March 2011
Kyle Munzenrieder at Miami New Times: Bill... →
The Republican-controlled Florida Legislature is moving forward this session with a number of restrictive anti-abortion bills, the newest of which would require doctors to discuss research on the possibility of fetal pain caused by the termination of pregnancy. Though, there’s little conclusive evidence as to when a fetus can start feeling pain, with many scientists believing it...
Justin Kendall at The Pitch: U.S. Air Guitar... →
Kansas City, get your air guitars ready to rock. After a one-year hiatus, the U.S. Air Guitar Championships are coming back to Kansas City to crown a regional champion to send to nationals. U.S. Air Guitar made the announcement on Twitter: The date, Thursday, May 19 at Crosstown Station in downtown Kansas City.
Michael Roberts at Westword: Colorado Juvenile... →
According to Levy, the Colorado Juvenile Equal Protection Act, officially known as HB 1287 (read it below), would allow juveniles sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole to be eligible for this process after serving forty years. In addition, juveniles sentenced to terms of similar length, but with parole as an option, could be considered for transition into community...
this ain't livin': Notes From the Urban/Rural... →
A ‘routine’ visit to a specialist can become a two-day trip. If you have to drive to San Francisco or Palo Alto from here, that’s four hours or more in the car to get to the doctor. Then you have to deal with parking in an unfamiliar place, you may have to arrange a hotel, you have to hope your appointment is not canceled. If you are trying to see multiple specialists to deal with a complex...
Andrea Granahan at Bohemian: The Nukes in Our... →
The crowd gasped. Parents clutched their kids. A louder noise erupted from the secret underground silo, and the 47-foot missile rose from its prone position to point up at the skies majestically.
Called Hercules, the missile would have carried a 40 kiloton warhead in the bad old days—that’s twice the power of the bomb that hit Nagasaki. There were three more missiles just like it in...
Cheri Delbrocco at Memphis Flyer: This Party Ain't... →
But the self-proclaimed “small government”majority in the House have already made one thing crystal clear. Since taking over in January, the pursuit of creating and finding jobs for millions of unemployed Americans is no where to be found on their radar screen. If you were actually thinking jobs were going to trump The Great Culture Wars —well, consider yourself punk’d. It just doesn’t...
Global Comment: Grey’s Anatomy, gay parents and... →
Spoilers for last week’s Grey’s Anatomy, Cara, don’t read this!
Today's protip for marijuana growers
If you cause five brownouts in one day when you turn on your grow lights, you are about to blow out the transformer.
Do you know what is going to happen then?
Well, first of all, the power will go out, and that will be annoying. Then PGE will come to fix the transformer and they will be all like ‘woah, dude, people on [mel’s quaint country road] don’t usually overload their...
Jessica Carew Kraft at East Bay Express: Toxic Art →
Sculptor Eva Hesse was one of the few female artists to garner acclaim for her minimalist work in the 1960s New York art scene. So when brain cancer took her life at the age of 34, her critics and collectors were shocked; she had just begun what looked like a landmark career. But just as notable as her works — which are currently on display at the Berkeley Art Museum — is what some...
Lauren Rosenfeld at San Francisco Bay Guardian:... →
But Jimenez did not know that Guajardo had been charging clients six to nine times the market rate for services he allegedly failed to deliver. And when Guajardo was forced to resign from the California State Bar two years ago, he illegally continued to advise clients, according to documents filed in a civil lawsuit by the San Francisco City Attorney’s Office.
“The purpose of...
Jonathan Curiel at SF Weekly: Muslim Photographer... →
It’s all so postmodern, and all so post–9/11. In fact, the 2001 attacks led to Elahi’s self-surveillance project. He is a Muslim American who was born in Bangladesh. In the summer of 2002, the FBI — suspecting he might be involved in terrorism — questioned him about his whereabouts after 9/11. The agency was apparently acting on a tip from the owners of a Florida storage facility...
this ain't livin': Deadly Irregularities →
Clearly, the state of death investigation in the United States is appalling when the location of your death can determine the quality of the investigation. Die on the right side of a state or county line and there will be a thorough, thoughtful workup to find out why you died, to make sure that if you died by something other than natural causes, the matter will be pursued. Die on the wrong side,...
Eva Moore at Free Times: City Protects Gender... →
The change was minor and did not require the approval of City Council, City Manager Steve Gantt tells Free Times. The policy governs employment decisions including “hiring, promotions, transfer, reductions and separations from employment.” The amended policy bans discrimination on the basis of race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, age, disability, military status and several other...
Since it seems a reminder is in order
Lived experiences of disability are extremely diverse. Two people can share the same disability(ies) and have radically different experiences of them.
Lived experience cannot be wrong.
Telling people their lived experiences are ‘wrong,’ that they’re ‘not doing it right,’ is extremely dehumanising.
Patrick Yeagle at Illinois Times: Illinois death... →
On March 9, Gov. Pat Quinn signed Senate Bill 3539, which abolishes the death penalty and redirects money that would have been spent on capital cases toward services for families of murder victims and training for police. Even so, some death penalty opponents are taking the fight to other states and to the federal government, while others plan to fight efforts already under way to reinstate...
Sarah Mirk at Portland Mercury: The OLCC Hit List →
Actually revoking a bar’s license takes a year or more. If a bar gets a lot of complaints from cops or neighbors, a city official sits down with the owner and works out a “compliance plan.” If complaints continue, the city asks the OLCC not to renew the license. Then the city sits. And waits.
Unless the city demands an immediate suspension, the OLCC waits until the...
therotund:
meloukhia:
therotund:
this ain’t livin’: Where Do You Put Your Garbage?
The dump is a sobering and disturbing sight. We hide dumps and waste management facilities, usually on the grounds of smell, that people would not want to be right on top of them, although actually it is possible to run a relatively low odor dump and some facilities have even been repurposed, turned into...
GOSH, how many times can I use 'repurposing' in...
This is why we line edit before posting, kids.
therotund:
this ain’t livin’: Where Do You Put Your Garbage?
The dump is a sobering and disturbing sight. We hide dumps and waste management facilities, usually on the grounds of smell, that people would not want to be right on top of them, although actually it is possible to run a relatively low odor dump and some facilities have even been repurposed, turned into parks and...
Nathan Giles at Willamette Week: Coal, Alberta Tar... →
Millennium Bulk Terminals, the company seeking to export coal out of Longview, Wash. initially claimed it wanted to ship five million tons of coal out the port. But recently released court documents show the company actually intends to ship as much as 60 million tons. Messages left with company officials weren’t immediately returned.
The coal, mined in Montana and Wyoming and destined for...
this ain't livin': Where Do You Put Your Garbage? →
The dump is a sobering and disturbing sight. We hide dumps and waste management facilities, usually on the grounds of smell, that people would not want to be right on top of them, although actually it is possible to run a relatively low odor dump and some facilities have even been repurposed, turned into parks and recreation areas so people can play baseball and eat apple pie on top of piles of...
Saul Elbein at Texas Observer: Intent To Harm →
In 2008, when the trouble began, Winkler County Memorial Hospital was the pride of Kermit, one of the few new buildings and success stories in town. This flat, dusty burg of 5,000, 35 miles west of Odessa, is a ramshackle prairie town sprawling along Highway 18 in a motley collection of cinderblock and prefab siding. In the center of town, surrounded by a well-kept lawn and shuttered...
Ben Joravsky at Chicago Reader: What's Next for... →
Over the summer, 1,289 teachers were fired—all in the name of cutting the system’s $300 million deficit.
I know you hear a lot about the need to rewrite tenure laws so it’s easier to fire “bad” teachers—as if good and bad are easy to define. But in this case only 40 of the 1,300 or so teachers fired in the purge had less than a satisfactory rating, according to CPS ...
Tiger Beatdown: Gun Registries Don’t Stop Suicide,... →
This piece has a strong content note for discussions of suicide and gun death. Most particularly in the first sentence.
Jill Frankenberry Connor says she wants ‘to prevent people with a history of mental illness from obtaining a so-called long gun by just walking into a store.’ That is a very vague and unclear mandate, a far cry from the specifics of the Brady Act, which apply to a very...
Cienna Madrid at The Stranger: Hostage Situation →
White Center is stuck in limbo. The neighborhood of 13,000 residents—just south of Seattle’s Southwest Roxbury Street—doesn’t belong to any city. King County maintains utilities and roads, and a King County Sheriff’s office stuck between a nail salon and a waxing studio handles all the 911 calls. But the county can’t afford this suburban orphan that costs $22.3...
Nick Pinto at Miami New Times: Wall of Shame →
Yet some of the biggest, most respected media outlets in the country failed to perform their due diligence when it came to the Schapiro study’s ridiculous claims about a nationwide child trafficking epidemic.
In an era defined by fast-paced blogging and doing more with less, reporters have precious little time to document the information they’re regurgitating. This leaves...
Michael Roberts at Westword: Medical marijuana:... →
In November, Loveland voted to ban medical marijuana businesses — and a city official confirmed that MMJ operators needed to close down yesterday or face fines and jail time. But three centers are fighting this edict with the help of attorney Rob Corry, who’s asking for a temporary injunction against the ban until its legality can be tested in court. Documents below.
The main...
this ain't livin': The Other Side of Reproductive... →
Having children, or not, is a personal choice, and it is an exercise of autonomy. It is a decision to exert control over your own body and life, to decide how you want to live and what you want to do with your uterus, or your semen. Restriction of reproductive rights goes in more directions than just one. And some people do talk, occasionally, about topics like forcible sterilisation and removal...
Susan Andrew at Mountain Xpress: Hagan, Burr,... →
The EPA recently proposed adding the site to its National Priorities List (NPL), a move that would place it among the most contaminated sites in the nation. NPL sites qualify for cleanup paid for using the so-called Superfund, and the EPA has additional long-term authority to clean up the contaminated soil and water surrounding these sites. Representatives from Hagan, Burr and Shuler’s...
The Guardian: Comment is free: The costly business... →
The industry surrounding death, they say, is structured to provide support and assistance to people in their time of need so they feel less isolated and alone, so they can focus on the details of the memorial and grieving rather than having to handle administrative errata. It’s a selfless service, providing care to the bereaved …
But of course, it’s also a for-profit...
Adam Sherwin at The Independent: The food fad... →
Where the Incas grew quinoa to feed their soldiers, Bolivian farmers are now producing the crop for mass export. Quinoa prices have tripled over the past five years, raising living standards for agricultural workers in the south of the country.
Entrepreneurial Bolivians are returning from the city to cultivate quinoa plots in the countryside. But the country’s agriculture ministry is...
Afua Hirsch at The Guardian: Rape and crimes... →
Content note for rape; descriptions of specific rapes with links to more details.
The director of public prosecutions has just made a speech admitting that the authorities “are still in the foothills when it comes to disability hate crime and supporting victims and witnesses with disabilities”. Speaking at the University of Sussex, Keir Starmer has acknowledged that disabled...
1 tag
Using up leftovers the meloukhia way
I was faced with half a tub of mascarpone and part of a container of whipping cream, both of which were going to go to that dairy case in the sky if I didn’t get my act together. So I sat, and I pondered, and I came up with Raspberry Chocolate Tarts.
This recipe has no measurements because I eyeballed everything. Sorry to those of you who are big measurement fans! (The ganache is the...
BBC News: Women 'under-represented in world... →
Among the news organisations studied, the survey found the most gender equity in 85 newsrooms of Eastern Europe, in Bulgaria, Estonia, Hungary, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Russia and Ukraine.
There, men’s and women’s salaries were comparable across all levels in the profession, a finding the survey authors attributed to the Soviet-era practice of educating women and moving them...
Diana Mukkaled at People of Color Organize!: Arab... →
The US internet industry has, in effect, given itself credit for overthrowing the regimes of both Hosni Mubarak and Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.
What is most striking about these discussions, other than their obvious ignorance about the distinctions between different countries and societies in the Middle East, is that they have neglected the role played by WikiLeaks and the leaked diplomatic...
this ain't livin': Challenged Books: Twilight →
But I am not going to fall into the trap of assuming that people who read the series are incapable of critical thinking, of dismissing them wholesale simply because of what they read. I find bans on the grounds that books have offensive content and are sending bad messages every bit as unacceptable as bans on the grounds that books are ‘too socialist’ or what have you. All book bans are a...
