I first learned about the shackling of inmates in labor back in 1999 after Amnesty International did its study of the issue and made its findings public. What I read in that report, titled "Not Part of My Sentence: Violations of the Human Rights of Women in Custody," was deeply disturbing. Here are some highlights:

In1610, Italian astronomer and inventor Galileo Galilei used a telescope to observe the heavens and concluded that the earth revolved around the sun. His assertion contradicted the established dogma of the Catholic Church, leading to no end of difficulty for the brilliant scientist. He found himself accused of heresy and was eventually hauled before the Inquisition, which offered to resolve the dispute through torture if necessary. Imagine the gut-deep frustration Galileo must have felt knowing he was right but having to “confess” before a tribunal of stuffy old ignoramuses that the church was right and he was wrong. It wasn’t until 1992 that the Catholic Church formally cleared Galileo of wrongdoing and acknowledged that he’d been mistreated by the church.

After 18 years of working the same job, most of us might consign ourselves to our workaday fate. Not Christy Reece. When she realized she didn’t enjoy her job, she decided to do something about it. She sat down and wrote a novel and then another and another. Now she’s a successful author with four titles to her name, an up-and-coming star in the world of romantic suspense, a hybrid genre that combines romantic fiction with elements of a thriller. Boulder Weekly tracked Reece down at her home in Alabama and talked to her about her books and the courage it takes to walk away from your job and start a new career.

Tammy White lies back on the examination table and lifts her green smock and gold T-shirt to reveal a bulging belly. She is expecting her fifth child. The mother of three boys and one girl ranging in age from 9 to 19, she’ll give birth to this baby — a girl — sometime around May 23. “I just hope I’m out before I deliver,” she says. “I pray to God every night.” White is pregnant, but she’s also in prison.

On Jan. 27, America lost Howard Zinn. A World War II bombardier, a historian, an author and professor, Zinn challenged the way Americans look at their nation and themselves with the publication of his 1980 book A People’s History of the United States.

Boulder City Council members Macon Cowles and Lisa Morzel deserve praise for speaking out against the provision in a proposed public nudity ordinance that would have criminalized toplessness for women but not for men.

It’s a good thing that a Witchita, Kan., jury found Scott Roeder guilty of murder in the slaying of Dr. George Tiller, an abortion provider. If they had instead found Roeder guilty of a lesser charge, the verdict would have accelerated what is already a slow slide into anti-abortion terrorism.

Zia Parker is asking the county to designate her property as a “demonstration farm.” She wants permission to teach classes that would meet two Sundays each month from June through October. But four of her neighbors, including one who had initially agreed to teach the chicken component of the course, oppose the designation of “demonstration farm.”

Back in 1929, Boulder’s respectable folks called it “The Jungle.” Historical photographs from Boulder’s Carnegie Library show men and women standing in the mud among the shanties, shacks and tents they called home. Back in the day, local newspapers referred to these unfortunates as “tramps,” “squatters” and “undesirable people.” Today we call them “vagrants,” “transients” or “the homeless.”

This week, Boulder Weekly staff looks back at events that shaped the past decade. More than a time to reminisce, the new year and new decade give all of us a chance to reconsider what we’re doing and to resolve to do better from now on, both as individuals and as a nation. Here’s hoping that the Teens will see a nationwide shift away from fear, and the anger that inevitably comes with it, to compassion and compassionate action.