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"Bloody Sunday" Was 49 Years Ago Today

by MahaliaSpangler Posted on March 7, 2014

Mother Jones

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On February 18, 1965, a young man named Jimmie Lee Jackson was shot and killed by a member of the Alabama State Police during a non-violent civil rights demonstration in Selma, Alabama.

Seventeen days later, 525 civil rights activists marched from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, in protest of that killing. They were attacked by state and local police armed with billy clubs, whips, and tear gas. (You can read the New York Times‘ entire horrifying account here.) That day—March 7, 1965—would come to be known as “Bloody Sunday.”

Here is President Obama’s statement marking the 49th anniversary:

Forty-nine years ago, a determined group of Americans marched into history, facing down grave danger in the name of justice and equality—walking to protest the continued discrimination and violence against African Americans. On a day that became known as “Bloody Sunday”, these brave men and women met billy-clubs and tear gas with courage and resolution. Their actions helped set an example for a generation to stand up for the fundamental freedoms due to all people. We recognize those who marched that day—and the millions more who have done their part throughout our nation’s history to bend the arc of the moral universe toward justice.

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"Bloody Sunday" Was 49 Years Ago Today

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NYC’s Unsolved Murder Victims Are Disproportionately Minorities

by Guadalupe Scharff Posted on January 6, 2014

Mother Jones

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Justice comes slower for homicide victims killed in New York’s poorer outer boroughs than it does for the denizens of rich, relatively homicide-free Manhattan.

That’s according to a New York Daily News investigation analyzing the number of homicide detectives the city assigns to assist local precincts during the critical first hours following a murder. The investigation also looked at how the city allocates the scarce resources of its cold case squad. Reporters found that there are 10 homicides detectives serving Manhattan South, an area where only 10 murders were reported in all of 2013—one homicide detective per case. By contrast, Brooklyn North, where 86 New Yorkers were murdered in 2013, has 17 homicide detectives—each handling an average of five cases.

The result is a staggering number of unsolved murders in Brooklyn, Queens, and Bronx precincts, the majority of which involve Latino or black victims. The News tallied 77 open murder investigations in Brooklyn, 39 in the Bronx, 26 in Queens, 15 in Manhattan, and two in Staten Island. The precincts with the most open murder cases are in Brookyln’s East Flatbush (10 out of 12 unsolved), Crown Heights, (nine out of 13 unsolved), and East New York (eight out of 17 unsolved) neighborhoods. The News found that 86 percent of last year’s homicides involving a white victim have been solved, compared with 45 percent of murders with a black victim and 56 percent of murders involving a Hispanic victim.

It’s not hard to figure out why such a disparity exists. “Manhattan is treated differently than the outer boroughs because that’s where the money is,” Joseph Giacalone, who retired last year as commanding officer of the Bronx Cold Case squad, told The News.

The scarcity of resources for murder investigations is partly explained by cuts and retirements that greatly reduced the number of detectives serving New York’s homicide and cold case squads. For example, there are roughly 1,500 unsolved homicides on the books in New York City. But the number of detectives working to make arrests in cold cases has plummeted, from 50 when the squad formed in 1996 to just eight today.

Still, the city’s clearance rate—the number of homicide arrests detectives make each year compared with the number of new homicides reported in the same time period—has averaged about 70 percent since the 1990s. Yet it’s the precincts in the poorer areas of outer boroughs have lagged behind badly. Manhattan homicides, Giacalone said, “get probably double the amount of cops that you see in Brooklyn…It’s just part of the deal.”

That is cold comfort to a person like Donna Rayside, whose son, Dustin Yeates, was killed in May in Brooklyn’s Flatland neighborhood. Police in that precinct, the 63rd, have not made an arrest in his case. “With eight killings in 2013, the 63rd precinct has among the fewest detectives per homicide in the entire city at 1.5, compared to most Manhattan precincts that have anywhere from five to 26 detectives per murder,” The News explains.

“It just seems like his case got swept under the rug,” Rayside told the Daily News. She is offering $8,000 of her own money for information that leads to the arrest of her son’s killer—as she fears police have dismissed her son’s slaying as merely “one black guy against another.”

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NYC’s Unsolved Murder Victims Are Disproportionately Minorities

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A Glitter-Covered Banner Got These Protesters Arrested for Staging a Bioterror Hoax

by dgod36 Posted on December 17, 2013

Mother Jones

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It’s not uncommon for environmental protesters to face arrest, but here’s an apparent first: On Friday, Oklahoma City police charged a pair of environmental activists with staging a “terrorism hoax” after they unfurled a pair of banners covered in glitter—a substance local cops considered evidence of a faux biochemical assault.

Stefan Warner and Moriah Stephenson, members of the environmental group Great Plains Tar Sands Resistance, were part of a group of about a dozen activists demonstrating at Devon Tower, the headquarters of fossil fuel giant Devon Energy. They activists were protesting the company’s use of fracking, its role in mining of Canada’s tar sands, and its ties to TransCanada, the energy company planning to construct the Keystone XL pipeline. As other activists blocked the building’s revolving door, Warner and Stephenson hung two banners—one a cranberry-colored sheet emblazoned with The Hunger Games “mockingjay” symbol and the words “The odds are never in our favor” in gold letters—from the second floor of the Devon Tower’s atrium.

Police who responded to the scene arrested Warner and Stephenson along with two other protesters. But while their fellow activists were arrested for trespassing, Warner and Stephenson were hit with additional charges of staging a fake bioterrorism attack. It’s an unusually harsh charge to levy against nuisance protestors. In Oklahoma, a conviction for a “terrorist hoax” carries a prison sentence of up to 10 years.

Oklahoma City police spokesman Captain Dexter Nelson tells Mother Jones that Devon Tower security officers worried that the “unknown substance” falling from the two banners might be toxic because of “the covert way the protesters presented themselves…A lot were dressed as somewhat transient-looking individuals. Some were wearing all black,” he says. “Inside the banners was a lot of black powder substance, later determined to be glitter.” In their report, Nelson says, police who responded to the scene described it as a “biochemical assault.” “Even the FBI responded,” he adds. A spokesman for Devon Energy declined to comment.

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A Glitter-Covered Banner Got These Protesters Arrested for Staging a Bioterror Hoax

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How Tallahassee Police Blew the Jameis Winston Case

by CaridadSleeman Posted on December 13, 2013

Mother Jones

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Last week, prosecutors in Tallahassee announced they would not press charges against Florida State quarterback Jameis Winston, over allegations he had raped a former FSU student in December of 2012. Investigators had sat on the case for almost a year, and an attorney for the accuser (who withdrew from school after coming forward) alleged that Tallahassee police had told her to tread carefully, because she was in a “big football town.” The press conference announcing that no charges would be filed was interrupted frequently by laughter from the (mostly male) attendees.

On Friday, the Tampa Bay Times broke down just how lax the Tallahassee Police Department’s investigation really was. After interviewing the accuser in January of 2013, police were presented with a number of obvious sources to follow up with: they knew the bar where she’d been drinking; they knew she’d taken a taxi; and they knew that a football player named “Chris” had walked in on the alleged rape. Among the details:

“More than 200 pages of documents showed no signs that police ever questioned anyone at the bar or requested surveillance footage. The bar had more than 30 cameras that could have shown how much the woman drank, if she interacted with Winston and whom she left with.”
“Police also seemed to quickly give up on finding the cab or its driver, though a specific company (Yellow Cab) was known to offer student discounts.”

“Back then, police also didn’t look for the freshman football player named Chris. A simple review of the Seminoles’ 2012 roster shows Chris Casher was the only true freshman on the team with that first name. Investigators later learned that Casher was Winston’s roommate and had walked in on the sexual activity—in part to record it on his cellphone. By the time investigators interviewed Casher in November, the recording had been deleted and the phone discarded.”

That last item may be the most damning—there was literally a video of the alleged crime and police never tried to find it.

That’s not to say Winston would have been found guilty. Maybe the leads investigators never followed might have led them to the same conclusion they ultimately drew. But the nature of the investigation made it clear that the odds were stacked against the accuser from the start. It would hardly be the first time.

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How Tallahassee Police Blew the Jameis Winston Case

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We’re Still at War: Photo of the Day for December 5, 2013

by ColinEllzey Posted on December 5, 2013

Mother Jones

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NANGAHAR PROVINCE, Afghanistan – U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Shelby Johnson scans the horizon Nov. 18, 2013, during a dismounted patrol from Forward Operating Base Torkham to an Afghan Border Police checkpoint near the village of Goloco. Johnson serves as a squad leader with Company C, 2nd Battalion, 30th Infantry Regiment, @4th Brigade 10th Mountain “Patriots”. The mission’s purpose was to establish partnerships with the ABP officers at the checkpoint. This partnership will enhance security for Afghans and Coalition Forces operating in the area. U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Eric Provost, Task Force Patriot PAO.

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We’re Still at War: Photo of the Day for December 5, 2013

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Italian mafia boss says pollution turned him into a police informant

by e0knk4m Posted on October 30, 2013

Italian mafia boss says pollution turned him into a police informant

By

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The Italian mob didn’t just murder its enemies. With its illegal dumping of toxic waste, it also condemned people living in and around Naples to cancer.

As the Italian Senate investigates links between toxic dumping and cancer clusters, a former mob boss is claiming that his disgust with the pollution prompted him to become a police informant. From the BBC:

Two decades ago doctors noticed that the incidence of cancer in towns around Naples was on the rise. Since then, the number of tumours found in women has risen by 40%, and those in men by 47%.

As senators investigate a possible link to the mafia — which secured lucrative contracts to dispose of waste, then dumped much of it illegally — one ex-mafia boss, Carmine Schiavone, looks on with particular interest.

He was once at the very heart of the criminal network that sowed the land with poison. He knows how much damage the mafiosi have done. …

He became what’s called a mafia pentito — “a penitent one”, siding with the police, and testifying for the state against his fellow mob bosses. …

But it seems that it was not the killing, in the end, that made him sick of his life of crime. What made him a pentito, he says, was his fear about the impact the Casalesi’s illegal dumping of waste was having on the land. …

“I did it when I knew that people were doomed to die from cancer. They had injected all this land — millions of cubic metres — with toxic substances. A scary cocktail.”

Too bad the victims and their families won’t be able to fuhgettaboutit.


Source
The toxic reason a mafia boss became a police informant, BBC

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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Italian mafia boss says pollution turned him into a police informant

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Japan’s utilities clamor to fire up nuke plants

by 85138uz Posted on July 8, 2013

Japan’s utilities clamor to fire up nuke plants

By John Upton

IAEA

International inspectors visiting Fukushima in April.

Fuku-what?

Two years after the Fukushima Daiichi meltdown, Japan’s government is inviting utilities to file the paperwork needed to fire back up their idled nuclear reactors. Never mind that many Japanese citizens think that’s a terrible idea.

Japan is home to 50 reactors, which provided about a third of the country’s electricity until the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami triggered the meltdown. Just two of those reactors are currently producing power, with the rest shut down as a precaution. But the number of operational reactors could gradually begin rising. From The Japan Times:

Japan on Monday reopened procedures to allow idled reactors to be brought back online, putting in place new nuclear regulations that reflect the lessons learned from the 2011 Fukushima No. 1 meltdown disaster.

While power utilities are expected to rush to file applications with the Nuclear Regulation Authority for safety assessments on a total of 10 reactors, none will be restarted anytime soon, because it may take around six months for each safety-screening process to finish.

Facing what the NRA calls the world’s toughest level of nuclear regulations, utilities may also opt to give up efforts to restart some of the country’s 50 commercial reactors and scrap them instead of investing in costly safety measures.

There is strong economic pressure within Japan to restart the nuke plants. From Bloomberg:

Tokyo Electric, Japan’s biggest utility better known as Tepco, said earlier this week that it would seek permission to start the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant as soon as possible. The utility, which had a 685.3 billion yen ($6.8 billion) loss last fiscal year, said in May 2012 that it would return to profit this year if it’s allowed to restart the reactors at the plant. …

Combined with rate increases planned for sometime before October, the restarts would enable those utilities to become profitable again during the fiscal year ending March 2015 by reducing their fuel bills, [energy analyst Hidetoshi] Shioda said.

Japan’s nine utilities with atomic plants reported combined losses of 1.59 trillion yen in the year ended March 31. Only Hokuriku Electric Power Co. posted a profit, ending the year 100 million yen ahead.

Japan has relied on traditional fuel sources to fill much of its energy gap since Fukushima, paying 24.7 trillion yen for fossil fuels in the year ended in March, up 36 percent from the 12 months before the disaster.

It’s been more than two years since the Fukushima accident, but the site of the meltdown remains a harrowing reminder of the dangers of nuclear power.

Tepco is still struggling to contain radioactive water used to cool radioactive rods at the crippled power plant. Groundwater under the plant was recently confirmed to be toxic. Out-of-work fishermen are being hired to pull fish from the sea for scientific tests — and those tests are finding that the fish are radioactive.

Some 150,000 people are still unable to return to their homes, and Fukushima Prefecture estimates that 1,415 evacuees have died in shelters since the accident — deaths that are being ruled disaster-related. Twenty-nine people are believed to have killed themselves in the wake of the tragedy.

From a Japan Times editorial published last month:

Thousands of protesters took to the streets last Sunday, rallying in Tokyo’s Shiba and Meiji parks and marching to the Diet area to protest against nuclear power. The organizers of the rally claimed that 60,000 people ringed the Diet Building, though the Metropolitan Police Department put the number at 20,000 to 30,000.

Whatever the exact number, the rally was another expression of deep-seated opposition to nuclear power in Japan. The central government should recognize rallies like this as an important expression of political opinion.

Unfortunately the government appears not to be listening. Neither are they paying attention to the countless problems with the cleanup of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, whose meltdown is Japan’s worst nuclear disaster.

The disaster has displaced some 150,000 people and left others living in fear of exposure to radiation. Every day, a new problem is announced by Tokyo Electric Power Co., whether it’s rats eating electric lines or another tank leaking radioactive water. The proposed solutions, whether to expand the number of storage tanks or to make frozen walls in the soil to lessen leakage, show little progress and much desperation.

Power companies and the central government do not seem to be listening to scientists, either.

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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As world marches against Monsanto, senators protect it from labeling laws

by gerdi Posted on May 27, 2013

As world marches against Monsanto, senators protect it from labeling laws

By John Upton

Any U.S. senators paying attention to what was happening in the entire world over the weekend may have noticed a teensy disconnect between their protectionist votes for Monsanto and global discontent with the GMO giant.

Steve Rhodes

Marching against Monsanto in San Francisco

On Saturday, protestors in dozens of countries took to the streets to “March against Monsanto.” The coordinated day of action against genetic engineering and reprehensible business practices by the Missouri-based company came just two days after the Senate rejected a bid by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) to ensure that his state and others are free to mandate labels on transgenic foods.

First, to those protests. Organizers tallied rallies in 436 cities across 52 countries, according to the AP:

The ‘March Against Monsanto’ movement began just a few months ago, when founder and organizer Tami Canal created a Facebook page on Feb. 28 calling for a rally against the company’s practices.

“If I had gotten 3,000 people to join me, I would have considered that a success,” she said Saturday. Instead, she said an “incredible” number of people responded to her message and turned out to rally. …

Protesters [marched] in Buenos Aires and other cities in Argentina, where Monsanto’s genetically modified soy and grains now command nearly 100 percent of the market, and the company’s Roundup-Ready chemicals are sprayed throughout the year on fields where cows once grazed. They carried signs saying “Monsanto — Get out of Latin America.”

In Portland, thousands of protesters took to Oregon streets. Police estimate about 6,000 protesters took part in Portland’s peaceful march, and about 300 attended the rally in Bend. Other marches were scheduled in Baker City, Coos Bay, Eugene, Grants Pass, Medford, Portland, Prineville and Redmond.

Across the country in Orlando, about 800 people gathered with signs, pamphlets and speeches in front of City Hall. Maryann Wilson of Clermont, Fla., said she learned about Monsanto and genetically modified food by watching documentaries on YouTube.

Now, to those senators. From The Guardian:

The Senate on Thursday overwhelmingly rejected an amendment that would allow states to require labeling of genetically modified foods.

Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont said his amendment was an attempt to clarify that states can require the labels, as several legislatures have moved toward putting such laws into place. The Vermont house and the Connecticut senate voted this month to make food companies declare genetically modified ingredients on their packages.

The Senate rejected the amendment on a 71-27 vote, during debate on a wide-ranging, five-year farm bill that includes generous supports for crops like corn and soybeans that are often genetically modified varieties. Senators from farm states that use a lot of genetically modified crops strongly opposed the amendment, saying the issue should be left up to the federal government and that labels could raise costs for consumers.

The vote did not affect a bill introduced in April by Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) that would mandate labeling of all products containing genetically ingredients sold in America. But it was a reminder that the labeling bill doesn’t stand a honey bee’s chance in a field full of Roundup of becoming law.

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who

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Occupy the Farm movement rises again, hours after being raided

by ggkk2121333 Posted on May 14, 2013

Occupy the Farm movement rises again, hours after being raided

By John Upton

Occupy the Farm

On Monday, this tractor plowed over the unauthorized farm.

A guerrilla veggie-growing occupation of university-owned land in Albany, Calif., was busted by cops early Monday and thousands of zucchini, kale, squash, and other newly planted seedlings were plowed over. But the occupiers proved more resilient than a sprawling mint plant, returning Monday to replant the desecrated farm.

More than 100 activists had gathered at Gill Tract, near Berkeley, on Friday and over the weekend, with some staying on site until the Monday morning raid. They pulled weeds, tilled soil, and planted seedlings. Some pitched tents.

The 12-acre site was part of a large tract of land donated to the University of California in the 1920s and was long used for organic farming and research. But much of it is now abandoned land, slated for homebuilding and a new grocery store. Some of the land continues to be used for agricultural research, but much of that research relates to genetic engineering.

Long-simmering tensions between the university and neighborhood and student activists over how the land is used boiled over on Earth Day last year, when Occupy the Farm broke padlocks and began cultivating gardens. After several weeks, the police moved in, trashed the garden, and arrested nine people.

The U.C.-Berkeley police didn’t wait that long to raze the farm this time around. In addition to bulldozing the plantings early Monday morning, the cops arrested four activists and charged them with trespassing and interfering with police.

From Occupy the Farm’s website:

“The UC’s use of police intervention was completely unnecessary and unreasonable,” says Occupy the Farm member, Matthew McHale, “especially after we publicly declared we were leaving later today.”

“This is a pathetic waste of public resources, to arrest people who are engaged in a constructive project to demonstrate how public land can be used for the public good,” added Dan Siegel, the lawyer for the group.

Over the course of the weekend, hundreds of students, farmers, families, and interested community members participated in the revitalization of a neglected part of the historic farmland bordering San Pablo Avenue and Monroe Street. Rows of squash, kale, tomato, corn, lettuce, and even flowers replaced 5-foot high weeds, as farmers created a vibrant community space on the site of a proposed parking lot and chain grocery store.

Since Occupy the Farm first planted on the Gill tract in April 2012, the group has organized at least 10 public forums focused on the Gill Tract as an asset to community-driven participatory research. The UC Berkeley administration has consistently failed to attend, despite being invited. As one of the last large plots of fertile agricultural soil left in the East Bay, the Gill Tract holds great potential as an educational resource for community members and for UC urban agricultural research, and for providing local, sustainable, organic food.

Later Monday, about 50 people returned to replant the farm. The Oakland Tribune reported that they plan to return again this coming weekend to care for the young plants. From the article:

“We’re here to make a statement that an urban farm is a much better use of that prime soil than paving it over,” [Occupy spokesperson and U.C.-Berkeley student Lesley] Haddock said Monday.

The area in question, roughly 12 acres, is partially used by the university for agricultural research. Activists occupied part of this area for three weeks last year. Police made arrests and ended the overnight occupation of the land on May 14 last year.

But not everybody digs the illegal farming occupation. University officials and some city leaders have been quick to criticize it. And some neighbors say they are looking forward to shopping at the grocery store that’s planned for the site. It was originally going to be a Whole Foods, but the company backed out following last year’s occupation, and a Sprouts Farmers Market store is now planned. From the Oakland Tribune article:

[A] group of Albany residents opposed to the Occupy group brought a contingent of their own to the parcel along San Pablo Avenue.

“We want a grocery store here,” said Sylvia Paull, one of the anti-Occupy protesters. “We spent five years working with UC and Albany trying to get one here.”

The Occupy the Farm folks say the San Francisco East Bay’s last remnants of farming land should stay as farming land, and claim that the new grocery store would eat into the profits of existing stores in the community.

John Upton is a science aficionado and green news junkie who

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, posts articles to

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blogs about ecology

. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants:

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Occupy the Farm movement rises again, hours after being raided

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A new year, a new Keystone XL blockade

by hanhuogekennog Posted on January 3, 2013

A new year, a new Keystone XL blockade

By Susie Cagle

Late Wednesday night, the Keystone XL blockaders launched a new tree-sit in Diboli, Texas, coinciding with kickoff of a direct-action training camp.

Last month, TransCanada, which is constructing the southern leg of Keystone XL, got around an 85-day treetop blockade by rerouting the pipeline. With this new tree-sit, located 150 miles south of the old one, “blockaders have found a location around which the pipe cannot easily be rerouted,” activists said in a statement.

A number of protesters on the ground have been arrested so far today, but the two activists in the trees are still untouched, and there have not (yet) been reports of police using force against anyone. In the past, police have put blockade activists in choke holds, dragged them on the ground, and pepper-sprayed them into compliance.

Blockaders say this latest action is being done in solidarity with Idle No More, an ongoing movement of Canada’s First Nations peoples who have, among other battles, been fighting against tar-sands pipelines on their native land. “Rising up to defend our homes against corporate exploitation is our best and only hope to preserve life on this planet,” Tar Sands Blockade spokesperson Ron Seifert said in a statement. “We must normalize and embrace direct, organized resistance to the death machine of industrial extraction and stand with those like Idle No More who take extraordinary risk to defend their families and livelihoods.”

A diversity of tactics and an ability to roll with the punches pepper spray are necessary to any movement’s success. The sustained energy around this series of blockades in Texas is notable, especially after the group’s December defeat. As opposition against the Keystone XL pipeline heats up on the ground in 2013, it seems safe to say that it’ll stay strong in the trees, too.

Susie Cagle writes and draws news for Grist. She also writes and draws tweets for

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A new year, a new Keystone XL blockade

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