Remember last spring when Las Vegas tried to ban feeding the homeless in public places, like parks?

Orlando recently pulled the same crap: banning charitable groups from feeding homeless people in parks downtown, “arguing that transients who gather for weekly meals create safety and sanitary problems for businesses.”

Well….after a 14-month federal court battle, it was ruled that people can’t be prohibited from feeding the homeless in city of Las Vegas. Hopefully this helps to set a new precedent, whereby cities might put more effort into helping the homeless instead of pretending they don’t exist or pegging them all as dangerous drug addicts.

“I don’t want to go to jail just for feeding homeless people,” Sacco said.

She has never stopped feeding the homeless or the hungry, Sacco said.

The food is a way of reaching out to people and establishing trust, and once people are fed, they are open to accepting other forms of aid, such as finding permanent housing and jobs, she said.

“We aren’t doing this to be arrogant,” Sacco said. “We go where people are hungry. The food is a way to build a sense of community.”

ROSTOCK, Germany (AP)

Masked demonstrators showered police with grapefruit-sized rocks and beer bottles, then were driven back with water cannon and tear gas during a protest march Saturday against the upcoming Group of Eight summit in Germany.

The clashes left smoke from burning cars and the sting of tear gas drifting through the harborfront area in the north German port of Rostock. Some 146 police were hurt, 25 of them seriously.

Radicals “are smashing everything in their way to pieces,” said Karsten Wolff, a police spokesman.

The officially permitted march preceded a three-day summit beginning Wednesday in the seaside resort of Heiligendamm, where German Chancellor Angela Merkel hosts the leaders of the other G8 nations — Britain, France, Japan, Italy, Russia, Canada and the United States.

The leaders are expected to discuss measures against global warming, the fight against AIDS and poverty in Africa, and the world economy. As in previous years, the summit drew protesters of various stripes opposed to globalization, capitalism and the G8 itself.

With the help of interviews from Rudy, who runs the Flagstaff Activist Network website, and Klee, who runs both Savethepeaks.org and Stoppeabody.org, I would like to share some of my thoughts on the necessary role activism plays in small diverse towns. Also, I tried to find answers to questions such as: How can activists best communicate important issues? What makes people active and others not? What does it mean to write ethically?

It’s long, so if you’re interested in reading it, please click on the link, “on activism” on the side bar (or just click that one…).

MERIDA, Mexico

Violent protests dogged President Bush on a visit to Mexico, with demonstrators lobbing concrete blocks at his hotel, smashing up a nearby town hall and battling riot police outside the U.S. Embassy in the Mexican capital.
The Tuesday disturbances were only the latest clashes during Bush’s five-country tour of Latin America, where many blame him for tougher U.S. immigration policies and opposition runs deep against the war in Iraq.

I really hate blogging about the president, but did Bush really expect this trip to go well?

About 100 protesters marched to Bush’s hotel for the second night in a row carrying Mexican flags and calling the U.S. president a “murderer.”

The protesters pounded on high metal security barriers outside the hotel in an unsuccessful attempt to bring them down and hurled chunks of concrete from sidewalks over the barrier at riot police lining the other side. Bush was away from his hotel having dinner with Calderón.

One hundred protesters. That’s it. It’s a little strange to me that when one hundred Mexicans protest Bush, it’s all over the news, but when thousands march the street in our own country, it barely makes page A13.

This is very good news for anyone who has been following Jeff’s case.

From Bombs and Shields:

Oregon, U.S. - The Oregon Court of Appeals has ruled that environmentaly motivated arsonist, Jeffrey “Free” Luers, will get a new reduced sentence that could be as much as 15 years shorter than his current one. Luers was sentenced to 23 years in prison in 2001 for burning and damaging three SUVs as a protest meant to call attention to global warming in Eugene.

Luers was convicted of three arson counts and three attempted arson counts. The sentences were ordered to be served consecutively but according to the appeals court Luers’ judge should have ordered that they be served concurrent. It’s possible that he could be released from prison as early as 2008.