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Report: Justice Department to Condemn Racially Biased Policing in Ferguson

by DeniseLoymlz Posted on March 2, 2015

Mother Jones

The US Department of Justice may have passed on filing federal charges against former Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson after he shot and killed Michael Brown in the St. Louis suburb last summer, but the department isn’t letting the city’s police force totally off the hook. According to the New York Times, the DOJ is about to release a report that accuses the Ferguson Police Department—and the city itself—of systemically mistreating the community’s African American population with discriminatory traffic stops; disproportionate ticketing, arrests, and court fines; and physical abuse at the hands of police officers.

According to the Times‘ Matt Apuzzo, the DOJ will recommend a series of changes at the department. If the city doesn’t agree, the DOJ could sue to force reforms. The DOJ has court-backed agreements with nearly two dozen police departments around the country (including the island-wide force in Puerto Rico), and is fighting four other departments in court over proposed changes.

If the Times is right, the report will bolster and likely add to information that has been documented in the past by activists, advocates, and at least one state-level agency in Missouri. As Mother Jones reported in September 2014, fines and court fees are Ferguson’s second-larges revenue source, and warrants were issued in 2013 at a rate of three per household (25,000 in a city of 21,000 people).

Another Mother Jones report—based off findings from the Missouri Attorney General’s office—noted that in 2013 in Ferguson, 86 percent of traffic stops and 92 percent of searches of individuals involved African American. That’s in a city that’s around 60% black (and one that had, at the time of Brown’s death, just three black police officers). Despite the cops’ focus on Ferguson’s black residents, just one in five black people police searched were found to be carrying contraband. For white people, that number was one in three.

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Report: Justice Department to Condemn Racially Biased Policing in Ferguson

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Contact: Guitar Wunderkind Blake Mills

by NoellaPride Posted on February 24, 2015

Mother Jones

Photographs by Jacob Blickenstaff

The 28-year-old California native Blake Mills has been playing guitar with a singular focus since he was 10. As a high school kid he cofounded, with Taylor Goldsmith, the band Simon Dawes—which would reform as Dawes following Mill’s 2007 departure.

Over the years, Mills has established a rep as a top guitar talent. Eric Clapton has called his playing “phenomenal” and Rick Rubin described it as “breathtaking.” A musician’s musician, he’s been hired for touring and session work with Kid Rock, Fiona Apple, Julian Casablancas, Jenny Lewis, Jackson Browne, Neil Diamond, Conor Oberst, Ed Sheeran, and Norah Jones.

His two albums as a songwriter, 2010’s Break Mirrors and last year’s major label debut Heigh Ho, featured contributions from his contemporaries as well as legendary elder statesmen, including drummer Jim Keltner, bassists Don Was and Mike Elizondo, and pianist Benmont Tench. He’s also becoming a sought-after producer and was recently tapped to work with Alabama Shakes on their highly anticipated second album, Sound & Color.

I photographed and spoke with Mills in Los Angeles at the home of producer and frequent collaborator Tony Berg.

Mother Jones: Many notables regard you as a great player. For someone who’s gone so deeply into your instrument, have you discovered certain ways of practicing that are particularly effective?

Blake Mills: I think I had a way of practicing when I wasn’t sitting with an instrument, thinking about things at such length that they ingrained themselves into my musical vocabulary so I could draw from that in an improvisational situation. Earlier on, when the things that began to really resonate with me and fascinate me started to surface, it was a kind of catharsis. Anything we were studying in school, like math, or understanding somebody’s behavior outside of school, kind of worked its way into something I could understand by way of a musical experience I’d had or something I’d heard.

MJ: So music became the lens for how you viewed and processed everything?

BM: It was the common denominator, like a first language—the Rosetta Stone that I keep going back to. Maybe that helps to keep the enthusiasm. You can get really burned out and apathetic if you listen to too much music. If you go out to shows and you hear some of the shit that comes out, it can be soul-crushing just to be exposed to it, let alone work on it or be around it for a living. It’s the most surprising thing that I’ve encountered since the experience of putting a record out with a major label and touring and everything: the need for the protecting yourself from things that take away your energy.

MJ: As you create songs and albums, do you think of it as slowly establishing a body of work?

BM: I don’t know if I think about it like that. My favorite experiences have all been finding myself at one point in a timeline and going in both directions, just discovering at my own pace. If I could admit to be playing some kind of long game, and strategizing this, I would. I think my role as a musician is much more reactionary than that of the creative personality type who locks himself in a tower and then comes out with Pet Sounds or something. I just respond to stimuli more than anything.

MJ: You could easily be out there doing front-and-center, face-melting guitar stuff—but what’s remarkable about both of these albums is that you use your abilities in the service of a bigger picture. You’re seem unconcerned with pyrotechnics.

BM: Yeah, I’m not sure if I’ve ever felt like there was an appropriate time to approach my own songs and add that thing to it. I remember being 16 or 17 and going apeshit for that kind of playing: Yngwie Malmsteen or Steve Vai. I was just going, “How do these guys do it?” And then you sit down with one of those passages and learn it, and you go, “Oh, I can do it.” But when you sit down with the chords to Gershwin’s “Someone to Watch Over Me,” or Kurt Weill’s “September Song” and the piece of music doesn’t give you any more insight into how a song like that is written or created. There’s something so much more fascinating and mysterious to me about where those things come from than the playing. There are things on this record where people will go, “I’m not sure where the guitar playing is on it.”

MJ: You play a lot in nonstandard tunings and really just have your own way of doing things. How did you discover those techniques?

BM: Using slide was a big precursor for me into the open tunings. There were a lot of things about Derek Trucks, Ry Cooder, Elmore James and Kokomo Arnold, this huge era of guys who all played slide in certain dialects. I had the benefit of the internet when I was growing up, so I was listening to all the live tapes of Derek Trucks‘ band that I could get ahold of, and reading interviews, and seeing that the people he was listening to were the same people I was listening to.

I grew up playing with a guy named Bob Brozman, who was a world-music guitar player. He’d just go around the globe and make these beautiful records with different musicians, spoke something like 11 or 12 languages. He turned me on to a lot of the Middle Eastern and West African players that shaped a large part of the vocabulary of what I do.

At the same time, my finger got fucked up, crushed in a door, and it was in one of those metal splints. So I started playing slide. And the open tuning thing just came with the package. Then I started thinking, I’ll be a better slide player if I really demystify this tuning. I should try some of the things, just a verbatim sort of transfer over to the open tuning, and see what it does.

MJ: What’s the most difficult part about playing for you, the thing you really have to slog through to make progress?

BM: Staying enthused about finding things; discovering new beauty in the world that can translate into music. That’s the most precious sort of resource. You have to pull stuff from outside of the musical realm. Whatever muscle it is that it takes to listen to music and stay focused, in me, is really strong. I don’t have a problem working 14 hours a day and still have ears and have a brain to mix afterwards. But I don’t have the same strength to actively pursue and stay enthused about things like literature and movies and a social life—things that enhance the music, and the person. I don’t want to become this lazy person, a guy who thinks in terms of New Year’s resolutions. I really do want to see a change in myself in certain ways, but I want to figure out exactly what they are and not have it be like a diet that I’m trying.

That’s the most alarming thing to me. I’m 28, and the world just starts to look like a different place as you start realizing, “Okay, now you’re 35, now you’re 40, and it’s no longer the thing where, “He’s really young, and he’s good.” I want to be good at something else that feels a little more private, a little more personal. That I think that will ultimately be more valuable, looking at everything, if I make it to 50 or 60 or 70.

Jacob Blickenstaff

MJ: I guess that’s what I’m sensing with the albums. These are attempts at a whole process. They’re not guitar records, they’re not even just songwriter records. There’s a lot of depth to the sound.

BM: The most attractive thing that I’ve seen in the creative realm is the enthusiasm in people that does not seem to burn out. That’s what I’m after. Fuck, I can’t tell you how amazing it would to be able to be to call from memory the Schubert Lieder or Bach Etudes and be able to play them at the level of Chris Thile or Edgar Myer. I’m surrounded by guys who are some of the best musicians on their instruments that there ever were. It’s a heavy, heavy concept. And they all seem to enjoy something other than the celebration of that ability. When we get together, we play Dylan songs.

When you have the catalog of work, it doesn’t feel like you’ve got one shot to get it right; it’s just like, you’re making a new document of something at the present time, and it’s a living thing, and it changes. It’s been cool to help other people make their records, to produce. You get a crash course in things that you don’t get as the artist.

MJ: What was it like producing the Alabama Shakes?

BM: It was an amazing experience. It was such a serendipitous combination, because there aren’t a lot of bands that I’ve ever heard of who have the kind of success on the first record that they did, and then chose to be as daring and challenging as they did on their second record. Instead of trying to figure out how to capitalize on it, or keep the pace, they were energized and wanted to make a record that checked all the boxes of the honest things that worked for the forces of good. I’m worthless in a conversation of, “Well, what about the radio? Let’s listen to five records that sold really well last year.” I would way rather be on the side of something that is beautiful and never catches on than the alternative. Not that there’s one alternative, but there’s definitely some stuff you can end up in that I would be embarrassed with myself for doing.

In Close Contact is an independent documentary project on music, musicians, and creativity. Visit InCloseContact.com for extended interviews and more photography.

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Contact: Guitar Wunderkind Blake Mills

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We Lock Up Tons of Innocent People—and Charge Them for the Privilege

by BernadiD30 Posted on February 17, 2015

Mother Jones

The United States has a prison problem. We have just 5 percent of the world’s population but 25 percent of its prisoners. Even though our imprisonment rate has grown more than 400 percent since 1970, locking people up has not proved to be a deterrent.

The prison problem also extends to jails, which hold defendants awaiting trial and prisoners sentenced for minor offenses. A new report from the Vera Institute of Justice, a nonprofit focused on justice policy, reports that America’s local jails, which hold roughly 731,000 people on any given day, are holding more people even though the crime rate is going down. Jails disproportionately detain people of color longer and for lesser crimes. The report also finds that jails are less likely to give inmates the rehabilitation and mental-health support that could keep them out of prison.

Inside the Wild, Shadowy, and Highly Lucrative Bail Industry

“I observe injustice routinely. Nonetheless even I—as this report came together—was jolted by the extent to which unconvicted people in this country are held in jail simply because they are too poor to pay what it costs to get out,” writes Vera president and director Nicholas Turner. He described poor detention practices in which the mentally ill, homeless, and substance abusers are routinely jailed for bad behavior and described the practice as “destructive to individuals, their families, and entire communities.”

The 46-page report paints a devastating portrait of American jails. Here are a few quick takeaways:

1. The number of people going to jail is going up while crime rates are falling: In 1983, roughly 6 million people were admitted to a local jail. That number grew to roughly 11.7 million in 2013. Meanwhile, crime rates have been dropping. See Vera’s chart:

Jail admissions rates include people who’ve gone to jail more than once—recidivism is a separate, but related issue—but even factoring that in, more people are going to jail. The report speculates that this is tied to arrests for drug crimes: In 1983, drug defendants and inmates made up less than 10 percent of local jail populations but by 2002 they accounted for 25 percent.

2. Jail time is getting longer: Once people land in jail, their average stay has increased nearly 65 percent, from 14 days to 23. This statistic doesn’t distinguish between pretrial detention and those serving actual jail terms, but, as the report notes, “the proportion of jail inmates that are being held pretrial has grown substantially in the last thirty years—from about 40 to 62 percent—it is highly likely that the increase in the average length of stay is largely driven by longer stays in jails by people who are unconvicted of any crime.”

3. People who go to jail often work less and earn less after getting out: Spending any time in jail can, and usually does, significantly alter someone’s ability to lead a normal life upon release. Plus, many jail inmates have to pay fees for laundry service, room and board, and even booking fees. Even if they’re later found innocent, they still must pay those bills, leaving many former defendants indebted to the system.

Consider Kevin Thompson, a Georgia man who had been jailed once and was jailed again for not paying $838 in traffic fines, court fees, and probation fees to a private probation company.

4. Lack of money is the main reason defendants sit in jail: The report comes to a depressing, if not surprising, conclusion: “Money, or the lack thereof, is now the most important factor in determining whether someone is held in jail pretrail. Almost everyone is offered monetary bail, but the majority of defendants cannot raise the money quickly or, in some cases, at all.” This leads to situations where people are stuck in jail for minor offenses. A 2010 Human Rights Watch report found that in about 19,000 criminal cases in New York City, many people couldn’t afford bail set at $1,000 or less. In some cases, the accused pled guilty early to get out of jail, even if they were innocent.

5. Society’s race problems are amplified by the local jail dynamic: The Vera report notes that about 38 percent of felony defendants will spend their entire pretrial periods in jail, but only one in 10 were denied bail in the first place. The rest, many of whom are African American men, simply can’t afford to post bail: “Black men appear to be caught in a cycle of disadvantage: incarcerated at higher rates and, therefore, more likely to be unemployed and/or in debt, they have more trouble posting bail.”

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We Lock Up Tons of Innocent People—and Charge Them for the Privilege

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How In the World Did This Man Raise $12 Million to Draft Ben Carson?

by Amilianp2t Posted on February 2, 2015

Mother Jones

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Dr. Ben Carson, the neurosurgeon, author, tea party hero, and Stuck On You star, is contemplating a presidential bid in 2016. He’s being cheered on by conservative activists—and by the National Draft Ben Carson for President Committee, a super PAC founded in 2013 to urge Carson to run. The PAC sends out emails touting Carson, gathers signatures for petitions aimed at coaxing him into the race, and it raises money from conservatives enthralled with the prospect of a Carson presidency. A lot of money. According to Federal Election Commission filings, the Draft Carson PAC has raised an impressive $12.2 million since its founding—slightly more than Ready for Hillary, the pro-Hillary Clinton super PAC. Draft Carson has, in fact, done very little besides fundraise.

The guy responsible for collecting and managing Draft Carson’s huge haul is Vernon Robinson, the PAC’s political director and a notorious, perennial candidate with a history of rabid anti-immigrant rhetoric. An African-American, ex-Air Force officer from North Carolina, Robinson has repeatedly run unsuccessful campaigns for Congress. He calls himself “the black Jesse Helms”—a comparison the director of the late senator’s foundation declared “sad.” His congressional campaign ads—one of which characterized undocumented immigrants as flag-burners and sex offenders—are so out-there that political science professors use them to illustrate mudslinging at its dirtiest. In 2006, a Republican running against Robinson in a House primary said that he “scares me.” But win or (almost always) lose, the common thread in his political career has been remarkable fundraising success, with a big chunk of the proceeds Robinson has raised flowing to a small camp of conservative fundraisers, and sometimes, himself.

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How In the World Did This Man Raise $12 Million to Draft Ben Carson?

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Dinesh D’Souza Says Obama Hasn’t Lived the "African American Experience" Because He Grew Up in Hawaii

by DeenaBumg Posted on January 21, 2015

Mother Jones

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Barack Obama is an African American man. He is black and he was born in Hawaii. He is the president of the United States.

Despite all this, conservative author and convicted felon Dinesh D’Souza tried to convince Fox News host Megyn Kelly on Monday that the president has not lived the “African American experience” for reasons that first included the president not having “descended from slaves on either side of his family.”

When asked for clarification, considering Obama indeed has “black skin and grew up in America as a black man,” as a rather shocked Kelly correctly noted, D’Souza answered, “Well he grew up in Hawaii.”

“That’s America!” Kelly reminded him.

Unable to put the breaks on his thought process, D’Souza trailed on with mentions of the president’s past trips to Indonesia and Kenya as further proof he has not lived the true African American experience.

“Oh come on Dinesh! That does not deprive him of the African American experience.”

This all follows a series of bizarre tweets from D’Souza, in which he compared himself to Martin Luther King Jr. and Obama to J. Edgar Hoover.

Monday’s segment concluded with our momentary hero, Megyn Kelly, asking D’Souza how his time holed up in a community confinement center after being convicted of campaign finance fraud was going.

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Dinesh D’Souza Says Obama Hasn’t Lived the "African American Experience" Because He Grew Up in Hawaii

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Charlie Hebdo Unveils First Cover Since Paris Massacre Featuring Image of Muhammad

by MeganCamarena Posted on January 13, 2015

Mother Jones

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Warning: An image of the controversial cover appears below.

Charlie Hebdo unveiled the cover illustration for its first issue following last week’s deadly attack on the magazine. The cover, for what is being dubbed the “survivors’ issue,” features an image of the Prophet Muhammad holding a “Je Suis Charlie” sign. The words “Tous Est Pardonné”—”All Is Forgiven”—hang above. A tear is falling from his eye.

“We don’t feel any hate to them,” cartoonist Zineb El Rhazoui, who survived the attack and worked on the new edition, told the BBC, referring to the terrorists. “We know that the struggle is not with them as people, but the struggle is with an ideology.” Asked if the cover might alienate Muslims who have spoken out against the violence and in support of the satirical magazine—after all, Islam prohibits the portrayal of Muhammad—she said that Islam ought to be treated like any other religion and that anyone who is offended need not buy the issue.

Charlie Hebdo‘s decision to print an image of the prophet appears to be in direct defiance of the two terrorists who executed 12 of the magazine’s staff members last week. Past covers in which the prophet was illustrated, many times in crude or offensive light, have drawn the ire of Muslims throughout the world, prompting repeated threats of violence against the controversial publication. Since the attack in Paris, various news outlets, including the New York Times and the Associated Press, said they would not be publishing Charlie Hebdo images depicting the prophet because of its “deliberately provocative” intent. Other publications, including the Washington Post and the Guardian, have gone ahead and published the latest cover, citing freedom of speech, the covers’ newsworthy element, and the special role that scorching satire has in French political and cultural life. For the Post, it is the first time a depiction of the prophet has appeared. Executive Editor Martin Baron said that although the paper prohibits material that is “deliberately” offensive, Charlie Hebdo‘s newest cover did not meet that measure; the Guardian explained it would be publishing this cover because of its “news value.”

While Charlie Hebdo has historically skewered all religions and various government figures, in the past few years, its editors have specifically targeted Islam. Given France’s fraught relations with its Muslim population, many have questioned whether Charlie Hebdo went too far, or as one French politician once put it, chose to “pour oil on the fire.” Following last week’s attack, Adam Shatz wrote in the London Book of Review:

Charlie Hebdo had an equal opportunity policy when it came to giving offense, but in recent years it had come to lean heavily on jokes about Muslims, who are among the most vulnerable citizens in France. Assia a pseudonym Shatz refers to in his piece does not believe in censorship, but wonders: “Is this really the time for cartoons lampooning the Prophet, given the situation of North Africans in France?”…If France continues to treat French men of North African origin as if they were a threat to “our” civilisation, more of them are likely to declare themselves a threat, and follow the example of the Kouachi brothers. This would be a gift both to Marine Le Pen and the jihadists, who operate from the same premise: that there is an apocalyptic war between Europe and Islam. We are far from that war, but the events of 7 January have brought us a little closer.

The issue is set for release January 14, with an estimated 3 million copies being printed. The normal circulation for the magazine has been 60,000.

Click for larger version. Charlie Hebdo

Update, January 14, 2015, 8:50 a.m. EST: After copies sell out in France, Charlie Hebdo raised its print run to 5 million.

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Charlie Hebdo Unveils First Cover Since Paris Massacre Featuring Image of Muhammad

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The 9 Best Cookbooks of 2014

by JillianSnelling Posted on December 20, 2014

Mother Jones

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Another year, another spate of brilliant cookbooks. Here are the ones that made the biggest impression on me, in no particular order.

Bitter: A Taste of the World’s Most Dangerous Flavor, with Recipes, by Jennifer McLagan. In 2005, nearly a decade before “bone broth” emerged as a craze, McLagan came out with Bones, a delicious defense of a culinary resource people normally discard. Three years later, when people like me were still mostly shunning the lard jar, she produced the equally excellent Fat, which she called an “appreciation of the misunderstood ingredient.” McLagan, perhaps the most idiosyncratic and underrated cookbook author of our time, has now trained her powers on the stuff that makes you grimace the first time it hits your palate: radicchio, dandelion greens, hops, brassicas, chicory, citrus zest, coffee, etc. “Without bitterness we lose a way to balance sweetness,” she instructs. “Food without bitterness lacks depth and complexity.” Bitter brims with luminous mini-essays on the science and philosophy of taste, and delivers dozens of straight-ahead recipes that teach us to tame and celebrate the most challenging of the five basic flavors.

Great gift for: People with adventurous palates.
Killer dish: Dandelion salad with hot bacon and mustard dressing.
Dish I’m dying to try: Pork chop (bone-in, fat lined) in coffee and black currant sauce.

Bar Tartine: Techniques & Recipes, by Nick Balla and Cortney Burns. Based on a single meal several years ago, I’ve always assumed San Francisco’s Bar Tartine—sister to the justly venerated Tartine Bakery—specialized in simple bistro food. So I wasn’t overly excited when this substantial, beautifully produced tome arrived. But rather than deliver yet more versions of steak frites or coq au vin, the book reads like a manifesto written by radical gourmet homesteaders—one of the weirdest and most compelling cookbooks I’ve picked up in years. I got lost in the rabbit warrens of the opening “projects kitchen” section, where the authors lay out in detail all the stuff they make from scratch. “Our dairy program began humbly—with yogurt, sour cream, and kefir—and evolved to include all the products we currently use: blue cheese, pepper Jack, gouda, triple creams, feta, and fresh cheeses such as mozzarella, goat cheese, and farmers cheese,” the authors declare. Whoa. Ever wondered how to make your own kefir butter? Balla and Burns have you covered. I had never heard of “black garlic” before. Turns out, “holding garlic at 130 F for two to three weeks renders the cloves as black as tar.” Is that a good thing? “All of the characteristic sharpness disappears and is replaced with a molasses-like sweetness and an aroma reminiscent of licorice.” Then there’s the spice mixes. Forget, say, homemade curry powder. Think “charred eggplant spice,” a powder that “tastes like the pure flavor of earth and smoke” (other elements: charred, dehydrated chile peppers, huitlachoche—a corn fungus—and green onions.) Surprisingly simple (but never obvious) recipes follow the opening section’s wild innovations. I predict this book will be seducing and flummoxing me for years. Also, I’ve got to get myself back to Bar Tartine.

Great gift for: Anyone with radical gourmet homesteader tendencies; and jaded home cooks in search of inspiration.
Killer dish: Chilled beet soup with coriander & yogurt.
Dish I’m dying to try: Someday? Smoked potatoes in black garlic vinaigrette with ramp mayonnaise.

Plenty More: Vibrant Vegetable Cooking from London’s Ottolenghi, by Yotam Ottolenghi. Have we reached peak Ottolenghi? That was my question when I cracked the latest from the ubiquitous London chef, whose classics Plenty and Jerusalem seem to grace the shelves of most everyone I know, and won a spot in my 2012 best-of list. Known for his colorful, vibrant, vegetable-centered Mediterranean fare, the London-based, Israeli-born chef has been profiled in The New Yorker and interviewed on every foodie podcast. Does he have anything more to say? Hell, yes. Plenty More ventures farther afield from the author’s native Mediterranean region than his other works, copping techniques and ingredients from Thailand, Iran, India, and more. It draws you in with the delectable photography, and keeps you hooked with irresistible combinations: oranges and dates; beets with avocado and peas; leeks with goat cheese and currants; and so on. Ottolenghi isn’t a vegetarian, but he’s a wizard of vegetables, and a master at conjuring up hearty meals by combining them with grains and legumes.

Great gift for: Anyone who thinks vegetarian food is boring; anyone who likes to cook and eat.
Killer dish: Pea and mint croquettes.
Dish I’m dying to try: Fried umpa (an Indian semolina porridge) with poached eggs

Honorable mentions

• In Afro-Vegan: Farm Fresh African, Caribbean & Southern Flavors Remixed, the Bay Area writer/chef/activist Bryan Terry pulls off a mean feat: He uses stylish, spicy vegan fare—light on tofu and heavy on grains, greens, and legumes—to lure readers into recognizing the “centrality of African-diasporic people in defining the tastes, ingredients, and classic dishes of the original modern global fusion cuisine—Southern food.” Terry’s argument is unassailable—as convincing as his gorgeous peanut stew with winter vegetable and cornmeal dumplings.

• Despite the ongoing gluten-free fad, bread is having its day, as are books on baking. No home baker will want to miss In Search of the Perfect Loaf, in which the food politics writer and editor Sam Fromartz visits the epicenters of the global baking renaissance—Paris, Berlin, San Francisco, etc.—talking to its main characters and committing an epic and appealing nerd-out (with recipes) in service of home-cooked leavened dough. In Josey Baker Bread, San Francisco’s most celebrated young baker (yes, his name and vocation are identical) shows us how the pros do it.

• San Francisco’s The Slanted Door is a fancy restaurant that applies Vietnamese techniques and condiments to Northern California’s bounty. The Slanted Door, by chef-owner Charles Phan, is a surprisingly unfussy guide to working the restaurant’s magic at home.

• For the drinkers on your list, American Spirit is a spirited guide to what author James Rodewald calls the nascent “craft distilling revolution.” At the center of Rodwald’s book is a scandal. Because of loose labeling laws, most of the “artisanal” liquor on the market involves clever businesspeople “rebottling something that had been made at a larger distiller and calling it their own.” Rodewald profiles the (still relatively few) mavericks who actually are producing their own hooch—and teases out the considerable challenges of making great whiskey and other spirits on a small scale in an industry dominated by liquor giants and false marketing.

• After reading Rodewald, you’ll want to sip something stiff. Death & Co.—a sumptuous cocktail manual from the instant-legend East Village speakeasy of the same name—delivers dozens upon dozens of ideas for taking the edge off in high style. I can’t imagine a more comprehensive snapshot of the mixology craze.

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The 9 Best Cookbooks of 2014

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I Was There When an Undercover Cop Pulled a Gun on Unarmed Protesters in Oakland. Here’s How It Happened.

by ceramide-capsules1 Posted on December 13, 2014

Mother Jones

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Over the past 24 hours, photos showing a plainclothes police officer pulling a gun on unarmed protesters in Oakland have gone viral. Tens of thousands of people, and news outlets like Gawker, Buzzfeed, The Guardian, and NBC have shared them, often including outraged comments. But there have been few accounts of what exactly happened, and how the incident came to pass.

I was one of the few reporters with the protesters at that point, around 11:30 p.m., and what I saw may add some useful context.

The protest was the latest in a series that have filled the streets of Berkeley and Oakland in the past couple of weeks in response to the lack of indictments for the officers who had killed Mike Brown and Eric Garner. (I covered most of them via Twitter.) Marchers generally remained peaceful. Sometimes they overtook highways and blocked intersections. Parents pushed strollers, students kept stride with older marchers, and people from all across the Bay Area joined in. But there was also infighting among the crowds, and breakaway factions looted stores, smashed windows, and burned trash cans. Police officers responded with tear gas, flash-bang grenades, and fired non-lethal bullets*, and their actions were often met with outrage.

Protesters run after police set off flashbang grenades in Oakland, Calif. Gabrielle Canon

Wednesday night seemed as if it was going to end differently. Organizers with hoarse voices rallied the crowd of some 150 with updates on the movement that they said was building across the country. They presented a petition listing demands, including for Darren Wilson to be indicted and protesters who’d been arrested to be released without charges. Starting at the Berkeley campus, the group marched peacefully toward Oakland as a rainstorm approached.

A little girl rides along on her stroller, chanting in a march last week. Gabrielle Canon

About 10:30 p.m., a small group from within the march broke windows at a T-Mobile store and smashed Bank Of America ATMs. Protesters blocked photographers documenting the violence, pushing us and putting their hands in front of lenses.

Marching floods into the streets in Berkeley, CA early on Wednesday night Gabrielle Canon

Shortly after this, police presence increased. Squad cars and white vans full of officers followed the march slowly as announcements rang out over a police intercom informing protesters that police were there for their protection and that their right to demonstrate was being respected. They also warned that any vandalism or violence would lead to citation or arrest.

According to reporter David DeBolt, writing for Inside Bay Area, officials say it was then that two undercover officers joined the march, both wearing dark handkerchiefs and hoods that covered their faces. I had not seen them earlier, and they did not appear in any of the photos I took.

A marcher does a different take on “Hands up don’t shoot” Gabrielle Canon

Suddenly, behind me, someone started to yell. A protester had discovered the undercover cops and shouted an alarm. Others began to join in, calling them pigs and telling them to go home. The two men passed me in silence, at a hurried pace. Suddenly, a scuffle erupted as one protester attempted to pull off one of the officer’s hoods. The officer tackled someone involved, and was quickly surrounded by a small crowd and kicked from several directions while on the ground. (That officer, who was African American, is who you see in the ground in the photo above.) The other officer stepped in front of his partner and brandished a baton. When the crowd did not back up he drew his gun, pointing at protesters and photographers. Moments later, police flooded the area, scattering marchers and blocking others, as the undercover officers arrested the man who had been tackled in the skirmish.

Protester in Oakland, CA Gabrielle Canon

DeBolt reports the undercover officers were later identified as members of California Highway Patrol, assigned to follow the march on foot. They had been following in a vehicle providing information to stop protesters from blocking highways. Officials said in a press conference that the agency is investigating the incident, but believes the officers did what was necessary to protect themselves. They said that undercover cops had been deployed in prior protests and would be again, and that Twitter accounts had also been used to gather information.

The incident and photo have sparked anger and questions about police tactics in crowd control. Protesters are expected to resume marching over the weekend throughout the Bay Area and I will send out updates on Twitter as events unfold.

Correction: An earlier version of this article erroneously stated the location from which nonlethal bullets were fired. The language has been changed to fix the error.

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I Was There When an Undercover Cop Pulled a Gun on Unarmed Protesters in Oakland. Here’s How It Happened.

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Thurgood Marshall Blasted Police for Killing Black Men With Chokeholds

by LiamF34ixjhgs Posted on December 4, 2014

Mother Jones

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Early on the morning of October 6, 1976, 24-year-old Adolph Lyons was pulled over by two Los Angeles police officers for driving with a burned-out tail light. As the facts of the incident were later recounted by Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, “The officers greeted him with drawn revolvers as he exited from his car. Lyons was told to face his car and spread his legs. He did so.” After an officer slammed his hands against his head, Lyons complained that the keys in his hand were hurting him.

What happened next nearly killed him:

Within 5 to 10 seconds, the officer began to choke Lyons by applying a forearm against his throat. As Lyons struggled for air, the officer handcuffed him, but continued to apply the chokehold until he blacked out. When Lyons regained consciousness, he was lying face down on the ground, choking, gasping for air, and spitting up blood and dirt. He had urinated and defecated. He was issued a traffic citation and released.

Lyons, who was African-American, sued the Los Angeles Police Department for damages and asked a federal judge to enjoin the further use of chokeholds except in circumstances where they might prevent a suspect from seriously injuring or killing someone. Lyons also argued that his constitutional rights had been violated by being subjected to potentially deadly force without due process.

His case, Los Angeles v. Lyons, eventually made it to the Supreme Court. In April 1983, the justices ruled against Lyons 5 to 4. The majority punted on the question of whether chokeholds are constitutional, instead finding that Lyons lacked standing to sue the LAPD since he could not prove that he might be subjected to a chokehold again.

Writing in dissent, Marshall blasted this as absurd: “Since no one can show that he will be choked in the future, no one—not even a person who, like Lyons, has almost been choked to death—has standing to challenge the continuation of the policy.” Lyon’s lawyer said the ruling turned any encounter with the police into a deadly game of chance. “The LAPD regulations mean Lyons everyday plays a game of roulette,” Michael Mitchell said. “The wheel has 100,000 slots. If the ball should fall in your slot, you die.”

In his opinion, Marshall presented a clear-eyed appraisal of the reckless use of chokeholds—a pattern of abuse most recently illustrated by the choking death of Eric Garner at the hands of a New York City cop. Marshall noted that three-quarters of the 16 people killed by LAPD chokeholds in less than a decade were black. Despite their dangers, LA cops applied chokeholds with indifference: One officer described suspects “doing the chicken” while being deprived of oxygen. Officers did not recognize that chokeholds induce a flight response that may be perceived as willful resistance, and trainers did not tell rookie cops that chokeholds can kill in less than a minute.

Some excerpts from Marshall’s findings:

Although the city instructs its officers that use of a chokehold does not constitute deadly force, since 1975 no less than 16 persons have died following the use of a chokehold by an LAPD police officer. Twelve have been Negro males …

It is undisputed that chokeholds pose a high and unpredictable risk of serious injury or death. Chokeholds are intended to bring a subject under control by causing pain and rendering him unconscious. Depending on the position of the officer’s arm and the force applied, the victim’s voluntary or involuntary reaction, and his state of health, an officer may inadvertently crush the victim’s larynx, trachea, or hyoid. The result may be death caused by either cardiac arrest or asphyxiation. An LAPD officer described the reaction of a person to being choked as “doing the chicken,” in reference apparently to the reactions of a chicken when its neck is wrung. The victim experiences extreme pain. His face turns blue as he is deprived of oxygen, he goes into spasmodic convulsions, his eyes roll back, his body wriggles, his feet kick up and down, and his arms move about wildly. …

The training given LAPD officers provides additional revealing evidence of the city’s chokehold policy. Officer Speer testified that in instructing officers concerning the use of force, the LAPD does not distinguish between felony and misdemeanor suspects. Moreover, the officers are taught to maintain the chokehold until the suspect goes limp, despite substantial evidence that the application of a chokehold invariably induces a “flight or flee” syndrome, producing an involuntary struggle by the victim which can easily be misinterpreted by the officer as willful resistance that must be overcome by prolonging the chokehold and increasing the force applied. In addition, officers are instructed that the chokeholds can be safely deployed for up to three or four minutes. Robert Jarvis, the city’s expert who has taught at the Los Angeles Police Academy for the past 12 years, admitted that officers are never told that the bar-arm control can cause death if applied for just two seconds. Of the nine deaths for which evidence was submitted to the District Court, the average duration of the choke where specified was approximately 40 seconds.

While the case was being considered, the LAPD temporarily suspended its use of the bar-arm hold, where pressure is applied to the windpipe, and the carotid chokehold, where pressure is applied to the carotid artery. (Lyons had been subjected to a carotid hold.) LAPD Chief Daryl Gates also announced that his department was investigating whether carotid chokeholds were more likely to kill African-Americans for physiological reasons. As the chief explained in November 1982, “We may be finding that in some blacks when it the hold is applied, the veins and arteries do not open as fast as they do in normal people.”

Gates hailed the Supreme Court’s subsequent ruling in Lyons as vindication that “this hold is not cruel and inhuman.” The court has yet to reconsider the constitutionality of chokeholds.

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Thurgood Marshall Blasted Police for Killing Black Men With Chokeholds

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5 Reasons Your Poll Worker Might Be Totally Clueless

by Emily Collins Posted on November 4, 2014

Mother Jones

During his acceptance speech after winning reelection, President Barack Obama thanked voters who endured hours-long long lines to cast their ballots. “By the way,” he added, “we have to fix that.” Trying to make good on that promise, Obama created a presidential commission that spent months digging into the dysfunctional American voting system. One of its many conclusions was, to put it bluntly, that the nation’s poll workers suck. As the report noted, “One of the signal weaknesses of the system of election administration in the United States is the absence of a dependable, well-trained trained corps of poll workers.”

Poll workers, most of whom are volunteers (who typically receive a small stipend), have immense power that far surpasses their standing in the local election bureaucracy. They often make decisions about whether an individual can vote and whether that vote actually gets counted—recall the infamous Florida “hanging chads” during the 2000 presidential election recount. Often they make these decisions poorly, and the people who bear the brunt of those bad decisions are disproportionately African-American and Latino, who often face chronically understaffed polling stations that lack trained workers and those who are bilingual.

If things are running less than smoothly at your polling place today, here are five reasons why the poll workers at your precinct might be clueless:

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5 Reasons Your Poll Worker Might Be Totally Clueless

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