Nostalgia: Remember the days of “You’ve Got Mail”?

1996: The days when the internet was young, the sound of your modem connecting through your phone line both annoyed you and gave you a sense of hope that soon you’d hear the AOL message, “You’ve Got Mail”!

My how far we’ve come…

I don’t need your help

by Randy Zuniga

Well, at least didn’t think I did. I suppose you could say I’m prideful — machismo, even. But I am not arrogant nor am I disrespectful. Part of the problem is that I don’t like to ask for help. I know I am fully capable of completing the task at hand on my own, but sometimes there’s just too much to do. The other part of the issue is I couldn’t recognize that people want to help because they want to see me succeed — and being able to trust that someone else had my best interest at heart isn’t the easiest task.

What would Ben Franklin do about undocumented Latino immigrants?

by Orlando Rodriguez

Benjamin Franklin, one of our most admired Founding Fathers, was a bit elitist – but a practical elite. We should not think any less of Franklin as most everyone in the 1700s was racist, elitist, or very tied to their social class. Franklin, who was born in Boston to an English father and New England mother, had some unkind words for uneducated Germans immigrants who were settling in Pennsylvania in large numbers.

Those who come hither are generally of the most ignorant, stupid sort of their Own Nation…

Walgreen’s fired employee for stealing a bag of chips…during a diabetic attack

via San Francisco Gate — When Josefina Hernandez, a longtime Walgreens employee with diabetes, felt an attack of hypoglycemia coming on in September 2008, she grabbed a $1.39 bag of chips and ate them to boost her blood sugar, she said.

Hernandez said she paid for the chips as soon as she could leave her cashier’s post at the South San Francisco drugstore. She said she tried to explain her actions to Walgreens, but the company fired her.

“They said they had a zero-tolerance policy,” said David Offen-Brown, an attorney with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which filed a federal court suit Thursday accusing the Illinois retailer of discriminating against a disabled employee.

Immigration, the new crack cocaine

by Clayton Rosa

It is no secret that our justice system disproportionately affects underrepresented communities. As I read the headline “Immigration Offenses Make Latinos New Majority in Federal Prisons, Report Says”, I could not help but wonder how our justice system covertly criminalizes and targets non-violent behavior concentrated within communities of color at a greater rate than white communities.