The tragedy at the World Trade Center (WTC) on Sept. 11, 2001, continues to affect many thousands of first responders who sacrificed their own health while restoring lower Manhattan and attempting to recover survivors and victims' remains.

Recently, H.R. 847, otherwise known as the James Zadroga Bill, was signed by President Obama in an effort to provide services and compensation for those whose health was compromised through exposure to the toxic dust and gases at Ground Zero. However, these first responders also need help to understand how their illnesses originated so that improvements in treatment can be made.

After decades of existing under a dictatorship regime, Egyptian people are standing up and demanding change. Demonstrations have spread around the entire country since Tuesday, Jan. 25, when people first began going to Liberty Square in downtown Cairo. Egyptian communities around the world, in major cities in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France and other European countries, as well as Arab nations such as Jordan, have shown support. Around the world, people are encouraging the Egyptian people to stand up for their rights of freedom and justice under a democratic system, with a new constitution.

The Egyptian government has shut down the Internet and cut off the communications and telephones in the entire country. No one can communicate; the country is isolated from the rest of the world. And sadly, the Egyptian authority banned Aljazeera from broadcasting and has withdrawn it from the Nilesat satellite; it has cut off its broadcasting signals and revoked its license.

As we watch Egypt rising, questions such as "who has the right to hold power?" come to mind.

Four hundred years ago, Shakespeare addressed this issue in his "Historical Plays." I had the opportunity to interview IU Department of English Professor Linda Charnes on the WFHB Interchange show on Feb. 1, 2011, and we discussed Shakespeare.

Bloomington activist Paul Smith has discovered a heretofore unrecognized talent as a lyricist and has begun penning verse for the Bloomington-based songstresses the Raging Grannies. Here is the first. - sh

Tax cuts for the rich

Sung to the tune of "Battle Hymn of the Republic"

Obama's seen the glory of the tax cuts for the rich;
He got them through the congress without a single hitch;
Higher taxes for the poor will leave them clean without a stitch;
It's tax cuts for the rich!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! Tax cuts for the rich will screw ya!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! Wall Street is marching on.

News from and about Indiana this past week should scare its citizens and the nation straight about the quality of leadership produced in the Hoosier state, and what role it should play in America's future.

A Jan. 26 study from the nonprofit group Environment America ranked Indiana fifth nationwide in the release of mercury into the environment. Two days later, CBS News reported that the first political ads of the 2012 presidential race will air during the NFL Pro Bowl game this weekend to promote Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels.

Perhaps she didn’t get the memo. Then again she’s not much of a reader. And as recent public pronouncements demonstrate, nuance, subtly and empathy are not her strong suit. Of course, I’m speaking of 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin.

Despite calls from across the political spectrum to “tone down” the vitriol in the wake of the Tucson shootings, Palin keeps right on doing what she does best: manufacturing controversy in an effort to dominate the news cycle. Whether she’s releasing statements via Facebook or making the rounds on Fox News Channel, Palin is tone deaf to pleas -- even from within her own ranks -- to take a break from the partisan rancor and political gainsaying.

News Release
Citizens Action Coalition

State Senate Bill 102, authored by Sens. Beverly Gard, R-Greenfield, and Lindel Hume, D, Princeton, and co-authored by Sen. Jim Merritt, R-Indianapolis, gives electric utilities in Indiana a virtual blank check. It also, over time, would deregulate billions of dollars of utility revenue, leaving Indiana with multi-billion dollar, unregulated monopolies.

Executive Director of Citizens Action Coalition Grant Smith said, "The Indiana Senate for years has carried water for utility companies to the detriment of our economy and health. Indiana's monopoly utility industry and their high-dollar lobbyists have always had a highly corrupting influence over our administrative and legislative processes."

File this one under: “You can’t make this stuff up.”

According to Greg Miller at the Washington Post: “The Central intelligence Agency (CIA) has launched a task force to assess the impact of the exposure of thousands of US diplomatic cables and military files by WikiLeaks. Officially, the panel is called the WikiLeaks Task Force. But at CIA headquarters, it's mainly known by its all-too-apt acronym: WTF.”

Prior to the election in November, we communicated to the public about the importance of voting and supporting candidates who are friends of labor. Unfortunately, the political environment shifted and took many of our labor-endorsed candidates out of office.

We are now forced to deal with upcoming legislation in the state of Indiana that will be on the offensive to weaken labor unions and make them irrelevant in the workplace and in social and political arenas. As reported last month in the papers, Republican Wes Culver of Goshen has already introduced a misleading and intentionally misnamed "right-to-work" bill in the Indiana House of Representatives.

To communities opposing biomass power plants across the country, one part of the tax cut package approved by Congress is not good news: the extension of tax grants that will pay up to 30 percent of the cost of developing biomass plants. Biomass project proposals have sprouted like mushrooms in response to federal subsidies -- and have been met with fierce resistance from communities that don't want their trees cut down or their air and water polluted to keep the electricity coming.

Consider, for instance, Jasper, Indiana, a gem of a town with a fine courthouse square, furniture factories and just beyond the factories, a Patoka River walk where residents and occasional tourists stroll under a canopy of trees. Jasper also has an old city-owned coal-fired power plant, and that coal plant has become the crux of significant argument in the halls of power.