Empire Politician:
The new president’s paper trail reveals a man who has often betrayed his own bedrock principles. Jeremy Scahill April 28 2021 WN: The article highlighted pulls no punches in underscoring Biden’s war-hawk and pro-police brutality policies over a lifetime as a politician. He–as anyone–still may change! But not his brutal record, as laid out in […]
Jamaal Bowman Explains How Progressives Will Make Biden’s Presidency Even Bolder
By John Nichols April 29, 2021 photo above: yourbasin.com; Jamaal Bowman topples US Rep. Engel in NY Democratic Primary WN: Go for it, Mr. Bowman! For the U.S. For the world! excerpt: [su_dropcap]T[/su_dropcap]he most compelling response to President Biden’s first address to a joint session of Congress was not the ably enough delivered yet largely […]
Opinion: The American right is becoming completely untethered from reality
Opinion by Max Boot April 28, 2021 photo above: President Biden in the Rose Garden at the White House on April 8. (Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post) WN: The article highlighted speaks to the current tragedy of the GOP. Please also see: Almost Everything Biden Said About Ending the Afghanistan War Was a Lie. Trump is […]
Opinion: Prolonged solitary confinement is torture. It’s time for all states to ban it.
Opinion by Tammie Gregg and Donna Lieberman April 28, 2021 at 5:00 a.m. PDT image above: Julie Lai for The Washington Post WN: My wife Esther and I felt uniquely fortunate to have attended the Conference below: CURE International Conference Costa Rica 2017 Over 40 prison reform advocates representing a dozen countries participated in CURE’s 7th […]
Almost Everything Biden Said About Ending the Afghanistan War Was a Lie
April 27, 2021 by Sonali Kolhatkar image above: Drawing by Nathaniel St. Clair chart below: The Washington Post, Fatal Force WN: Ethicist A. J. Coates writes in The Ethics of War: The moral prohibition of lying, for example, makes good sense in the context of personal relations, but no sense at all in affairs of […]
Out of Sight / Out of Mind
The Magazine: Spring 2021 COVID-19 in prisons got our attention. Manitoba has quietly been home to the highest incarceration rates in the country, with a grossly disproportionate number of Indigenous people behind bars. And Canada has one of the highest prison rates in the world. Members of our UM community who’ve witnessed a broken system […]
The look in Derek Chauvin’s eyes was something worse than hate
By Jake Jackson April 24, 2021 photo above: Daily Sound and Fury WN: The Prophets and Jesus constantly call us to have eyes to see, ears to hear . . . A documentary series based on events of the April 19, 1989, Central Park jogger case, has the riveting title: When They See Us. To […]
Tribes Want Medals Awarded for Wounded Knee Massacre Rescinded
Mark Walker April 23, 2021 photo above: Kristina Barker for The New York Times WN: This kind of story can be repeated ubiquitously in European worldwide Empire/colonization history over many centuries. One post of many is: The Doctrine of Discovery, Manifest Destiny, and American Exceptionalism. Related posts may be pursued there. “Moving on” as beneficiaries […]
Saving the salmon and Beauty:
After years of trying to get the province to protect an important salmon watershed, one northwest B.C. First Nation is taking matters into its own hands Matt Simmons, Local Journalism Initiative reporter April 17, 2021 photo above: Chief Wii Litsxw (Gregory Rush) hiking in Gitanyow territory. The area behind him is part of the so-called […]
America’s unique gun violence problem, explained in 16 maps and charts
By German Lopez @germanrlopez german.lopez@vox.com Updated Apr 16, 2021 WN: I will embed below the video produced. Please view that first, then read the article and charts carefully. My brother gave me a book years ago claiming studies showed that the more guns in a population, the less crime. While the research was flawed according […]
Dear White America – “History Has its Eye on You”
By Community April 16, 2021 photo above: The quote is from The Talmud. WN: The above from The Talmud echoes Micah 6:8, seen to the left. It in turn is picked up in Matthew 23:23, featuring Jesus’ indictment of the religious establishment of the day: Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you […]
Compliance Will Not Save Me
April 19, 2021 Ibram X. Kendi, Contributing writer at The Atlantic photo above: Charmaine Edwards (left) speaks to supporters during a protest outside a courthouse in Dallas in 2017. Her stepson, Jordan Edwards, was a 15-year-old in Balch Springs, Texas, when he was shot and killed by police. LM Otero/AP WN: According to The Washington […]
Hundreds gather to protest 13-year-old’s killing following release of body cam footage
Gabe Ortiz Daily Kos Staff Monday April 19, 2021 photo above: AP WN: A man in our Home Improvement Group once challenged us all: “Just try spending one day in my skin!” In 1959, a white Texan journalist, John Howard Griffin, did precisely that: for 420 days. The 1961 book, Black Like Me, and the […]
Driving While Black is still a death sentence
By BRAKKTON BOOKER 04/13/2021 WN: Words fail. . . . Please also see here and here: Black Toronto residents 20 times more likely to be shot dead by police, study says. Canada is also deeply racist: rampant in the criminal justice system. excerpts: [pullquote]There is still reform that could be done like with policing in […]
How Trump Unleashed a Domestic Terrorism Movement—
“He tells them what to do. He tells them why they’re angry.” Mark Follman March+April 2021 Issue photo above: Nate Gowdy WN: Trump continues to inspire hatred and acts of violence worldwide. His is the height of White Grievance Politics–and so tragic for the millions of victims who fall prey to such xenophobia. A rewording […]
Everyone Belongs to God
Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt. Foreword by Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, Plough Publishing House, 2015. Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt (1842–1919) was born in Möttlingen, Germany, at the very time his father, Johann Christoph Blumhardt, was engaged in the amazing events recounted in Plough’s book The Awakening. The younger Blumhardt was raised in an atmosphere of the reality of the presence […]
Dianne Tramutola-Lawson–Class of ’60
WN: Dianne is one of the amazing volunteers in charge of Colorado CURE. Please enjoy this brief interview: You may also click on St. Mary’s Academy link to article; and here is the link for St. Mary’s Academy. My wife and I have had the good fortune of being members, and I represent Canadian CURE. […]
Former inmate taps into her prison experience for ‘groundbreaking’ PhD research
CBC Radio · Posted: Sep 24, 2020 6:07 PM ET | Last Updated: March 3 photo above: Prison For Women, or P4W, in Kingston, Ont., opened in 1934 and was shut down in 2000 after decades of reports about prisoner mistreatment. (Google Street View) Listen to Ideas from the Trenches: The Resilience of Incarcerated Women […]