DETROIT, WATER, BANKS & HUMAN RIGHTS

Anyone following the Detroit water crisis will have learned a valuable lesson this week: living a healthy life has nothing to do with human rights—at least not when paying for clean, running water is concerned. I’ll tone down my heavily-opinionated approach today and let you reach your own conclusion about US Bankruptcy Judge Steven Rhodes’ […]

THIS CHART EXPLAINS WHY YOU CAN’T TRUST DEMOCRATS OR REPUBLICANS WITH THE ECONOMY (IF YOU’RE NOT RICH)

Pew Research’s Conrad Hackett tweeted a disturbing chart by economist Pavlina R Tcherneva—the richest 10 percent of Americans has soaked up an increasingly greater share of average income growth during every US economic expansion since the 1950s. The 2009-2012 period can really piss you off—even if you’re a member of the top 10%. No one can […]

THE BEHEADING KINGS

You thought ISIL holds the Most Brutal title with its beheadings of civilians? Wrong. This is what the United Nations‘ Human Rights office has to say about Saudi Arabia (emphasis mine): According to the experts, so far in 2014, at least 45 people have been executed in Saudi Arabia. Between 4 and 22 August, […]

RAY RICE DESERVES MICHAEL VICK TREATMENT

The thousands, or millions of you, who are outraged about the Baltimore Ravens’ star running back Ray Rice knocking his then fiancé unconscious, shouldn’t be so shocked. There are just as many of you – if not more – who are passive enablers to partner abuse on a daily basis. The actions of the Ravens, the […]

HAPPY BELATED LABOR DAY! I GUESS.

Apologies, this Labor Day post was sitting in my computer for a few days and should have been released days ago. I’ll start by reminding you that Labor Day in America was born from the Washington’s election year desire to make up for the blood of workers that was literally spilled during a federally-ordered […]

ALWAYS LOOKING FOR THE BLACK ONES WITH THE BRICKS

The Broken Windows paradigm of law enforcement – or more specifically, the policing strategy of stopping or arresting perpetrators of minor, quality-of-life crimes to prevent more serious offenses from occurring – received a big endorsement from most New Yorkers inclusive of the Black community, thanks to a recent Quinnipiac survey of attitudes about the […]

ANGEL SHOOTS DEVIL TO DEATH IN FERGUSON

A long time ago, an observant man from this organization summarized people who subscribe to dialectic axioms as “folks who believe that once you identify ‘what it is,’ you’ve automatically identified ‘what it’s not.’” Many news organizations use this tactic, either by accident or by design, to simplify a complex world for their audiences. So … […]

BLACK CODES OF MODERN-DAY FERGUSON

People who ask “How come Blacks can’t get ahead” – whether in inquisitive or derogatorily accusative terms – can look to ArchCity Defenders‘ researched exposé (pdf) of Ferguson Missouri’s predatory law enforcement and court systems for a source of answers which will remind you of America’s post-Civil War Black Codes. To summarize the research, St. Louis […]

POISON BANANAS, REVISITED

The significance of last night’s post about the events in Ferguson, Missouri and in other American cities is that I’m typically not the guy who places the words “America” and “Banana Republic” in the same sentence. Being a fascism conspiracy theorist isn’t my style. But this photo tweeted by Al Jazeera that shows journalists being gassed doesn’t make me feel any […]

A BANANA REPUBLIC WITH POISON FRUIT

Now that a state of emergency has been declared by Missouri Governor Jay Nixon, lets ask again: what’s happening in the city of Ferguson? Or more broadly, what’s happening in America? Did The Terrorists finally win? Did the September 11 attacks become the decisive battle that turned Big and Small Town America into paranoid, […]