City Invincible

A student at Arizona State University named Joe created an idea to harvest the wind created by fast moving automobiles on highways to create energy. His design, pictured above, could turn our highways into almost endless power sources. While highways aren’t the ideal form of transportation, they’re not going anywhere soon. So why not make the best of them?

Read Joe’s blog entry about his semester project.

Happy May Day everyone. May the workers of the world unite. In celebration of May Day, I bring you three labor articles. Some happy, some sad.

The AP reported today that, “Demonstrators demanding a path to citizenship for an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants hope that nationwide marches will spur Congress to act before the looming presidential primaries take over the political landscape.” While most American workers remain quiet on May Day, it’s great that immigrants, and their supporters, will be taking to the streets in hopes of reforming immigration laws for the betterment of the country.

Sadly, news has gone out about Wal-Mart’s latest efforts to bust unions in their stores. According to a Guardian Unlimited article today, “The world’s biggest retailer, Wal-Mart, today stands accused of routinely flouting its workers’ human rights through a sophisticated strategy of harassing union organizers, discriminating against long-term staff and indoctrinating employees with misleading propaganda.”

It’s time for global unions to take on companies like Wal-Mart. In an article titled “Only Global Unions Can Stop the Race to the Bottom,” Stephen Lerner argues, “At no time in history has there been a greater urgency or opportunity to form real global unions whose goal is to organize tens of millions of workers to win economic and social justice by counterbalancing global corporations on the world stage even as the power of the state declines.”

The Census is arguably the most important data source for activists, sociologists, urban planners, nonprofits, and the like. It provides information used for apportioning seats in Congress, redrawing political districts, and–very importantly–allocating federal funds. So there’s bound to be a reaction when the government tampers with the Census questionnaire.

According to a USA Today article titled “Some displeased by fewer questions on 2010 Census form,” “Advocacy groups already are jockeying to have issues they care about included in the questionnaire that will be sent to every American household.”

The government is switching to a “short form,” so some questions will be eliminated sparking outrage by ethnic advocacy and child welfare groups. For example, “It dropped the foster care category in favor of asking whether anyone in the household sometimes lives elsewhere—children away at college.” Meaning the financial status of nearly 500,000 foster children will be unclear.