Chauvinist = "a person displaying aggressive or exaggerated patriotism", or "an irrational belief in the superiority or dominance of one's own group or people ( Read more... )

I apologize, my in-text links were all lost from the timeline piece, but here are the ones that I read to compile the timeline.  Also I learned today that my longer posts are accepted at Dreamwidth but do not crosspost to LJ...link to the dreamwidth blog is https://liveonearth. ( Read more... )

Randy Blazak is a PhD from Emory University with a specialty in hate crimes. Specifically he studied racist skinheads (he doesn't say just "skin heads" because you can shave your head without being a racist). He's a professor of sociology at PSU where his intro class is opening people's minds, and a professor of criminology at OU.

His talk for ( Read more... )

This documentary is well worth seeing.  It explains how the 13th Amendment did more than free the slaves, because it had an exception that said criminals could be imprisoned.  A massive cultural effort ensued to criminalize blacks, and our so-called "criminal justice" system was not sufficient to protect them from powerful white men determined to ( Read more... )

I read today about the California prisoners who've gone without food for 45 days now to protest the practice of keeping people on solitary for a year or more. A judge decided that the prisons can force feed them. This is barbarism. Their rationale is that some of the fasting prisoners have been mislead. I almost expect to hear the Shrubism: " ( Read more... )

I didn't hear about these women until today. Perhaps you've already heard. Pussy Riot a Russian punk rock band who performed an anti-Putin song in the "main cathedral" of the Orthodox Church. Now they have been held in "pre-trial detention" for months. It is expected that they will serve years of jail time for the offense, which was, in a word ( Read more... )

Twenty eight percent (28%) of US households are now just one person living alone. This is the most ever. These singles are the biggest spenders, contributing 1.9 trillion to "the economy" each year. (According to The Week 2/10/12 which is in turn quoting Fortune magazine ( Read more... )

Morality is moral
only when
it is voluntary
--Lincoln Steffens, journalist

I could (yet can't) break out of this prison for drunks
I did not come here of my own accord, and i cannot leave that way
Whoever brought me here will have to take me home.
--Rumi

Texas GOP Official Platform Calls for Imprisonment of Homosexuals and Supportive Heterosexuals ( Read more... )