FEATURED ITEM:
	10 Steps to Repair American Democracy

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BOOKS

10 Steps to Repair American Democracy American democracy is damaged today, with a voter turnout rate hovering between Nigeria's and Armenia's, voting scandals like that in Florida in 2000 and media ownership concentrated in a handful of corporations. In a fascinating, often witty book, "10 Steps to Repair American Democracy," by Steven Hill of the New America Foundation, calls for laws mandating non-partisan, impartial election officials (unlike the notorious Katherine Harris in Florida and Ken Blackwell in Ohio) and for balloting with a voter-verified paper trail. "Election administration is our nation's crazy aunt in the attic," he observes. "Every few years she pops out and creates a scene, and everyone swears that something must be done. But as soon as Election Day passes, we're happy to ignore her again—until the next time she makes a spectacle of herself." Exactly. Available from powells.com.

Going Down Jericho Road: The Memphis Strike, Martin Luther King's Last Campaign Many Americans know Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis. Fewer know he was there to support local sanitation workers locked in a tight battle to win their rights through their union, AFSCME.. Michael Honey describes the drama in "Going Down Jericho Road," centered on the strike by municipal workers after two in their ranks were crushed to death on the job. Black ministers, union organizers and underpaid workers confronted an intransigent white establishment and a good-ol'-boy mayor who refused to negotiate with the sanitation workers. As King understood very well and Honey's masterful account makes clear, the real story of the Memphis sanitation workers was that merging of the struggles for civil rights and for economic justice. Available from powells.com.

Nine Months at Ground Zero Among all the books about Sept. 11, "Nine Months at Ground Zero" stands out. It's the story of Charlie Vitchers, a general superintendent at Ground Zero, and Bobby Gray, the Ground Zero master mechanic and a proud member for 25 years of the International Union of Operating Engineers. Vitchers and Gray hurried downtown on the morning of 9/11 without being asked because they knew instinctively that only the workers who had built the towers would know how to remove them. They were right. For the next nine months, they gave up their family lives, regularly lost sleep and endured more staggering emotional stress while they sifted through 400 million pounds of red-hot steel and 600,000 feet of broken glass. . In taking on one of the most hellish jobs in America, these men deserve to be called heroes. Available from powells.com.

MUSIC

Lynn Marie Smith: The Motown Diva By day, Lynn Marie Smith is an organizer with AFT in Michigan. But she also has another career as a spectacularly fine singer— a mixture of Gladys Knight and Gloria Gaynor with the politics of Woody Guthrie. On "The Motown Diva," she sings classics with union-oriented lyrics. Stevie Wonder's "Part-Time Lover" becomes "Part-Time Worker;" the campy gay disco hit "Y-M-C-A" is now "U-N-I-O-N;" Gloria Gaynor's iconic "I Will Survive" is reborn as "I Can't Survive." It’s the kind of project that could turn out either cheesy or dazzling, and this is dazzling- music that in a hipper and more sensible universe, would be a hit on iPods and commerical radio stations. . Available from Labor Heritage Foundation.

WEBSIGHTING

Economic Policy Institute Looking for a website that offers the information you need when you're writing a letter to the editor, leading a local union meeting, lobbying your senator or just finding out what's really going on? One of the best think tanks in America has you covered. Browse the Economic Policy Institute website and you’ll find top-notch studies by economists who go where the facts lead, not where the corporate hot shots steer them. An excellent place to start is with EPI's free Issue Guides on topics from the minimum wage to offshoring to Social Security. Also browse through the range of EPI publications in its new online catalogue—no razzle-dazzle or mind candy, just solid information about where we are and what we need to make our lives better.