Melissa Gira Grant’s story about April Brogan’s death from withdrawal complications while in jail is a heartbreaking look at how little regard the justice system has for sex worker lives. Our Caty is quoted on the double stigma drug-using sex workers face. A woman running an underground brothel in Germany has been busted; her workers, […]
BuzzFeed sent pictures of some very American things to their UK office and asked them to guess what the pictures were. There were biscuits and gravy and then there were corn dogs and a crunchwrap supreme from Taco Bell. Very American things.
They also included this picture of Chiefs fans tailgating at Arrowhead last year's home opener against the Titans. A few of the responses from their co-workers are spot-on (and a couple of them are not).
This is the most American thing I have ever seen in my life.
What's happening here is many children are following the wrong dads around because everyone accidentally wore the same outfit.
FOOTBALL!!!!! But not the good type. Looks like a bunch of Kansas fans having a jolly good time with their BBQs and six-packs in the car park before a game. Why in a car park? No fucking idea.
God knows. Republican National Convention?
This is a parking lot grill thing! There's a name for it. It's probably at NASCAR. There are flags and half of them are the stars and stripes. USA! USA! USA!
This is tailgating. It's the most popular sport in America. Occasionally they play a celebratory game of football at the end but people don't care as much about that because you can't eat or drink a football.
Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey, left, FBI Special Agent-in-Charge Edward Hanko, center, and United States Attorney Zane David Memeger, appear at a 2014 news conference announcing that six Philadelphia narcotics officers had been indicted on charges they spent years using gangland tactics against alleged drug dealers. All six officers were acquitted Thursday. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
This morning, a federal jury stunned Philadelphia and acquitted six city narcotics officers accused of violently robbing suspected drug dealers of hundreds of thousands of dollars. Victims were allegedly brutally assaulted and even hung over balconies, according to the indictment.
Throughout the trial, lead defense lawyer Jack McMahon attacked the alleged victims' credibility (calling them "bags of trash" and "despicable liars") and that of former officer Jeffrey Walker, a narcotics cop arrested separately who pleaded guilty and testified against his former colleagues.
McMahon apparently did a good job convincing the jury that these alleged drug dealers were all liars despite the fact that they and Walker independently told the same chilling stories. What's so sad and ironic about this is that this is exactly why corrupt police target criminals: who’s going to believe them?
Apparently not this federal jury which, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer, was made up "largely of white suburban residents." McMahon played to what was no doubt a sympathetic audience.
Today's verdict sends a message to Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams: the question of whether rogue police are held accountable lies in his office's hands.
"There is no question that the federal jury pool in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania is overwhelmingly white, suburban and rural, conservative and pro-law enforcement," says Larry Krasner, a prominent civil rights lawyer and longtime critic of narcotics officer corruption.
The same was true in 1992 when the trial of the officers videotaped beating Rodney King was moved from Los Angeles to suburban Simi Valley*, "a police officers' bedroom community with a predominantly white population," as reporter Linda Deutsch put it. "There were no blacks on the jury."
Soon thereafter, Los Angeles was in flames.
Today's verdict sends a message to Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams: the question of whether rogue police are held accountable lies in his office's hands. Williams has shown a new interest in prosecuting police and correctional officer misconduct in recent months, after years of criticism for ignoring it.
City juries are by no means automatically anti-cop, but seem likelier to be more skeptical of police. A 2013 Pew Research Center poll found that compared with suburbanites and rural residents, urban residents as a whole were more likely to agree that black people are treated less fairly than whites by police. Much of this, however, may be more related to race than geography. A December 2014 Gallup analysis of poll data found that a similar percentage of urban and non-urban whites had a great deal or a lot of confidence in police (62 to 60-percent), but that black people living in urban areas were less likely to have such confidence (26-percent) than those who live in non-urban areas (38-percent). City juries then would likely be more skeptical of cops than federal juries drawing from the broader metropolitan area not because they are urban per se, but because they are more likely to include black people.
But it can also be hard to get local prosecutors to take on police misconduct: Krasner says that federal prosecutors ceased calling some of the narcotics officers to testify years before Williams' office took action, and that he only did so only after Krasner's accusations of misconduct prompted a local judge to order the DA to release records on a number of officers.
Another blockbuster case was exposed in a Pulitzer Prize-winning Philadelphia Daily News series, detailing allegations against another group of city narcotics cops of fraudulent search warrant applications, looting immigrant-owned convenience stores, and in one officer's case, committing serial sexual assault. Yet neither federal nor local prosecutors brought charges. Last month, the DA charged another narcotics cop, Christopher Hulmes, with perjury after I exposed his lies in the Philadelphia City Paper—more than three years after he had admitted to lying in open court.
The case should also should remind Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey that the city's drug war is out of control. Federal prosecutors alleged that "Police Department top brass never asked too many questions because the squad was one of the most productive on the force, often raking in large hauls of seized money and drugs," according to the Inquirer. Indeed, the officers' immediate supervisors testified on their behalf.
The next step for the six acquitted officers from this morning’s verdict will no doubt be to use the city's broken arbitration system to overturn their dismissals (though the police department says that one of the officers has resigned). And then they could very well end up back on the street once again holding a gun, a badge, and the power of arrest over the citizens of Philadelphia. But civil rights cases filed by the alleged victims will move forward. A lot of money, and some measure of unfulfilled justice, is at stake.
"Justice comes in many forms," says Krasner, whose office is coordinating the various lawyers bringing what he says is more than 100 civil rights lawsuits against the officers and the city. "Sometimes it is criminal court. Sometimes it is in civil court. And we are looking forward to pursuing these civil claims."
*CORRECTION: This story originally referred to Simi Valley as Simi County. Simi Valley is located in Ventura County.
While I’ve been distracted and gallivanting about, some good news has come in. The Australian government had set aside $4 million to give to Bjørn Lomborg, to create an institute of climate quackery at the University of Western Australia. I’m sure UWA could use $4 million (is there a university that isn’t strapped?) but they decided they didn’t need it that much and turned it down. I think most institutions of higher learning would similarly reject money for that purpose, or for building an astrology center, or a creationist think-tank.
It’s a little something called intellectual integrity.
(Universities sometimes fail in this regard, though, which is how the University of Minnesota ends up with a Center for Spirituality and Healing. But that’s a different story.)
As you might guess, conservatives are furious. Their standard line is that this was a violation of FREE SPEECH!
First to don the water skis for the shark jump was the education minster, Christopher Pyne, who vowed that he would find a new home for Lomborg’s questionable methodology.
“You can be certain it will happen,” said Pyne, before revealing that he had apparently been on the phone to “freedom of speech” and word had come back.
“Freedom of speech demands that it does,” declared Pyne (hashtag facepalm).
Many in Australia’s stable of conservative thinkers were so incensed by the decision of UWA’s vice chancellor, Paul Johnson, that the only balm to sooth their fiery rage was to quickly over-write 700 words for a Rupert Murdoch newspaper.
This was Australia’s very own “Scopes Monkey Trial” … a “disgrace to universities”… a “grotesque betrayal of the tradition of free thought” … a “craven surrender to the mob”. And that was just News Corp’s climate science mangler-in-chief, Andrew Bolt.
Free speech apparently means that the Australian government owes me $4 million right now. After all, I have things to say, and some Australians read them, and I want the money, and therefore if I’m not immediately given a government sinecure to say whatever I want, the principles of free thought have been destroyed.
Except, we’ve been over this before. Free speech means the government is not allowed to interfere with your expression of ideas, not that the government must subsidize your every word. Free thought actually is an intellectual tradition, but it does not mean that the universities may be bought — it means that they are allowed the freedom to practice some intellectual rigor and decide what the best ideas are. That means we have the freedom to say that some ideas are very bad, including the denialism of Lomborg.
I thought this comment by Will Grant was perfect.
Former Institute of Public Affairs fellow Tim Wilson, now a Human Rights Commissioner, accused the university of engaging in a form of “soft censorship”.
The Australian National University academic Will Grant pointed out that indeed universities did engage in soft censorship all the time. “It’s called learning”, wrote Grant.
Quite so. You know you’re dealing with a fool when they start arguing that freethought means you have to have an undisciplined brain that gives equal weight to both wise and foolish ideas.
Before I headed off to Australia, a friend of mine who has worked in the fine art industry advised me to keep an eye for aboriginal art on the basis that there is some very excellent work out there. To which my response was, yeah, okay, but that’s not going to happen because it’s not like I’m going to bother to jump through all the hoops I’d need to jump through to bring a substantial piece of art back with me.
And then I went into an aboriginal art gallery in Perth and saw this piece, by Sascha Long Petyarre, and couldn’t stop looking at it. Nor was I the only one; there was a couple in the gallery as well and I saw them doing the same thing I was doing, which was looking at it, wandering off to look at other pieces and then coming back to it. I came back to it enough that eventually I figured out that if I didn’t buy it I was going to eventually regret not having done so. So I did — and had to jump through a bunch of aggravating hoops to get it back home, exacerbated by the fact I was also injured at the time, so schlepping a really large Tube O’ Art was that much more annoying.
But: Totally worth it. The painting, roughly six feet by three, looks great in this picture but it looks frankly amazing live and in person. It now resides in my daughter’s room, not only because it fits the decor there but because I hope she finds Ms. Long Patyarre’s door into dreamtime a creatively inspiring one (also, before any of you fine art folks ask, the painting is on a northern wall, away from direct sunlight).
I wasn’t expecting to get art when I was in Australia, but I’m happy I did anyway. Life is funny that way.
Incidentally, if you do like the image above, it appears Sascha Long Petyarre has done a lot of work that is thematically similar, much of which is for sale. Here’s the Google listing of her name, which features links to several galleries and other places that have her work for sale. Check out her work; it’s pretty great.
Speaker of the House John Boehner, who increasingly looks like he's made of smoky phlegm coughed up by Mad Men characters, was asked yesterday if lack of federal funding for rail safety contributed to the deadly derailment of the Amtrak train in Philadelphia on Tuesday. With a look of the kind of contempt one gives a cat who just figured out how to get the fish out of the aquarium, he said, "Are you really going to ask such a stupid question?"
Of course, it's not a stupid question. It is, in fact, the only question. Because, see, the last time Amtrak was funded through a reauthorization of funds by Congress was in 2008. That bill expired in 2013, and Congress hasn't been able to do dick since then. The previous reauthorization of funding expired in 2002. It took Congress six years to pass something that wasn't bare bones funding by tacked-on amendment to another bill. And that's when Congress was a functioning body, approving worthless wars and shit.
Also in 2008, Congress said that all railroads needed to install technology that would detect speeding, out-of-control trains and slow them down. It is supposed to be completed by the end of this year. Of course, Congress hasn't provided near enough funding. If that system had been running, the wreck would have been prevented.
Who is responsible for spending bills getting out of Congress in the last couple of years? Right: John Boehner and Republicans. So was it really a stupid question?
Actually, the level of fuckery of Amtrak goes further, and it tells you everything you need to know about why nothing will ever be done to save the infrastructure of this country (seriously, the Rude Pundit drives on major highways in the Northeast that are worse than some dirt roads). Listen: "because lawmakers failed to provide the railroads access to the wireless frequencies required to make [Positive Train Control] work, Amtrak was forced to negotiate for airwaves owned by private companies that are often used in mobile broadband."
You might think, "Wait, what the fuck?" Yeah, as David Sirota reports, "[W]hen Congress in 2008 mandated that rail companies like Amtrak install PTC on their tracks, lawmakers did not require the FCC to set aside any of those airwaves for this exclusive function."
You might still be thinking, "Okay, this sounds like something bad, but I really don't fucking understand and I'm about to tune you out." Okay, okay, fuck, hold on.
See, Congress said, "Yeah, Amtrak, we cut the fuck out of your budget, but you go with your hat in your hand to broadband companies and buy some bandwidth." Of course, the PTC system itself could have operated...
You might think, "It's Friday. Can you just shut up about this hard stuff and say something mean about Republicans?"
Fine. Republican spoogebuckets were busy this week, post-crash, cutting funding for Amtrak because fuck those yankees and their Northern Corridor public transportation. A House committee voted to cut 15% from Amtrak's budget. When Democrats brought up the derailment during the debate, Idaho Republican Mike Simpson said, "You have no idea, no idea, what caused this accident. Don’t use this tragedy in that way. It was beneath you." Because Republicans would never use a tragedy to advance their agendas, oh, no, they are as pure as yellow snow.
Republicans will say, "We're not cutting the budget on safety for passengers." Which is technically true, but if the budget is shit to begin with, then it's pretty hard to make the case that you are standing up for the railroads. If you are responsible for making sure that safety systems are funded to help save lives and you don't fund them properly, then you bear blame for the deaths that occur due to your failure. Of course Boehner wants to shut up questions about it. He has blood on his nicotine-dyed hands.
Let's give the last quote to Florida Republican John Mica: "There's no question the United States has a third-world rail system. It's a monopoly run in a Soviet-style operation. Amtrak."
Unpack that statement: Amtrak is run by the federal government. If it's a third-world level system, who the fuck made it that way?
The European Commission (EC) has finally confirmed what we've all known for years: if you shut down one online piracy site, another will simply take its place. A report published by the EC's Joint Research Center found that the closure of Kino.to, a ...
One of the most common responses to Age of Ultron, which I enjoyed a lot although not without reservations, is that the movie’s insistent emphasis on the Avengers preventing civilian casualties is something of a “take that” to Man of Steel.
Indeed, I thought that was one of the better elements of the film, so I was a bit surprised to read this article in the Washington Post, which argued that:
At a certain point during the critics’ screening of “Avengers: Age of Ultron”—I believe it was when Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) decided that it was more important to grab three people out of a collapsing tenement than focus on the world-ending event only he had the technical know-how to stop—I wrote “Oh, [expletive deleted] the civilians, get on with it” in my notebook…
I get the sense that what makes some people uncomfortable about “Man of Steel” is that it more closely reflects the way war is fought today than a movie like “Age of Ultron.”
To begin with, I don’t buy Sonny Bunch’s defense of Man of Steel. To begin with, given that Superman is a character whose best stories are about saving people, the movie makes “Clark Kent using his powers to save people” almost entirely confined to the beginning and end of the movie, suggests that saving people wasn’t a high priority of the film. The big critique of Superman’s fight in Metropolis – which would have civilian casualties in the hundreds of thousands, because it’s not true to life to assume that “any sane civilian has fled the city in terror” – isn’t just that we don’t see Superman try to protect civilians (notably, the scene of Perry White trying to save a journalist trapped in the rubble doesn’t end with Superman lifting the rubble long enough to be photographed saving the day), it’s that he doesn’t seem to be concerned about the issue until he’s brought face to face with it, long after he’s been throwing Zod through skyscrapers inhabited by hundreds if not thousands of squishy humans, not to mention that Superman consciously decided to commit genocide on the Kryptonian race on the grounds that “Krypton had its chance!”
But I also find it strange that Bunch didn’t expect the Avengers to do this. After all, as “Moviebob” Bob Chipman has pointed out, the first Avengers film was chockablock with sequences that are all about trying to protect casualties – whether it’s Iron Man going on a suicide mission to shove a nuke through a wormhole so that it doesn’t vaporize Manhattan, Bruce Banner’s anguish and dread of the thought of what “the other guy” might do to bystanders, or Captain America literally shielding German civilians from Loki’s wrath, or Captain America coming up with tactical plans designed primarily to contain the damage to the city, or Captain America engaging with first responders to make sure that civilians get evacuated from the combat zone, or Captain America throwing himself on a grenade (again) to save people – and all of this is crucial to why audiences responded to these characters.
And I think this gets to what I find so frustrating about Bunch’s implied argument that “gritty and realistic” is a better way for superhero movies to go. Yes, it’s probably true that Man of Steel is a more realistic depiction of urban combat than Age of Ultron – but superhero movies, should be better than just depicting reality, because they’re superhero movies and not military action movies. What makes a superhero different from a private detective or a gunslinger or a war hero is that they’re allowed to be larger-than-life both in terms of their abilities, but also in terms of their moral characters, and of embodying certain ideals. I’m not necessarily on board with Grant Morrison’s “superheroes are modern gods” thing, but as readers of this blog know, I really do think Captain America is supposed to represent America at its best. Likewise, Daredevil’s supposed to be the lone man without fear standing up against the Man in defense of Hell’s Kitchen, and Superman’s supposed to be about Truth, Justice and the American Way.
So yeah, the Avengers’ insistence on saving every last civilian in Sokovia – even at risk of their own lives – isn’t the way that wars are fought. That’s the point. It’s the way that wars should be fought.
Ms. Ziedrich, a high school debater who specialized in the parliamentary style and still helps coach her former team, said that all the attention she is garnering from those on the right (who thought she was rude) and those on the left (who want to canonize her) is confounding given her own political journey. Growing up in Northern California, she considered herself a conservative like her mother and father, who is a loyal Fox News viewer.
Then she identified as a libertarian and, ultimately, as Democratic, influenced by her time spent debating and by books like Howard Zinn’s “A People’s History of the United States.”
There we have it. When people read and learn about the world, they become less conservative. When students read, especially radical texts like Zinn, they start questioning the world around them. That might lead to them to challenging power like Ziedrich just did. And we can’t be having that now. So instead, let’s eliminate the humanities entirely and get everyone majoring in business so that our elites can continue their wars and their exploitation of the world’s workers without pushback from the plebs.
Because these are stickers of women and not real women. Real women do not belong in binders. I did not think that needed to be clarified, but I’ve been wrong in the past.
Vickie Moore illustrates classic library catalog cards with depictions of what the book is about. As a graduate student studying for my masters of information and library science degree, I am particularly fond of these lovely creations! Check out her shop Winged World on Etsy.
This book from our collection just goes to show that even in 1885, women were hilarious and wanted everyone to know it. It’s easy to think that women in comedy is a relatively new thing, but Kate Sanborn was one of the pioneering female humorists of her time.
The Wit of Women is a book entirely dedicated to humorous things women have written or said. This book certainly touches on the unfortunately persistent idea that women “just aren’t funny”. Ms. Sanborn turns that idea on its head when she writes that humor was difficult to gather for this book, “not because there is so little, but because there is so much.”
-Kelly
Sanborn, Kate. The wit of women. New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1885.
That was the first time in a lifetime of near-constant consumption of cinema that I’ve been sitting in a packed, darkened movie theatre, watching some massive, bombastic blockbuster action movie, sensing the excitement, the rapt gaze of a predominantly male audience, and thought to myself…
This movie isn’t just tipping its hat to women so we won’t feel excluded. This movie is *for women*.
Fury Road features some of the most fierce and violent and brutal and vivid and compelling imagery I’ve watched in any movie, ever, and it also just happens to be one the most warmly and thoroughly feminist films I’ve ever seen, from any genre.
Missy is so right! A legend like her shouldn’t be lumped together with a new up and comer like Paul McCartney
Paul who?
You remember Jesse McCartney? That’s his grandfather.
HES A FUCKING BEATLE. HOW DO YOU NOT KNOW THIS.
How do you think Jesse McCartney would feel knowing you’re calling his grandfather derogatory terms like “a beatle” ?
OMFG. YOU PEOPLE ARE SO FUCKING STUPID. EVER HEARD OF A BAND CALLED THE BEATLES? ONE OF THE BEST THING TO HAPPEN TO AMERICA DURING THE BRITISH INVASION? PAUL MCCARTNEY WAS ONE OF THEM. YALL NEED TO LEARN YOUR HISTORY ON MUSIC BEFORE YOU EVER SPEAK AGAIN.
Are they new?
does paul bacardi even have an album out
What about a mixtape?
I thought rupaul McCartney was a drag queen
The Beatles were a mediocre band lol
Paul mcCartney isnt jesses grandfather for 1. 2. He was a memver of the band “the beatles” in the 1960’s 3. Missy elliot is less a legend than paul. He is a visionary. But no. Neither of them should be lumped together with anyone new
Call me when Jesse’s grandfather does a masterpiece to the level of Work it
He already has. Many masterpieces. Many many masterpieces. And hes fucking gloriouse.
I mean I would only say he has one masterpiece, not “many many” and that’s mostly because rihanna and kanye were on the song
No. Considering hes been making masterpieces in music since the 1960’s hes alot better. And i stand by that. Because tbh. I dont like kanye. And pauls been around for much longer. Masterpieces like: “Yellow submerine” “Hey jude” (my favorite actually) “Words of love” “Love me do” “Strawberry fields forever” “All you need is love” (one of the most popular 60’s-70’s songs of all time) “We can work it out” “Hello, goodbye” “Cant buy me love”
And ALOT more. They were one of the most beloved bands. and they were amazing. still r. paul even has his own solo records. Has for a while. And hes not in any way related to jesse mcCartney. If he were he’d be disappointed.
I don’t know, Jesse was on Suite Life once I think his grandfather paul would be proud
Can’t be that good if his grandson is better known than him. Have you heard Jesse McCartney “Because you Live”? shit is fire. Paul Blart sounds boring.
Disney is making a movie featuring the first African princess & she’s going to be white. Not only that but it’s based on true story of an attempt of modern day colonialism of a father who thought it would be cute to declare land on African soil as his own so his daughter can be princess.
I am pissed.
boycotting this. Above is the film writer’s twitter, let her hear your thoughts. #PrincessOfNorthSudan
Hold on, I’d like to reiterate that this movie is not just Disney fantasy. This white guy really did go to Sudan, claim land there, and tried to become a king. He’s even tried to crowd fund for his nation.
I’m pissed at this. I really am. The land is not uninhabited; there are indigenous people living there. It belongs to them. Whatever the international laws say, this white guy has no right to claim what doesn’t belong to him. It’s bull!
I literally thought this has been scrapped and debunked like six months ago but oh my god.
White folk; the world knows what you’re about now, we’re not going to let you do this.
But guys… He did this for his daughter… He just wanted to make her happy. please stop being so mean..yes I know what he did was wrong on some terms but it sounds like he was just joking at first to please his little girl but ended up to deep. And the land was open land yeah? And he wasn’t disturbing anyone either right? And please stop using ‘white people’ and ‘white folks’ Im not trying to be mean or rude,but with everything going on we don’t need conflict on this site.also just take a breather yeah? Have a good day c:
THE ARTICLE LITERALLY SAID THAT AFRICAN TRIBES LIVE IN THAT AREA.
But…but guys he is totally just doing this for his daughter. The world is your playground and fuck those native people who have lived there for generations. Don’t be so mean, gosh. (✿◠‿◠) - you
The European Commission (EC) has finally confirmed what we've all known for years: if you shut down one online piracy site, another will simply take its place. A report published by the EC's Joint Research Center found that the closure of Kino.to, a ...
We couldn't believe the horrible things people say – or the misogynistic assumptions their judgments reveal.
Super Opinionated.
