“White Shoes” nude photography series highlights slavery’s roots in NY Financial District
The Village Voice points out, “New York was the capital of American slavery for more than 200 years.”
Huffington Post author Priscilla Frank writes,
Revisiting the spaces haunted by such atrocious tales, Faustine drapes her body across the implicated grounds like a bold protestor or a spiritual medium. Her bare flesh recalls the stories of so many strangers that went untold, simultaneously raising questions about why bodies matter and, more specifically, which bodies matter.
MIT hosted a city-wide biannual breakdance competition for a decade
MIT’s Imobilare breakdance crew also held regular bboy practices on the MIT campus from 1998-2009:
Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance spends $808M windfall on transformative policing
$38M is going for labs in 20 states to test the 56,000 unprocessed rape kits that have been discovered sitting unprocessed in police warehouses all around the country . The US Attorney General is contributing another $41 million to this backlog clearing project.
Breaking: TPP text released – and it’s every bit as bad as we feared. Opposition surfaces.
Text for the secretive Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) was finally released in the wee hours of this morning, and after years of waiting, we now know why negotiators insisted on keeping it a secret for so long. This pact is a disaster for the economy, the environment and public health.
See the full TPP text http://www.mfat.govt.nz/Treaties-and-International-Law/01-Treaties-for-which-NZ-is-Depositary/0-Trans-Pacific-Partnership.php
When voters don’t vote do falling trees make sounds in the forest?
There is nothing noble about voting, but it is a pretty sure-fired way to show your elected official that you are willing to show up at the polls. This sends a clear message that you can vote him/her out of office – which is their job – if s/he doesn’t represent you well.
Chalabi late: the man who helped Bush move US into Iraq War
DemocraticUnderground
Great saying: the meaning of privilege
Privilege is when you think something is not a problem because its not a problem to you personally.
~ Troy Singleton
Via Archange Antoine on Facebook
How to escape from a cop with magic (prank)
Hat tip to @lalwei for the great find. Haha!
Obama falls in love with baby pope & his popemobile at White House Halloween
This nice little video shows more 2015 White House Halloween fotos and gives the history of the celebration.
Hat tip to Cynthia Flood for the fabulous share.
85 rich people’s wealth equals what world’s poorest half own & other sad economic truths
Oxfam introduces its Jan 2014 report Working for the Few with a quote from US Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, “We may have democracy, or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of the few, but we cannot have both.” The report is concerned with the “growing tide of inequality” and the concentration of wealth in the hands of a very few individuals.
The report shares these startling statistics:
I can’t stop crying, thinking about police brutalizing girls in classrooms. We must vote.
Edited to add: I just learned that the assault victim is a girl who was recently orphaned.
Where did we go wrong, my friends and neighbors? I want to ask, to scream, to demand answers. How did we get to the point where we not only allow armed law enforcement officers into our children’s schools to serve as para-security guards … but beyond that point, to where we are today: where the same men who shoot pudgy grown men in the back because they failed to pay child support and band together to choke the life right out of a New Yorker for selling loose cigarettes, are let loose in our babies’ classrooms to brutalize, terrorize and humiliate them and after they do haul them off, no doubt, to lock them up in jails or detention schools or juvenile halls – to make them look the wrongdoers.
$218 round trip airfare Newark to San Juan
If you need a vacation, check out the $218 round trip airfare from Newark to San Juan, Puerto Rico.
Android’s battery drain issue won’t be fixed until next major upgrade
As this issue has been reported over 3000 times to Google, it will be fixed in Marshmallow (6.0). But this means we’re going to wait a while.
My theory is: Google keeps the connection open the better to track us with, my dear. By the time Google rolls out a new OS, I guess the company will have all the data it needs to successfully intrude in just about every aspect of our lives, God help us.
The People won prison phone justice today – thanks FCC!
Well, that would be the United States of America – until this morning, that is, when the FCC voted to make prison calls affordable. Thank you for heading up this valuable initiative Commissioner Mignon Clyburn.
Today (Thursday, 21 October 2015), the Federal Communications Commission voted 3-2 to cap the rates and fees companies charge those families struggling to keep in touch with incarcerated relatives by phone. That change came as a direct result of mounting pressure from groups across the country.