If I were Roman Polanski …

… I would keep my mouth shut and hope that people just forget about me. Polanski is the film director who pleaded guilty to unlawful sex with a 13-year old minor after drugging her, and then fled abroad to escape serving his punishment. Following the recent spate of charges of sexual harassment, abuse, and rape, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has expelled him, along with Bill Cosby. Why it did so long after his conviction is clear. Cosby was recently found guilty for his actions and expelling him while keeping Polanski would have raised awkward questions.
[Read more…]

Larry Krassner leads the way on prosecutorial reform

I have railed many times against the fact that police, prosecutors, and even judges far too often see getting a conviction of anyone at all as more important than finding the actual guilty person, even if that results in an innocent person being put to death while the actual criminal walks the streets freely. Very often this is due to the fact that in many jurisdictions in the US, prosecutors and judges and some law enforcement officers are elected positions and being seen as ‘tough on crime’ and boasting of how many people they have put in prison plays positively with voters.
[Read more…]

Striking without harming the public

The right to unionize and to strike has been fundamental in improving the lives of all of us. It is the only counterbalancing weapon that low-level workers have against the power of their bosses. But the downside to strikes, apart from the fact that workers suffer loss in wages during it, is that the general public also suffers. So when for example, teachers go on strike, students and their parents are inconvenienced and teachers need their support and understanding to prevail. The situation becomes harder for nurses where striking means leaving patients without adequate care.
[Read more…]

The Afghanistan war is now on autopilot

For most of the American public, once US troop stop dying in significant numbers, then the wars that the US is involved in have effectively ended, even though the US continues to rain havoc on those countries and inflict immense misery on its people using its firepower. Andrew Cockburn has been covering the many wars that the US is involved in and writes in the April issue of Harper’s magazine (subscription required) that the war in Afghanistan is now effectively on autopilot, with the US continuing its bombardment with no end in sight. The same strategies are tried over and over again based on the same rationales. The fact that the strategies have not worked in the past and the rationales go counter to the actual evidence seems to have no effect on the policy makers back in the US or the commanders in the field.
[Read more…]

Fun times in West Virginia

The state of West Virginia has as its slogan ‘Wild, Wonderful, West Virginia’. Tomorrow will see a primary race for the US senate where the ‘wild’ part is clearly on display. The Republicans will choose a candidate to run against the Democratic incumbent Joe Manchin. One of the people vying is Don Blankenship, the CEO of a coal mine that collapsed in 2010 killing 29 workers. He was convicted for negligence and served a year in prison and was released last May. He now wears that as a badge of honor. No, really. He says that he was framed by (of course) Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.
[Read more…]

What happened to car ribbon decals?

I was in Boston last week visiting with my grandson (who is now 15 moths old and great fun to be with) and when driving I noticed a car in front of me that had one of those ribbon decals stuck on the back with the message too faded to read. The reason it struck me was that nowadays one rarely sees them. There was a time when these decals were all the rage and some cars had several of them, each a different color promoting a different cause.
[Read more…]