Tuesday, November 29, 2005

Effort mounts to stop the 12/13 execution of the co-founder of the Crips. (9:01 pm)

The path that took Stanley “Tookie” Williams from gang life to Nobel Peace Prize nomination has been a remarkable and most unusual one.

Co-founder of the blue-clothing-drenched Crips in S. Central Los Angeles, Williams was eventually convicted of the murder of four people in 1981, a heinous crime that Williams continues to deny he ever committed. What he doesn’t deny is the fact of his immersion in a brutal, intensely lived gang lifestyle in which drugs and violence simply went hand in hand. Williams had a well-deserved reputation for being a bad-ass in every possible sense, and not even incarceration on death row initially took that away from him.

That is until Williams began to take a hard look at his life, and the circumstances that led him (and other young men) down a particularly self-destructive and violent path.

From his cell in San Quentin State Prison, Williams set about writing children’s books about ways to avoid gangs, violence, drugs, self-hatred, and incarceration. To date, Williams has written ten of those children’s books, in addition to his memoir, Blue Rage, Black Redemption.

This summer, Williams received a presidential award from George W. for his volunteer work. None of the recognition matters one bit come Dec. 13th, 2005, the date when Williams is set to be executed by lethal injection by the State of California.

Although a federal court recommended clemency in 2002, Gov. Schwarzenegger has not expressed any interest in reversing the planned execution. Organizations including the NAACP have mounted last-minute campaigns to try to stop the execution, in addition to numerous pleas from celebrities, religious leaders and politicians.

posted by Silja J.A. Talvi | 18 comments

Bill O’Reilly’s Evil Media List (4:51 pm)

Bill O’Reilly has started a list of evil, lying media outlets… It’s short now, but there are promises that it will grow… We’re looking forward to it.

posted by Tracy Van Slyke | 5 comments

Monday, November 28, 2005

Land o’ hate crimes … (1:00 am)

Since 1992, the FBI has been mandated to report the number of hate crimes in the U.S. The agency has reported, on average, at 8,000-12,000 hate crimes per year. Recently, a different and more extensive form of data analysis, conducted by the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), found that the average annual total is actually closer to 191,000 hate crimes.

According to the BJS, less than half (44%) of hate crimes are actually reported by victims, in addition to the problem of misreporting by law enforcement.

Sexual attack, robbery, assault or murder were committed in 84% of hate crimes. (By comparison, non-hate crimes involved violence in 23% of all cases.)

posted by Silja J.A. Talvi | 9 comments

Thursday, November 24, 2005

Happy Thanksgiving—now spit out that bird! (1:24 pm)

China’s Xinhua reports that multiple cases of avian flu have been reported in Canada.

Mmmmm….tofu.

posted by Jessica Clark | 33 comments

Thursday, November 17, 2005

No FOIA allowed! Look out for BARDA, a new, top secret gov’t agency. (10:17 pm)

The Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Agency (BARDA) is about to become the the first-ever government agency not obligated to provide any disclosure whatsoever to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.

Senate Bill 1873, which is moving quickly through congress and would appropriate $1 BILLION in 2006 alone, includes the following statement that has raised alarm: “Information that relates to the activities, working groups, and advisory boards of the BARDA shall not be subject to disclosure under section 552 of title 5, United States Code [i.e. the FOIA], unless the Secretary or Director determines that such disclosure would pose no threat to national security.”

As the Society of Professional Journalists points out, exemptions already exist for high-level national security information where FOIA requests are concerned.

Co-sponsored by Senator Richard Burr and Majority Leader Bill Frist, the bill has passed through committee and now awaits action from the full Senate.

Ostensibly, the purpose of the agency is to encourage private industry to produce countermeasures for bioterrorism agents and natural outbreaks. How can we, as citizens and journalists, have no right to know what this agency would be up to, using this much of our money?
It would be a first in our modern history, and an ominous first, at that.

For more information, check out the Center for Arms Control and Nuclear Non-Proliferation.

posted by Silja J.A. Talvi | 7 comments

Wednesday, November 16, 2005

Viral Video on Iraq war and need for indy media (3:33 pm)

I received this link to a great 2-3 minute video called “Catapult.” It focuses on the “questionable ‘marketing’ of the War in Iraq, and the mainstream media’s failure to expose the false claims that led America to war.” It also lists important indy media and media reform sites to visit and support (including In These Times). Check it out and spread it around.

posted by Tracy Van Slyke | 26 comments

Tuesday, November 8, 2005

Is this what 12-steppers call the ‘denial’ phase? (1:19 pm)

In Panama City, President Bush told the Panamanian press that the U.S. is pursuing terrorists “under the law.” He emphatically denied that U.S. forces—including the operators of overseas secret CIA prisons—engage in torture of detainees.

“We do not torture,” President Bush stated flatly.

Bush, of course, stands behind VP Cheney in his attempt to exempt the CIA from the proposed Senate ban on torture.

Somehow, all of this must make perfect sense in their heads. Either that, or they’re just betting on more collective denial from a dysfunctional country.

We’ll be meeting for the intervention in the Oval Office, everybody … don’t let on that anything’s going on. Be gentle but firm. Step 1 for Bush & Co. is to get them to say the following: “We admit that we are powerless over our addiction to war, and we’re really, really making a mess of things.”

p.s. “We really do torture people.”

posted by Silja J.A. Talvi | 15 comments

Thursday, November 3, 2005

Abu Ghraib to freed detainees: It’s been real! K.I.T.! (4:34 pm)

Earlier this week, the U.S. Central Command’s “Detainee Operations” in Iraq announced that, “in the spirit of Eid al-Fitr, a day of rejoicing that marks the end of the holy month of Ramadan,” 500 security detainees had been released from Abu Ghraib.

A special Iraqi-led review board determined that these detainees had not, in fact, committed any serious or violent crimes.

“These detainees have confessed to their crimes, renounced violence and pledged to be good citizens of Iraq,” read the U.S. military press release, without explaining what, if anything, the detainees had done wrong in the first place.

Apparently, the release of these 500 detainees “marks another milestone achieved in the Iraqis’ progress toward democratic governance and the rule of law.” (Just what we need, more of these amazing milestones.)

At least they’re home for the holidays. I would hazard a guess that no such luck exists for the countless, nameless individuals holed up the C.I.A’s secret network of prisons, something akin to our post-9/11 “global internment network,” in which prisoners have no rights, no due process, no recourse whatsoever. Whatever kind of living hell that covert world is likely to be, our dollars paid for it.

And I want my money back. No, a raincheck won’t do.