by Darlene Superville

WASHINGTON (AP)--A beaming President Barack Obama on March 23 signed a historic $938 billion health care overhaul that guarantees coverage for 32 million uninsured Americans and will touch nearly every citizen's life, presiding over the biggest shift in U.S. domestic policy since the 1960s and capping a divisive, yearlong debate that could define the November elections.

HISTORIC SIGNING— President Barack Obama signs the health care reform bill in the East Room of the White House in Washington, as Marcellus Owens, 11, from Seattle, Wash., looks on. Other key Democrats stand in back in support.

Celebrating “a new season in America”—the signature accomplishment of his White House so far and one denied to a line of presidents before him—Obama made the massive bill law with an East Room signing ceremony. He was joined by jubilant House and Senate Democrats as well as lesser-known people whose health care struggles have touched the president. Obama scheduled back-to-back events to mark the moment, with much of his White House audience, as well as hundreds of others, heading to the Interior Department immediately after the signing.

The Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh recently announced the closing of four predominantly African-American schools. The four institutions in the Hill District, Wilkinsburg and Homewood will be reconfigured into two new institutions beginning in the fall 2010 school year.

“It’s kind of the reality of the situation that we’re in here, the declining demographics of the city,” said Father Carmen D’Amico, pastor of Saint Benedict the Moor School. “There’s less and less school-aged children and more and more competition so we’re all competing for a dwindling number of students. I think the consolidation of the schools is a good thing.”

When Mike Robertson got a call from a fellow DJ Tom Brown about splitting a new six-hour per night gig at the 941 Saloon on Liberty Avenue, it sounded like a nice job, and it would certainly help with the expenses of having a new baby on the way. So the two went to meet the owner to firm up the details of the job—and things went from good to bad.

SPINNING—DJ Brotha Mike, who spins discs at the New Amsterdam in Lawrenceville, said he was denied a gig at the 941 Saloon on Liberty Avenue in February because he is Black.

“I thought it was pretty much just a formality,” said Robertson. “The owner’s girlfriend had recommended us because she’d heard both of us down at New Amsterdam. But when we sat down with the owner, she gets up and calls Tom way to talk. And when he comes back he said, ‘She doesn’t want you because she thinks you’ll bring in the wrong crowd.’ He said she’d had an incident with some rowdy Black patrons a few months earlier—so we weren’t hired because of my presence.”

NEW YORK (AP)—Remember how shocking it was six months ago when Rep. Joe Wilson shouted “You lie!” to the president?

Suddenly, that outburst seems positively genteel.

STAYING THE COURSE— House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., holds a large gavel as she walks through the Cannon Rotunda after a Democratic Caucus, along with, from left: Reps. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., John Lewis, D-Ga., and John Larson, D-Conn., on March 21 on Capitol Hill in Washington.

From the “N-word” and anti-gay slurs being leveled at congressmen by protesters right outside the Capitol, to a shout of “baby killer!” within the chamber itself, to veiled and not-so-veiled threats online, the weekend saw an explosion of stunningly ugly discourse.

What is going on? Is our political culture sinking ever lower?