Lynn, Mass. - About 75 telecom workers and community supporters rallied in support of a local Verizon technician who was recently threatened by a supervisor while acting in his capacity as an IBEW Local 2321 steward during a "captive audience" safety meeting.

In response to the steward's statement that management often retaliates against workers who ask questions during meetings, the foreman forcefully pointed his finger in the steward's face and said, "you're dead!!" For emphasis, he said it twice.

BOSTON/Charlestown - More than 90 union members, students and community activists jammed the SEIU Local 888 union hall on Saturday for a "Troublemakers School" sponsored by Massachusetts Jobs with Justice.

IBEW Local 2222 Business Manager Myles Calvey gave a rousing welcome to kick things off. "We're not going to get labor's problems solved in Washington or on Beacon Hill unless we take a page from the civil rights and gay rights movements," said Calvey, a former New England telecom strike leader. "We've got to be a lot more aggressive so that politicians are forced to deal with our issues. We've got make our problems, their problems!"

BOSTON/Allston - Prof. Noam Chomsky of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology spoke on current events in Palestine tonight at Boston University to a crowd of over 300 attendees. The talk was one of a series of events sponsored by Boston University Students for Justice in Palestine as part of "Israeli Apartheid Week" - an week of action being held March 1-8 by human rights activists in cities around the world. Full audio of the event follows below the photo set.

Cambridge, Mass. - Ralph Nader - citizen and consumer advocate, presidential candidate, and author - spoke at Harvard Law School last Tuesday. Nader covered a variety of current topics, from the quality of law school education, the bailout of the corporations, the wars in Iraq/Afghanistan, the recall of Toyota cars, and more. He was preceded by Bruce Fein, progressive author and Harvard Law graduate 1972.

BOSTON/Boston Common - With the message "Not one more Death, Not One Dollar More!", about 100 military family members, veterans, and peace activists marked the 1,000 death of a U.S. soldier in Operation Enduring Freedom Monday afternoon at Park Street Station in Boston.

OEF is the military's name for the Afghanistan conflict. 930 of those victims died in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Uzbekistan, and 70 in other parts of the world.

Veterans read aloud the names of 60 New England residents who lost their lives in the conflict, and 60 names of Afghan civilians who died were also read. The names of the 1,000 dead were inscribed on postcards calling on Congress to stop funding the war; those assembled signed the cards, which will be sent to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Cambridge, MA - The Men of Color Task Force hosted the panel discussion “Civil Rights : Policing, Discretion & Race in Cambridge” at the St. Paul A.M.E. Christian Life Center on Thursday, February 11. A follow-up to last July’s controversial arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. at his Cambridge home, the panel was introduced by interim mayor City Councillor Kenneth Reeves and moderated by Richard Harding. The keynote speaker was Northeastern School of Law professor Deborah A. Ramirez, who is also the executive director of the Partnering for Prevention and Community Safety Initiative. Prof. Ramirez joined the other panelists, who included former Cambridge Police Commissioner Perry Anderson, local hip hop artist Imam Firmin, activist and journalist Irene Monroe and Boston Globe columnist Adrian Walker.

Sherborn, MA - Approximately 45 people attended the first anniversary and new member meeting of Metrowest Peace Action (MwPA) on Saturday at the Peace Abbey. Congressman Barney Frank spoke for about 20 minutes and took questions for another 25. He talked about a strategy for cutting the military budget (25% solution)and challenging the notion that we have to be #1 superpower, world's policeman etc. His current thinking is to recommend to Congress, that in deficit reduction talks, any cuts to domestic/civilian programs be met with comparable cuts in the military budget. If we don't cut within the military, the cuts to social and domestic programs will be too severe. Due to time constraints of Frank and MwPA, questions were cut off after a lively exchange on US/Gaza.

Porter Sq. Books in Cambridge was wall-to-wall with long-time activist Friday. Not where I would expect to see most of these people on a Thursday night, but Laura Whitehorn* was speaking about her book—the edited manuscript of Safiya Bukhari—“The War Before: The true Life Story of Becoming a Black Panther, Keeping the Faith in Prison and Fighting for Those Left Behind” (Forward by Angela Davis; Afterward by Mumia Abu-Jamal).

Cambridge, MA - On the one hand, newspapers like the Cincinnati Post, the Rocky Mountain News, and the Christian Science Monitor are going out of business or becoming on-line only publications. On the other hand, what remains of commercial print, broadcast, and online news, according to authors Robert McChesney and John Nichols, tends to favor celebrity and scandal driven reporting.

BOSTON/Dorchester - Over 1,000 people crowded into the Firefighters' Florian Hall in Dorchester last Friday to honor Jerry "Judgie" Leary who passed away after a valiant battle against cancer and give support to his bereaved family.

Leary was a telephone worker, lifelong Dorchester resident and well-known neighborhood guy. As a union activist and Vice President of IBEW Local 2222, he won the admiration of his co-workers during the legendary four month NYNEX strike and many subsequent battles with its successor companies Bell Atlantic and Verizon.