Rest in Love, Dick Gregory

I’m currently reflecting on the loss of Dick Gregory, who was 84. While much of the media will spend the day filling your ears with love-in stories about how much of a good comedian he was — a point I can definitely nod my head to — you likely won’t hear much about the context […]

POST ELECTION MEDITATIONS – WOMEN AND STRUGGLE

I have plenty of post-election thoughts to share, but will have to break my natural stream-of-consciousness writing style and create a series of posts to avoid publishing tomes. This is still a blog, after all … Perhaps a good place to start is a discussion about women’s personal connection with Hillary Clinton being so close to punching […]

SLAVE REPARATIONS WILL LIKELY TURN DEADLY

So, what’s my reaction to the UN Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent’s recent visit to the United States where they urged the federal government to consider slavery reparations for African Americans? My reaction remains similar to what I’ve told friends who asked me this question during the […]

EPA’S LACK OF COURAGE MEANS FLINT’S WATER CRISIS CAN SPREAD

While it became increasingly clear that the Flint, Michigan water crisis is one of the largest leadership, environmental and human rights disasters in American history, I was bollixed about why federal Environmental Protection Agency Region 5 administrator Susan Hedman silenced EPA team member Miguel del Toral and hid the most damaging parts of Toral’s memo […]

KING ABDULLAH’S BLOOD-STAINED LEGACY

While President Obama and other Washington heavies give posthumous praise to King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud for his “moderate” voice of the Middle East, I have a different set of memories… Under King Abdullah’s reign, unarmed protesters were shot to death. He beheaded people as if he was creating a national sport. Practicing spiritual […]

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’ […]

SAVING YOUR LIFE BY BOMBING YOU TO DEATH

Here we go again—the US is undertaking another “Bomb to Protect” humanity adventure, which has killed civilians. This time around, the objective is to free Syrians and the rest of the world from ISIL’s tyranny. I can’t say the seven civilian deaths resulting from that bombing are isolated since recent news headlines seem to highlight more […]

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, […]