You took your infant to a protest and made a side on a torn up box.
I’m pretty at least a couple of those things do apply to you.
I didn’t realize Trent Reznor had joined the Occupy movement …
(Source: terrillific)
“It’s long past time to rip those blindfolds off of the Lady Justice statues. When the purpose of American justice is to shield those with the greatest power who commit the most egregious crimes, while severely punishing those who talk publicly about those crimes, it’s hard to imagine how it can get much more degraded or corrupted than that.”
“Either that dude is living in some psychotically imagined hellscape devoid of all hope or beauty, or … he’s from Indiana!”
“Our growth is generally dependent upon our ability to obtain new contracts to develop and manage new correctional and detention facilities… . The demand for our facilities and services could be adversely affected by the relaxation of enforcement efforts, leniency in conviction and sentencing practices or through the decriminalization of certain activities that are currently proscribed by our criminal laws. For instance, any changes with respect to drugs and controlled substances or illegal immigration could affect the number of persons arrested, convicted, and sentenced, thereby potentially reducing demand for correctional facilities to house them.”
Corrections Corporation of America, the largest private prison operator in America, statement to stockholders, 2005.
In other words: ending the Drug War and eliminating federal mandatory minimum sentences is bad for business. Adam Gopnik notes that CCA “spends millions lobbying legislators.” presumably, inter alia, to keep harsh sentencing laws on the books.
(via letterstomycountry)
Private prison industry? What private prison industry?
Jim Souhan asks, “What would young Joe … have said about JoePa, the legend who waved cheerfully to doting fans after being revealed as an enabler of child rape?”
Many of my peers are choosing to remember young Joe today. They’re using the sadness of his death and the enormity of his accomplishments to obscure his crimes of omission. This is sports sentimentality at its worst, and nowhere does sentimentality run amok the way it does in the bastion of school fight songs and mascots.
One man had a chance to preserve, even enhance, young Joe’s reputation as a great leader. That man was old Joe. Presented with eyewitness accounts of child abuse in his own locker room, and surrounded by years of rumors about one of his most important assistant coaches, Paterno shrank.
With great power comes great responsibility. Paterno wielded more influence than anyone else in Happy Valley. When he could have used it to protect children, he passed the buck like a cowering bureaucrat.
Whether we like it or not, the failure of Paterno to do more than the bare minimum is a more important part of his legacy than the cute coke-bottle glasses he wore, the way he led his team onto the field in a ratty sweater, and any football game won. Football is a game. It does not affect life. The abuse of a child is an act that affects the victim for life and can lead to self-hatred and suicide. I, for one, know of no football player who committed suicide because he threw a last-minute interception or missed a game-saving tackle.
Even before Paterno’s death Sunday, the travesty of Penn State was already veering away from the countless acts of sexual abuse Sandusky allegedly committed against minors, not to mention all the indications of a cover-up by the top echelon of the university, including Paterno. Instead a new steam engine has been in motion, questioning whether Paterno had been treated fairly by the trustees when he was fired. The chorus was growing louder, forcing board of trustee members to go on a public relations blitz to The New York Times and the Philadelphia Inquirer to make their case they had done the right thing. Which they did. Artful, no, because of the way he was notified, with a phone message to call a board member. Necessary, yes.
My guess is that the death of Paterno will pump that steam engine even more. Those who loved him—and there are many thousands, and they have every right to love him—will push him more and more into the sanctity of the martyred because of his death.
“When I think back on Joe Paterno’s legacy, the events of the last two months won’t even cross my mind.”
Franco Harris, last week:
“I find it hard to believe that on Nov. 9th, that all 32 board members wanted Joe Paterno fired,” Harris said. “Hopefully, someone will come forward and admit they didn’t want Joe Paterno fired. This wasn’t a football problem. If it had been a football issue, believe me, Joe Paterno would have handled this.
“The present leadership thinks it’s right what happened and how this was handled. And we all know it was wrong. And this comes from our current leadership. They’re hoping everything goes on as normal. All I want is the truth.
“I think we deserve it.”
Hopefully, somebody supplied him with a copy of this article out of the New York Times today:
The board, scrambling to address the child sexual abuse scandal involving the university and its football program, had already decided to remove Graham B. Spanier as president. Then, many of those present recalled this week, the tension in the room mounted. Joe Paterno’s future was next up. Surma announced that an agreement appeared to have been reached to fire Paterno, too — the trustees having determined that he had failed to take adequate action when he was told that one of his longtime assistants had been seen molesting a 10-year-old boy in Paterno’s football facility.
Surma, those present recalled, surveyed the other trustees — there are 32 — for their opinions and emotions before asking one last question: “Does anyone have any objections? If you have an objection, we’re open to it.”
No one in the room spoke. There was silence from the phone speakers. Paterno’s 46-year tenure as head coach of one of the country’s storied college football programs was over, and the gravity of the action began to sink in.
Or more importantly (emphasis mine):
“To me, it wasn’t about guilt or innocence in a legal sense,” the trustee Kenneth C. Frazier, the chief executive at Merck, said of Paterno’s decision not to go to police. “It was about these norms of society that I’m talking about: that every adult has a responsibility for every other child in our community. And that we have a responsibility not to do the minimum, the legal requirement. We have a responsibility for ensuring that we can take every effort that’s within our power not only to prevent further harm to that child, but to every other child.”
Former GOP Senator Alan Simpson tells Fareed Zakaria that Republicans “like to give the saliva test of purity and then they lose and then they just bitch for four years. It’s an amazing party.”
ZAKARIA: Senator, when I was growing up and coming of age, I remember you were thought of as a pretty conservative guy. I mean you were representing Wyoming, after all. And to listen to you now, you sound like a moderate. Have you changed or has the Republican Party changed?
SIMPSON: Well, I think the Republican Party changed. But where - where - what happened with me is, I always felt that abortion is a hideous and terrible thing.
Let’s all admit that. But it’s a deeply intimate and personal decision. Here’s a party that believes in government out of your lives, the precious right of privacy and the right to be left alone. Well, then what are you doing in this issue? Partial birth abortion is not an emotional issue, it’s a medical issue. It’s to free the birth canal for a - hopefully, a later child. I mean it’s madness.
Gay-lesbian issues, we all have someone we know or love who’s gay or lesbian. What the hell is this all about? Madness. And if we’re going to get trapped in that we’re headed for some more strife.
Sports Illustrated has an interesting gallery of posters sure to draw protests from the Westboro Baptist Church from the 1980s.
Lakhdar Boumediene tells his story:
ON Wednesday, America’s detention camp at Guantánamo Bay will have been open for 10 years. For seven of them, I was held there without explanation or charge. During that time my daughters grew up without me. They were toddlers when I was imprisoned, and were never allowed to visit or speak to me by phone. Most of their letters were returned as “undeliverable,” and the few that I received were so thoroughly and thoughtlessly censored that their messages of love and support were lost.
Some American politicians say that people at Guantánamo are terrorists, but I have never been a terrorist. Had I been brought before a court when I was seized, my children’s lives would not have been torn apart, and my family would not have been thrown into poverty. It was only after the United States Supreme Court ordered the government to defend its actions before a federal judge that I was finally able to clear my name and be with them again.
![kohenari:
About ten days ago, I asked people to read about Robert Gattis’ case and to consider signing a petition asking the Delaware Board of Pardons to recommend that his death sentence be commuted to life imprisonment. Here’s an important update:
The Delaware Board of Pardons is recommending that Gov. Jack Markell grant clemency to a man facing execution this week for killing his former girlfriend.
[…]
A person with direct knowledge of the decision, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the decision hadn’t been released, said the board voted in favor of commutation. However, Markell has the final word.
The same petition that went to the Board of Pardons will now go to him so you needn’t sign again (though you can, of course, still pass this information along).
If you haven’t yet signed, more information about the Gattis case and the petition itself can be found here.](http://29.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lxwmtwQQLj1qzy2emo1_500.jpg)
About ten days ago, I asked people to read about Robert Gattis’ case and to consider signing a petition asking the Delaware Board of Pardons to recommend that his death sentence be commuted to life imprisonment. Here’s an important update:
The Delaware Board of Pardons is recommending that Gov. Jack Markell grant clemency to a man facing execution this week for killing his former girlfriend.
[…]
A person with direct knowledge of the decision, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the decision hadn’t been released, said the board voted in favor of commutation. However, Markell has the final word.
The same petition that went to the Board of Pardons will now go to him so you needn’t sign again (though you can, of course, still pass this information along).
If you haven’t yet signed, more information about the Gattis case and the petition itself can be found here.
