Prosecution for sexual assault

This is a follow up to my previous posting about a woman who was sexually assaulted by a marshal at a family court. The judge in the case turned away from her and let chaos go on in the court room, including an illegal arrest. Although the marshal was fired, he should be treated like anyone else who commits a sexual assault.

Please sign and share this petition to Clark County District attorney to prosecute Ron Fox for this alleged sexual assault. http://www.change.org/petitions/steven-b-wolfson-prosecute-ron-fox-for-alleged-sexual-assault-on-monica-contreras

Related articles

• Sexually assaulted in court (kenyatta2009.wordpress.com)

 

Please come to Boston

We are all grieving in many ways with the pictures from the Boston Marathon firmly planted in our brains. I am listening to a story about the story about the victims on Democracy Now. I have learned about individual heroism by first responders. Their work combined with the hospitals helped make us proud. They helped save lives and limbs. Things could have been worse if not for people like Carlos Orlando who had lost one son in the Iraq War and another to suicide. Some runners went directly to hospitals to donate blood. It was America coming together.

Please come to Boston. Please remember these people. Do your mourning in the way that feels best for you. Hold your loved ones close. And by all means avoid the impulse to strike out seeking revenge. There is a history of violence in America but there is a system of criminal justice and I hope those who committed this act will be subject to that system.

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• Youngest victim of Boston Marathon bomb eight-year-old there to support father (independent.co.uk)

 

I’m holding my wallet

The rich people in Milwaukee have been planning the best way to get my money. They’ve told us ahead of time what matters most to them is a new auditorium for the Milwaukee Bucks (as in hand over my money) will plan in the years ahead.  Some years ago, Lloyd and Jane Pettit donated money to building Bradley Center.  Now that center is considered obsolete and it’s time for me to figure out how much I want to spend to bail out the Bucks (show me the green, Kenyatta).

I’ve only attended one game at the Bradley Center years ago when the team had Ray Allen, Glenn Robinson and Sam Cassell. All of them were on championship teams after after they were traded away foolishly. Robinson’s son played last night for Michigan in a losing cause against Louisville. That’s how long it has been since we had good players. Allen returned to Milwaukee tonight playing for the Miami Heat who gave Bucks fans all the more reasons to wish the team had kept him.

And now, it’s all about the benjamins. hand over the lettuce, good people for thy duty is to toil and buy any pay to the rich to play. Year ago there was a plan to provide additional funds for public schools but the wealthy defeated it. Rich people used the daily mouthpiece called the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel to push a stadium plan through the state legislature (stick it to Milwaukee, as then Gov. Thompson said). Now every time we pay sales taxes a portion goes for the stadium. We can’t get money for public transit, because that would be something we could use. I’d holding my debit card and I’m saying no to rich people and their playgrounds. Why should I pay for mediocre basketball?

Stop and frisk as a rite of passage

I just finished watching a news report from the program Democracy Now about the stop and frisk crime fighting strategy used in New York City. The police are given wide latitude to stop and frisk suspicious people. Evidence being presented in the lawsuit against stop and frisk includes tapes of police supervisors talking about what their expectations of  rank and file police officers.

A young black man interviewed by Democracy Now described being stopped and frisked as a kind of rite of passage in degradation. It reminded me of Gil Scot Heron and his songs like No Knock about warrant less often violent encounters with police during the notorious law and order era of Richard Nixon. I also recall the story of the black youth killed by Brooklyn police last month, touching off a series of protests and allegations of racism. As Gil Scot Heron would say, “New York is like Johannesburg in apartheid South Africa.”

How long can our people be subjected to such lawless behavior? In a state that crossed one barrier and joined the freedom to marry, it seems that the old barrier of walking while black still remains to be overcome.

Related articles

• NY Police Chief ADMITS That New York Has A Policy Of STOPPING And FRISKING Black People!!! (1800politics.com)
• State Senator Testifies NYPD Commissioner Told Him Police Goal Was To “Instill Fear” In Minorities (disinfo.com)
• Stop-And-Frisk Secret Recording May Play Key Role in Court Case (johnsegin.wordpress.com)

 

Who will paint the faces of the dead?

On facebook I saw that one of my friends had posted a photo of his fraudulency George Busy with a couple of his recent paintings of dogs. I asked why there were no pictures of dead soldiers. A woman responded that she thought my comment was in poor taste, Bush had done the best that he could and the soldiers were volunteers. I told her that apparently she had slept during the exposes of the Iraq war that showed Bush had ignored evidence that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq even before launching the invasion. Furthermore, Bush had blundered his way into two wars without adequate preparation and in the process turned the Clinton era budget surplus into a deficit. A couple of days ago there was a report by the Inspector General about the waste of money on the reconstruction of Iraq.Money down the drain lost through waste, fraud and abuse.

One person commenting on Bush said that his worst mistake was putting Donald Rumsfeld in charge as secretary of Defense. There were plenty of memorable moments in which Rumsfeld dodged questions about his ineptitude, changed his responses about what the phantom weapons would be found and failed to apologize for not providing the troops with the right gear to carry out their misguided mission. Almost as horrible as Rumsfeld was Condi Rice of the “mushroom cloud” comment implying that Iraq was rapidly pursuing a nuclear weapon, which she knew to be false. And I have never forgiven Colin Powell for his lies of mass distraction at the United Nations laying out the case for war. Nor have I forgotten the Fawning Commercial Media for going along with this farce, embedding their so-called journalists with the troops and not pursuing the truth.

And so we ask, in 2013, who will paint the faces of the dead? It will be a huge canvas stretching across many nations and having no end in sight. President Obama risks being one of the co-artists the longer we continue to occupy Iraq and Afghanistan. This is not about the bad paintings of a faux president. It’s about saving lives from the next war.

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• Hubris: Selling the Iraq War – The Rumsfeld memos (maddowblog.msnbc.com)
• John Fugelsang: People who supported the Iraq War don’t ever get to complain about deficits (current.com)

 

The only safe place to live

With each passing day we hear of promising students being shot and killed on the streets of Chicago. And I think of the line from the Temptations song Ball of Confusion “the only safe place to live is on an Indian reservation.” Events later proved that reservations weren’t safe, either. Families are caught up in a river of sadness and grief. People are discovering just how sick and twisted the National Rifle Association and the gun manufacturers really are. They continually suggest that we all need to be armed because we cannot depend on the police. A couple of weeks ago the “Sheriff” of Milwaukee County David Clarke made a commercial with the same message. While waiting for a police response to your 911 call, you could be killed. The same people who starve our public schools are suggesting that teachers be licensed to carry firearms. The NRA called for police in every school without bothering to calculate the enormous cost of such an undertaking.

 

Everywhere we look and see the facts show that loosening or eliminating gun regulations has not made us safer. We live in an era in which convicted killers can legally obtain firearms. And the internet, the medium by which I am communicating to you, has also helped spread deadly weapons that much faster. The same people who talk about so-called conspiracies and coverups involving the shootings in Libya are not moved to action to stop the slaughter in our streets. And the band played on.

 

Ball of Confusion (That’s What the World Is Today) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

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Avoid gossip

I had a relationship with a woman several years ago that continues to haunt me. Apparently the woman spread details of our relationship far and wide. I took a consumer to visit a clubhouse where I was semi involved and while on a tour I encountered a man who is an incredible gossip. Holy shit. In two minutes he had spilled his guts about my private business. I could have shot him, figuratively speaking.

Before entering into a new relationship I am going to check for 3 things:

1. Bill paying

2. Bed bugs

3. Gossip.

The list talks about two things that relate to our relationship and one situation that is affecting the community. I mentioned the gossip but the bill paying was almost as difficult. Long after our relationship ended I received calls and letters from collection agencies trying to find her.

The bed bugs are something that has touched the people I assist and beyond. I have been told that you can get infested by bedbugs almost anywhere. At hotels, for example. And if you have a gossip, you can imagine where news about such problems will be spread: far and wide. So, these are some things that experience has taught me.

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• Essay: The Morals of Gossip (time.com)
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Sludge washes over us

Malcolm X illustration (Photo credit: Vectorportal)

 

In America there is a large crowd of angry white people and few African-American wannabes who have been in competition to make the most absurd, racist and vile comments about President Obama. Whether it’s calling him the anti-christ, a nazi, a communist, a racist, a socialist, a secret Kenyan or Muslim or making fun of his looks, the sludge keeps piling up. I’ve never seen such hatred for one man since Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X.  There are few facts to back up any of these accusations and facts really aren’t the point.

 

We know that none of these things are true but it’s useful; for the accusers to poison the atmosphere. We need to bring out the hoses and rinse away the sludge. Let’s have a true and honest discussion about President Obama and what we think of his positions. It would be asking too much to hope that the haters would be flushed down the sewers.

 

Official photographic portrait of US President Barack Obama (born 4 August 1961; assumed office 20 January 2009) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

The night shift arrives and the calls keep coming

I just listened to the story about the federal suicide prevention hotline for veterans. Face with a growing suicide rate of veterans and active duty personnel President Obama called for increasing the telephone support available. When I visit the VA the signs are everywhere promoting the hotline.  Veterans are encouraged to Call the Veterans Crisis Line (1-800-273-8255 and Press 1) or chat online. Suicide has emerged as a greater threat to our military than terrorism as people weary from repeated deployments and family stresses take their own lives.

In a very real way this can be seen as blowback from the global war on terror which includes the longest war in American history.  I know that the blowhards in the Bush administration who championed the Iraq and Afghanistan wars never gave a second thought about the impact of these wars on the troops and their families. They were brazen in their ability to ignore cries from across the globe to stop the wars before they began.

And now, after 4 years, these are President Obama’s wars. We have the low grade occupation in Iraq with socalled advisors and then there is the increasingly unpopular Afghanistan War that he thought that he could win. He too ignored the maxim of never fighting a land war in Asia. (The night shift arrives and the calls keep coming)

I think about the despair that must have carved holes in dozens of lives from returning combat veterans who were horrified by what they had done and witnessed. The upcoming battle over the nomination process for the secretary of defense will provide another opportunity for those who seek to continue the bloodbath to voice their opinions. They will say that the president must be prepared to back up the feverish rhetoric on Iran with the very real threat of launching an attack on people who pose no threat to Americans. And the secretary of defense must share that same passion for war.

At work last night in the mental hospital I heard Bob Dylan’s song Blowin in the Wind. There were those chilling words “too many people have died” referencing the wars we had fought up to that time. And yet a new generation has come and the wars keep coming and so do the calls to the suicide line.

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• Suicide Hotline Fights To Keep Vets And Troops Alive (wnyc.org)
• Veterans Administration Still Ignores Needs of Deaf Vets Considering Suicide (pattidudek.typepad.com)
• Military Suicide Report Shows Majority Non-Combat Related (offthebase.wordpress.com)
• Silent Night: Another American Suicide In Afghanistan (news.firedoglake.com)
• Sister of suicide victim says more resources are needed (ktvb.com)
• Nine Iraq, Afghanistan War Veterans To Join Congress (huffingtonpost.com)

 

I can understand the tragedy but I don’t understand the bigotry and hatred afterward

Given the history of violence in America and the ready availability of guns shooting have almost become routine. It’s a sad way to portray a nation as rich as ours but there is no other way to look at it. By any comparison, Americans kill one another far greater than most economically developed countries combined.  I read that spurred by the shootings in Connecticut the Discovery Channel has canceled two programs devoted to gun love. Given the popularity of police procedurals it’s impossible to estimate how many shootings television viewers watched tonight for their entertainment. That’s how we roll.

And part of that rolling is the ignorance that flows from the mouths of right wing so called preachers saying things like “God” supposedly inspired the shooter because of all the sin there is in America. They claim that it is sinful to really believe in equal rights, not just those who follow a particular philosophy or are strictly involved in opposite-sex relationships.From these people spews a venom that poisons the atmosphere and sickens clear-thinking individuals everywhere. We who empathize often become the targets of scorn. But we cannot hide our humanity out of fear that someone else will dislike us. In fact, that you inspire to speak out more forcefully than ever because in the end, this is our America, too.

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