" We need to face the facts, immigrants are humans the same as all of us."

“Hazing” refers to any activity expected of someone joining a group (or to maintain full status in a group) that humiliates, degrades or risks emotional and/or physical harm, regardless of the person's willingness to participate. In years past, hazing practices were typically considered harmless pranks or comical antics associated with young men in college fraternities. Today we know that hazing extends far beyond college fraternities and is experienced by boys/men and girls/women in school groups, university organizations, athletic teams, the military, and other social and professional organizations. Hazing is a complex social problem that is shaped by power dynamics operating in a group and/or organization and within a particular cultural context. Every day millions of people are exposed to the cruel and unusual punishment that is hazing. Children, teens, and young adults are beaten, raped, and even killed in an effort to fit in to clubs, sports, and organizations. But many authority figures turn a blind eye to this problem and dismiss it as harmless fun when it is causing so much pain to our nations youth. It is time that this crime be known, and people be made aware of the cruelty that is hazing.

My wife was denied citizenship over an inadvertent mistake that should have been picked up by officials at the polling station in our neighborhood.

It's hard for people to grasp what its like to have no access to healthy foods yet this does exist in areas of Chicago. Areas with this problem are called food deserts and city officials are in a position to do something about it.

To urge South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley to appoint Stephen Colbert to fill the State's soon-to-be vacant U. S. Senate seat.

I have grown up in Chicago and have watched my once wonderful neighborhood turn into something of a nightmare due to gangs and crime. People want to call the cops but they never come. I feel if the CPD starts reaching out to residents more and maybe talk to them, people will call the police a whole lot more. It is also up to us, the citizens, to make a difference. See something, say something.

President Obama has said same-sex marriage is fine by him, but the Supreme Court will consider a more fundamental issue than that: whether Prop 8, and possibly state bans on same-sex marriage nationwide, violate the guarantee of Equal Protection under the U.S. Constitution. The Supreme Court often asks the Administration for its views on cases, and the position of the Department of Justice carries significant legal weight -- so we need the President and the DOJ to weigh in. As attorney Ted Olson commented on December 7th, 2012, "...given the stand the president of the United States and the attorney general of the United States made with respect to marriage equality, we would certainly hope that they would participate...I think that, given the position that the government has taken in the DOMA cases and the reasoning that they have used in filing their brief would apply with great effect in our case, the Perry case, as well." President Obama and the Department of Justice can fulfill this request by filing a friend-of-the-court brief arguing that a state ban on same-sex marriage violates the U.S. Constitution. With the Supreme Court hearing oral arguments in March 2013, and the civil rights, respect and dignity of potentially millions of same-sex couples on the line, we need the President to lead and speak out.

In Chicago gang activity is at an all time high and something needs to be done about it. My solution is to create basketball programs around my community and elsewhere to help stop the violence with fun activities.

When we bought our house, we were both employed. Now we have suffered three bouts of unemployment, one ongoing, and are having difficulty making our monthly mortgage payment. In 2010, we attempted to get Wells Fargo to agree to a loan modification and ended up in an automated loop of harassing phone calls from a system that only acknowledges two statuses: in default or paying on time. We got calls every day from Wells Fargo, ostensibly to collect on our defaulted loan. When the poor call-center workers would verify our identity and could open our computer file, they would see that we have always paid the full amount, on time, and couldn't understand why the system had called us. Supervisors were phantoms that never returned our calls. We got nowhere. We work hard, though we don't earn as much as we used to. We pay our taxes and our mortgage, always on time. We are running out of money. We are not eligible for the Federal programs that have helped some families retain their homes and avoid default. We also don't qualify to refinance because our mortgage is "underwater." We don't want to walk away from our home. We have a life here with friends and neighbors we love. We just want a fair deal, like the people who are eligible for the government relief programs. Ironically, our taxes contribute to the very government relief programs for which we are not eligible. Our mortgage note is owned by a private investor and serviced by Wells Fargo, which refuses to lower our interest rate to the current market rate. The lowered rate would reduce our monthly payment by nearly $400 a month! That's all we ask. Sign this petition and help us get Wells Fargo to lower our rate!

I spend my afternoons at the Alameda skate park and by the time I get there I only have an hour to ride. Thats the same for other people too, if we had lights the skate park would be used more, and would be letting people ride safely after dark.

I spend my afternoon at the Alameda skate park and by the time I get there I only have an hour to ride. Thats the same for other people too, if we had lights skate park would be used more, and would be letting people ride after dark.

While NY'ers are living without power, in mold, and without a plan for recovery, Mayor Bloomberg is spending his time plotting to cut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid as the brand new Co-Chair of Fix the Debt, a gang of billionaires bent on destroying our earned benefits. A new report by the Institute for Policy Studies examines CEOs of public companies who have endorsed the “Fix the Debt” campaign. The report, “Pension Deficit Disorder: The Massive CEO Retirement Funds and Underfunded Worker Pensions at Firms Pushing Social Security Cuts,” finds that these CEOs, while calling for ordinary Americans to take cuts in Social Security and Medicare, are sitting on an average of $9 million each in retirement funds. Most are also running large deficits in their own employees’ pension funds.