Further...

10.31.13 - 2:56 PM

Belatedly, inadequately, the issue of solitary confinement has been seeping into the news - with the Pelican Bay hunger strikes, the Angola Three story, the U.N.'s declaring such long-term isolation from time, touch, light, all human contact what it is - torture. More searing testimony from Five Omar Mualimm-ak, an activist who served 12 years in prison, over five in solitary, "out of sight and invisible to other human beings (and) eventually to myself," for "offenses" like having too many postage stamps, eating an entire apple including core, or not eating enough of it - which became "refusing to eat."

-Abby Zimet
10.31.13 - 1:28 PM

Fellow Patriots, listen up. Just because the news has been all about shutdowns and health care doesn't mean your patriotic defenders of the fringe haven't been way busy with other way important stuff. Thus do we have: A mind-boggling Patriot Survival Plan for a coming crisis that will be just like Pearl Harbor and the Great Depression and 9/11 and the Civil War all rolled into one "knife in the heart of this great nation"; a claim from the American Family Association the U.S. military is being conditioned "in their brains" to kill Christians and Tea Partiers; and a claim the U.N. is plotting to take over the Alamo, that "sacred shrine for individual freedom in the face of collective evil" - a story one Texas official calls "horse hockey." Which sounds cool but makes no more sense than anything else here. The thing is: these people are out there. USA USA!

-Abby Zimet
10.31.13 - 12:04 PM

With a governmental task force reportedly urging that the grossly inept TEPCO be stripped of responsibility in shutting down and cleaning up the crippled Fukushima plant, business workers have joined the growing nuclear protests in Japan. Over 600 people who came direct from work in their business suits marched Wednesday in Tokyo, deliberately passing by TEPCO offices with signs reading "No to Restarts" and "Stop Contaminated Water."

-Abby Zimet
10.31.13 - 11:28 AM

For Halloween, the best response ever from a D.C. mom after some jerk stole her kid's pumpkin. With photos from the good, old, weird, hand-made days, and a last lugubrious word from Lou Reed.

-Abby Zimet
10.30.13 - 1:39 PM

Amidst revelations that some 750 pipeline spills, many in remote areas, have gone largely unreported in the last year comes news of Tuesday's spill of 17,000 gallons of crude from a Koch-owned pipeline in Texas. Alarmingly brief reports say the cleanup has begun, the cause is unknown, as is the timeline for fixing it, and Koch Pipeline Co. has "notified the appropriate federal and state regulators." So not to worry. Question: If a pipeline built by conscience-free, profit-driven mega-corporations starts oozing toxic oil in the boonies and nobody sees, hears or calls them on it, what will become of us?

-Abby Zimet
10.30.13 - 12:48 PM

Nearing the end of his month-long residency on the streets of New York, street artist and showman Banksy bought a nondescript landscape from a thrift shop for Housing Works, which advocates for the homeless and those living with HIV/AIDS, for 50 bucks, added a Nazi and his signature to it, and returned it to the shop, which is now auctioning it off. Current bid on what he calls, straight-faced, "oil on oil on canvas," is $213,513.

-Abby Zimet
10.30.13 - 11:46 AM

Several international lawyers' groups have written a lengthy, scathing letter urging Toronto police to arrest Dick Cheney "as a person suspected on reasonable grounds of authorizing, counseling, aiding (and) abetting torture” when the Great Dick visits the 2013 Toronto Global Forum later this week. Lawyers Against the War cite numerous war crimes and crimes against humanity statutes in their demand that Cheney be "investigated and prosecuted for the indictable offence of torture" to prevent him from “escaping to the United States” - where, unconscionably and incomprehensibly, he still walks our nation's ignoble streets a free man.

Update: Greenwald rips Cheney.

-Abby Zimet

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Thursday October 31, 2013

Robert C. Koehler:
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Wednesday October 30, 2013

Tuesday October 29, 2013

Lina Newhouser