Craig Newmark (Craigslist) wants to make sure you can vote and reminds us, “In 2008, 6 million Americans didn’t vote because they missed a registration deadline or didn’t know how to register!
Do you know that if you did not vote in two consecutive federal elections, your name is removed from the voter registration roll? Thousands of voters are not registered and don’t even know it. But learning your voter registration status is this simple: Visit CanIVote.org and select ‘Am I Registered?’
I love Bernie Sanders Bernie Sanders, but the politician that completely awes me is Elizabeth Warren. These progressives both speak powerful truths that America needs to hear, so maybe it’s a style thing – Warren is a bit more polished than Sanders – or, maybe it’s Warren being a woman. All I can tell you is that this lady has become very special to me. And I have a dream … that this outspoken advocate who believes in and champions decent values, dignity and living wages for working Americans, honesty and integrity in the business community; truth in politics and the media and students not being forced into a lifetime of debt in order to get college educated and protection of social security and other social safety nets … will run for president in the 2016 Election and win.
Walter Scott was a South Carolina man who owed child support, and the car he drove had a broken taillight, which 33 year old Police Officer Michael T. Slager stopped him for on April 4 2015. It’s possible that slightly overweight Mr. Scott ran slowly away from the officer to avoid being arrested for his unpaid child support – we’ll never know, because Slager decided to pull out his gun and shoot Mr. Scott 8 times. One of those shots entered Mr. Scott’s heart and he was pronounced dead at the scene.
Monied interests in Wisconsin have been systematically working to eradicate justice in their courts in order to make it legal for court decisions to be bought by the mighty and the monied. By pushing through a change in this spring’s election to the way the state’s Supreme Court Chief Justice is selected, Wisconsin conservatives may have finally reached the tipping point they’ve been working towards for several years.
They’ve made it legal for money to buy court decisions and for court oversight to be removed – accomplishments they were able to make law because America is not voting, and we don’t seem to know what democracy means.
I don’t know why this important US Department of State document is housed on a Taiwanese website. but I like how it lays out the Citizen Responsibilities in a Democracy. Some of the juicier exerpts are:
Citizenship in a democracy requires participation, civility, and even patience.
Democratic citizens recognize that they not only have rights, they have responsibilities. They recognize that democracy requires an investment of time and hard work — a government of the people demands constant vigilance and support by the people.
Matt Bonamo tried pretty hard to discredit Ras Baraka in his March 19 Politico Magazine article. He failed, because Ras is good at being good – but not for lack of trying.
First, look at the photo Mark chose as his lead: why is Baraka’s face contorted, and his finger laid alongside his nose? Only one logical answer: the photo is meant to be demeaning. In the article’s wrap-up, Bonamo quotes Ras using syntactically regional language. Again, why? Why list every one of Booker’s impressive educational credentials and then contrast that with a quote showing Baraka being loose with his grammar? Again, the reason is clear: Bonamo obviously meant to discredit Mayor Baraka.
WNYC Radio is keeping an eye on Christie. If you’d like to know if the governor is in New Jersey or the latest and greatest update on Bridgate (that rhymes), head over to their Christie Tracker project and find out.
Of particular interest to anyone who wants to see Christie go down, is all the juicy information just posted in the WNYC article on March 12 Bridgegate Fall Guy Was Inside Man.
With amplification from Diane Ravitch (where you can also read the text of Bob’s original post if his website is still inaccessible), Washington Post, Daily Kos, a growing number of local news portals and now The War Report radio show, Bob Braun has busted wide open the practice of standardized testing giant Pearson Education to spy on and oppress students using Pearson Streamlines Social Media Listening and Monitoring With Tracx. It’s more than shocking.
Bob Braun’s Ledger reported the exclusive story that Pearson is monitoring students’ social media accounts during PARCC testing … and that both Pearson and the NJDOE called for the punishment of a student who had tweeted after taking the test, although school authorities knew – and had reported – that the student did not share any sensitive information. This Watchung Regional High School District Superintendent’s letter was leaked to Braun and started the snowball rolling.
I guess this isn’t as good a deal as Chicago selling off land at $1 a lot but Newark’s Valentine’s Day land sale still seems pretty darn good to me. According to the city’s website, Couples only can purchase a Newark land lot for $1000 from the city if they can afford to build a dwelling on it and are willing to live there for 5 years.
Take a look at the terms and tell me what you think …
A special land sale that Economic and Housing Development has organized for St. Valentine’s Day – Saturday, 14 February 2015, 9:00AM – 12:00PM at Newark City Hall (920 Broad Street). In the spirit of St. Valentine’s Day, we are doing a sale of city lots exclusively to COUPLES. Transforming non-tax producing city owned lots to occupied, tax producing properties with new homes built on them. We will be selling 100 lots at $1,000 a lot. This sale is NOT for developers or investors. The sale is exclusively for couples who are looking to live in Newark.
What does ‘State of Emergency’ mean in New Jersey?
Gov. Chris Christie declared a State of Emergency in New Jersey Monday ahead of the snowstorm. According to the state Office of Emergency Management, the governor’s declaration “empowers the New Jersey Office of Emergency Management (NJOEM) to act on behalf of the Governor to employ the resources and assets of State, local and private agencies to provide immediate assistance to localities.”
A common misconception about a state of emergency is that civilians are not allowed to travel on the roads during the declaration. According to the NJOEM, “the Governor’s declaration does not normally restrict citizen movements or activities. The State may limit access to affected areas due to concerns for public safety but will notify the public of these restrictions.”
Preparing for a storm doesn’t mean anything bad will happen, just that you’ll be comfortable if your lights or water go out, and you’ll know how to stay safe indoors. I hope you all stay safe and warm throughout … remember to check on elderly or infirm neighbors and if you have a safety tip or information resource, please share it with us. BTW they’re calling this storm Juno.
Thanks to friend and Red Cross volunteer Han Broekman for sharing some of these tips.
Updated 03 Feb 15
First came the proposed merger of Fyffe and Chiquita brands last March, which fell through in October and now Brazil’s Cutrale and Safra have partnered to buy Chiquita and headquarter the company in Brazil, closing the company’s North Carolina Office. Fortune says, fruit is big business.
Guardian authors Rebecca Smithers and Dominic Rushe write:
According to Banana Link, a not-for-profit organisation campaigning for a fair and sustainable banana trade, the big fruit companies are relocating to countries in search of cheaper labour and weaker social and environmental legislation. Many workers in countries such as West Africa, the Dominican Republic and Ecuador do not receive a living wage and face appalling working conditions including 10- to 12-hour working days and exposure to harmful chemicals.
You’ve become aware that copying photos and graphic images you find on the internet might be considered stealing them. This may or may not be morally wrong but breaking the law is at least a bit problematic. If you need pictures and don’t want to pay for them, here are sources for getting them legally free:
Images licensed under Creative Commons terms are free to use although they do have some strings attached to them (creators want to be named, for one thing). Photopin is a repository where you can find plenty of “free” Creative Commons pictures.
I came across a pretty interesting discussion on copyright law today, which was sparked by photographer Tony Bynum’s post on the illegality of using photographs found on the internet and copied. Yes, that’s right: we are supposed to get permission to use photographs and custom graphics by obtaining the creator’s verbal or written authorization or by paying … because all images are somebody’s intellectual or creative property and they’re protected by a body of law known as copyright law. Images are owned by their creator or the company they were working for when an image was created.
I’ve been really thinking about a Facebook friend’s earlier post, saying she feels exposed by having 822 friends and will start deleting some in order to get more privacy. I just had to reply to the privacy issue and afterwards, realized that my assertions needed to be backed up by reliable data. “I must say,” I commented to my friend, “I find it strange that you would play a game on Facebook or post anything here and voice concerns about privacy,” and followed that with my first information point: “Facebook sells your data to game creators – this is a well-known fact.”
