June 2011
Tiger Beatdown: California Prisons: Really, Really... →
One of the most disturbing things to think about with the upcoming prisoner release isn’t the flood of citizens clutching at their pearls as California’s prison population is reduced, but the fact that people who could not access health care in prison also will not be able to access health care outside of it. California’s budget for social services has been repeatedly slashed, making it...
Tiger Beatdown: California Prisons: Really, Really... →
One of the most disturbing things to think about with the upcoming prisoner release isn’t the flood of citizens clutching at their pearls as California’s prison population is reduced, but the fact that people who could not access health care in prison also will not be able to access health care outside of it. California’s budget for social services has been repeatedly slashed, making it...
May 2011
Alexandra Natapoff at Prison Legal News: Secret... →
When police rely on criminal informants, innocent people can pay a heavy price. Acting on a bad tip from a local drug dealer-turned-informant, Atlanta police sought a no-knock warrant for the home of Mrs. Kathryn Johnston. In order to get the warrant, the officers invented an imaginary snitch, telling the magistrate judge that a non-existent “reliable confidential informant” had bought crack at...
Out, but not up: Homelessness in the age of... →
abbyjean:
There is an invisible but sharp dividing line between clients the system deems worthy of serious investment and those it writes off as lost causes. That is what I consider the true, enduring obstacle to “ending homelessness”: The goal isn’t to bring everybody up but to sort everybody out.
recommended longread - this quote really resonated for me. even people working homeless...
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this ain't livin': Exploitation Goes By Many Names →
People approaching the problem of caregiver exploitation from the perspective of caregivers often frame it as an individual problem. They tell us this is not representative of all caregivers, that it’s not fair to tar them all with the same brush. They miss the larger picture, which is the combined devaluation of disabled people and caregivers that contributes to the tolerance of unacceptably...
Michael E. Miller at Miami New Times: Sharks... →
For 400 million years, sharks have patrolled the seas around what is now the Sunshine State. As a species, they are twice as ancient as most dinosaurs. Ever since humans appeared 2 million years ago, we have feared them. Sharks were there to devour the bodies of Taíno Indians slain by Christopher Columbus in 1492. And they followed slave ships across the Atlantic, waiting for castaways. In the...
Michael May at Texas Observer: Freedom Fighters →
The Texas Exoneree Project, as the Dallas group calls itself, began with a humble mission—the group provided a space for exonerees to help each other meet their needs. The Project has moved far beyond that. A few weeks before Pinchback is released, there’s a full agenda at the monthly meeting, held in a bright conference room at the Holy Trinity Church in Dallas. At the table is the group’s...
“It was disappointing. Her book about her diet is really appealing and wonderful....”
– A publishing industry insider on why Jennifer Hudson has to pony up an intensely personal memoir about a horrifying life event if she wants a book deal. (Via Publisher’s Lunch)
Mais Oui, I like my social justice with a side of...
redlightpolitics:
Just came across this: Strauss-Kahn Case Inspires French Woman to Charge Minister with Rape
In the United States, the allegations against Dominique Strauss-Kahn seemed to herald a series of sex scandals in the news. Now in France, the controversy has inspired a women to speak out against another government official. Junior civil service minister George Tron resigned on...
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“It thus takes the deformed man a long time to get adjusted to his world....”
– Randolph Bourne, writing in 1911 about his lived experience of disability in an essay entitled, I shit you not, ‘The Handicapped — By One of Them.’
Psyblog: War, Peace and the Role of Power in... →
The other story
What is often left out of the familiar story is that it was not the first of its type, but actually the third in a series carried out by Sherif and colleagues. The two earlier studies had rather less happy endings. In the first, the boys ganged up on a common enemy and in the second they ganged up on the experimenters themselves. How does this alter the way we look at the...
Apparently
I now need to sleep for an hour in the middle of the day and have a snack to function.
This displeases me. Although these cherries ARE pretty tasty.
Chris Vogel at LA Weekly: Men's County Jail... →
Content note, contains images and a graphic description
Conditions at the jail, the largest in the world, have long been considered deplorable. For more than 35 years, civil rights organizations have worked with the Sheriff’s Department to make improvements. But in recent years, they say, the severity and brazenness of abuse have escalated.
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this ain't livin': To Remember the Dead →
And sometimes it seems to me like people would rather that war remain silent, that we not discuss the costs of war. War is a very abstract thing for many civilians in the United States right now. Many people don’t know servicemembers, let alone servicemembers who have been killed in action. Many people seem to prefer to keep it that way; the war is routinely pushed to the back pages, these days,...
Terrorist 'pre-crime' detector field tested in... →
rhymeswithnothing:
Have some dubiously appropriate Memorial Day news, lolol. Spied at Pharyngula bringing you another round of “I caaaan’t”
Like a lie detector, FAST measures a variety of physiological indicators, ranging from heart rate to the steadiness of a person’s gaze, to judge a subject’s state of mind. But there are major differences from the polygraph. FAST relies on non-contact...
Jackson Baker at Memphis Flyer: In Quick... →
And another controversial measure, HB600, banning anti-discrimination ordinances by local jurisdictions, is sure to be challenged early in the next legislative session. State Senator Jim Kyle (D-Memphis), the Senate’s Democratic leader, has already filed legislation designed to repeal that measure, which drew intense last-minute opposition from several major Tennessee industries, including FedEx...
Besha Rodell at Creative Loafing: Booting is a... →
Later that afternoon, when she returned to her car, she found it booted. The voucher she had purchased from the man apparently was not legit — she’d been scammed, along with a number of other festival-goers. The booting company, citing the fact that they don’t own the lot and aren’t responsible for making sure parking runs smoothly, had little sympathy. Damage: $75.
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Guess what is still missing?
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The Economist: Do Not Pass Go →
Such was the background to the decision, on May 24th, to refer the former president, his two sons and a fugitive billionaire associate to trial on criminal charges which may include murder. Last month Mr Mubarak and his sons, who spent the first weeks after their ouster in a secluded resort, were arrested in response to massive protests in Cairo’s Tahrir Square. As their incarceration...
Jeremy Alford at Gambit: Big Oil--Foiled →
Legacy sites are old oilfields that have been contaminated by previous owners or operators, but which still require mitigation, which is expensive. The issue pitted landowners against oil companies, and it drew a Who’s Who of government consultants and lobbyists to the committee room for last week’s showdown. If a bomb had gone off in the room, the bulk of the Legislature’s...
“It is worth noting that a number of states, including Texas, Florida, Illinois,...”
– Jeanne Woodford and Barry Krisberg, California’s overcrowded prisons: An opportunity for real reform - latimes.com (via lost-in-norn-iron)
Litmus tests are really only good for chemistry
That is all.
I swear the lawn gets larger every time I mow it
this ain't livin': Is Hulu Too Successful For Its... →
It’s not unusual for a content distribution model to move ahead at a faster pace than people are ready for, but the problem Hulu is facing is the need to try to cram itself back into the box, to howls of outrage from the public. Setting up fee-based models for accessing some content (and sweeteners, like allowing people to see shows earlier on Hulu Plus than they can on the free service) is the...
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I just trimmed 5,000 words off this sucker
And it was like when you trim that ragged bit of a pie crust off and suddenly you have this nice shiny even crust that you know will be so much better in the long term. But on the other hand you look at that pile of ragged crust you just trimmed off and kind of wish you could figure out something to do with it because it seems like such a waste to just throw it in the compost.
Hannah Sayle at Memphis Flyer: Road to Recovery →
“Community relations teams are fanning out into affected areas with flyers. [They’re] going to community meetings and meeting with people face to face,” said Gary Weidner, FEMA’s public information officer. “[We’re] making sure that the message on how to apply for FEMA assistance gets out to everybody that’s been affected by the flooding.”
...
John Lasker at Cleveland Scene: The Job Machine →
In the wake of decades of population and employment erosion, next week marks the formal launch of the International Welcome Center on Public Square. It’s championed as a sort of recruiting department spawned by Global Cleveland, the newly formed organization that is more than a decade in the planning.
The group hopes to stem the tide of Cleveland’s outward migration, while...
this ain't livin': Save the Environment: Use... →
It’s not just birds who suffer from lead in the environment; people get sick as well, and so do other animals, who may take weeks or months to die from lead poisoning. Eliminating the use of lead in ammunition would be a significant environmental victory. It’s not the only current source of lead in the environment, but it is a source, and it is one that seems like it should be easy to address....
Josh Rosenblatt at Austin Chronicle: The Color of... →
Recalling those halcyon days, you might have forgotten that City Hall’s current “open-government” fiasco actually started somewhere real, that those emails Mayor Lee Leffingwell and Mayor Pro Tem Mike Martinez exchanged with each other during a particularly heated council meeting back in April 2010 – the ones pointed to as proof of rudeness at best and conspiracy at worst...
Peter Jamison at SF Weekly: Let Him Prey:... →
Despite this knowledge, fellow priests did not report McGuire’s behavior outside the Church. In California, that silence may, at times, have amounted to a violation of state law, which requires professionals who work with children to immediately report suspected child abuse to police or child welfare workers.
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Tornado Warning →
Since the 1950s, there’s been a dramatic improvement in the quality of tornado predictions and tracking. Heck, even since the 1990s, we’ve seen our ability to warn people about storms improve from providing warnings about 50% of tornadoes 5 minutes before they hit to providing warnings about 90% of tornadoes 24 minutes before they hit. That’s a massive improvement, giving people more time to...
Fake egg status
Still missing. Have you seen my fake egg?
Anthony Pignataro at Sacramento News and Review:... →
Wine is so interwoven with social functions and fine dining that it’s hard to think of it as something political. It is elegant, distinguished; wine is class—the difference between a meal and a dining experience. Whether located in Napa, Paso Robles, El Dorado County or Sacramento, wineries are usually more like parks than places of business. We sip a dry merlot or a peppery zinfandel and...
Dylan Watson at Jackson Free Press: Freedom Rides... →
Hank Thomas walked up the steps of the Greyhound bus on a sunny day May 4, 1961. As he calmly surveyed its drab, blue-gray interior, the lanky 19-year-old black student from Howard University had no idea that in about two weeks he would come dangerously close to meeting his maker on its floor. He wasn’t prepared for the violence, Thomas says now. “I’m...
Mike Smith at NOW Toronto: Layton lament →
More choice usually means a healthier electoral system. (I won’t call it democracy.) Usually. But despite a few exceptional members who prove the rule, the Liberals – their uncompromisingly tepid platform, their irrepressibly somnambulant leader, their hodge-podge right-wing-but-with-taxes ideology – weren’t much of an option.
There’s a long-brewing political backlash, of which Harper and...
this ain't livin': There's An App For That: Castle... →
An interesting storyline came up in March where Castle realises that she’s sneaking around, and uses an app to track her cellphone. He proudly talks about this to other characters on the show and they seem kind of dubious and horrified about the idea, reminding him that it’s a pretty gross violation of privacy. When Alexis finds out, she’s understandably enraged, and the show brought up some...
Camilla Mortensen at Eugene Weekly: Drone on the... →
The British report goes on to say, “It is essential that before unmanned systems become ubiquitous (if it is not already too late) … we ensure that, by removing some of the horror, or at least keeping it at a distance, we do not risk losing our controlling humanity and make war more likely.”
If senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley and some...
I hate this article in so many ways that I cannot... →
We’ve got assumptions about what ‘real food’ is, assumptions about resource availability, shaming and blaming for people who can’t/don’t cook ‘real food,’ and a nice side of ‘well, she can get up 6:30 am to do food prep, why can’t you?’
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