Gene Perry's shared items in Google Reader

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2011-10-28T15:14:33Z

Date unknown

Awareness Campaign About Racially-Themed Halloween Costumes Spawns Internet Parody

2011-10-27T17:32:31Z

To spark debate about racially-themed Halloween costumes, S*T*A*R*S, an anti-racism student group at Ohio University, created a poster campaign entitled “We’re a Culture, Not a Costume.” The posters (above) feature students of a variety of ethnic backgrounds posing with photos of racially-themed costumes.

The posters have indeed sparked a debate, spreading virally on Tumblr and other blogs. But the Internet’s Lulz-Industrial Complex was not far behind–the campaign has spawned a parody meme of photoshopped posters (see parody posters below).

via Boing Boing

poster images 1-3 via S*T*A*R*S, parody posters are uncredited

Don't Be Evil, Google, Ctd

2011-10-26T21:05:00Z

Apparently, Google shutting down Reader sharing isn't just angering bloggers - it's also helping disable the Green Movement:

Google Reader, which thanks to its social features (which are going to be removed), is much more than a simple RSS reader for Iranian users. Google Reader is not in a separated domain (like any other Google product) and thanks to https protocol, it is hard to filter by government (To filter google reader the whole google.com domain should be filtered). In a country which all social website like twitter, facebook, friendfeed, and video or image sharing websites like youtube, tumblr, flickr, picassa and many more are banned, Google reader acts like a social websites and in lack of any independent news website (it should be mentioned that all international news channels like BBC, CNN, VOA, and all other non-governmental news website are banned,) Google Reader acts like a news spreading website. Easy access to Google reader made it suitable for Iranian community and through all these years, specially after June 2009 election, developed an strong community for spreading the news.

Sarah Perez expands on the point and flags a petition to save Reader sharing.

arcticfawkes: the first victim

2011-10-20T20:00:06Z

arcticfawkes:

the first victim

Right now: Die, Monster, Die!, 1965

2011-10-25T22:26:20Z

Right now: Die, Monster, Die!, 1965

Occupy L.A.: This is What Civics Look Like

2011-10-12T17:55:52Z

There's a boiling point in California and currently it's expressed in the 253 tents surrounding Los Angeles City Hall

LOS ANGELES -- I had just taken the hour-long tour for those new to Occupy LA, a solidarity demonstration sparked by Occupy Wall Street in New York. My husband had been visiting the encampment, centered on the lawns around Los Angeles City Hall, in solidarity with me, snooping around the mini-gatherings that pepper the building's grounds.

"You have no idea what's going on here!" he declared after finding me on the corner of Spring and Temple Streets listening to an elderly Hispanic man standing on a box telling a captive audience how the bank took his home.

"Civics," I answered.

"Then you do know what's going on here," he said.

Well first off: there's a tour. There's nothing more inviting and informative than that. It's given primarily by Cheryl Aichele, a medical cannabis advocate who looks like the person you'd seek out at any event for answers; she's non-threatening, sincere and most importantly knowledgeable. When I first meet her she's in a large tent with a production company logo on it (this is how we roll in LA). It's like a reception area for a community center. There's a whiteboard with the schedule of a dozen or so committee meetings that day. They use words like "outreach" and "liaison" and combinations thereof for their committees (and sub-committees). There's an "objective and demands" box that a middle-aged man stuffs a letter into. A woman next to me is inquiring about the AA meetings. She's immediately paired up with a fellow 12-stepper within earshot. There are flyers and maps and notices. It's Day Seven of the encampment -- they have AA meetings.

"All of the problems we are facing are legal. They're laws. We need to pass the right laws," says my tour guide Aichele.

These are terrible anarchists.

A few days ago some LAPD officers came by to donate bags of clothes; they're made available to anyone who needs them. The Occupiers offer free food, also provided by donors. There's a lending library and a first aid tent. I'm told the health department came the day before. They told everyone to wash their hands and not to eat melon, but Occupy LA generally passed inspection.

"In LA, disasters tend to bring us together."

"In LA, disasters tend to bring us together," explains Professor Wendel Eckford, a historian with Los Angeles City College who's been coming down to the Occupation everyday after class.

And it is a disaster: One of out of every five U.S. foreclosures this year was in California. The unemployment rate in Los Angeles is 13 percent. State budget crisis after city budget crisis has taken its toll.

There's a boiling point and currently it's expressed in the 253 tents surrounding City Hall. Its part Peoples Park, part low-budget film set and part civics crash course.

Due to a city ordinance they can't sleep in the park surrounding City Hall. So every night all the tents move to the sidewalk and every morning they move back. They also recycle and have signs reading "Zero waste station" on all four corners of the park. I see a guy scrubbing a graffiti tag off of the wall of the landmark marble building. The group has a non-violence policy which includes graffiti. But their big concern: wheelchair access. It's a new goal to make the whole occupation accessible to those with disabilities.

"We'd like to be an example for other cites," says tour guide Aichele.

And by "cities" she means Occupations. Which are growing in number everyday.

Los Angeles City Council members make frequent visits to the tent city encompassing the building where they work. City Council President -- and soon-to-be mayoral candidate -- Eric Garcetti, who holds an annual Government 101 seminar at City Hall to help citizens make better use of the system, has been down at Occupy LA recruiting participants for next year's tutorial. Councilmembers Dennis Zine and Bill Rosendahl also are staunch supporters of the Occupation.

But it was Councilmember Richard Alarcon who was approached by one of his constituents, a member of the City Liaison Committee for Occupy LA, Mario Brito, to support this demonstration. Alarcon tells The Atlantic, "[Occupy LA] is exhibiting the frustration of people throughout America."

Alarcon's resulting City Council resolution in support of the demonstrators reads like an Occupy Wall Street manifesto: "WHEREAS, the causes and consequences of the economic crisis are eroding the very social contract upon which the Constitution that the United States of America was founded; namely, the ability of Americans to come together and form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense of, promote the general welfare of, and secure the blessings of liberty for all, allowing every American to strive for and share in the prosperity of our nation through cooperation and hard work;." It's a three-page resolution mentioning Citizens United, foreclosures, wealth inequality, Egypt and corporate personhood.

"I've never written one that long before," says Alarcon.

Alarcon's resolution was expected to pass Wednesday morning with a wide margin of support, giving the Occupiers the blessing of the council.

Sure, there are hippies dancing. And yes, there are drum circles. It's LA, so there's also "medicinal" marijuana wafting about. But mostly the crowd looks like LA: Half Latino, a quarter African-American and Asian and mostly middle-class. And that's who is in the meetings, not the hippies. In the meetings, people discuss things like Glass-Steagall, plans of actions and politicians to reach out to. There's a general sense that this is something big and they need to figure out what to do with it. All is reported at the General Assembly or GA every night at 7:30 p.m. Participants use Quaker consensus decision-making hand signals in all meetings. Participants can indicate if they agree, disagree, kind of agree or oppose vehemently -- all non-verbally. So speakers get to see the reaction of the crowd in real time. It's public polling and it's painfully slow and tedious. Meaning: this is what democracy looks like. Everyone has a voice and not all of them are poignant. Some of them are repetitive -- and there's a hand signal for that, too.

What about being on message? At the encampment, there are communists next to Ron Paul supporters next to vegan activists next to those LaRouche people (who always seem to show up) -- even a couple of union guys. I've always called this liberal "micro-cause-ism." Will they stay on point? "We're not focused on the thing that's not causing the problem," says Aichele. Message cohesion is not the rigged system they're rallying to change.

The cumbersome process and cacophany of messages is all about honoring the First Amendment to them. Everyone gets to be heard regardless of someone else's opinion. As long as you're the "99 percent" -- which the vast majority of are -- and are respectful and peaceful, you're welcome at Occupy LA.

What are they doing there? Teaching people who are angry what to do about it. "The sense of building something together -- that experience is empowering," offers Aichele. They are occupying, yeah, but they are organizing. And that means teaching.

Eckford tells me Occupy LA isn't leaderless -- it's "leaderful." When asked when this demonstration will end, he says, "When we feel like our democracy is working for the 99 percent."

How are they going to do that? This is how it starts.

LA Democratic Congresswoman Karen Bass, who describes herself as a long time activist, quietly showed up with bags of El Pollo Loco for protesters last Saturday. "I just wanted to show my support." She says the role of elected officials is to show their support for this movement she describes as organic.

Local civic leaders, union leaders, police, councilmembers, a couple of celebrities and members of Congress have all made their cameos at Occupy LA. It's a hotspot.

Other cities have run into conflicts with the police. Occupy San Francisco had its demonstration quashed by police in riot gear. There were 700 arrested in New York on the Brooklyn Bridge. Boston's occupation led to the biggest mass arrest in recent city history. LA? There were arrests at a Bank of America and at a Fannie Mae, it was rumored to be Occupy LA members. However the actual groups involved were the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment and the Service Employees International Union. Beyond a few who have tried intentionally to incite something, the LA protest has been peaceful and kid-friendly. Most importantly, it's been effective.

How long is it going to be out there? I ask around. They are in it for the long haul, protesters say. "We're not going fast, we're going far," is a phrase they use. The time between the Declaration of Independence in 1776 and the ratification of the Constitution in 1788 gets mentioned.

I ask my tour guide how long she's going to be out here. She pauses: "I don't know. I've never revolutionized before."

Image credit: REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson

Conservatives Advance Gay Marriage

2011-10-11T03:43:27Z

Shared by Gene Perry
an interesting find by some terrible people

Fallin, Sykes, Sullivan and Kern all endorsed it.

While touting their legislative accomplishments around the state, Republican conservatives are forgetting to mention their work to advance same sex marriage rights in Oklahoma. Their attempt is placed deep within their “accomplishment” of Worker’s Comp Reform.

SB878 lays the groundwork for same sex marriages performed in other states and nations to receive survivor benefits in Oklahoma.

Sykes is the Senate author of the bill.

Senator Anthony Sykes authored a variety of Worker’s Comp Reform bills in the 2011 session ranging from repeal to a new Administrative system to minor “tweaks,” in an attempt to get one of them through the gauntlet. He found success in SB 878 which had the support of Governor Fallin, the Chamber of Commerce and many conservatives inside the House and Senate.

This bill was a compromise of many voices, with many people claiming credit including Sykes, Gov. Fallin, the Oklahoma Chamber of Commerce, Secretary of State Glenn Coffee, Deupty Insurance Commissioner Denise Engle and Assistant Insurance Commissioner Rick Farmer. While there were many voices heard, there were few major changes announced. But one the largest, that of survivor benefits has been kept silent, until now.

Hidden in the 149 page bill is the new definition of a surviving spouse:

“Surviving spouse” means the employee’s spouse by reason of a legal marriage recognized by any state or nation or by common law, under the requirements of a common law marriage in this state, as determined by the Workers’ Compensation Court;” page 27.

Sullivan is the House author of the bill.

Since becoming law, it is also known as Title 85 Section 308 Subsection 46.

Those passionate about gay rights (on either side of the issue) may remember that the Oklahoma Constitution was clarified to define the union of marriage as being between a man and a woman. It even says that, “A marriage between persons of the same gender performed in another state shall not be recognized as valid and binding in this state as of the date of the marriage.”

But despite this, Sykes and Sullivan found a creative way around the issue as the Oklahoma Constitution only mentions other “states.” The new law specifically adds any marriage recognized by another country. Same sex marriage is allowed in Argentina, Belguim, Canada, Iceland, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, South Africa, Spain, and Sweden. So under the new law a same sex couple married in Canada can move to Oklahoma and have survivor benefits without issue.

So why did Sykes, known to be fiercely conservative, author this measure? How did this language get dropped into the bill? And why are we only now finding out about this?

Many of these questions may need to be directed to the Deputy Insurance Commissioner for Worker’s Compensation Denise Engle. Engle had a personal stake in this bill as it affects her entire sphere of influence. Did she not read the bill?

As to why nobody seemed to notice, again questions center on Denise Engle, whose husband, Richard Engle, is the vice chairman of the Oklahoma Conservative Political Action Committee (OCPAC) and a likely candidate for the State Senate. Is it possible that Charlie Meadows, leader of OCPAC, choose to not to do his typical due diligence on this bill as it was crafted by friends?

In Meadows’ defense, he is not the only one who choose to look the other way, many Republican legislators voted for this same sex marriage advancement, including Rep. Sally Kern who once compared the dangers of the homosexual agenda to the that of terrorism.

A Saint For Our Times, Ctd

2011-10-10T18:37:00Z

A reader tires of all the hagiography:

I'm sick of the Steve Jobs eulogising by anyone who did so much as shake his hand (one article I've seen was by a man who was once so blessed as a teenager), or received a couple of phone calls (Aaron Sorkin), not to mention by all those people who never met him. And for those who declare that he changed the world, they misunderstand. What they mean is that he changed their lives. And if that is true, then frankly they need to get a life. (And no, there isn't an app for that.) Jobs was a master marketer of overpriced, although good quality, consumer products. That is not the same thing as changing the world, and it is quite ridiculous that people think it is.

His whole marketing strategy was to present each iProduct as a cultural event, as opposed to just a bit of obstinate hardware that would be out of date in six months. The amazing thing about Jobs and Apple is that they contrived this strategy so successfully.

And to those who talk of the quality of Apple products, let me remind them, we pay for that quality. What would have been truly innovative is if the quality was as high while the price was as low as the competition. That would have changed the world, as it would have spurred other companies to design higher quality products for decent prices. For someone who made a great play of it not being about the money, he seemed to be quite happy with charging the earth.

The apotheosis of Jobs has all the hallmarks of a blogosphere feedback-led feeding frenzy. His legacy is making computer equipment desirable, so desirable that the consumer will pay a premium. This is largely no different from Armani vs high street clothing companies. And, like Armani, and unlike Ford, it remains prohibitively expensive to the majority.

(Above image is from Copyranter's compilation of the ten worst tribute ads to Steve Jobs.)

Remember Fred Shuttlesworth

2011-10-06T01:56:00Z

A hero died today. The Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth was not merely a prominent and important leader of the Civil Rights era. He was a repeated victim of terrible violence who remained dedicated to nonviolence and a symbol of what genuine courage represents-- the refusal to compromise ones principles in the face of fear. His courage in the face of physical danger is an inspiration to all of us. Read his obituary.

I've chosen to use this mugshot of Shuttlesworth because to me it symbolizes how oppression and adversity can reveal strength, and how defiance in and of itself can be a kind of grace. As the Times obituary recounts, Shuttlesworth was arrested dozens of times, brutally assaulted, targeted by politicians and police, and the victim of repeated attempted murder. He neither backed down nor succumbed to cynicism or the use of violence himself.

What's more, Shuttlesworth demonstrates that pacifism is natural partners with radicalism, pugnacity, and a refusal to compromise. Malcolm X and Martin Luther King are such toweringly complex and symbolically rich figures-- and our public consciousness has such little space for history-- that there is an unfortunate tendency to think of the Civil Rights movement as being defined only by the conciliatory message of King and the combative message of Malcolm X. This itself is a reductive reading of history. But Shuttlesworth was at once dedicated to the vehicle of nonviolence that King espoused and yet was fiery and obstinate as well. And he came from the same poor background that defined the lives of many of the black Americans living during the Civil Rights era and continues to define the lives of too many today.

A culture makes choices in the virtues it celebrates. What is celebrated determines what is valued and what is valued determines what endures. It is necessary for us to remember men like Fred Shuttlesworth, and in doing so to remember that what should endure in memory is real heroism, real sacrifice, and real principle.

Comforta Mattress Ad Featuring Babies Sleeping In Adult Clothes

2011-10-05T22:37:32Z

Shared by Gene Perry
adoracreepy

Photographer Handri Karya shot these sweet images of babies in adult clothes for Indonesian mattress company Comforta. The images were used in an advertising campaign created by the Asia Pacific division of Grey Group with the corresponding tagline: “Sleep Like It Used To Be”.

via PetaPixel and Ads of the World

photos by Handri Karya

Days Of Awe

2011-10-05T16:37:00Z

It is hard to imagine a more vivid contrast between the Israels that Israelis must choose.

This morning, the Nobel Prize for Chemistry was awarded to Daniel Shechtman, 70, a professor of materials science at Technion-Israel Institute of Technology. A professional in cosmopolitan Haifa, who also teaches in Iowa, Shechtman personifies the old Zionist dream of a Jewish modernity, taking in what is best in the larger world, and breathing out a creative newness--in this case, an ingenious proof that nature, the natural crystal, is capable of imitating of all things classical Islamic art, which might have also been Maimonides' art, since its genius was delighting without "graven images."

Also this morning, I got this email from my friend Assaf Sharon, who along with other members of Solidarity was attacked near the settlement of Anatot on Rosh Hashana: "Perhaps you have already heard about the violent attack we experienced on Rosh Hashana. I paste below a description of the events and a video capturing some of what happened. Although I took quite a beating, I must confess that the pain of the blows and wounds dulls in comparison with the frustration from the silence and indifference with which this unprecedented event is being received."

I reproduce his report in full. Something to consider on Yom Kippur:

For decades, the Israeli government and police force have passively allowed settlers to act violently against Palestinians and Israelis who protest the occupation. Last Friday, when a mob of settlers attacked a group of Palestinian farmers and Israeli solidarity activists outside the settlement of Anatot, a new level of collusion was reached: not only did the police not act to stop the mob of settlers, but indeed many of the settlers in the mob were themselves out-of-uniform policemen and state employees. The press was silent. The occupation has found a new way to silence non-violent resistance and dissent.

At first glance, Anatot is a pastoral gated community close to Jerusalem, inhabited by law-abiding citizens, many of whom are employed by the Civil Administration and the police. But despite its benign appearance, Anatot is a settlement, located in Palestinian territory occupied in 1967. Anatot was built in 1982 on land allocated by the Israeli government, and inexpensive housing was offered to police officers and other government employees in order to encourage them to live and work in the otherwise unattractive area known by the Israeli government and settlers as “Judea and Samaria,” and by the rest of the world as the West Bank. Like many other settlements, Anatot is surrounded by a separation fence that envelops acres of privately-owned Palestinian land.

Six years ago, the residents of Anatot decided to expand their settlement southward. They neither requested nor received government permits to expand. They simply rerouted the settlement’s fence to encompass additional private Palestinian land, including land owned by a farmer named Yassin el-Rafa’i and his family, who are citizens of Israel. For years, settlers from Anatot have regularly harassed el-Rafa’i. On multiple occasions, settlers have uprooted el-Rafa’i’s trees and otherwise damaged his property, including poisoning his well with animal carcasses. El-Rafa’i has filed numerous complaints with the local police, but to no avail.

The police have consistently refused to address el-Rafa’i’s complaints, or to take any action whatsoever to restrain the settlers’ continued harassment. Last Friday (9/30/2011), a group of a dozen Israeli activists from The Sheikh Jarrah Solidarity Movement, Ta’ayush, and other groups, went to visit Yassin el-Rafa’i and his wife Iman, in order to hear their story and to express friendship and solidarity. While the activists were getting ready to go home, a crowd of nearly a hundred settlers from Anatot surrounded the el-Rafa’i family and the Israeli activists.

The mob of settlers quickly grew violent, and began to attack Iman, Yassin and the Israeli activists with fists, rocks and clubs. Three people were hospitalized, including Yassin and Iman, and several activists were detained for interrogation. During the entire incident, uniformed police officers were present, and did nothing to stop or restrain the mob, despite the activists’ repeated pleas for intervention. Not a single settler was detained or arrested. No journalists were present, and the majority of the evidence was destroyed by the attackers, who specifically targeted cameras, breaking or stealing them and beating the photographers.

That evening, a group of about 40 Israeli activists returned to Anatot, to protest the brutalities committed earlier that day. The activists held a nonviolent demonstration in front of the settlement’s locked gate, while hundreds of settlers amassed on the other side. Some had participated in the afternoon's violent attack, and some were soldiers and police officers in civilian dress: a horde of men seething with hatred and hungry for violence. The settlers demanded that the gates be opened, and charged at the activists, again with fists, rocks, and clubs.

The police officers in uniform that were present did nothing to restrain the crowd. One of the attackers tried a number of times to stab activists with a knife. When we tried to get away from the place, the attackers chased us, chanting “Death to Arabs!” and "Death to leftists!" They were accompanied by a group of uniformed police officers. About 10 demonstrators were injured, three of whom were evacuated for medical treatment. Six cars were seriously damaged or destroyed. On one of them a Jewish star, a Magen David, was incised.

Despite the attack, which was caught in stills and in video, the police did not arrest a single rioter. And despite the fact that the afternoon’s attack was known to the press, not a single journalist was present to witness the evening’s attack. The readiness with which the settlers turned to brutal violence - violence which in any other context would be called terror - exposes Anatot for what it is: an extremist ideological settlement. Furthermore, these attacks call into question the commonly held belief in Israel which posits a clear distinction between extremist, ideological settlements and moderate, ‘quality of life’ settlements.

All settlements are based on expropriation and dispossession, and all are maintained by the same tools of the occupation. The fact that the police accommodated and enabled the rioters highlights the complete lack of both accountability and justice in the occupation .The police and security forces do not monitor the settlers; they work for the settlers. In many cases, including the case of Anatot, the police are the settlers, and the settlers are the police. Police out of uniform assaulted citizens while uniformed police looked on and did nothing. The press largely ignored the events, and only after considerable public pressure and the release of videos and photos did several newspapers cover Friday’s events.

Even then, most of the coverage was tepid, equivocating, and biased towards the settlers and the police. With the Anatot events, political conflict in Israel has reached a watershed. In the light of day and under the supervision of the law enforcement, nonviolent dissent is being silenced with brutality. Dissidents are branded as traitors, and their physical safety and property are forfeit. Israelis and Palestinians alike were savaged by a mob of settlers, who acted with the complete confidence of those whose impunity is guaranteed.

Decades of occupation and repression have made Israeli society largely callous to settler and state violence against Palestinians. In Anatot on Friday, this violence was extended to Israelis who arrived to show nonviolent solidarity with the struggle against injustice, discrimination, and occupation.

•We demand an investigation of the events in Anatot, to be carried out by a special commission made of officials unrelated to the Judea and Samaria District.
•We demand the immediate suspension of the law enforcement officers present, and the dismissal of the chief security officer of the settlement, Tomer Shapira.
•We demand that the el-Rifa’i family be guaranteed full and uninhibited access to all of their land, including, if necessary, security escorts and protection.
•We demand the dismantlement of the illegal separation fence that allows the settlers of Anatot to expropriate privately-owned Palestinian lands.

We will not be silenced. We will continue to struggle against the occupation, violence, and repression. We will continue to stand up for justice, civil equality and democracy. Will you stand up with us? Share the story of the Anatot events and of the el-Rifa’i family. Share the videos of the attacks with your friends, family, classmates and colleagues. Bring these stories to the attention of your political representatives and community leaders.

-- Assaf Sharon

Taken on a recent trip to Spain, Morocco and Gibraltar, this is...

2011-10-01T19:51:05Z

Taken on a recent trip to Spain, Morocco and Gibraltar, this is one of the Barbary Apes living on The Rock. This guy was practically posing for me, sitting on the barrier between the cable car landing and a significant drop. His position was so model-esque; I gave his image a dramatic edit for a touch of humor. His casual pose perched on the edge of the mountain, with Gibraltar behind him, makes for one of the best images of the trip.

— By Allie Dillhunt (from “Open Theme”)

Submit now to Pictory’s Open Themes

A Walk To The Paradise Garden

2011-10-01T19:44:04Z

W. Eugene Smith was no doubt one of the greatest war correspondents of the last century. As the photographer for Life, he followed the island-hopping American offensive against Japan, from Saipan to Guam, from Iwo Jima to Okinawa, where he was hit by mortar fire, and invalided back.

His war wounds cost him two painful years of hospitalization and plastic surgery. During those years he took no photos, and it was doubtful whether he would ever be able to return to photography. Then one day in 1946, he took a walk with his two children, Juanita and Patrick, towards a sun-bathed clearing:

While I followed my children into the undergrowth and the group of taller trees – how they were delighted at every little discovery! – and observed them, I suddenly realized that at this moment, in spite of everything, in spite of all the wars and all I had gone through that day, I wanted to sing a sonnet to life and to the courage to go on living it….

Pat saw something in the clearing, he grasped Juanita by the hand and they hurried forward. I dropped a little farther behind the engrossed children, then stopped. Painfully I struggled — almost into panic — with the mechanical iniquities of the camera….

I tried to, and ignore the sudden violence of pain that real effort shot again and again through my hand, up my hand, and into my spine … swallowing, sucking, gagging, trying to pull the ugly tasting serum inside, into my mouth and throat, and away from dripping down on the camera….

I knew the photograph, though not perfect, and however unimportant to the world, had been held…. I was aware that mentally, spiritually, even physically, I had taken a first good stride away from those past two wasted and stifled years. (See original text)

While he was right about his stride towards recovery, Smith miscalculated the photo’s importance. In 1955, a heavily-indebted Smith decided to submit the photo to Edward Steichen’s now-famous Family of Man exhibit at the MOMA. There, it became a finalist and then the closing image, thus cementing its position as the ur-icon of all family photographs.

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Right now: Rasputin, The Mad Monk, 1966

2011-09-30T14:09:57Z

Shared by Gene Perry
Free Rasputin beard!

Right now: Rasputin, The Mad Monk, 1966

Why they call it Green Energy: The Summers/Klain/Browner Memo

2011-09-28T11:35:36Z

The LA Times reports that Larry Summers and Timothy Geithner ”raised warning flags” about the loan guarantee program for renewables long before the Solyndra bankruptcy. The article doesn’t have a lot of new information (the key players are clearly protecting themselves) but it does link to a fascinating briefing memo written for the President in October of 2010 by Summers, Ron Klain (then chief of staff to the Vice President), and energy advisor Carol Browner.

The memo says that OMB and Treasury were concerned about three problems, “double dipping” (massive government subsidies from multiple sources), lack of “skin in the game” from private investors and ”non-incremental investment,” the funding of projects which would occur even without the loan guarantee.

The memo then illustrates with one such program, the Shepherds Flat Loan guarantee. Here is the relevant portion of the memo:

The Shepherds Flat loan guarantee illustrates some of the economic and public policy issues raised by OMB and Treasury. Shepherds Flat is an 845-megawatt wind farm proposed for Oregon. This $1.9 billion project would consist of 338 GE wind turbines manufactured in South Carolina and Florida and, upon completion; it would represent the largest wind farm in the country.

The sponsor’s equity is about 11% of the project costs, and would generate an estimated return on equity of 30%.

Double dipping: The total government subsidies are about $1.2 billion.

Subsidy Type
Approximate
Amount
(millions)

Federal 1603 grant (equal to 30% investment tax credit)
$500

State tax credits
$18

Accelerated depreciation on Federal and State taxes
$200

Value of loan guarantee
$300

Premium paid for power from state renewable electricity standard
$220

Total
$1,238

Skin in the game: The government would provide a significant subsidy (65+%), while the sponsor would provide little skin in the game (equity about 10%).

Non-incremental investment: This project would likely move without the loan guarantee. The economics are favorable for wind investment given tax credits and state renewable energy standards. GE signaled through Hill staff that it considered going to the private market for financing out of frustration with the review process. The return on equity is high (30%) because of tax credits, grants, and selling power at above-market rates, which suggests that the alternative of private financing would not make the project financially non-viable.

Carbon reduction benefits: If this wind power displaced power generated from sources with the average California carbon intensity, it would result in about 18 million fewer tons of CO2 emissions through 2033. Carbon reductions would have to be valued at nearly $130 per ton CO2 for the climate benefits to equal the subsidies (more than 6 times the primary estimate used by the government in evaluating rules).

In my view, the Summers/Klain/Browner analysis was a damning indictment of the Shepherds Flat project. The taxpayers were expected to fund by far the largest share of the bills and also of the risk and in return they weren’t getting many benefits in terms of reduced pollution. In contrast, Caithness Energy and GE Energy Financial Services, the corporations behind the project, weren’t taking much risk but they stood to profit handsomely. I guess that is why they call it “green” energy.

In short, the Shepherds Flat project was corporate welfare masquerading under an environmental rainbow.

So are you surprised to learn that shortly after the memo was written the Shepherd Flats loan guarantee of $1.3 billion was approved? Of course not; no doubt you also saw that the memo authors were careful to inform the President that the “338 GE wind turbines” were to be “manufactured in South Carolina and Florida.” Corporate welfare meet politicized investment.

In the Solyndra case just about everything went wrong, including bankruptcy and possible malfeasance. Caithness Energy and GE Energy Financial Services are unlikely to go bankrupt and malfeasance is not at issue. As a result, this loan guarantee and the hundreds of millions of dollars in other subsidies that made this project possible are unlikely to create an uproar. Nevertheless, the real scandal is not what happens when everything goes wrong but how these programs work when everything goes right.

The Collapse of American Criminal Justice

2011-09-26T17:00:00Z

There was some pushback a couple of week's ago on William Stuntz's argument about increased prosecutorial power. A little more on that point:

"We now have an incredible concentration of power in the hands of prosecutors," said Richard E. Myers II, a former assistant United States attorney who is now an associate professor of law at the University of North Carolina. He said that so much influence now resides with prosecutors that "in the wrong hands, the criminal justice system can be held hostage."

One crucial, if unheralded, effect of this shift is now coming into sharper view, according to academics who study the issue. Growing prosecutorial power is a significant reason that the percentage of felony cases that go to trial has dropped sharply in many places. Plea bargains have been common for more than a century, but lately they have begun to put the trial system out of business in some courtrooms.

By one count, fewer than one in 40 felony cases now make it to trial, according to data from nine states that have published such records since the 1970s, when the ratio was about one in 12. The decline has been even steeper in federal district courts.

The Times details how the process works: Armed with an array of laws, and mandatory minimums, prosecutors are essentially able to extort plea-bargains and bully defendants out jury trials:

Cases like Florida v. Shane Guthrie help explain why. After Mr. Guthrie, 24, was arrested here last year, accused of beating his girlfriend and threatening her with a knife, the prosecutor offered him a deal for two years in prison plus probation.

Mr. Guthrie rejected that, and a later offer of five years, because he believed that he was not guilty, his lawyer said. But the prosecutor's response was severe: he filed a more serious charge that would mean life imprisonment if Mr. Guthrie is convicted later this year.

Because of a state law that increased punishments for people who had recently been in prison, like Mr. Guthrie, the sentence would be mandatory. So what he could have resolved for a two-year term could keep him locked up for 50 years or more...

Legal scholars like Paul Cassell, a conservative former federal judge and prosecutor who is now a law professor at the University of Utah, describe the power shift as a zero-sum game.

"Judges have lost discretion, and that discretion has accumulated in the hands of prosecutors, who now have the ultimate ability to shape the outcome," Mr. Cassell said. "With mandatory minimums and other sentencing enhancements out there, prosecutors can often dictate the sentence that will be imposed."

While the attention here is on prosecutors, it's important to understand that the current criminal justice system is really the result of electoral democracy. It's not that prosecutors are a nefarious class of humans, it's that Americans have proved unwilling to pay for the kind of staffing in prosecutors, and cops, that a functioning criminal justice system would require.

From Lincoln Kaplan's review of Stuntz:

For most of the twentieth century in the Northeast and Midwest, the ratio of police officers to prison inmates was two to one. Today, it is less than one to two. "More than any other statistic," Stuntz writes, "that one captures what is most wrong with American criminal justice." More cops mean more deterrence. More deterrence means fewer arrests and fewer convictions. In the 1990s, New York City had the biggest drop in urban crime during the decade. It also had the biggest increase in its police force...

And too much power for prosecutors doesn't mean there are enough of them: Stuntz calls for many more, so there are more lawyers to litigate cases and the pressure on them to obtain plea bargains is alleviated. That would also require more money for public defenders to represent defendants in court.

Of course we end up paying anyway. It's not like prisons are cheap.

H/T Sullivan.

'American Dreamers' by Michael Kazin: Book review - latimes.com

2011-09-25T16:28:13Z

The left has never held power in the United States and thus can neither point to the accomplishments nor must answer for the atrocities of its compatriots elsewhere. And yet it is wrong, as Kazin demonstrates, to conclude from that that the left has been a failure. We are a freer and fairer country because of the work of abolitionists and suffragists, environmentalists and anarchists, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King. Some reached their goals; many more died trying. In some cases, the nation is lucky they failed. And yet, their mark is upon all of us.

The Night They Killed Troy Davis

2011-09-22T16:00:00Z

Rutgers historian William Jelani Cobb was outside of the prison, last night, where Troy Davis was held and executed. He filed this report while bearing "witness to a great evil." Jelani has guest-posted here before. We're always happy to have him back offering his unique mix of politics, history and on-site reporting.

(Erik S. Lesser / AFP-Getty Images / September 21, 2011)

JACKSON, Georgia -- The Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison sits a quarter mile off Interstate 75 in Jackson, just outside the commuter suburbs of Atlanta. The technical name for the place obscures its most notorious function: it houses the death chamber for the state's executions. Last night, for more than seven hours, hundreds of people prayed, chanted, sang, hoped and shouted in front of that building in a vain effort to prevent the state of Georgia from extinguishing the life of Troy Davis.

A trickle of people began showing up outside the prison in the late afternoon. By 5 p.m. they had grown to about 200 and been cordoned off by police tape in front of a truck stop across from the prison. A knot of organizers from Amnesty International unfurled a huge banner saying "Free Troy Davis" and another set of activists held a sign saying we had returned to the days of the Scottsboro Nine. A principal came out with several of his elementary school students and a busload of students poured in from Spelman and Morehouse Colleges. But the largest group was from Al Sharpton's National Action Network -- at least thirty of whom had driven up from Savannah, where the murder of Mark McPhail took place. They set about coordinating the chants, moving people with signs to the forefront so that passersby could see exactly what we were protesting and generally keeping the protests going.

Initially the police outside the prison were unfazed by our presence, relaxed enough to be polite. But that changed as we drew closer to the scheduled hour of the execution. At about 6 p.m., local law enforcement, sheriffs, SWAT teams and state troopers began putting on riot gear. Over the course of the next hour they moved closer and closer to the protesters with their batons in hand. For their part they may have hoped that their show of force would prevent things from getting out of control but the reality is that it appeared that they wanted to instigate violence. It was impossible not to realize that from their perspective, we were praying for a man who had gunned down their fellow officer.

By 6:30 the crowd numbered at least 500 people. We spilled past the tape and onto the grassy barrier between the truck stop and Prison Boulevard where the facility is located. Trucks pulled in and out of the station began honking their horn in support of Troy Davis's cause.

But what was most surprising and disturbing is that the group was more than 90% black. For all the discussion about the implications of the death penalty for the country at large this broke down, as always, to an issue of race and black people would have to do the heavy lifting if any change were going to occur. The racial balance skewed so heavily that when a young white couple sat down on the grass next to me I asked them what organization they were with. The woman reply hit me hard: "We're not with an organization. I know Troy Davis -- my brother is on death row with him."

By 7 p.m. people nearly everyone there was crying or praying or both, imploring God to save Troy Davis's soul if he would not save his life. In the midst of this I realized that there were no counter-protests. Later I learned there were a few. But still I saw no crowds gathered to voice their support for what was happening inside that prison. This was a small grace but it was also possibly because few believed that Davis' fate was ever in doubt. And they had no reason to.

Georgia's criminal justice system is a microcosm for the kind of racial disparities that plague the entire country. Blacks are 30.5% of the state's population but make up 61% of Georgia's prisoners. A few years back the state legislature, in the name of getting tough on crime, passed a bill that created draconian penalties and allowed juveniles to be charged as adults for a wide array of crimes, including simple robbery, which would normally be handled by a juvenile court. The legislation was so poorly written that in the state if a 14 year old and a 35 year old rob a liquor store together, the teenager can - and in some instances has -- received a sentence longer than that of the adult. It can go without saying that these laws have disproportionately impacted black youth.

Both the state legislature and the governorship are firmly in the hands of the GOP and, though the newly elected Nathan Deal remains the subject of a federal corruption probe, no Democrat has stood a chance of becoming governor since Roy Barnes was turned out of office for opposing the Confederate flag nearly a decade ago. This is Georgia in the 21st century, the state that claimed, despite recantations, police coercion, contrary evidence and the lack of physical evidence, that it was certain beyond a reasonable doubt that Troy Davis was responsible for the death of Mark McPhail and that he should die for it.

The sobs of the mourning crowd were punctured by shouts when we heard that the Supreme Court had stepped in to review the case. The reality is that this crowd, predominantly African American, many battle-wearied activists, still believed that this execution simply could not happen. For hours, their energy and commitment unflagging, people beat drums, held candles and sang civil rights songs. And here lies the paradox: even as people most intimately aware of the failings of this country, so many of us subscribed to a faith that justice would prevail that when we received word of the court's refusal to grant a stay the reaction was stunned disbelief.

The feeling, as I stood in front of the truck stop in the middle of the night, was that we were witness to a great evil -- not solely the taking of what may well have been an innocent life, but also in the false certainty that sought to sell this killing as justice. When word came at 11:08 p.m. that Troy Davis was no more, women began wailing; several of them fell to the ground heaving inconsolably. A few men offered stumbling, meandering prayers that some good might come of this, that it would inspire some greater reckoning with the arbitrary, corrupted realities of capital punishment in this country.

And I, at that point, thought about my father, a native of Hazlehurst, Georgia who had abandoned his home state for New York in 1941. He lived the remainder of his life there, firm in his belief that a black man's life was seen as worthless in Georgia. I grew up hearing the stories of the sadistic violence that was commonplace there, about a black women he'd known growing up who was raped and tortured by white men who went unpunished. I moved to Georgia in 2001, secure in my belief that the place had changed, that our efforts had yielded success and the stories my father told me were now consigned to the horror closets of history.

But last night, progress, hopes and a black presidency be damned, the state of Georgia had the last word. And they were determined to prove the old man right.

Before the Davis Execution Takes Place

2011-09-21T18:50:08Z

This is not my normal beat, and I have no expertise or special standing to comment on the case.

But before the executioner makes this matter moot about four hours from now, in my "special standing" as a human being and as an American, I wanted to say these things:

1) Please read Andrew Cohen's masterful explanation of the philosophies, practicalities, and politics of modern capital punishment. It is long but truly important, and among other things it clarifies why use of the death penalty nationwide has been declining, even as it has been on the rise in the South. (Since 1976, there have been four times as many executions in the South as in the rest of the country combined. Texas alone has accounted for nearly 40% of all U.S. executions in that period; together with Virginia, it accounts for almost half. Texas executed 17 last year; California, with more people and more crimes, has executed a total of 13 since 1976.)

One crucial part of Cohen's argument is that the kind of willful over-reach we see from the Georgia authorities in the Troy Davis case will eventually turn the national tide against the death penalty as a whole. He argues that the 1976 Supreme Court ruling making the death penalty permissible again was based on the faith that it would be carried out with utmost sober-minded care, even reluctance, and that operationally its workings would seem to be "fair."

That's quite obviously not how things seem about the death penalty in general, with the partisan whoops at the mere mention of executions and the comments from public officials (it's not just Rick Perry) that they haven't lost a moment's sleep about even some obviously tainted cases. It's also not how things seem in the Troy Davis case, in which most of the original witnesses have changed their stories and numerous non-softies including Ronald Reagan's appointee as director of the FBI have asked the state of Georgia not to take the irreversible step of putting him to death. As Cohen says of Davis:

>>Whether the trial witnesses against him were lying then or are lying now, by fighting against his requested relief Georgia is saying that its interest in the finality of its capital judgments is more important than the accuracy of its capital verdicts.... In their zeal to make good on cynical campaign promises to be "tough on crime," in their pursuit of vengeance on behalf of grieving families, in their reckless disregard for the racial realities of capital punishment, elected or appointed proponents of the death penalty are in the process of ruining the mandate the Supreme Court gave them 35 years ago.<<

There is a lot more; I will simply say, please read Cohen's essay during the next few hours. It probably won't make a difference in Davis's case, but it is an important analysis of a national shame.

2) Please also read Ta-Nehisi Coates's account today of another murder case in the South, and how the death penalty may or may not be applied. Also from our site, Emily Hauser and Clive Crook.

3) OK, back to Cohen. He makes a point that can't be emphasized often enough. The death penalty debate is not exclusively or even mainly about the condemned people themselves, including those who are indisputably guilty. It is about us. Cohen writes about Duane Buck of Texas. No one disputes that he is a killer, but the US Supreme Court this week stayed his execution because of racial bias in the sentencing process. Cohen says:

>>Why should I care about the procedural technicalities of this guy's sentencing case when his guilt is not in doubt? Since he's guilty of murder, how fair does his legal treatment really need to be? People of all political stripes asked the same questions....The guy did it. He is getting more justice than he gave to his victims.

That last part is true. Of course, defendants like Duane Buck get more justice than their victims. That's the whole point of our criminal justice system -- and of the rule of law. That's why we outlaw lynching, why angry mobs can't storm jailhouses, and why we have judges. It's why we have a Constitution. In America, we aim to give the guilty more justice than they deserve. We do so because of how that reflects upon us, not upon how it reflects upon the guilty. And when we fail to do so it says more about us than it does about the condemned.<<

Darwin, the Market Whiz - NYTimes.com

2011-09-20T20:07:23Z

When it comes to the concept of competition, Charles Darwin described economic reality far more accurately than Adam Smith, says Robert H. Frank in a new book.

Subsidy Type	Approximate Amount (millions)
Federal 1603 grant (equal to 30% investment tax credit)	$500
State tax credits	$18
Accelerated depreciation on Federal and State taxes	$200
Value of loan guarantee	$300
Premium paid for power from state renewable electricity standard	$220
Total	$1,238