State: Company: State knew about felons list problems
State election officials knew since at least 1998 that a recently scrapped felons list designed to clear convicted felons from voter rolls would have a glitch and exclude Hispanics, according to a company that helped create the list...
...Florida is one of a handful of states that does not automatically restore voting rights to convicted felons once they have completed their sentences.
21 July 2004
Every Vote Counts
Stateline.org: Ten states identified as legislative battlegrounds ..
SALT LAKE CITY – Political control of legislative bodies in 10 states could change in the November election, the National Conference of State Legislatures said in an analysis that identified the battleground states as Colorado, Georgia, Indiana, Maine, Montana, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Vermont and Washington.
SALT LAKE CITY – Political control of legislative bodies in 10 states could change in the November election, the National Conference of State Legislatures said in an analysis that identified the battleground states as Colorado, Georgia, Indiana, Maine, Montana, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Vermont and Washington.
Arrested, Charged, but Not Convicted!
New Web Site To ID Local Suspects
http://www.thepittsburghchannel.com/news/3556288/detail.html?subid=10101261
POSTED: 5:16 pm EDT July 20, 2004
http://www.thepittsburghchannel.com/news/3556288/detail.html?subid=10101261
POSTED: 5:16 pm EDT July 20, 2004
PITTSBURGH -- A Web site identifying people who have been arrested in Allegheny County and charged with a crime, but not convicted, will launch Aug. 1, according to District Attorney Stephen Zappala. Names, pictures and hometowns of suspects will be posted on the site and removed after three days. Such identifying information is already available to the public but will be easier to access online, Zappala said Tuesday.
perhaps there is a valid reason for not making this information instantly available to the entire on-line community...jim
http://www.thepittsburghchannel.com/news/3556288/detail.html?subid=10101261
POSTED: 5:16 pm EDT July 20, 2004
PITTSBURGH -- A Web site identifying people who have been arrested in Allegheny County and charged with a crime, but not convicted, will launch Aug. 1, according to District Attorney Stephen Zappala.
Names, pictures and hometowns of suspects will be posted on the site and removed after three days.
Such identifying information is already available to the public but will be easier to access online, Zappala said Tuesday.
KidsWatch
MSNBC - Teen Dies In Rec Center Pool Mishap
7:13 a.m. EDT July 21, 2004 - A 15-year-old boy was pronounced dead at a local hospital after going underwater in an apparent pool accident Tuesday afternoon.
Pittsburgh police and paramedics were called to the Kingsley Association recreation center on Frankstown Avenue in Larimer shortly before 5 p.m.
7:13 a.m. EDT July 21, 2004 - A 15-year-old boy was pronounced dead at a local hospital after going underwater in an apparent pool accident Tuesday afternoon.
Pittsburgh police and paramedics were called to the Kingsley Association recreation center on Frankstown Avenue in Larimer shortly before 5 p.m.
20 July 2004
MSNBC - New skills open doors for job hunters
"Experts predict that in ten years there will be over 30 million job openings but only 23 million workers with the right degrees to fill those jobs."
“Whenever we see an economic downturn, enrollments swell in community colleges across the country as people look to our institutions as the place to get needed skills to become employed or reemployed or advance their careers,” said George Boggs, president of the American Association of Community Colleges."
JUST REID
Casino Boots Ronstadt for Praising Moore
By ADAM GOLDMAN
LAS VEGAS (AP) - Singer Linda Ronstadt not only got booed, she got the boot after praising filmmaker Michael Moore and his new movie ``Fahrenheit 9/11'' during a performance.
"It was a very ugly scene,'' Aladdin President Bill Timmins told The Associated Press. ``She praised him and all of a sudden all bedlam broke loose.''
Timmins, who is British and was watching the show, said he didn't allow Ronstadt back in her luxury suite afterward and she was escorted off the property.Ronstadt's antics "spoiled a wonderful evening for our guests and we had to do something about it,'' Timmins said.
Protect Your Child in the Kitchen
From your child’s perspective, the kitchen is a fun place to explore, somewhere where cookies appear like magic, and there are lots of things to smell, taste and touch. But a kitchen can be a very dangerous place for a child. In fact, the Consumer Product Safety Commission says that 2.5 million children are injured or killed from accidents in the home each year. Child Magazine offers some safety tips to keep your little one safe.
-Never hold a child while you are cooking
-Store a fire extinguisher out of kid’s reach, but easily accessible to adults.
-Use back burners of the stove when possible and turn pot and pan handles towards the rear of the stove.
-Post all emergency phone numbers near the phone.
-Move all cleaning products, knives, and plastic bags out of a child’s reach.
-For children under 5, make sure kitchen cabinets and drawers have safety latches. Also consider getting an Oven Lock and a Refrigerator Latch.
-Move refrigerator magnets up above a child’s reach.
-Put other small choking hazards (like toothpicks, rubber bands) and all glassware in sealed cabinets.
-Seal off electrical outlets with safety plugs and unplug and tie up appliance cords when not in use.
-Also: Child.com
http://www.child.com/
Hidden Treasures In Everyday Moments:
Beginner's Mind Philosophy
Imagine the joy of rediscovering chocolate every time you eat it.Seeing the ocean for the first time, hearing a new song, or discovering the taste of a new food: each of these is an adventure. People usually approach a brand-new activity without excessive pre-judgment, thus allowing themselves a full experience. The strategy behind Beginner's Mind Philosophy, known in Japanese as Shoshin, is to bring that sense of eager anticipation to all of life's experiences, whether they are new or well known.
More: Daily OM
http://www.dailyom.com/cgi-bin/display/archives.cgi
19 July 2004
Horticulture Mulch Fest at Bidwell
below are photos of the hard-working Horticulture Technology students here at the Center.
they successfully pulled together this fund-raising event and even managed to enjoy themselves despite the effort. Congratulations to this dedicated group of students!
jim
Democracy by the Dollars
Democracy by the Dollars
By Pratap Chatterjee, CorpWatch.
Posted July 19, 2004.
http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/19258/
What can a North Carolina firm teach Iraqis about democracy? Not much, as it turns out – not when it spends millions of dollars making life comfortable for its own staff rather than the Iraqis.
In March 2003, the U.S. Agency for International Development awarded the Research Triangle Institute (RTI) International of North Carolina a $167 million contract to help 180 Iraqi cities and towns "foster efficient, transparent, and accountable sub-national government that supports the country's transition to sovereignty."
By Pratap Chatterjee, CorpWatch.
Posted July 19, 2004.
http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/19258/
What can a North Carolina firm teach Iraqis about democracy? Not much, as it turns out – not when it spends millions of dollars making life comfortable for its own staff rather than the Iraqis.
In March 2003, the U.S. Agency for International Development awarded the Research Triangle Institute (RTI) International of North Carolina a $167 million contract to help 180 Iraqi cities and towns "foster efficient, transparent, and accountable sub-national government that supports the country's transition to sovereignty."
18 July 2004
SUNDAY BRUNCH
Hip Hop Cops
By Salim Muwakkil,
In These Times.
http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/19192/
Law enforcement conflates rap stars with gang members merely because most of them are young black men.
“Even before recent revelations of hip-hop surveillance units, in March 2003, The Source declared in a headline: "State of Emergency: Hip-Hop Under Attack." The magazine, the country's largest hip-hop oriented publication, sounded the alarm about attacks from the increasingly influential cultural right and more intrusive police scrutiny. It featured an interview with a New York City cop who admitted that a special unit existed specifically to monitor, even harass, hip-hop figures. The unidentified cop told The Source that these efforts were aided by an increased focus on security after 9/11, which "opened up avenues for the government to change laws and violate public rights."
DISMANTLING THE ‘BLING’: Another Look at Hip-Hop by Reynard Blake Jr.
http://www.blackcommentator.com/99/99_hip_hop.html
“Back in 1967, Stokely Carmichael and Charles V. Hamilton (Black Power: The Politics of Liberation in America) provided an analysis that could be crucial to today’s African-American hip-hop artists:”
”Those who would assume the responsibility of representing black people in the country must be able to throw off the notion that they can effectively do so and still maintain a maximum amount of security. Jobs will have to be sacrificed, positions of prestige and status given up, favors forfeited. It may well be--and we think it is--that leadership and security are basically incompatible. When one forcefully challenges the racist system, one cannot, at the same time, expect that system to reward him or even treat him comfortably.”
“On one hand, the diminishing control and role of African-Americans and Latinos in hip-hop is the natural progression of an international art form; as more cultures become part of hip-hop culture, they will add the uniqueness of their native culture to the art form. Conversely, as hip-hop is distributed by corporate media, its gatekeepers will increasingly define the art form, and only allow certain acts to reach the mainstream.”
“Most of the rules I learned as a child in the ‘60s and ‘70s have been corrupted or rewritten. Hip hop, just to take the most obvious example, has spread from the urban underground where I found it in my early story on Kurtis Blow [a hip-hop artist and pioneer – RNB], to white – or at least well-heeled – suburbia. During this same period, breakthrough black superstars made more money than ever in history – most of it helping to subsidize multinational corporations that reconfigure black artistry into reproducible formulas.”
“Corporate control of hip-hop also presents a serious threat to its significance. As corporations promote a sort of hip-hop opium or mind-numbing art that does not address issues, its authenticity and relevance become suspect. Jeff Chang underscored this concept in 2003:
”Today, the most cursory glance at the Billboard charts or video shows on Viacom-owned MTV and BET suggests rap has been given over to cocaine-cooking, cartoon-watching, Rakim-quoting, gold-rims-coveting, death-worshiping young 'uns. One might even ask whether rap has abandoned the revolution.”
“Furthermore, corporate control of hip-hop becomes an exercise in the replication of exploitation; the models in marketing used by the corporation are now assumed by the artists; the outsourcing of product development (clothes and other items) to foreign countries, paying those employees or independent contractors far below living wages, and selling those products to anxious global markets with astounding product mark-ups. In short, the hip-hop semi-conglomerate learns the following equation: E=MC2, which I translate to Exploitation=Mass Consumption, where the work of underpaid people is used to feed the North American penchant for spending (doubled).”
Child Labor: A Worldwide Danger
YOUTHNOISE
http://youthnoise.com/page.php?page_id=1651
The International Labor Organization says that approximately 250 million children between the ages of five and fourteen work in developing countries, at least 120 million on a full time basis.
“Child labor currently helps support the economies of many developing nations. According to reports by such groups as Human Rights Watch, some cases of child labor may also be supporting American corporations. But who is supporting the children?”
“All over the world, poverty forces kids as young as four-years-old into hard labor. Child laborers often work long hours, are given dangerous tasks, and are paid extremely low wages. Furthermore, labor obligations frequently prevent young workers from receiving an education. These illegal working conditions deprive kids of their childhood and ultimately endanger their lives.”
“The case of El Salvador has recently been investigated by Human Rights Watch. The 139-page report found that the 30,000 Salvadorian children who work in the sugarcane fields are constantly subject to severe injuries. The job of cutting sugarcane, considered the most dangerous of all agricultural work, leaves kids with deep cuts and gashes from the machetes and knives they are required to use. Further health risks are attributed to smoke inhalation and burns, because the sugarcane is often burned before it is cut.”
FEELING THE NEED TO ENGAGE YOUR LIFE?
A campaign of Circle of Life
http://www.circleoflife.org
ACTIVISM IS PATRIOTISM.ORG
SEAC (Student Environmental Action Coalition)
http://www.seac.org
SEAC, pronounced "seek," is a student and youth run national network of progressive organizations and individuals whose aim is to uproot environmental injustices through action and education. We define the environment to include the physical, economic, political and cultural conditions in which we live.
By challenging the power structure which threatens these environmental conditions, SEAC works to create progressive social change on both the local and global levels.
United for a Fair Economy
http://www.faireconomy.org
United for a Fair Economy is a national, independent, nonpartisan, 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. UFE raises awareness that concentrated wealth and power undermine the economy, corrupt democracy, deepen the racial divide, and tear communities apart. We support and help build social movements for greater equality.
Nuclear Age Peace Foundation
http://www.wagingpeace.org
The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation is dedicated to innovative thinking, broad public education, and committed action. Since 1982, the Foundation has sought to enhance the security of all people by working to reduce the threats posed by nuclear weapons. One of the Foundation's specific campaigns is empowering student leaders and supporting student efforts to oppose the increasing militarization of their schools including student mobilization at the University of California, which has managed the nation's nuclear weapons laboratories for 60+ years.
Voice Yourself
http://www.voiceyourself.org
“Founded by well-known actor Woody Harrelson, Voice Yourself is a lively communication hub that promotes simple organic living through conscious consumerism, the sharing of ideas and information, as well as encouraging social change through peaceful civil disobedience. We believe all life on earth is sacred. Voice Yourself promotes and inspires individual action to create global momentum towards simpler living and to restore balance and harmony to our planet.”
“There is now little doubt that there is a close correlation between the "war on drugs" (and on "gangs") and the growth of the prison industrial complex. This "war" was officially launched by President Reagan in the mid-1980s when he promised that the police would attack the drug problem "with more ferocity than ever before." What he did not say, however, was that the enforcement of the new drug laws "would focus almost exclusively on low-level dealers in minority neighborhoods." Indeed, the police found such dealers in these areas mainly because that is precisely where they looked for them, rather than, say, on college campuses.”
“The results were immediate: the arrest rates for blacks on drug charges shot dramatically upward in the late 1980s and well into the 1990s. In fact, while blacks constitute only around 12% of the U.S. population and about 13% of all monthly drug users (and their rate of illegal drug use is roughly the same as for whites), they represent 35 percent of those arrested for drug possession and 74% of those sentenced to prison on drug charges.”
“Sentencing in the federal system for drug offenses shows some startling changes during the past half century. Between 1945 and 1995, the proportion of those going to prison for all offenses rose from 47 percent to 69 percent, compared to a decrease of those granted probation (from 40% to 24%), while the average sentence has risen by over 300 percent. The changes in the sentences for drug law violations are most dramatic. Whereas, in 1945 the percentage of drug offenders going to prison was high enough at 73 percent, by 1995 fully 90 percent were going to prison! And the average sentence for drug cases went from only 22 months in 1945 to almost 90 months in 1995, an increase of 300 percent!”
By Salim Muwakkil,
In These Times.
http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/19192/
Law enforcement conflates rap stars with gang members merely because most of them are young black men.
“Even before recent revelations of hip-hop surveillance units, in March 2003, The Source declared in a headline: "State of Emergency: Hip-Hop Under Attack." The magazine, the country's largest hip-hop oriented publication, sounded the alarm about attacks from the increasingly influential cultural right and more intrusive police scrutiny. It featured an interview with a New York City cop who admitted that a special unit existed specifically to monitor, even harass, hip-hop figures. The unidentified cop told The Source that these efforts were aided by an increased focus on security after 9/11, which "opened up avenues for the government to change laws and violate public rights."
DISMANTLING THE ‘BLING’: Another Look at Hip-Hop by Reynard Blake Jr.
http://www.blackcommentator.com/99/99_hip_hop.html
“Back in 1967, Stokely Carmichael and Charles V. Hamilton (Black Power: The Politics of Liberation in America) provided an analysis that could be crucial to today’s African-American hip-hop artists:”
”Those who would assume the responsibility of representing black people in the country must be able to throw off the notion that they can effectively do so and still maintain a maximum amount of security. Jobs will have to be sacrificed, positions of prestige and status given up, favors forfeited. It may well be--and we think it is--that leadership and security are basically incompatible. When one forcefully challenges the racist system, one cannot, at the same time, expect that system to reward him or even treat him comfortably.”
“On one hand, the diminishing control and role of African-Americans and Latinos in hip-hop is the natural progression of an international art form; as more cultures become part of hip-hop culture, they will add the uniqueness of their native culture to the art form. Conversely, as hip-hop is distributed by corporate media, its gatekeepers will increasingly define the art form, and only allow certain acts to reach the mainstream.”
“Most of the rules I learned as a child in the ‘60s and ‘70s have been corrupted or rewritten. Hip hop, just to take the most obvious example, has spread from the urban underground where I found it in my early story on Kurtis Blow [a hip-hop artist and pioneer – RNB], to white – or at least well-heeled – suburbia. During this same period, breakthrough black superstars made more money than ever in history – most of it helping to subsidize multinational corporations that reconfigure black artistry into reproducible formulas.”
“Corporate control of hip-hop also presents a serious threat to its significance. As corporations promote a sort of hip-hop opium or mind-numbing art that does not address issues, its authenticity and relevance become suspect. Jeff Chang underscored this concept in 2003:
”Today, the most cursory glance at the Billboard charts or video shows on Viacom-owned MTV and BET suggests rap has been given over to cocaine-cooking, cartoon-watching, Rakim-quoting, gold-rims-coveting, death-worshiping young 'uns. One might even ask whether rap has abandoned the revolution.”
“Furthermore, corporate control of hip-hop becomes an exercise in the replication of exploitation; the models in marketing used by the corporation are now assumed by the artists; the outsourcing of product development (clothes and other items) to foreign countries, paying those employees or independent contractors far below living wages, and selling those products to anxious global markets with astounding product mark-ups. In short, the hip-hop semi-conglomerate learns the following equation: E=MC2, which I translate to Exploitation=Mass Consumption, where the work of underpaid people is used to feed the North American penchant for spending (doubled).”
Child Labor: A Worldwide Danger
YOUTHNOISE
http://youthnoise.com/page.php?page_id=1651
The International Labor Organization says that approximately 250 million children between the ages of five and fourteen work in developing countries, at least 120 million on a full time basis.
“Child labor currently helps support the economies of many developing nations. According to reports by such groups as Human Rights Watch, some cases of child labor may also be supporting American corporations. But who is supporting the children?”
“All over the world, poverty forces kids as young as four-years-old into hard labor. Child laborers often work long hours, are given dangerous tasks, and are paid extremely low wages. Furthermore, labor obligations frequently prevent young workers from receiving an education. These illegal working conditions deprive kids of their childhood and ultimately endanger their lives.”
“The case of El Salvador has recently been investigated by Human Rights Watch. The 139-page report found that the 30,000 Salvadorian children who work in the sugarcane fields are constantly subject to severe injuries. The job of cutting sugarcane, considered the most dangerous of all agricultural work, leaves kids with deep cuts and gashes from the machetes and knives they are required to use. Further health risks are attributed to smoke inhalation and burns, because the sugarcane is often burned before it is cut.”
FEELING THE NEED TO ENGAGE YOUR LIFE?
A campaign of Circle of Life
http://www.circleoflife.org
ACTIVISM IS PATRIOTISM.ORG
SEAC (Student Environmental Action Coalition)
http://www.seac.org
SEAC, pronounced "seek," is a student and youth run national network of progressive organizations and individuals whose aim is to uproot environmental injustices through action and education. We define the environment to include the physical, economic, political and cultural conditions in which we live.
By challenging the power structure which threatens these environmental conditions, SEAC works to create progressive social change on both the local and global levels.
United for a Fair Economy
http://www.faireconomy.org
United for a Fair Economy is a national, independent, nonpartisan, 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. UFE raises awareness that concentrated wealth and power undermine the economy, corrupt democracy, deepen the racial divide, and tear communities apart. We support and help build social movements for greater equality.
Nuclear Age Peace Foundation
http://www.wagingpeace.org
The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation is dedicated to innovative thinking, broad public education, and committed action. Since 1982, the Foundation has sought to enhance the security of all people by working to reduce the threats posed by nuclear weapons. One of the Foundation's specific campaigns is empowering student leaders and supporting student efforts to oppose the increasing militarization of their schools including student mobilization at the University of California, which has managed the nation's nuclear weapons laboratories for 60+ years.
Voice Yourself
http://www.voiceyourself.org
“Founded by well-known actor Woody Harrelson, Voice Yourself is a lively communication hub that promotes simple organic living through conscious consumerism, the sharing of ideas and information, as well as encouraging social change through peaceful civil disobedience. We believe all life on earth is sacred. Voice Yourself promotes and inspires individual action to create global momentum towards simpler living and to restore balance and harmony to our planet.”
“There is now little doubt that there is a close correlation between the "war on drugs" (and on "gangs") and the growth of the prison industrial complex. This "war" was officially launched by President Reagan in the mid-1980s when he promised that the police would attack the drug problem "with more ferocity than ever before." What he did not say, however, was that the enforcement of the new drug laws "would focus almost exclusively on low-level dealers in minority neighborhoods." Indeed, the police found such dealers in these areas mainly because that is precisely where they looked for them, rather than, say, on college campuses.”
“The results were immediate: the arrest rates for blacks on drug charges shot dramatically upward in the late 1980s and well into the 1990s. In fact, while blacks constitute only around 12% of the U.S. population and about 13% of all monthly drug users (and their rate of illegal drug use is roughly the same as for whites), they represent 35 percent of those arrested for drug possession and 74% of those sentenced to prison on drug charges.”
“Sentencing in the federal system for drug offenses shows some startling changes during the past half century. Between 1945 and 1995, the proportion of those going to prison for all offenses rose from 47 percent to 69 percent, compared to a decrease of those granted probation (from 40% to 24%), while the average sentence has risen by over 300 percent. The changes in the sentences for drug law violations are most dramatic. Whereas, in 1945 the percentage of drug offenders going to prison was high enough at 73 percent, by 1995 fully 90 percent were going to prison! And the average sentence for drug cases went from only 22 months in 1945 to almost 90 months in 1995, an increase of 300 percent!”
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