Anderson@Large

What's Next

I'm not a geek but I play one online (here and here).   So, I'm going to spend most of this weekend at various tech events, including WIRED NextFest, the world's fair of technology at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in New York City.

If you're in NY and want to "experience the future," click here.

As Serious As a Heart Attack

September is National Prostrate Cancer Awareness Month. Ever since my surrogate father was diagnosed with prostrate cancer in 1999, I’ve been acutely aware of the need for early detection. Thank God, he’s now a cancer survivor.

While all men are at risk, African American men are at the greatest risk. Some facts:

African American men have the highest prostate cancer incidence and mortality rates in the world: 1 in 4 men. They are 60 percent more likely to get it and 2 ½ times more likely to die from it.

The chances of getting prostate cancer are 1 in 3 if you have just one close relative (father, brother) with the disease. The risk is 83% with two close relatives. With three, it's almost a certainty (97%).

Sadly, the cultural taboo is killing black men. So today, at a luncheon at the Hyatt Regency Washington on Capitol Hill, members of the faith-based community, including Rev. Jesse L. Jackson Sr., (Rev.) Congressman Bobby L. Rush, and my friend, Rev. Zina Pierre, will help launch the “Dad” Campaign -- Detection and Diagnosis. Their mission: To remove the “veil” and “shame” related to the detection, diagnosis and treatment of prostate cancer.

For more info about the campaign, click here.

Frist, Do No Harm

The do-nothing Senate (and here) is expected to vote on the photo ID bill that was passed in the House before it adjourns on Saturday.

This poison pill may be attached to must-pass military and homeland security appropriations bills.  Civil rights groups say the Federal Election Integrity Act would impose a 21st century a poll tax that would disenfranchise minority and low-income Americans.

In a letter to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, M.D., Senators Harry Reid, Edward Kennedy, Christopher Dodd and Barack Obama wrote:

Earlier this year, a bipartisan group of leaders from the House and Senate worked to reauthorize the Voting Rights Act. Last month, many of those Members, along with civil rights leaders, watched as President Bush signed this vital legislation which has strengthened democracy in our nation. Congress was able to come together in a spirit of bipartisan unity to pass one of the most important bills this Congress has considered. Regrettably, that spirit of bipartisanship has faded into partisan rancor.

…

We hope you will agree with us that the Senate should not advance any legislation that creates additional hardships for any American that seeks to exercise his or her constitutional right to vote.

It’s not too late to have your voice heard.  Also, you can call Republican moderates like Senators Lincoln Chafee, Olympia Snowe and George Voinovich and ask them to tell Dr. Frist:  Do no harm to voting rights.

Election '06: Get Ready

Election Day is six weeks away.  Both Democrats and Republicans (here and here) have begun their biennial demonizing about what's at stake to scare their voters to the polls.

The stakes are indeed high (and here). These two pieces (here and here) provide an overview of races and outcomes that are of particular interest to black voters.

And as with all midterm elections, turnout is key.  If you are not registered to vote or have moved since the last election, click here.

While we have the right to vote, we have to remain vigilant to ensure that every vote is counted.  Maryland's primary election debacle underscored an unintended consequence of the Help America Vote Act: man (read: untrained poll workers) and machine are having a corrosive impact on voters' confidence in the integrity of the electoral process.

There's a nationwide shortage of poll workers so your state could be the next Florida. If you want to get involved as a poll worker, click here.

Or if you would want to assist voters in navigating the voting process, then sign up to volunteer for Election Protection 2006.

ICE ICE Baby

Over the years, I have told my friends that I’m glad that I don’t have any children. I’m relieved for a number of reasons, including my concern that we are not holding up our end of the social contract. Our obligation to future generations is to leave the country in better shape than we found it.

I’m at a loss to understand how the presence of millions of low-skill, barely literate illegal immigrants will lead to a better life for Americans.  And I'm not alone.  From Arizona (and here) to Massachusetts to South Carolina, Americans have had enough.

Frankly, I thought the current debate would play out closer to mid-century. Instead, it’s happening now. Indeed, as the San Francisco Chronicle reports:

At least for now, House Republican leaders have succeeded in their take-no-prisoners approach to immigration despite nationwide protests by Latinos last spring and White House warnings that they are endangering their party's future.

Refusing to compromise with the Senate and their own president to widen paths to legal entry and give the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the country now an avenue to citizenship, Hastert and other House GOP leaders have successfully framed that approach as amnesty.

…

By large margins, with the votes of as many as 105 Democrats (emphasis added), the House passed three enforcement bills Thursday. One, which was approved unanimously, outlaws building an unauthorized tunnel across the border.

One of the measures, H.R. 6095, the “Immigration Law Enforcement Act of 2006,” would increase the capacity of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to regain control of our borders.

So, there’s hope that future generations of English-speaking Americans will not grow up and made to feel like strangers in their own country when they are in, say, Los Angeles or Miami.

One Web Day

It’s Friday so I’m going to celebrate. No, not the end of the workweek; rather, it’s OneWebDay, the first global celebration of the transformative impact of the Internet.

Sure, there’s a lot of annoying and crazy stuff online.  And, yes, I cringe when I read some of my past writings that pop up on Google.  As Washington Post columnist Robert J. Samuelson wrote: "What goes on the Internet often stays on the Internet."

But Susan Crawford, the woman behind "One Web. One World. One Wish.," is spot on:

The Internet has become such a ubiquitous force in our lives that it’s easy to forget how it has changed the world. We shouldn’t take the Internet for granted, and we should do everything we can to make it more visible to people around the globe.

I have not forgotten how the Internet transformed my professional -- and personal -- life. I remember the bad old days when I had to go from office to office to get copies of reports, legislation, etc., and stood in line at the post office to mail the newsletters that I edited.

I spent countless hours updating s-mail addresses, and tracking down phone and fax numbers and then getting past receptionists, secretaries and other gatekeepers.

Back in the day, my choice of accommodations was limited to national hotel chains. I now stay at quaint B&B inns.  While I often leave my cell phone at home (or turned off), I can't live without e-mail.

So, I will join the celebrants at the Battery in New York, where the speakers will include Craig Newmark of Craigslist and Scott Heiferman, co-founder of Meetup.

If there’s no public event near you, you can join the party at Second Life.

Root Causes and Global Migration

My more progressive friends are always chastising me about not writing about the “root causes” of illegal immigration. They point to the upheaval and displacement caused by NAFTA and globalization (and here).

I was reminded of their arguments when I read this piece in New America Media. Some excerpts:

U.S. farm subsidies have rendered obsolete Mexican farming, and millions of farmers have lost their livelihoods. In Oaxaca and Michoacan states, two of Mexico's poorest -- agriculturally dependent with large numbers of indigenous peoples, with literacy rates trailing the national average -- entire towns and villages have been abandoned by the able-bodied in search of work. The protests in Oaxaca state this past summer, ostensibly to oust an unpopular governor who runs the state as if it where his personal fiefdom, have made it impossible for anyone to govern.

At the same time, the Mexican government has not come to terms with its antiquated nationalistic energy policies, making it impossible for Mexico's oil and gas reserves to be developed in a manner that benefits the nation -- thereby depriving the nation of millions of jobs in the impoverished states that string the Gulf of Mexico.

These two issues -- addressing the farming crisis and mustering the political will to modernize the energy sector -- are the most outrageous of NAFTA’s failures. And it’s from the decimated countryside and the oil-rich but job-poor states that the bulk of Mexican illegal aliens come (emphasis added).

OK, but illegal immigrants’ fight is not with the U.S. government.  As yesterday's votes in the House and Senate make clear, politicians respond to those who put them in office.

And the fact is, illegal aliens do not have the right to vote.  Elected officials would be committing political suicide if they were to put the interests of illegals before the needs and concerns of American voters (and here).

So, rather than try to exploit the moral authority and icons of the civil rights movement, illegal immigrants would be better served if, like African Americans, they cast down their buckets where they are and struggle for comprehensive reform -- in Mexico.