Prometheus 6

Look what he found.

LATER:Spence followed up with this, by email.

I am currently in NYC on business. The attached clip was taken in front of Manhattan mall. I caught the tail end...as they were carting the brother away in an ambulance. From what I gathered...the brother came out of the subway (at the Manhattan Mall) holding a bag. A police officer asked him what was in the bag (watches), and then accused him of soliciting in front of the mall. He then asked the brother for ID, and the brother asked "what did I do?"

At that point the events in the video take place. At no point did the brother resist arrest. At no point did he use or threaten to use violence. I'm going to send you all another clip. Please forward to all you may think are interested. They carried the brother away in an ambulance, and from what I saw of him he was pretty beat up.

Mind you, it's not so unusual that even I might walk past it if I was running late.

THE END OF THE DREAM ....Everyone knows that income inequality has been widening dramatically in the past three decades, as the rich get (lots) richer and the working class mostly stagnates. But hey — this is America! At least we still have lots of social mobility, right? People here go from rags to riches all the time, unlike those stagnant European hellholes where.....um....what? Oh:

There is little available evidence that the United States has more relative mobility than other advanced nations. If anything, the data seem to suggest the opposite. Using the relationship between parents' and children's incomes as an indicator of relative mobility, data show that a number of countries, including Denmark, Norway, Finland, Canada, Sweden, Germany, and France have more relative mobility than does the United States (see Figure 3).

Well, Horatio Alger died a long time ago, I guess. Still, at least things are getting better. Maybe middle class kids aren't becoming CEOs, but at least they're doing better than their fathers. Right?

Just sayin'...

A bomb technician from the State Patrol who opened the box found a "Schrammie," which television commentator Ken Schram hands out to public officials he thinks have done wrong.

"To the best of my knowledge, this is the first time that the bomb squad was called in when we sent a `Schrammie,'" said Jimm Brown, a KOMO spokesman.

Bobblehead Sends Wash. Workers Fleeing
By Associated Press
May 26, 2007, 6:10 AM CDT

TUMWATER, Wash. -- Talk about a blunder. A bomb technician discovered that a suspicious package that forced more than 300 workers to evacuate a state building contained a bobblehead doll awarded to public officials for perceived errors.

The package, sent by an intern at KOMO-TV in Seattle, was addressed to Department of Corrections Secretary Harold Clarke at the department's headquarters in this town near Olympia.

LATER: Attention passing strangers. My use of the word "nigger" is not license for you to you it or any term of similar intent.

And I'm not even blaming the war for taking this kid's parents...

Cameron's mother, Sgt. Lavada Smith, 28, was ordered to active duty by the Army National Guard in April, officials said. Smith's unit is based in Bloomington, and she is assigned to the 33rd Military Police Battalion in Iraq, said Lt. Col. Alicia Tate-Nadeau, director of public affairs for the Illinois National Guard....

She had been in Iraq for only about 10 hours when she learned of her son's death, Tate-Nadeau said.

Cops say GIs' son beaten to death
Boy, 4, was punched, whipped, police say
By Lolly Bowean, Tribune staff reporter Tribune staff reporters Stanley Ziemba and Matthew Walberg and staff researcher Lelia Arnheim contributed to this report
May 26, 2007

While his parents served in the U.S. military safeguarding Iraq, 4-year-old Cameron Smith was cooped up in a modest apartment in Calumet City, slowly being beaten to death, police said Friday.

The boy was discovered lifeless in his bed Thursday morning after enduring two days of being punched in the head, stomach, chest and back and being whipped with a belt by a man who was supposed to be caring for him, Calumet City Police Chief Patrick O'Meara said.

75 page loads...I wonder how they'll react when they see this one...

Many of the kids were wearing white T-shirts with a picture of the dead teenager and the letters “R.I.P.” on them. The cops cited the T-shirts as evidence of gang membership.

Arrested While Grieving
By BOB HERBERT

No one is paying much attention, but parts of New York City are like a police state for young men, women and children who happen to be black or Hispanic. They are routinely stopped, searched, harassed, intimidated, humiliated and, in many cases, arrested for no good reason.

Most black elected officials have joined their white colleagues and the media in turning a blind eye to this continuing outrage. And many black cops have joined their white colleagues in the systematic mistreatment.

Last Monday in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn, about three dozen grieving young people on their way to a wake for a teenage friend who had been murdered were surrounded by the police, cursed at, handcuffed and ordered into paddy wagons. They were taken to the 83rd precinct stationhouse, where several were thrown into jail.

Leana Matia, an 18-year-old student at John Jay College, was one of those taken into custody. “We were walking toward the train station to take the L train when all these cops just swooped in on us,” she said. “They cursed us out and pushed the guys. And then they handcuffed us. We kept asking, ‘What are you doing?’ ”

Children as young as 13 were among those swept up by the cops. Two of them, including 16-year-old Lamel Carter, were the children of police officers. Some of the youngsters were carrying notes from school saying that they were allowed to be absent to attend the wake. There is no evidence that I’ve been able to find — other than uncorroborated statements by the police — that the teenagers were misbehaving in any way.

Everyone was searched, but nothing unlawful was found — no weapons, no marijuana or other drugs. Some of the kids were told at the scene that they were being seized because they had assembled unlawfully. “I didn’t know what unlawful assembly was,” said Kumar Singh, 18, who was among those arrested.

According to the police, the youngsters at the scene were on a rampage, yelling and blocking traffic. That does not seem to be the truth.

Sudan's oil revenues enable it to resist sanctions and stymie most diplomatic pressure. The United Nations helps prop up the regime with its reluctance to join the Bush administration in labeling Sudan's actions as genocide. The UN timidity has enabled such eager Sudanese trading partners as Russia, France and China to block embargoes, sanctions or other humanitarian actions that might have real teeth.

Khartoum capers
May 26, 2007

What do you do with an arrest warrant when the police refuse to make the arrest?

That's the predicament faced by the International Criminal Court. Earlier this year the nine-year-old body, headquartered in The Hague, Netherlands, indicted two Sudanese leaders for alleged war crimes in that country's Darfur region.That one of the men, Ahmad Muhammad Harun, happens to be Sudan's minister of "humanitarian affairs" speaks volumes about the low regard that Khartoum has shown for humans in the Darfur region. The other suspect, Ali Muhammad Ali Abd-al-Rahman, is a leader of the notorious Janjaweed militia, which has waged murderous raids against civilians in Darfur since a rebel uprising began in 2003.

Unless Sudan turns the men over on its own, the best the court can do is wait for them to step outside of Sudan where they might be spotted and arrested by Interpol. That is, if they ever step outside of their home country.

The trouble is, it's very hard to prosecute alleged war criminals whose government has not yet lost the war. That is particularly true for a country like Sudan, where the regime often behaves like an outlaw.

China buys two-thirds of its oil and is accused of selling the government weapons used in Darfur despite a UN embargo.

China warning over Darfur sanction

Fighting in Darfur has forced hundreds of thousands into refugee camps [AP]

International sanctions against Sudan over the conflict in Darfur would only raise the level of confrontation and prolong the suffering of refugees, China's newly-appointed envoy has said.

Speaking on a visit to the region, Liu Guijin called for greater humanitarian aid into Darfur instead, Sudan's state news agency reported.

Liu said the threat of sanctions would "further complicate the situation" and add to the suffering of 2.5 million refugees displaced by the four-year conflict.

That worries Charles Mutasa, head of the nongovernmental African Network on Debt and Development. "The absence of Chinese pressure groups lobbying about environmental damage makes the whole business of China [in Africa] a bit tricky," he says, because there are no Chinese civil society watchdogs keeping an eye on their government and investors.

Seriously...what could they do if they knew?

Chinese activists looking to Africa
As its economic role in Africa expands, China's budding civil society takes cautious steps to hold its government to account.
By Peter Ford | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

Shanghai, China - Amos Kimunya could hardly have been blunter.

As the annual meeting of the African Development Bank (AfDA) here last week celebrated China's booming aid and trade with Africa, the Kenyan finance minister verged on the undiplomatic.

Africa: Untapped: The Scramble for Africa’s Oil.
2007-05-24

Amy Goodman interviews John Ghazvinian, author of the book "Untapped: The Scramble for Africa’s Oil." It’s a little known fact that the United States today imports more oil from Africa than from Saudi Arabia. More than $50 billion in foreign investment in African oil is expected over the next three years by the United States. The book compares the global competition for the continent’s oil resources to the nineteenth century scramble for colonization.

TRANSCRIPT
Juan Gonzalez: We begin today's broadcast with a look at Africa and oil.
It’s a little known fact: the United States today imports more oil from Africa than from Saudi Arabia. More than $50 billion in foreign investment in African oil is expected over the next three years by the United States.

Posted on Fri, May. 25, 2007
Roundup of violence in Iraq
By Laith Hammoudi
McClatchy Newspapers

The daily Iraq violence report is compiled by McClatchy Newspapers in Baghdad from police, military and medical reports. This is not a comprehensive list of all violence in Iraq, much of which goes unreported. All times are Iraq local times.

---
BAGHDAD

-Armed men destroyed between three to five meters of the bridge linking the neighborhoods of Adil and Khadraa in west Baghdad. Police said that the gunmen used improvised explosive devices (IEDs), the latest in a series of attacks on bridges in Baghdad. The incident took place early Friday morning. No casualties were reported.
-A civilian was killed in an IED explosion in the Doura neighborhood of southwest Baghdad around 1:10 p.m. Friday.
-A civilian was killed and another was injured when a mortar shell hit the Jamiaa neighborhood of west Baghdad around 1:20 p.m. Friday.
-Around 1:10 p.m. Friday, a U.S. convoy was targeted by an IED in the Amil neighborhood of southwest Baghdad. U.S. forces blocked the area. No casualties were reported.
-Two civilians were killed and seven others were injured when a mortar shell hit the Amil neighborhood of southwest Baghdad at 8 p.m Friday.
-A civilian was killed and eight others wounded when a mortar shell hit Abu Disheer area in the Doura neighborhood of south Baghdad at 8 p.m. Friday.
-Twenty anonymous bodies were found in Baghdad Friday.

Thirteen bodies were found in Karkh, the western part of Baghdad: four in Amil; three in Bayaa; two in Shula; one in Hurriyah; one in Rahmaniyah; one in Jiaifar and one in Jamiaa.

Seven bodies were found in Rusafa, the eastern part of Baghdad: four in Sadr City; one in Ur; one in Adhemiyah and one in Fadhil.

These objections mask what really alarms opponents: Buyers of microstamped guns will be less willing to resell, off the books, to those who can't or won't register. That concern is yet one more reason to pass this bill and put it to work solving crimes.

Make the bullets talk
A bill to link spent bullet casings to guns would help solve crimes.
May 24, 2007

CRIME SCENE investigators can often match spent bullet casings to the handguns that fired them — but only if they have the guns. They often don't, and have few clues where to look for them. That leads to dismal statistics like these: No arrests were made in 45% of the more than 1,400 homicides committed with handguns in California in 2004.

White Authors, Ethnic Characters

A bit fluffier (and more in line with the typical romance novel) than I am used to, I picked up the first few novels while smirking at the ditzy Valley Girl Vampire Queen Heroine. I was amused for three books, but was brought up short at the fourth. In fourth friend, the protagonist’s token black friend is riding in a car, and instigating a coversation about the n-word, much to the chagrin of the other white characters in the car.

“It’s just a word, I’m past it…” says the black character, before turning to a white character and saying, “You can call me it just once.” The white character stutters on the page.

I take a break from reading. I flip to the back flap to check out the author’s photo. Yup, just as I suspected…white.

It reminds me of the first time I was compelled to assume an author was white. It was an issue of Luke Cage. They had restarted the series, and in the course of one of them "hero vs. hordes without number" scenes Mr. Cage says something like, "Step up...I gots a l'il sumpin' fo ya, boyee!" At the time, "boyee" was current slang, and used correctly.

I grew up when comic artists had no ownership of their work. I never paid a lot of attention to who wrote or drew a book. This writer HAD to be Black, and he was.

Maybe in most people...that's honestly what I started to write.

Militarism = Violence Against Women

Unfortunately, this is not too shocking ...

A recent study by the Department of Justice found that military veterans are twice as likely to be incarcerated for sexual assault than nonveterans. When asked about the finding, Margaret E. Noonan, one of the authors of the study, told the Associated Press, "We couldn't come to any definite conclusion as to why." The intrinsic and systemic connection between militarism and violence against women, however, makes this finding far from surprising.

Sexual violence has been a de facto weapon of war since the beginning of the patriarchal age. Raping and assaulting women is seen as a way to attack the honor of the enemy, and women have always been the spoils of war. The result is that many types of violence against women are exacerbated by militarism, including the indirect effects on civilian populations both during hostilities and after the conflict ends and soldiers go home.

How not shocking is it?

THIS not shocking.

It's a message from Gawd.

Bird Poops On The President During Rose Garden Press Conference

ABC News | Ann Compton | Posted May 24, 2007 03:15 PM

An outdoor news conference in perfect spring weather, with birds chirping loudly in the magnolia trees, is not without its hazards.

As President Bush took a question Thursday in the White House Rose Garden about scandals involving his Attorney General, he remarked, "I've got confidence in Al Gonzales doin' the job."

Simultaneously, a sparrow flew overhead and left a splash on the President's sleeve, which Bush tried several times to wipe off.

Harris Interactive® conducted the A Voice from the Middle Middle School Student Poll on behalf of the NASSP and PDK from February 14 – March 7, 2007 among 1,814 U.S. residents in grades seven and eight. Figures for gender, grade level, race/ethnicity, parents’ highest level of education, region, and urbanicity were weighted where necessary to bring them into line with their actual proportions of 7th and 8th grade students in the population. With pure probability samples of this size, one could say with a 95 percent probability that the results would have a sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points. Sampling error for data based on sub-samples would be higher and would vary. However, that does not take other sources of error into account. This online survey is not based on a probability sample and therefore no theoretical sampling error can be calculated.

With that caveat, I recommend you check out A Voice from the Middle.

On May 22, 2007, the National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP) and Phi Delta Kappa International (PDK) released the results of A Voice From the Middle, a nationwide poll of middle level students. Conducted by Harris Interactive, the survey of 1,814 students in grades seven and eight reveals several stark contrasts between students’ educational goals and their beliefs about how they will achieve them. The poll may be the very first national snapshot of the aspirations and school experiences of middle-level students. The results are astounding.

Astounding is kind of strong, but it is interesting to compare how middle school kids see their schools to how their parents see them. Plus, if you don't know the misconceptions, you won't correct them; any new knowledge you impart will be taken as modifications of what they KNOW.

Real picky types might want to see the full poll results...gotta warn you it's more Powerpoint than Excel. And the text of the press release is below the fold.

Yabba-dabba science
Note to would-be Creation Museum visitors: the Earth is round.
May 24, 2007

THE CREATION MUSEUM, a $27-million tourist attraction promoting earth science theories that were popular when Columbus set sail, opens near Cincinnati on Memorial Day. So before the first visitor risks succumbing to the museum's animatronic balderdash — dinosaurs and humans actually coexisted! the Grand Canyon was carved by the great flood described in Genesis! — we'd like to clear up a few things: "The Flintstones" is a cartoon, not a documentary. Fred and Wilma? Those woolly mammoth vacuum cleaners? All make-believe.

Science is under assault, and that calls for bold truths. Here's another: The Earth is round.

Before the schools were established in the 1960s, pregnant girls were put on “medical suspension” until after their babies were born, then banned from returning to their original high schools afterward. Hundreds of other girls were sent, often under threat of court order, to shelters, where the old Board of Education maintained special schools.

New York’s Schools for Pregnant Girls Will Close
By JULIE BOSMAN

A dozen girls, some perched awkwardly with their pregnant bellies flush against the desks, were struggling over a high school geometry assignment on a recent afternoon.

No pencils, no textbooks, no Pythagorean theorem. Instead, they sewed quilts.

That is what passes for math in one of New York City’s four high schools for pregnant girls, this one in Harlem. “It ties into geometry,” said Patricia Martin, the principal. “They’re cutting shapes.” [P6: And Bin Laden had ties to Iraq.]

Created in the 1960s, when pregnant girls were such pariahs that they were forced to leave school until their babies were born, the city school system’s four pregnancy schools — or P-schools, as they are obliquely referred to — have lived on, their population dwindling to just 323 students from 1,500 in the late 1960s.

They have been marked by abysmal test scores, poor attendance and inadequate facilities, and even some of their own administrators say they suspect that most of their students are pushed there by other schools because they are failing academically. In place of proms and computer labs, they have Mother’s Day parties and day care centers with cribs lining the walls.

Now in recognition of their failure, the city plans to shut them down at the end of the school year as part of a sweeping reorganization to be announced today of the alternative school district, which also includes an array of vocational, technical and dropout programs for students who have struggled in traditional settings.

“I look at that and I think it’s expanding a sweatshop form of work with very low wages, very few benefits,” said James Parrott, chief economist for the Fiscal Policy Institute, a nonprofit organization financed in part by unions, referring to the rising employment in home care....

...“In terms of wages, the driving force in the New York City economy has been Wall Street,” said Michael Dolfman, the regional commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. “But in terms of employment, the driving force in the city economy has been the health care and social assistance sector.”

For New York, Big Job Growth in Home Care
By PATRICK McGEEHAN

In realm of language, change is a constant
Timothy J. McNulty
From the Public Editor
May 25, 2007

The message was polite but firm: Please stop referring to the "Old Testament."

"Some, maybe many, Jews take offense at use of the term 'Old Testament,' " complained reader Dick Nugent. "We don't have a new testament, so our book is not an old testament."

The historical context is obvious, but the reader is correct, newspapers do not commonly take one religion's terminology to describe the works of another religion.

Better to say the "Hebrew Bible," Nugent suggested helpfully. To be even more specific, the newspaper could use the term "Tanak," an acronym for the five books of the Torah, the teaching of the prophets known as neviim, and the ketuvim, the other sacred writings.

Besides making the machine thin, they're also using materials aimed to communicate high quality and coolness. Made of champagne-colored magnesium, the laptop is decorated with subtle gold accents.

"It's like jewelry," says Omer Kotzer, a creative director at Ziba, a firm renowned for consumer-electronics design.

The World's Thinnest Notebook
If it catches on, Intel's sleek laptop could be a game changer for PCs
by Olga Kharif

When Intel asked designers to build a better laptop, its instructions were simple, really. The machine has to be fashionable, able to connect to all manner of wireless networks, and full of the latest, fastest computing capabilities. Oh yes, and make it as thin as Motorola's Razr. Its own engineers in conjunction with Ziba Design in Portland, Ore., rose to the challenge.

Washington Journal asks whether viewers would buy Ronald Reagan's diary or Al Gore's "Attack on Reason." This is typical of the actually worshipful responses of those who chose Reagan's diary.

"The Air Force and the Army have crossed the line here: A reasonable observer, upon examining the promotional materials, the Robins Air Force Base newspaper, and the current program schedule, could not help but believe that the Army and Air Force fully support and endorse the Christian substance of the celebration," the letters said.

In response, the Air Force issued a statement saying it is "not a sponsor" of the event and was "not aware until recently of the religious connotations surrounding Task Force Patriot's participation." After seeing the schedule, "Air Force officials began taking steps to avoid the appearance of any endorsement or preferential treatment of any religious faith or worship service," the statement said.

Army and Air Force Deny Formal Links To Christian Event
By Alan Cooperman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, May 25, 2007; A03

After complaints by a government watchdog group, the Air Force and the Army partially distanced themselves yesterday from a three-day evangelical Christian event this weekend at a Georgia theme park.

The Memorial Day weekend "Salute to the Troops" celebration at Stone Mountain Park is sponsored by Task Force Patriot USA, a private group that says its purpose is "sharing the fullness of life in Jesus Christ with all U.S. military, military veterans and families," and whose Web site says "Christ is our Commander-in-Chief."