Silver Passport Cover

All aboard the Literacy Express

22.02.12

In a neighbourhood carved up by railroad tracks, it’s only fitting that a literacy centre would be retrofitted into an antique rail car.

The Literacy Express — a 1954 CN passenger car and soon-to-be library — awaits repair a stone’s throw away from its future destination at the Eva Rothwell Resource Centre (ERRC).

Silver and streamlined, it sits at the end of a fan of railway tracks, standing out in a Railcare yard full of grain and steel cars — rustic beauty meeting rusting beast.

Don MacVicar believes the library and its one-on-one tutoring model will be a “paradigm shift for positive learning in the community.”

It mirrors the impoverished but proud neighbourhood shadowed by the city’s industrial core at Wentworth Street North and Burlington Street East.

The retrofit is expected to be completed next spring.

PHOTO GALLERY: Literacy Express

MacVicar is the founding president of the Robert Land Community Association (RLCA), a resident of Hamilton’s North End for more than 40 years and the man behind the ERRC.

Source: Hamilton Spectator

The GOP's History of 'Hostage-Taking'

22.02.12

By Robert Parry

Since the 1960s, the Republican and Democratic parties have diverged in behavior – as well as over issues such as war and social programs – with the Republicans sometimes called the “daddy party” and the Democrats the “mommy party.” But if that analogy is followed, you would be talking about a very dysfunctional marriage.

More often than not in recent years, the Republicans have played the role of “abusive husband,” arriving home angry, busting up furniture and slapping around the wife and kids – before passing out on the couch – after which the Democratic “abused wife” tidies things up and tries to conceal bruises from the neighbors. Then, hubby arouses and the process begins again.

One might find this analogy unsettling, even unfair, but there is truth in it. Indeed, you could argue that the metaphor has sometimes moved beyond an abusive marriage to hostage-taking, as the Republican-daddy essentially takes the kids (America) hostage and demands capitulation from the Democratic-mommy.

Source: Consortium News