Carolina 25.1%
Tennessee 21.8%
Alabama 21.4%
Louisiana 20.6%
Kentucky 19.3%
Arkansas 18.9%
Mississippi 18.7%
West Virginia 16.9%

Percentage of population living in poverty (2005):

Mississippi 21.3%
Louisiana 19.8%
West Virginia 18.0%
Arkansas 17.2%
Alabama 17.0%
Kentucky 16.8%
South Carolina 15.6%
Tennessee 15.5%
Georgia 14.4%
North Carolina 13.3%
Florida 12.8%
Virginia 10.0%

The United Food and Commercial Workers have just issue the following statement about where things stand with the Smithfield Foods walkout, which we've been covering at Facing South:

Thanks to the determined workers at Smithfield's plant in Tar Heel, who bravely took a stand for their rights, and to the thousands of supporters who stood up for justice by calling and writing Smithfield to protest its treatment of employees, Smithfield agreed to the workers' demands to halt the firings of employees and to reconsider its implementation of immigration policies in the plant.

The walk-out generated thousands of calls to the company from national religious, civil rights and immigrant rights organizations, as well as individual supporters, demanding that workers' rights be respected. Organizations included the National Baptist Convention, the Progressive Baptist Convention, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the North Carolina NAACP, National Council of Churches and Rainbow Push. Eric Schlosser, whose new movie Fast Food Nation opened this past weekend, issued a public statement condemning the company for its victimization of the workers.

Following the walk out, the company agreed to negotiate around the workers' issues through the Catholic Church and its attorneys. The company acknowledged that it had misinterpreted the law and agreed to make appropriate adjustments to comply.

For the first time, Smithfield also agreed to meet with a group of workers elected by the workers themselves to further negotiate about plant issues and employee concerns on Tuesday. Specifically, the workers and the company have already agreed to the following:

1. Smithfield has agreed to increase the time allowed for employees to respond to "no match" letters from the Social Security Administration.

2. Employees who have been laid off for failure to resolve Social Security issues may return to work while they sort out these issues.

3. Smithfield's Human Resources Department will designate a staff member to help process "no match" Social Security issues and respond to questions.

4. Smithfield has agreed that if mistakes have been made, they will be addressed.

5. No disciplinary actions of any kind will be taken against those employees who participated in the walkout.

6. Tar Heel plant manager Larry Johnson will meet again with a group of Smithfield employees on Tuesday, November 21.

The resolution seems to be a good one for workers and the Justice at Smithfield campaign, which can persuasively argue the walkout achieved at least short-term victories. It's also good for Smithfield Foods, which can say it's taken care of the problem as they had into a chat with reporters and shareholders about the company's quarterly profits.

In related news from the world of Big Agribusiness, Carolina Turkey -- the top poultry corporation in the country, headquartered just down the road from Smithfield in Mount Olive, NC -- is bracing for the holiday rush thanks to their buyout of Butterball and its turkey empire:

Carolina Turkey acquired ConAgra's processing plants in Arkansas, Missouri and Colorado, adding 3,200 employees to the 2,500 employee it already employed. The company's headquarters will for now remain in Mount Olive, where the company has a 1 million square foot facility it calls the world's largest turkey processing plant.

Katrina vanden Heuvel of The Nation writes about the walk-out of 1,000 workers at Smithfield Foods in North Carolina last week -- which, by sheer coincidence, started one day before the film version of Fast Food Nation hit movie theaters nationwide.

Eric Schlosser, author of the book on which the movie is based, wrote an excellent piece for The Nation about