Tuesday, May 24, 2005

The National - Secret Meeting

Heard about this band on NPR's "Day to Day" and liked this song. See for your own self

The National - Secret Meeting

Wednesday, May 04, 2005

The outrages never cease....

This is just disgusting.

Summary here. Or for those of you to lazy to lift your right index finger and click on your mouse:

The focus of the drug war in the United States has shifted significantly over the past decade from hard drugs to marijuana, which now accounts for nearly half of all drug arrests nationwide, according to an analysis of federal crime statistics released yesterday.
The study of FBI data by a Washington-based think tank, the Sentencing Project, found that the proportion of heroin and cocaine cases plummeted from 55 percent of all drug arrests in 1992 to less than 30 percent 10 years later. During the same period, marijuana arrests rose from 28 percent of the total to 45 percent.


This just makes absolutely no sense. Can we please stop arresting/imprisoning/hassling people who possess marijuana? Is this a legitimate use of limited law enforcement resources, to bust and arrest people who smoke pot?

Freedom on the march!

from the USA Today:

By Bill Nichols and Mona Mahmoud, USA TODAY

Support for the decision to go to war in Iraq has fallen to its lowest level since the campaign began in March 2003, according to a USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll released Tuesday.

The patience of the American public is beginning to get worn down a little bit by how long this is taking," said Charles Pena, a military affairs analyst at the Cato Institute, a think tank in Washington. "While we have made progress ... I think people are just tired of this and want it to be over." The poll conducted Friday through Sunday asked 514 adults the question. The margin of error was +/—5 percentage points.

Public support peaked as Saddam Hussein's regime fell in 2003 when 76% of those polled said the war was worth it. The latest poll shows a drop in positive feelings sparked by Iraqi elections in January. In a similar poll taken Feb. 7-10, 48% said the war had been worth waging, while 50% said it had not been. Violence declined in the weeks after the election, but insurgents launched a wave of suicide bombings and attacks in recent weeks, raising concerns that violence will continue.

Comment: So we're apparently just a nation full of freedom-haters. I'm so ashamed.

Cook County Medical Examiner to Exhume body of Emmett Till

Body of Emmett Till to be exhumed

CHICAGO (AP) — Nearly 50 years after 14-year-old Emmett Till's slaying shocked a nation and galvanized the civil rights movement, his body will be exhumed as federal authorities attempt to determine who killed him, the FBI said today.Till's body, buried in a cemetery in the Chicago suburb of Alsip, will be exhumed within the next few weeks so the Cook County Medical Examiner's office can conduct an autopsy, said Deborah Madden, spokeswoman for the FBI's office in Jackson, Miss.

The U.S. Justice Department announced plans last year to reopen the Till investigation, saying it was triggered by several pieces of information including a documentary by New York filmmaker Keith Beauchamp."The exhumation is a logical continuation of that," Madden said. "An autopsy was never performed on the body and the cause of death was never determined."

Bob Dylan will be proud:


"Twas down in Mississippi no so long ago,
When a young boy from Chicago town stepped through a Southern door.
This boy's dreadful tragedy I can still remember well,
The color of his skin was black and his name was Emmett Till.

Some men they dragged him to a barn and there they beat him up.
They said they had a reason, but I can't remember what.
They tortured him and did some evil things too evil to repeat.
There was screaming sounds inside the barn, there was laughing sounds out on the street.

Then they rolled his body down a gulf amidst a bloody red rain,
And they threw him in the waters wide to cease his screaming pain.
The reason that they killed him there, and I'm sure it ain't no lie,
Was just for the fun of killin' him and to watch him slowly die.

And then to stop the United States of yelling for a trial,
Two brothers they confessed that they had killed poor Emmett Till.
But on the jury there were men who helped the brothers commit this awful crime,
And so this trial was a mockery, but nobody seemed to mind.

I saw the morning papers but I could not bear to see,
The smiling brothers walkin' down the courthouse stairs.
For the jury found them innocent and the brothers they went free,
While Emmett's body floats the foam of a Jim Crow southern sea.

If you can't speak out against this kind of thing, a crime that's so unjust,
Your eyes are filled with dead men's dirt, your mind is filled with dust.
Your arms and legs they must be in shackles and chains,
and your blood it must refuse to flow,
For you let this human race fall down so God-awful low!

This song is just a reminder to remind your fellow man
That this kind of thing still lives today in that ghost-robed Ku Klux Klan.
But if all of us folks that thinks alike, if we gave all we could give,
We could make this great land of ours a greater place to live.

Copyright © 1963; renewed 1991 Special Rider Music

Tuesday, May 03, 2005

THIS HAS GOT TO STOP! SOMEBODY DO SOMETHING!

Forget about social security, the Iraq invasion and occupation, global warming, energy policy, THIS is the social problem that we, as a nation, need to focus on right now.

It's just OUTRAGEOUS! Someone's gotta do something about this! This is INTOLERABLE! How do we let such pressing social problems go unchecked for this long?

I'm ashamed to be an American right now. Please, people, find out who your congressman is and call NOW, right NOW!

Monday, May 02, 2005

JazzFest!

Had a great time at JazzFest Fri/Sat/Sun. On Friday I caught Randy Newman (evidence here) and after his set got a picture with the great Derek Smalls (a/k/a Harry Shearer) of Spinal Tap!

Also saw WSP. They are better with George, but not by much. Saturday was all about The Dave Matthews Band. Highights of his set included #41, Warehouse and Two Step. Picture here.

Sunday checked out the Hackberry Ramblers (evidence) and the North MS All Stars Hill Country Revue.

Great weekend.