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A.C. Thompson has been hard at work investigating the shootings of at least 11 black men by an openly racist pack of vigilantes in New Orleans just after Katrina. His new article in The Nation is an eye opening masterpiece.

Watch the video and sign this petition.

(Photo from The Root, because in all my photos of him, he’s throwing snowballs)

Here’s more from A.C.:

THE NATION: Katrina’s Hidden Race War

ALTERNET: No Justice for the African-Americans Targeted by White Vigilantes After the Katrina Flooding

DEMOCRACY NOW

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Behind the scenes, the Blogging On Meds team is getting into a full site redesign and working on bringing in additional writers to cover a wider variety of culture and politics topics for the new year.  We’ll be relaunching the blog — at its very own domain (bloggingonmeds.com) — in early 2009.

In the meantime, keep warm.

Or, you know, read some of the sites posted below.

See you in 2009.

best,
MedsTeam

ps - We’ve already got great writers and new ones coming on board, but we’re always looking for more.  So, if you’ve got some writing talents and/or some insider knowledge that you’d like to regularly blog about (with a pseudonym, if you want — your secret identity will be safe), join us.  Send us a pitch over here.

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Precautions can be taken, parts of town avoided but ultimately, it’s unpredictable. It’s random.

Growing up on the north side of the border I remember hearing about it flare up; a friend of a friend stabled in the neck outside a night club for example, but this is different. On another scale, and foreigners are being killed.

Along the US-Mexico border this year murders have escalated to all-out war between drug cartels and everyone is suffering.

LA Times has kept up with the war, including this package detailing the conflict.

A hospital was shot up. Bodies tortured and left in a pile next to an elementary school. Decapitations. Corrupt police forces and murdered federal officers. And that’s just Tijuana.

More than 6,500 have been killed in Mexico since 2007 and more than 2,100 people since August according to the University of San Diego Trans-Border Institute.

With all that, I made a trip to Tijuana with my aunt Vira Willaims and four other people Tuesday. Every year for the last 15 she organizes a drive to bring bikes, blankets, beans and rice to Casa de los Pobres in Tijuana.

Casa de los Pobres is run by a group of Franciscan nuns and they serve thousands of people breakfast every month. Lunch was cut off the menu because they ran out of money and food. Their clinic also provides medical care and the sisters even visit their flock at home.

The House of the Poor relies on donations and volunteers. Here, Sister Almera Andrada who runs the house gives a quick tour and explains how the violence has stifled donations and volunteers the House of the Poor relies upon. Too dangerous they say though she says their part of town, not far from downtown, remains calm.

“We just hope and pray that things will change… soon.”

To donate money to Casa de los Pobres write to:

P.O. Box 432256
San Ysidro, CA 92173

Aunt Vira was a travel agent for more than two decades and frequently made trips down south with groups for vacation, tourism and to go see merchants they visited every year. Raúl Mendiola Emporium was one of those stops.

His store on Avenida Revolucion has been in the same place for 50 years. In all that time he says he has never seen things this bad.

“It’s almost like a ghost town, this street,” Mendiola said. “You go a couple blocks from here you see three, four, five places that were functioning that are closed.”

Mendiola was quoted in Tuesday’s Union-Tribune. That same article cited merchants groups that claim 50 percent to 70 percent of businesses have shut down, and surviving shops report their sales down as much as 80 percent to 90 percent since 2001. The violence isn’t everywhere around the city, he said, only particular parts, but its still managed to push away loyal customers he relies on.

Still, it’s hard to overcome perceptions when you see headlines like the one I found a Dec. 1 Frontera screaming “Decapitan a 9; 42 muertos en tres dias.” Headlines haven’t been as loud here with the full slate of American news today but the word has definitely got out. Most everyone I know has expressed reluctance or downright refusal to go to Mexico.

On the way out of Mendiola’s store, I picked up a postcard ironically calling Tijuana “the most visited city in the world,” a claim that still holds water since the San Ysidro border crossing is considered the busiest in the world. Has border traffic lessened in the past few months? The border is still bustling but economies on both sides are in a tailspin.

A day before we drove down, someone was murdered in the middle of the day driving a truck of the same make and model as my own and California license plates. So random is random but had I decided to drive down in my own car, it could have been my number that was called. There’s nothing random about targeted killings but the war continues with plenty of collateral damage. It makes you think of terrorism under much more traditional terms and much closer to home.

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If you like soulful indie folk, sadcore ala Smog, Mark Eitzel, maybe even a little Crooked Fingers and Cat Power then it might be worth it to download their whole album here FOR FREE! (I love that shit)

Then check out their myspace page

“Fortune Teller”

“Echoes Coming”

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HIPSTER RUNOFF is an entertaining, annoying, funny, childish, and downright weird blog about modern “hipster” culture.  It can be tough to decipher where the author’s real interest ends and the joke begins.  While I’d like to imagine the entire thing is tongue-in-cheek, he seems to know too much about modern hipster culture to not be somehow involved.

BASTARD SQUAD BLOG’s random collection of pictures and youtube videos is as visually stimulating as it is funny.  And they’re obsessed with bacon.

This time of year MLB TRADE RUMORS is a must, unless you’re not a fan of driving yourself crazy second-guessing the GM of your favorite team.

YOU THOUGHT WE WOULDN’T NOTICE calls out graphic-design thieves worldwide.

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Sorry, world.

However much many Americans may chide Bush for both stealing the 2000 election and his massive failure of a Presidency, the man has been our leader, champion, and surrogate to the rest of the world for two terms now (and his re-election in 2004 was perceived as a big ol’ “hey, we actually like this guy” — despite the fact that just about half of the country felt quite differently).  How…embarrassing.

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On a day called historic by all and which inspired spontaneous joy across the country and world, I spent Election day and night with the Obama group in my hometown San Diego, first at their headquarters in a closed business on Euclid Ave. then downtown in the San Diego Concourse Center’s Golden Hall. People have gathered there every year since I was a kid to watch local results come in.

I was interviewing an Obama volunteer a few seconds before it was announced. After the room of volunteers and their families exchanged hugs and shows of jubilation, they grabbed a banner and hit the Golden Hall floor with TV news crews and thousands of people.

As soon as they reached the floor, the group of about 30 people’s chants of “O-ba-ma!” was mum over the crowd’s murmur. But almost immediately the crowd would echo them then ratchet up the whistles and clapping.

Here also are interviews with Idris “Chad” Hameed, Abdirahim Abdirahman and Levi Thomas, three black men I asked about their involvement in the Barack Obama campaign.

Levi Thomas is a truck driver and church deacon who spent his Nov. 4 morning making phone calls to prospective voters and encourage them to vote.

“How am I going to stay involved? By becoming a better citizen. By becoming a better steward of what God has left us with.”

Idris goes as Chad and is 14-years-old. His parents run the San Diego regional field office. He wants to be a journalist covering war and international conflict.

“We came from shackles and all that stuff to running for the president and everything.”

Abdirahim grew up in San Diego’s Lincoln Park neighborhood and is a 20-year-old student at City College of San Diego. He was born in Somalia and came here when he was five. He is very proud of Obama’s accomplishment especially but not only because they are from the same part of east Africa. Both Chad and Abdirahim made trips to knock on doors in Las Vegas last month.

“It means a dream come true making it happen, making the dream of Martin Luther King happen.”

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Not Cheney, or Libby, or Rove. George W. “If there is a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is.  And if the person has violated law, the person will be taken care of.” Bush.

Yeah, yeah, he’s been implicated in leaks before, and it’s been tossed around that the Plame leak goes up to the “highest levels”, but the party line has been that Bush had nothing to do with the “really bad,” treason-esque leak — that being the one that outed an active CIA operative, and thereby simultaneously put her (not to mention her contacts) at risk and botched some rather important covert activities (such as working to keep an eye on Iran’s nuclear plans…shortsighted much?).  However, this statement by McClellan — accounting a first-hand conversation with the President himself — is kinda damning.

I know what they’re going to say, assuming they’re pressed enough to say anything (dead silence has worked so well for years, so I won’t hold my breath), after outright denials, obfuscations, and bungled attempts at wordplay: as a President, Bush’s authorization to leak the information inherently de-classifies it, and therefore no criminal act was committed.  From a legal perspective, I suppose this argument might keep him out of jail.  Smooth.

Regardless, whether or not something that some might call “Presidential treason” is loophole-able, here’s hoping admissions like this at least renew the public interest and revitalize the stalling court cases (especially after Plame and Wilson’s recent disheartening, clearly-partisan setback).

If nothing else, stories like this remind us that:

a) the W. White House has set a new bar for disingenuousness (seriously, read this with the added context of McClellan’s new story about his conversations with Bush).

b) yet again (as if we needed another reason), we should be kissing our fingers for the outcome of the recent election.

I’m sure the paper shredders at the White House have been working double-time since November 4th.  Let’s just hope they miss a few scraps, or a few more brave souls follow in McClellan’s footsteps and start talking, so that the American people can push our new leaders to finally bring accountability back to the executive branch of this democracy.

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Needless to say, Japan’s government immediately dismissed him, but now there’s a furor over the fact that he’ll likely retire with a $600,000 bonus. The government wants him to give up the bonus, but he’s not going quietly into the night. He testified in front of the Upper House of parliament, calling for overturning Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution, which prohibits Japan from engaging in war, and also indicating that he has no plans to give up his bonus.

WTF is wrong with this guy? Actually, not only is it not odd for a Japanese military man to hold such views, it’s actually not altogether uncommon within the Japanese government. Revisionist history regarding Japan’s actions before and during WWII is nothing new. With each new government comes the usual controversy over whether the new leader should visit the Yasukuni Shrine, which is dedicated to 2.5 million Japanese who died fighting for Japan, including about 1,100 people who are convicted war criminals. There was also Japan’s attempt last year to change its school books to wipe out any mention of the fact that the Japanese military ordered civilians on Okinawa to commit suicide instead of surrendering to US forces. Officially, the Japanese government has apologized for conquering and occupying its Asian neighbors, and it retains the apology as official policy, but its words and actions indicate that some within Japan’s government have a more favorable view of Japan’s colonialism in the early 20th century compared to, oh, the rest of the world. Japan’s current Prime Minister said that Japan did a lot of good things while occupying the Korean peninsula. Japan’s last PM backed off of prior apologies to the hundreds of thousands of “comfort women”, who were forced to become sex slaves for the military’s needs during WWII. Japan’s Supreme Court acknowledged the slavery.

It’s sort of ironic that PM Aso is condeming Tamogami so harshly, when it seems that the two really don’t differ in their views of Japan all that much.

Source: Wikipedia

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Most know what the Tenderloin is in San Francisco right?  As Dave Chappelle says in his For What It’s Worth stand up special, “… there’s nothin’ tender about that Motherfucker at all.  That shit was rough!” All you SF Bay’ers might have some understanding of this song, The Tenderloin, from Meanest Man Contest.  Basically has to do with, you know, San Francisco’s rough and rugged, Tenderloin neighborhood.  The album is called Partially Smart and is on RCRD LBL.  Eric Steuer and Quarterbar’s project started back at UCSB (with other members) as Mic.edu but then after their move to the bay area, they changed the name to Meanest Man Contest.  Now split between LA and SF, the boys are still making music together, frequently. Check out their tomspace for more songs, and buy their music/albums from their website here…

Meanest Man Contest - The Tenderloin

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Personally I don’t care for of Montreal really at all, but this song is one of the best break-up songs ever I’ve heard.  The Past Is A Grotesque Animal is off of the “Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?” album.  This song builds and builds and builds…eventually hitting it’s peak and then seems to keep on going.  It’s a LOOOOONG song, so brace yourself…

of Monreal - The Past Is A Grotesque Animal

Let’s just have some fun. Let’s tear this shit apart.
Let’s tear the fucking house apart.
Let’s tear our fucking bodies apart but let’s just have some fun.

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Liberals think that Barack Obama is going to push the homosexual agenda and repeal DOMA.[8] Apparently they haven’t realized yet that the Koran forbids homosexuality and Democrats are afraid of a repeat of landslide losses as in 1994.[9]

First of all, what does Conservapedia know about Liberals? NOTHING. What are they trying to say in this “news” headline? I have no idea.

Your whole ideology lost. It’s a thing of the past, get over it.

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Here, you’ll see.  This will be annoying:

If ever there was an election that was not worth winning, it was the contest of 2008. While it was hard-fought on both sides, had McCain won, it might have spelled the end of the Republican Party. As it is, the party is well-situated to come back in 2010 and in 2012, if it learns the lessons of this year.

Simply put, all hell is about to break loose in the markets and the economy. The mortgage crisis will likely be followed by defaults in credit card debt, student loans and car loans. We will probably be set for two years of zero growth, according to economists with whom I talk. And the federal efforts to protect the nation from the worst of the recession will probably lead to huge budget deficits and resulting inflation. We are in for stagflation that could last for years.

Had McCain won, he would be the latter-day Hoover, blamed for the disaster that unfolded on his watch. Now it is Obama’s problem. With the Republicans suffering a wipeout in congressional elections (although not as bad as they feared), the ball is now squarely in the Democratic court. Good luck!

Want more? (author’s note: I don’t recommend it, and would rather you didn’t give the guy the satisfaction of a unique visit on his traffic statistics)

Let’s translate what snarky Dick Morris is basically insinuating (and many others will soon claim) here:

I’m glad we didn’t win because what’s been set in motion is so bad, we’re going to need someone else to take responsibility for it.  Lucky us, we just handed our disaster off to Obama and Company rather than go through taking responsibility for it ourselves (if McCain had won, we’d have been blamed for it unfolding “on (our) watch”).  So good luck — we didn’t want this job right now anyway!

Now, let’s blame Obama for everything so we can resume disaster creation in 2012.

We’d better get used to arguing against this failed logic, because it’s going to be the NeoCon Anthem for the next four years.  Obama is months away from office, and we’ve got windbags like Dick Morris breathing big sighs of faux-relief over this nonsense already.

Somehow, whether it’s the economy, the botched wars, the massive national debt, the failed education system, or any other of a number of things that went to hell or were sent off course during the Republicans’ years of total control, it’s going to be Obama’s fault.

Unless, of course, Obama’s plan for something like the conflict in Iraq goes well.  Then I’m sure good ol’ Morris will be out there parroting some talking point tripe about the groundwork laid during the Bush years.

Way to go, Dick.

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I like to think that the 50,000,000 or so people that voted for the (Old-and-Rather-Tarnished) John McCain and Sidekick Palin this past week are all doing it for that same thing — reasoned principle — and that it couldn’t possibly be that nearly half the active voting body in this country is flipping bananas (and needs to a) take a civics course, and b) better understand the gravity of what it means to lead the free world).

Then I go and read something like this, and it kinda sets me back.

Yeah, it’s confusing that 69% of Republicans think Palin helped the ticket, but that’s not what slays me.  Read on, read on.  That’s right — 91% of Republicans still have an overall favorable view of Sarah Palin, and 65% call it very favorable.  Sure, maybe at the beginning, right?  Like right after that convention speech, maybe.  THEN it would make some sense.  But this statistic is from the past couple days.  So, the same woman we’ve come to know as “Couric Interview” Palin, “Didn’t know Africa was a continent” Palin, and “Spent hundreds of thousands of dollars of RNC money on her (and her family’s) wardrobes/etc ($40,000 for the First Dude!)” Palin…wow…91% of Republicans still say “thumbs up”?

And there’s more.  Rasmussen:

When asked to choose among some of the GOP’s top names for their choice for the party’s 2012 presidential nominee, 64% say Palin.

Gag.

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Click here to view the embedded video.

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It’s not a surprise that Berlusconi said something stupid. This is the same guy who once said:

I am the Jesus Christ of politics. I am a patient victim, I put up with everyone, I sacrifice myself for everyone.

He’s got a long history of saying ridiculous and offensive things, some of which you can see here.

Berlusconi’s comments have sparked a furor in Italy, where some people are characterizing his remarks as racist. Are they racist comments? I remember when Joe Biden was talking about Obama and said:

I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy … I mean, that’s a storybook, man.

I thought Biden made a stupid comment, but I didn’t think it was racist. Berlusconi, though, has a long history of offensive comments, so I’m not quite sure what to think about his supposed joke. Having said that, his comment comes only a month after Italy’s parliament convened to debate whether it was having a “racist emergency” because of a spate of attacks on foreigners. At the very least, Berlusconi is a complete moron.

AP

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That said, thank the cosmos you’re being sent back to Alaska (sorry, Alaska).  And, if this post-election snippet (on Fox, of all places) is any indication, I think that my newfound reverence for the goodness in the universe will only become more fervent:

Really, Sarah?  You can’t name the countries in NAFTA?  Africa is a country?  Really?

My mom was always right…ANYBODY can become president.  Or at least get uncomfortably close.

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To suggest that the election of 2008 was a cathartic experience would be an understatement.  And so, we go forth into 2009 with the promise of a new leader, a new direction, and new hope for whatever comes next — hell or high water be damned.  New York City certainly isn’t known for the quality of its atmosphere, but all I smell today is fresh air.

So, that said, two suggestions for a feel-good Wednesday: check out newspaper covers from around the country/world and read all about The World’s View of Obama’s Win at Time.com.

Tomorrow, the work begins.

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