"The anger is palpable across the Mississippi Delta. As the Deepwater Horizon oil geyser, almost a mile underwater, continues unabated, the brunt of this, the largest environmental catastrophe in United States history, is rolling onto the coast, impacting the ecology, the economy and entire ways of life."
Read the entire article: In Memory Of All That Is Lost, By Amy Goodman / TruthDig.com, June 02 2010
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Photo: Mel D. Cole / Villageslum.com
Check more photos of the So So Glos, Grooms and Fiasco shot by Mel D. Cole - from last Friday's benefit for Showpaper - featured on Villageslum.com.
Over 60 New York based artists created custom sleeves for the 12" vinyl to Ninjasonik's single "Somebody Gonna Get Pregnant" and tonight is the opening reception at Front Street Galleries in Brooklyn.
Details:
"Somebody Gonna Get Pregnant"
June 3, 5 - 10PM Opening Reception
111 Front Street Galleries, #214, Brooklyn NY 11201
Presented by Article / Gallery donated by Two Trees
Curated by Nick Chatfield-Taylor & Ninjasonik
The Very Best performing "Mulomo" at the Sasquatch Festival outside of Seattle last week. The band is bringing this energy to The Roots Picnic jam in Philly this weekend as summer tour dates keep rolling.
Posted by US&THEM
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Essential coverage as Amy Goodman and Democracy Now are reporting from across coastal Louisiana, flying above the spill with the Coast Guard and visiting the marshes with a Cajun fisherman.
Full transcript and add'tl reporting directly at Democracy Now.
Posted by US&THEM
MIA sets the record straight with a recording she secretly made during her now infamous interview with Lynn Hirschburg. Also in the post are links to various articles discussing the ongoing ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka & an amazing new song called "I'm a Singer."
CHECK IT OUT ON THE NEET BLOG!
posted by Ben Bronfman
Ben@greenowl.com
MIA hits back hard after an inaccurate and surface level NYTIMES MAG piece by Lynn Hirschberg. Such a bold move - Tweet dem digits girl!
Posted by Ben Bronfman
ben@greenowl.com
This Friday May 28 at Monster Island in Brooklyn it's The So So Glos performing at an all ages show to benefit Showpaper.
Also on the bill: Fiasco, Grooms, Ava Luna and Yvette.
Monster Island Basement / 128 River St at Metropolitan Ave, W'Burg / 8pm / $7
Here's the band performing there last year:
Monster Island: The So So Glos from Ray Concepcion on Vimeo.
MAY 26 Cedar Cultural Center / Minneapolis USA
MAY 27 Hi-Fi / Calgary CA
MAY 28 Biltmore Cabaret / Vancouver CA
MAY 29 Sasquatch Festival / The Gorge (Quincy-Seattle) USA
MAY 30 Lightning In A Bottle / Irvine USA
MAY 31 The Independent / San Francisco USA
JUNE 03 Jay Pritzker Pavilion (Music Without Borders) / Chicago USA
JUNE 05 The Roots Picnic / Philadelphia USA
JUNE 26 Donauinselfest / Vienna AT
JULY 02 Calvi On The Rocks / Calvi FR
JULY 16 Melt Festival / Saxony-Anhalt DE
JULY 17 Dour Festival / Dour BE
JULY 21 Paleo Festival Nyon / Nyon FR
JULY 23 San Sebastian Jazz Fest / San Sebastian ES
JULY 24 La Mar De Musicas / Cartagena ES
JULY 29 Emmaboda Festival / Emmaboda SE
JULY 31 Juicy Beats / Dortmund DE
AUG 06 Nuits Secrets / Aulnoye-Aymeries FR
AUG 08 Off Festival / Katowice PL
AUG 28 Festningen / Oslo NO
SEPT 03 Stop Making Sense / Petrcane CT
SEPT 26 Hollywood Bowl (Vampire Weekend Tour) / Los Angeles CA
The Gleaner reports on the continued state of seige residents of Kingston's Tivoli Gardens find themselves in as Jamaican security forces and gunmen continue a standoff over efforts by police to capture reputed crime boss Christopher Coke for extradition to the USA on gun and drug charges. Since Sunday residents have been trapped in this garrison (neighborhood) of West Kingston - unable to get food, water or medical help.
Former Prime Minister of Jamaica Edward Seaga has come out against the operation telling The Gleaner yesterday: "I am absolutely not happy. This is not what the minister of national security promised. He promised the people that they would not be harmed, and now they are fearful and starving for food and drink. The Government should lift the embargo they have over the area and allow the people to leave to look for food and drink."
Let My People Go!, The Gleaner, May 27 2010
RELATED LINKS
A Community In Distress, The Gleaner, May 27 2010
Morgues Almost Full, The Gleaner, May 27 2010
Public Defender Says 44 Killed, The Gleaner, May 26 2010
Unrest Grows In Jamaica In 3rd Day Of Standoff, The New York Times, May 25 2010
Jamaica Security Forces Storm 'Drug Lord' Stronghold, BBC News, May 25 2010
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"Abu Ghraib has nothing over Chicago. Forty years ago, Jon Burge returned from Vietnam, joined the Chicago Police Department and allegedly began torturing people. He rose in the ranks to become a commander in Chicago’s South Side, called Area 2. Electric shocks to the genitals, mock executions, suffocation with bags over the head, beatings and painful stress positions are among the torture techniques that Burge and police officers under his command are accused of using to extract confessions in Chicago, mostly from African-American men. More than 110 men are known to have been victims of Burge and his associates. Victims often went to prison, some to death row. Facing mounting evidence and increasing community outcry, Burge was fired from the Chicago Police Department in 1993. He now lives in Florida, collecting his pension.
This week, in a federal criminal trial beginning in Chicago, Burge faces charges, not for torture, but for lying about torture under oath in an earlier civil suit brought by one of his victims (since the statute of limitations on torture, remarkably, has expired). He faces up to 45 years in prison."
Read entire article: Alleged Chicago Torturer's Overdue Day In Court, By Amy Goodman / TruthDig.com, May 25 2010
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Sri Lanka Tamil Killings 'Ordered From The Top', By Jonathan Miller / Channel 4 News UK, May 18 2010
RELATED LINKS
Asia
Report 191, International Crisis Group, May 17 2010
New Accusations Of War Crimes In Sri Lanka, By Robert Mackey / The New York Times, May 19 2010
Headlines via Democracy Now, May 25 2010
Posted by US&THEM
SUN MAY 16
"A 7-year-old Detroit girl sleeping on a couch was shot and killed early Sunday after a Detroit police officer's weapon went off while he was searching for a homicide suspect, police said.", Detroit Free Press via USA Today
MON MAY 17
"The family of a 7-year-old girl (Aiyana Jones) slain by a police bullet during a raid on their home filed state and federal lawsuits Tuesday against the department, claiming police knew there were children in the home but conducted the raid with guns drawn anyway." , AP via USA Today. The family's lawyer claims a camera crew from A&E captured footage of the police throwing a flash grenade through the window and then firing from the porch into the house.
Dr. Vernon Asper, a professor of marine science at University of Southern Mississippi tells NPR his team from the research vessel the Pelican has found oil plumes deep in the Gulf waters, running from below 2,000 feet to almost 5,000 feet with each plume being 100 meters thick. The plumes measure 10 to 15 miles long and 4 to 5 miles wide. These deep water plumes could pose a massive threat to marine life. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration would refute these reports calling them premature. (Sources: Market Watch, The LA Times)
Democracy Now covers the International Crisis Group releasing a report on evidence of war crimes in Sri Lanka. The report states: "Evidence gathered by the International Crisis Group suggests that these months saw tens of thousands of Tamil civilian men, women, children and the elderly killed, countless more wounded, and hundreds of thousands deprived of adequate food and medical care, resulting in more deaths. This evidence also provides reasonable grounds to believe the Sri Lankan security forces committed war crimes with top government and military leaders potentially responsible. There is evidence of war crimes committed by the LTTE and its leaders as well, but most of them were killed and will never face justice. An international inquiry into alleged crimes is essential given the absence of political will or capacity for genuine domestic investigations..." Asia Report No.191
TUES MAY 18
The AP reports on the oil spill affecting the remaining tribes of Native Americans in South Louisiana:
"Like many American Indians on the bayou, Emary Billiot blames oil companies for ruining his ancestral marsh over the decades. Still, he's always been able to fish — but now even that is not a certainty. The oil spill has closed bays and lakes in Louisiana's bountiful delta, including fishing grounds that feed the last American-Indian villages in three parishes. It is a bitter blow for the tribes of south Louisiana, who charge that drilling has already destroyed their swamps and that oil and land companies illegally grabbed vast areas."
Thick tides of oil reach the marshes of Louisiana.
In a related story, the AP reports the federal fishing ban in the Gulf was expanded to cover 46,000 square miles extending beyond the original ban that ran from the Mississippi River to the Florida Panhandle. Oil Spill Events, Associated Press, May 18 2010
Protesters held a rally at JPMorganChase on Wall Street demanding they stop blocking financial reform and to modify loans to help stop home foreclosures.
WED MAY 19
A month after the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig and with oil filling the gulf, BP execs faced a House committee. Listen to the report covering the hearing from Free Speech Radio News.
Sean Penn gave testimony to the Senate regarding the ongoing crisis in Haiti, where the actor and director has been running an aid organization and managing a homeless camp following the earthquake.
"I come here today in the hope that we will address, with bold clarity, the razor's edge upon which Haiti lies..."
(Sources: The Huffington Post, McClatchy News)
The death toll of American troops in Afghanistan passes 1,000 following a suicide attack in Kabul.
THUR MAY 20
Free Speech Radio News reports on a cut in housing assistance for the homeless in New York City and the decrease of rental units being made available to low-income New Yorkers. Activists occupied vacant properties and hung banners stating "homes not shelters" and later activists marched to a Chase bank demanding they release vacant properties to house the homeless. Listen to the radio report on FSRN.
FRI MAY 21
Ralph Nader's site issues a statement critical of the Senate's passage of the financial reform bill saying:
"The bill that passed both Houses does not explicitly ban totally speculative derivatives, does not ban banks and other firms above a certain size (where they again become too big to fail), does not declare that the shareholder-owners must have the authority to control their own companies, does not ban companies that mix trading for their own account with other people’s money backed by federal insurance. It does not circumscribe the enormous power of the Federal Reserve, short of a one-time Congressional audit, even after all the Congressional bellowing about the Fed’s derelictions and looking the other way while Wall Street robbed the American people."
SAT MAY 22
President Obama announces a bipartisan commission to investigate the oil spill and the government response. William Reilly former EPA head under Bush will lead the commission with former Senator Bob Graham. The announcement comes as criticism continues to mount that the administration has been too lax in efforts to stop oil from gushing into the Gulf and that it has been too deferential to BP. via The New York Times
The President spoke to a graduating class at West Point using the speech to reinforce the narrative of why the US is fighting in Afghanistan and to state that all combat brigades will leave Iraq by summer 2011. via Huffington Post
SUN MAY 23
Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, an American citizen, is covered in the US news calling for the killing of American citizens and soldiers and praising the Fort Hood attacks by a Muslim soldier while calling President Obama the leader of a crusader campaign to kill Muslims during a recently released Al Qaeda propaganda video. Watch CBS News report.
AP video: Anger Mounts As Oil Seeps Into Wetlands, Associated Press via YouTube, May 23 2010
Al Sharpton spoke at services yesterday for 7-year-old Aiyana Stanley-Jones who
died from a gunshot from police during a raid. The press covered widely
Sharpton's call for the Detroit community to look at the man in the
mirror (paraphrasing Michael Jackson) and his statement that "we've
all done something that contributed to this".
Aiyana's best friend
Roshell Johnson, age 9, was quoted by the AP saying, "Why did the police
do it to her? I loved her so much. I want her to come back alive".
Sharpton: Detroit Girl's Death Is "Breaking Point", The Associated
Press, May 23, 2010
More
Than Just An Oil Spill, Op-Ed by Bob Herbert, The New York Times,
May 22 2010
An excerpt:
"The response of the Obama administration and the general public to this latest outrage at the hands of a giant, politically connected corporation has been embarrassingly tepid. We take our whippings in stride in this country. We behave as though there is nothing we can do about it.
The fact that 11 human beings were killed in the Deepwater Horizon explosion (their bodies never found) has become, at best, an afterthought. BP counts its profits in the billions, and, therefore, it’s important. The 11 men working on the rig were no more important in the current American scheme of things than the oystermen losing their livelihoods along the gulf, or the wildlife doomed to die in an environment fouled by BP’s oil, or the waters that will be left unfit for ordinary families to swim and boat in.
This is the bitter reality of the American present, a period in which big business has cemented an unholy alliance with big government against the interests of ordinary Americans, who, of course, are the great majority of Americans. The great majority of Americans no longer matter.
No one knows how much of BP’s runaway oil will contaminate the gulf coast’s marshes and lakes and bayous and canals, destroying wildlife and fauna — and ruining the hopes and dreams of countless human families. What is known is that whatever oil gets in will be next to impossible to get out. It gets into the soil and the water and the plant life and can’t be scraped off the way you might be able to scrape the oil off of a beach.
It permeates and undermines the ecosystem in much the same way that big corporations have permeated and undermined our political system, with similarly devastating results."
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