Jim Austin

His previous columns are archived HERE.

JIM AUSTIN

Global news of the weird

I skipped the last couple of columns. I thought I should get away from carping at the Bush administration and concentrate on fishing for a while.

Well, you can't fish all the time.

While in my little rainforest hideaway in Golfito, Costa Rica I picked up a copy of the Tico Times. The Tico Times is the major English newspaper in Costa Rica. On page 11 in the March 22 issue I chanced upon a column called A Little World News.

The Little World News editor apparently shares the same bush under her saddle that I have under mine. George W. Bush to be precise. No doubt because she doesn't have to rely on mainstream news sources in the USA, she can gag on a whole different set of atrocities perpetrated under the U.S. radar.

She quotes some of the nasty little right-wing policies and proposals that Bush's posse have come up with while we are all occupied with war, terrorism, and other assorted headline grabbers. Consider the following:

• Bushies have cut by 50 percent funding for research into renewable energy sources

• Suspended rules to deny contracts to companies that violate workplace safety, environmental, and other federal laws

• reduced by 86 percent the Community Access Program for public hospitals, clinics, and providers of care for people without insurance

• Cut programs to provide childcare to low-income families as they go from welfare to work

• Cut Environmental Protection Agency budget by $500 million

• Banned federal aid to international family planning programs that offer abortion counseling with other funds (it's OK here but not for the rest of the world)

• (My favorite) Cut a program that provided prescription contraceptive coverage to federal employees while maintaining coverage for Virgo.

• Proposed elimination of the "Reading is Fundamental" program that gives free books to poor children

• Signed a bill that makes it harder for middle-class citizens to file for bankruptcy

• Is seeking dismissal of class-action lawsuit filed in the U.S. against Japan by Asian women forced to work as sex slaves during WWII

• Cut $15.7 million earmarked for states to investigate cases of child abuse and neglect

• Makes sure convicted misdemeanor drug users cannot get financial aid for college, though convicted murderers can

• Refused to fund continued litigation of the government's tobacco company lawsuit

Ever notice that you can't find a liberal viewpoint on the radio. Talk show hosts are all clones of the 'Bloated Buddha of Bombast' Rush Limbaugh. Except for a few larrikins like Jim Hightower and Molly Ivins, we have to look long and hard to get a point of view that doesn't sound like a John Birch Society rave. If Adolph Hitler were still alive he'd be syndicated on FOX.