Drunken driving needs to stop
By Frank Busalacchi, Secretary of the Wisconsin Department of Transportation

Dear Editor:

Drunken driving is all too prevalent and deadly in Wisconsin . According to a federal government survey released in April, our state has the shameful distinction of having the highest rate of drunken driving in the nation with approximately one in four Wisconsin adults admitting to driving while under the influence of alcohol in the past year. Drunken driving is not a victimless crime. Last year, alcohol-related traffic crashes killed 337 people in Wisconsin and injured 5,552.

These numbers don't tell the whole story. Perhaps you or someone you know has lost a parent, a child, a close friend or a loved one in a terrible traffic crash caused by an alcohol-impaired driver. Although drunken drivers may not consciously intend to harm anyone, their careless disregard for human life frequently results in tragedy. We can't calculate the enormous grief of families who buried a loved one or the persistent pain endured by those seriously injured as the result of an alcohol-related crash.
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Blacks and the follies of the Republican Party
By William Reed

Historically, Republican political philosophy and African American advancement have been in accord. Why not now? Foundered in the 1850s by industrial and anti-slavery activists, the Republican Party has helped African Americans' advancement from the beginning. In the 1860s Abraham Lincoln and Republicans worked to pass the Thirteenth Amendment, which outlawed slavery, the Fourteenth, which guaranteed equal protection under the laws, and the Fifteenth, which helped Blacks secure voting rights.

In return, African American overwhelmingly voted Republican for 90 years. Republican philosophy of maximizing economic liberty through free enterprise, individualism and free markets were positions advocated by giants such as Frederick Douglass and Booker T. Washington. From 1868 to 1901 more than 500 Southern Black Republicans were elected to office at the Senate, House of Representatives, and state senate and assembly levels. Republicans remained the overwhelming political choice of African Americans until the 1930s when the Democratic Party's "New Deal" offered them government support for civil rights.
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Black in Milwaukee : Health Care
By Henry Hamilton III

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. stated that "Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health is the most shocking and the most inhuman." So what does that say about the state of African American health in the City of Milwaukee?

African Americans in Milwaukee suffer some of the greatest health care disparities in the nation. Wisconsin has the sixth greatest disparity in health care insurance between African American and Caucasian residents. Cancer death rates among African Americans living in the City of Milwaukee are 20% higher than the rate among Caucasians. The rate of lead poisoning in the City, although decreasing, remains 6 to 13 times greater than the national average.
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Capitol Report
By State Representative Leon Young

Cell phones, cancer: Is there a link?

Everywhere you go these days people are busy chatting away on their cell phones. For many, it has become another national past time.

Cell phones have been widely popular for only a matter of years. However, it could take at least a decade for cell phone-related cancers to show up. Currently, there is no clear cut consensus in scientific circles as to the potential health risks posed by using wireless phones.

Cell phones do emit radiation. However, no one knows definitely whether it's enough to worry about. New evidence has begun to emerge that raise questions about the safety of this device.
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Legislatively Speaking
By Senator Lena Taylor

When it rains

Many of us are familiar with the old sayings, "When it rains, it pours" and "When the world catches a cold, Black folks get pneumonia." And sick is exactly what many residents are feeling today. Sick about the cancellation of African World Festival. Doubled over in pain about the high incidence of crime and just when we think "what next," we get bad news regarding America's Black Holocaust Museum .

Like most of you, I was stunned to learn of the museum's decision to temporarily close their doors to the public. A long shot from the beginning, the museum's founder, James Cameron, spent his life overcoming odds and fighting for endurance. After Cameron survived a near-lynching in 1930, he founded America's Black Holocaust Museum as a place where the struggles and history of African Americans could be told, honored, and remembered.
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