The awkward nature of social media.. While Ferguson MO erupted in violence and the entire social media report erupted in virtual reality, the Obamas wined and dined with surf and turf–and danced nearly every song. A good time, we were told in a tweet, was had by all..
Ferguson’s population is more than two-thirds black, but its police force only has three black officers. The town of 21,000 was not previously known for racial tension, but some say it has been bubbling beneath the surface. Young black men feel targeted by police and resent it. Gun sales have spiked locally.
This and more valuable information from THE ECONOMIST..
And more:
The number of people shot and killed by the police is hard to track. Nationwide, it has probably fallen since violent crime peaked in the 1990s. In New York, for example, police bullets killed 39 people in 1990 but eight in 2010. But since local police departments are not obliged to keep detailed statistics, it is hard to discern the national picture, says David Klinger of the University of Missouri, St Louis. A 2011 Department of Justice study found that the police kill roughly one person every day. The FBI deemed nearly all of these killings justifiable, but still too many were not. If the police wore body cameras, that might help. Complaints dropped nearly 90% and the use of force fell 60% when officers started wearing them in Rialto, California.
A striking photo.. a chilling TWEET
Everyone: This is America, 2014..
What is the big story? Race relations on one hand.. and a military police in the free US on the other.
Welcome to your life.
Police clash with protesters in Ferguson for another night.. two journalists were detained..
Heavy militarized police response..
THIS IS HOW AMERICA NOW IS, EVERYONE: NBC NEWS REPORTS: “A Washington Post reporter and another journalist were arrested by police earlier in the day by officers who ordered everyone out of a McDonald’s restaurant, an arrest the newspaper’s executive editor called illegal and unjustified. Wesley Lowery said he was slammed into a soda machine and arrested after recording officers. Also arrested was Huffington Post reporter Ryan Reilly” … the reporters were released without explanation as to why they were arrested or treated the way they were .. ALEX JONES’ INFOWARS writes that police were AWOL during looting but are now actively engaging in military tactics against American protesters.. A quick glance at photos and videos reveals nothing but that. A dramatic and heavy show of force, arsenal, making the scene look more like video from Baghdad after the United States invasion than a town of 21,000 people in the United States..
Here is a photo of Ryan Reilly of the HUFFINGTON POST being arrested..
How America’s Police Became an Army: The 1033 Program
As many have noted, Ferguson, Missouri, currently looks like a war zone. And its police—kitted out with Marine-issue camouflage and military-grade body armor, toting short-barreled assault rifles, and rolling around in armored vehicles—are indistinguishable from soldiers.
America has been quietly arming its police for battle since the early 1990s.
Faced with a bloated military and what it perceived as a worsening drug crisis, the 101st Congress in 1990 enacted the National Defense Authorization Act. Section 1208 of the NDAA allowed the Secretary of Defense to “transfer to Federal and State agencies personal property of the Department of Defense, including small arms and ammunition, that the Secretary determines is— (A) suitable for use by such agencies in counter-drug activities; and (B) excess to the needs of the Department of Defense.” It was called the 1208 Program. In 1996, Congress replaced Section 1208 with Section 1033.
A NOTE TO NEWSWEEK: If you had the proper tin foil hat you would have seen it coming like all the rest of the informed citizens that knew it was coming.
As so often happens during free-flowing conversation with me, I got into a somewhat intense chat yesterday with a few friends and co-workers..Typically, my ‘devil’s advocate’ style of arguing enrages some who don’t quite understand I am always attempting to trick them into disagreeing with their own point of view..
The topic at hand yesterday was actually something that reared its ugly head from my colloquial area. A gay couple was denied a cake from a popular bakery in Schuylkill Haven, PA.. the CAKE PROS was actually a business my wife and I entertained in 2007 when we got married, but we found a better deal.. Now, in the modern age of quick news online, their name is being besmirched throughout the nation due to their ‘Christian’ moral of denying same sex couples baked goods..
And this is where we are in the world..
There is something amazing to me about what wars Christians choose to fight and what banners of zeal they decide to wear on their sleeves..
For a little bit of full disclosure, I was born and raised Catholic. I don’t regret it, as it actually gave me a sound foundation in grade school and let me fight religious professors in high school with knowledge.. But as any Catholic does after years of education, I grew doubtful in my 20s and now, in my 30s, completely and utterly confused as to the purpose of life and whether, big question time, a personal God even exists to begin with.. maybe I’m not in the Stephen Hawking camp yet, but more in the Michio Kaku corner: that a personal god is illogical but a god of order is more true. Math always seems to add up. Electricity makes sense.. perhaps the God I choose to try to understand is a God of those two subject matters.. Or maybe the real God will be wagging his finger at me on a high throne when my demise occurs, as my lifelong doubting Thomas type mindset never seemed to go away..
But that is me.. Confused and pondering the meaning of all of it.. not a believer or disbeliever.. just someone searching for answers. Clues.. Any signs that aren’t just by chance mistakes on the grand scale of life..
While it seems I am digressing, I’m not. I am attempting to paint a somewhat vivid picture of my mindset vs others..
Back to cakes..
Yesterday, there was one particular hard core Christian, whom I know and love and think is a great person, that expressed a sentiment that the Cake Pros thought process is not abhorrent but instead quite fine. I posed the question: If the pastor of the church you go to suddenly says he will allow gay marriages in her church, will you quit? The question caused her to become flustered.. she was torn. On one hand, as a literal believer in the Bible and someone who endorses the 6000 year (flawed) theory of the age of the planet, she is right at home in the church she attends. The Bible is an historic account, she says.. It’s all true. And even those parts of the excoriation of women or the killing of innocent as a punishment from God? Well they happened but they’re glossed over as ‘events of a time we don’t understand.’ While everyone has the right to believe what they do, this person I speak of denies science and disregards any evidence presented through carbon dating or other scientific method as a parallel to truth, and quite possibly of Satan himself attempting to trick the faithful into doubt.. She also thinks Satan has done the same for me–no matter how many times I tell her I am investigating all of life and trying to find answers without simple blind faith.. Nonetheless, the question on whether she would quit this church, one that espouses all of her own convictions, due to gay marriage taking place, was difficult.. Finally, after obvious blood pressure hit her forehead and confusion hit her brain, she answered: “Yes.” She would quit..
And this is the battle Christians in the United States are attempting to fight, at this time.. right now.
Gay marriage.
Same sex love..
To make matters worse, during my chat with this person, she said that gay people still have a choice whether they want to sin or not.. So I asked her back: “Why did you choose to be straight?” That question irritated her to high heaven, much more than I expected it to..
There were no answers..Instead the conversation ended quickly and we agreed to disagree..
I find the entire premise of fighting over gay marriage to be contrary to any common sense..
I am 33, and I think I am apart of a generation that began not caring. I grew up with the ‘not that there’s anything wrong with that’ joke from Seinfeld.. Characters on television programs were quietly incorporating same sex love long before adults noticed. While my high school years still were filled with gay hate in some circles, the rest of us knew that fawning the most hate were probably simply hating their own impulses anyway..
Things have changed. More and more states are going to allow gay marriage.
But hard core religious believers will still pump up their iron of anger and quote scripture to condemn those in love…All the while ignoring most of anything important actually happening on this planet..
There is a great divide of common sense in Christian quarters, in my thought..
In Iraq, ISIS, or IS, is busy slaughtering Christians in big numbers.. sure, fellow Muslims who believe in a slightly different timeline are getting cruel punishments, too, but the big target seems to be the infidels. Men, women anad children–kids–are being sliced in half .. Beheaded.. pressed.. stoned.. They are being deprived of food and water and forced to perish in horrible and long drawn out deaths.. They are being burned. Buried alive. Tortured. And some families are being forced to throw their own children off of cliffs to kill them –a better option when compared to the inevitable treatment when ISIS comes to town..
But Christians here? Worried about gay marriage..
There is something very dangerous about religion–something that we as a civilization should have dealt with long ago..
The logic escapes me, as well.. While this is not an endorsement of atheism–I am not that but instead searching for answers as mentioned prior–but perhaps the line from John Lennon’s song IMAGINE about thinking of a planet that had no religion is in order.. If there’s no religion, no belief system to divide us, perhaps we will become a united people ready to achieve our destiny: Inhabiting the stars and populating our galaxy with life.. Maybe we will not be cutting children in half because Mohammed said so. And perhaps the Christian crusades in which the same behavior occurred would not have taken place, either..
Maybe the light of life that is in every child’s eyes will not be indoctrinated by hate disguised and love, or judgement pretending to be discernment.
If there was no religion, perhaps we would start getting closer to actually finding who or what created us.. Maybe without ancient texts to get in the way, we would be able to scientifically trace back the origins of man and find the missing link.. Hell, maybe we’d even find out the grays did make us as a science experiment but that they are confused we have souls..
I look at my own son before bed each night. He sleeps in peace, most times and sugar-depending.. He is inquisitive about what his world, so far, is.. But I still weep for those children who don’t have have a peaceful sleep.. Those awakened by bombs overhead or the cries of suffering mothers at the hands of hateful and dreadful human beings hellbent on opening the gates of Hades on this planet. I contemplate the mothers of the children of the disappeared.. I loathe those who profess faith while driving BMWs to their giant Sunday services in convention centers.. I disdain religions that set rules contrary to human emotion.. And I get infuriated when people quote God to justify their heartless and ungodly acts.
But ain’t that Earth?
The truth will set us free.. what if that truth is that all religions are frauds and that the issues we have been told are important are nothing more than divisive ways to control population? I think that’s exactly what religion so often is..
Pope Francis has lots of impromptu photo ops. But there’s always a photographer at the ready, isn’t there?
Is anything real? Is nothing real?
Gay marriage is real to some.
The world is real to others–especially those suffering in it..
The quicker we move on from old antiquated belief systems the better..
There’s a world of trouble out there. It’s time to move on from the world.
When the laughs die.. what are we left with? When cameras turn off, the lights go out.. the darkness enters..
Horrible and sad news tonight.. Robin Williams dead..
It is being ruled a suicide..
But that doesn’t matter..
What matters is what this man did to cheer up the world—all the while he battled the sadness and depression of inner demons..
May God, if he exists, take Mr. Williams to an amazing place..
His time on this planet certainly amazed us, and made us smile when we were most down..
Mr. Keating, oh captain.. rest in peace.
Calling Dick Tracey…
What was science fiction then is reality now.
This is how people are going to be reading news.. they won’t be checking the time, they will be fixated on their arms to get the latest headlines and sports scores..
I believe it’s just a matter of time before the devices get implanted.. we are as close to it as we can be..
What does it rise over..?
A nation rattled by violence .. one where women and children are buried alive by extremists..?
Maybe another where a disease has ravaged all that dwell within rural towns and communities..
Maybe another filled with hated..
Sorrow..
horror..
Or perhaps one of peace, where street lights grace the late summer night sky.. and an aura of moonlight dances overtop of the darkened trees as the clock strikes midnight..
There are too many places where tonight’s supermoon is seeing terror on the planet earth.. Not enough smiles, not enough laughs..
Try to be at peace, earth..
The supermoon weeps tonight..
A whole bunch of newspapers—and magazines—are collapsing under the weight of print..
Though I think we’ll still miss some of them when they’re gone, it’s looking like they are about to be G O N E..
Good evening cruel world
The rollout of the TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES is just about set for a momentous culmination.. the movie’s release will come after months —and many hardcore weeks—of Megan Fox headlines. She has cussed out haters, she said she’s sexy, and she dressed in attire that nearly didn’t cover the most sensual places on her body..
But perhaps regret is starting to creep in. Film companies has used her body and her beauty—not her thumbs—for about a decade. Her roles have focused on the beauty and not the brains.. and isn’t that really a shame.
USA TODAY reports this about her real attitude:
Just, please, please, don’t call her a bombshell in front of her kids. Fox, who plays intrepid reporterApril O’Neil in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtlesreboot opening Friday, cringes visibly when she thinks about her two toddlers, Noah, almost 2, and Bodhi, 5 months, one day being confronted with images of their mother all sexed up.
"I wanted to be a superhero for my children. They can’t really see Transformers, because it’s too sexualized for them to deal with their mother. That’s their mother bent over the car. We don’t need to go there — maybe ever," says Fox, 28, referring to her breakout performance in Michael Bay’s 2007 cinematic explosion.
Michael Bay’s use of Megan’s body in promos ..It has been apparent that TMNT spots are featuring her on purpose in order to attract a potential gender and age group.. And her outfits to the premieres? My oh my.. Little left to an imagination..
Even more sex related news concerning Megan Fox: Apparently, Brian Austin Greene is not having sex with Megan.. We know that because of gossip rags and E!ONLINE reporting it..
It’s bizarre to me—and always has been—to know the secret and sultry sex lives of Hollywood stars. People in grocery store lines have always eaten it up as much as the pastries surely in their grocery carts.. And now with the internet’s cheapening of gossip, now it’s even worse. The paparazzi would love to snap Fox and others in any position they could..
But Megan has kids.
And her body has been used for years..
Up and until now..
Regret perhaps? The uncomfortable fact that eventually her children will see films in which she’s bent overtop of a car with her scantily clad breasts hanging out? You can’t cover kids’ eyes forever.
But it will be ‘mom’ .. and no one wants to look at ‘mom’ ..
Just when you have lost hope in society.. this happens: A man was freed from a train but a lot of good people.. Commuters used the power of their collective goodness and power to free the man trapped against a platform at Perth Stirling station..
Amazing video.. great story..
It is in the Philadelphia archaeology museum.. The skeleton, 6,500 years young, was in the basement of the building for 85 years.. In storage. Just laying around all this time..
Maybe they should start searching their couches for any other ‘loose change’ or bones.
This happened 40 years ago today.
Philippe Petit left a crowd of thousands breathless as he traversed a wire strung between the Twin Towers. Eschewing a safety harness or a net, the 24-year-old walked and danced across the 130-foot gap between the towers, balanced on a one-inch thick steel cable strung at a height of 110-stories.
In later accounts, Petit traced his inspiration for the performance back to the first time he saw a photo of the Twin Towers. He was at a dentist’s office with a toothache when he came across the image in a magazine. The 18-year-old ripped the photo out and left the office. He spent the next six years planning for the death-defying act.
And now those towers are gone.. remaining are memories of them, and recollections of seeing this amazing feat on that day in August, 1974..
As above, so below.. don’t tell me that everything’s not connected.. as a hurricane approaches Hawaii, the big islands get rocked by an earthquake.
It’s all energy
Sierra Leone is at the epicenter of the Ebola outbreak. But many people there don’t think the virus is real. Others are so frightened by Ebola that they’re afraid to take sick relatives to clinics.
This is fascinating, and a symptom of oppression and constant upheaval in certain places on the continent of Africa..
So many in the hot spot for Ebola don’t think it even exists..While workers, government officials, and military personnel all drive around in cars with loudspeakers—cars that feature images of people looking like zombies, vomiting—some listening are ignoring.. Ignorance is what may be causing the virus to spread faster and further than ever before in recorded history of Ebola.
NPR reports on some of the Ebola deniers:
Opinions are mixed, but there’s a strong dose of Ebola deniers— those who don’t believe the virus exists at all. Zainab Koroma, a street hawker, is adamant it isn’t real.
"I do not believe Ebola exists because none of my family members has been affected by it," she says. "When you get sick of cholera, they say it is Ebola. When your body temperature rises, they say it is Ebola. So I honestly don’t believe Ebola exists. There could be a lot of other diseases killing people."
That’s one of the challenges facing Sierra Leone — trying to convince the nation that “Ebola is real, Ebola is here, and Ebola kills,” as one poster reads. Some people do survive, if they receive medical care early, as soon as they fall sick.
The case of 32-year-old Saudata Koroma transfixed the nation late last month. She was brought to a faded blue government hospital in Freetown, feeling unwell, and was admitted.
"Yes, and we were suspicious that she had Ebola, and she was put in isolation," says Amadu Sesay, the doctor in charge of the hospital. "The tests proved she had Ebola. Prior to the arrival of the test results, the relatives of the patient stormed the facility. They stormed this hospital and took the patient away."
When his staff learned Koroma had Ebola, Sesay says, they had to track her down. But it took some time. “She was put in an ambulance, but unfortunately on the way to [an Ebola clinic in] Kailahun, she died,” he says.
And with that epic account, more infections were spread due to the denial of the disease..
The world may spin their eyes at tales of denials of a deadly virus, but consider some facts: You may live in a nation absent these abuses:
All of that while the world ignored, and then Sierra Leone was put on the United Nations Human Rights Council in 2012.
So doubt that Ebola exists? Common sense would tell someone it’s real.. But live in a nation where the citizenry has been oppressed by a tyrannical government, and it’s easy to see why disbelief in reality is rampant.
