Law

While we in New Orleans bask in the glow of Super Bowl victory, Hurricane Katrina ghosts still haunt us. On February 24, yesterday, the story finally broke that Michael Lohman, a former New Orleans Police Department officer, had confessed to conspiring with other officers to cover-up the truth of what happened on the Danziger Bridge September 4, 2005 after the city flooded.

I swear that I will one day get over the miserableness that was the previous ensuing decade, but for now I will continue to harp on yet another failure of the previous decade. In January 2009, President Obama started the year off right by signing the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act into law. The Act righted a serious offense committed by the Supreme Court, which had ruled that discriminating against women by paying them less than men for doing the same (or even better work) was perfectly fine as long as companies kept it secret for a really long time.

How do we know the truth of what is happening in Haiti - especially those of us who are in the global north and west, our perceptions shaped by a tragic history, largely unknown, in which our governments have often been complicit? As the immediate rescue effort becomes a sustained task of recovery how do we know when ideology and naked self-interest warp news accounts and recovery efforts? 

Last Friday, Jan. 22, 2010, marked the 37th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, when the Supreme Court legalized abortion across the United States. This is not to say that abortion was not legal at all before Roe - it was legal in 1/3 of states before Roe, and it was legal in the US before the Victorians more or less ruined everything with their horrid morality issues. But don't get me started on the Victorians...

Barring any last-minute surprises, this week Gov. Jon Corzine will sign the Compassionate Use Medical Marijuana Act, making it legal for patients with certain debilitating diseases to use marijuana as part of their treatment. The bill passed Jan. 10 with bi-partisan support in both the Assembly and Senate. New Jersey will then become the 14th US state to legalize medical marijuana.