The Cornell Daily Sun (https://cornellsun.com/2001/11/14/honkala-stresses-activism-welfare/)
Honkala Stresses Activism, Welfare
By wpengine | November 14, 2001
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Defeated by circumstance, starved, cold, homeless and unable to find a job, many of America's poor often struggle to survive.
Last night, Cheri Honkala, director of the Kensington Welfare Rights Union (KWRU), based in Philadelphia, challenged approximately seventy Cornellians in Uris Auditorium: "We're doing our part, will you do yours?"
Honkala both encouraged activism and highlighted the problems of the American poor in an hour-long speech. "No humanitarian packets are being sent to our [poverty] fighters here at home," Honkala said, referring to the American relief efforts being made in Afghanistan.
Lindsey Saunders '03, a member of the Cornell Coalition for the Homeless, which helped bring Honkala to campus, said, "It's really important for college students from our ivy tower to see that poverty does exist in America, and that we have a responsibility to work to end it."
Honkala said that 8,000 people in Philadelphia alone will be denied welfare on March 3, 2002 when a wave of families will be removed from the federal assistance program. The Welfare Reform Act of 1996 imposes a five-year lifetime time limit on welfare benefits.
"Next year is right around the corner; something is going to happen," she said.
Following the speech, four full-time volunteers with the KWRU took questions from the audience.
Yesenia Cruz, one of Honkala's volunteers, broke into tears recounting her experience being separated from her children following eviction from her house in Philadelphia.
Sara Forgione, a graduate of Duke University, who has spent two years with the KWRU said, "Some people have everything, and some people have nothing." Pointing out that her college-educated father had been unemployed for a long period of time, she added, "[I know] simply going to college wasn't going to keep me off the nothing side."
The speech followed a day on campus during which Honkala and the KWRU volunteers led a number of classes.
"Overall it was a very positive experience," Honkala said. "There is, however, a small portion of students that are living in the matrix, and I'm praying they get out of it."
Honkala referred to a class on social inequality and noted, "I swear to god they were not human beings in that class."
Cruz, speaking quickly and pacing around the room, related her own encounter with students: "They asked me, 'If I stopped having children would things start getting better?'"
The KWRU has gained national attention for its insistence on "economic human rights," including the right to food, shelter, clothing and health care.
The group has taken over publicly-owned abandoned houses, camped out for six weeks at a time in public buildings, and erected shanty-towns in front of the Pennsylvania's Governors Mansion, State Capitol and Philadelphia City Hall. It has also gained national recognition for its reality tours through Philadelphia's "blighted" neighborhoods as well as for marches and sit-ins that disrupted the 2000 Republican National Convention.
Questioned about the organization's reputation for confrontation, Honkala replied with a confident grin, "KWRU has never been seen as a team player."
Archived article by Peter Norlander
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The Daze Rant
By wpengine November 15, 2001
In a group of five people, one will lead, another will innovate, and the remaining three will sit on their asses in fold-out lounge chairs, sip on fruit cocktails that come with complimentary little umbrellas, and think about season four of the X-Files, when Scully found out that what she thought was a monthly case of hemophilia was actually an alien induced pregnancy. In the broader sense, the previously mentioned information indicates that we have the government to lead us, Hollywood to innovate us, and Mulder and Scully to keep us company every Sunday night from 9-10. Unfortunately, there is a gap in these assumptions. The government leads us, but who stands to innovate us? Hollywood has lathered our brains in artificially flavored butter-esque topping, and the music industry died weeks ago, shortly after the release of Train's new album, Drops of Jupiter and other Satellites in or around our Solar System. As of late, the two industries have been trying to clean off and repackage projects that gurgled up around the marketing drain and now smell worse than the kitchen sink after Taco Night. One collaboration between the music industry and the movie industry, which probably occurred on an elevator in the Sony building, is the up-coming Britney Spears movie starring Dan "I-should-have-quit-after-My-Girl-2" Aykroyd and Samantha, from Sex in the City. Aykroyd has a history of being in movies that can cause belly button lint to self-animate and strangle its owner, but poor Samantha. She probably got pressured into doing the movie back when Britney was a celebrity, six months ago. Someone should tell Samantha that the only part she can play is … Samantha. The cameramen and women have to make good on their unspoken agreement with the public. They went to film school and got MFAs in film making, and now they must take their place among the entertainment elite and make good on the promises that their predecessors had no intention of making good on. It is the job, nay, the responsibility, of Hollywood to finally develop 3-D movies that look 3-D. No more Captain EO or big plastic clown glasses at the entrance to the theater. 3-D technology was due out decades ago and it was supposed to revolutionize the industry, just like laser discs and Ricky Martin accent-building kits. What interrupted Hollywood's journey towards providing us with another dimension of entertainment? Was it the Baha-Men? I bet it was those fuckin' Baha-men and/or a militant bag of crunchy Cheese Doodles. Sometimes I think that if Hollywood were in the business of delivering milk, the world would be paying $10 a weekend to eat cottage cheese sans pineapples. Moviemakers have to burn their thought trees, re-plant and self-fertilize. They've given us 14 Ernest sequels, and they've given Christina Ricci a career as a Sundance actress, and while these kinds of events should only occur in the sixth dimension, or maybe at a Fifth Dimension reunion concert, they haven't occurred in the third dimension. So, if anyone out there is moved by the heart to do so, write a letter to your local Hollywood representative and tell them: "We want more visual stimulation. We don't want plots, we want plumbers and housewives having a dance party with a neighborly DJ lesbian friend who can shake her groove thang while she increases and decreases the tempo of the demo song on an '84 Casio keyboard … and we want it all in 3-D."Archived article by Bradley Werner
America's Secret Weapon London's Sunday Times has recently reported that actor Sylvester Stallone is working on a script for a fourth installment of Rambo. This time around, the former Green Beret will be setting his gunsight on the members of the Taliban. According to the Times, the newest sequel will have Rambo parachuting into Afghanistan and possibly capturing Osama bin Laden alive. Stallone's publicist Paul Bloch, however, denied the rumors. "Sylverster Stallone has an idea for a new Rambo movie," Bloch commented, "but he hasn't written it yet." If Stallone does go with this idea, it wouldn't be the first time Rambo has brought his particular brand of violent vengeance to Afghanistan. 1988's Rambo III featured the one-man army aided by Afghan rebels against soldiers of the former Evil Empire, the Soviet Union. Family Entertainment Indeed The official website for Star Wars: Episode II recently released images of the first promotional banner. The banner features Anakin Skywalker and Princess Amidala facing away from each other. The image is nearly identical to an image leaked over the internet a month ago, aside from some minor graphical corrections such as the logo, the lighting on Anakin's face, and the removal of Amidala's shoulder strap. I guess LucasFilms is trying to recreate the Leia "Slave girl" outfit effect with that last change. Drooling fanboys will be able to purchase the poster version of the banner through the film's Web site later this week. Give 'til It Hurts The United Way recently confirmed that 240 of the one million pledges made during the America: A Tribute to Heroes telethon were missing decimal points. For instance, one caller who pledged $100 was contacted to verify a pledge for $10,000. People probably should've seen this coming, given that actors like Tom Cruise were taking the calls. Intelligence issues aside, most of them probably haven't dealt with numbers as small as $100 in a long time. Witch Hunt Harry Potter is already facing controversy and it hasn't even been released. The detractors include dieticians, and, ironically, both real-life witches and conservative Christians. Consumer watchdog groups have protested Coca-Cola's $150 million marketing deal to use Harry Potter images to hock their products. Web site www.SaveHarry.com is asking people to write Potter author J.K. Rowling asking her to pop the pop deal and donate the money earned so far to nutrition campaigns. The film itself does not include placements for Coke or any other food product, unless you count things like Chocolate Frogs and Cauldron Cakes. British witches, meanwhile, are upset over the Hogwart's kids broomstick-riding style. "Warner Bros. claims the film is an accurate portrayal of things that happen in witchcraft, yet woodcuts from the 16th and 17th centuries show broomsticks being ridden with the brush part in the front," said Kevin Carylon, a high priest of British White Witches. "There are critics and naysayers of everything. There was a story about the broom being the wrong way round. Well, I'm sorry about the broom," producer David Heyman responded. "I mean, those people can make that film. We chose to make a film with the broomsticks going the other way."Archived article by