marmar
marmar's JournalFans At Wrigley Field Are Resorting To Peeing In Cups
http://deadspin.com/are-fans-at-wrigley-field-being-forced-to-pee-in-cups-1695889115We’ve been chronicling the hilarity of the Cubs’ attempts to renovate Wrigley Field this offseason, but things took a dark turn as the park opened for its first game Sunday night. An anonymous tipster sent us the above photo with the following explanation:
Hi, Wrigley is an unmitigated disaster tonight. Every bathroom line is roughly a block/30 mins long. Men are peeing against walls in the concourse. This is a real picture of a makeshift urinal I took right after a guy used it.
We’re also being inundated with photos of ridiculously long lines for the bathroom:
Chris Hedges: Boycott, Divest and Sanction Corporations That Feed on Prisons
from truthdig
by Chris Hedges
NEWARK, N.J.—All attempts to reform mass incarceration through the traditional mechanisms of electoral politics, the courts and state and federal legislatures are useless. Corporations, which have turned mass incarceration into a huge revenue stream and which have unchecked political and economic power, have no intention of diminishing their profits. And in a system where money has replaced the vote, where corporate lobbyists write legislation and the laws, where chronic unemployment and underemployment, along with inadequate public transportation, sever people in marginal communities from jobs, and where the courts are a wholly owned subsidiary of the corporate state, this demands a sustained, nationwide revolt.
“Organizing boycotts, work stoppages inside prisons and the refusal by prisoners and their families to pay into the accounts of phone companies and commissary companies is the only weapon we have left,” said Amos Caley, who runs the Interfaith Prison Coalition, a group formed by prisoners, the formerly incarcerated, their families and religious leaders. “Mass incarceration is the most important civil rights issue of our day. And it is time for communities of faith to stand with poor people, mostly of color, who are unfairly exploited and abused. We must halt human rights violations against the poor that grow more pronounced each year,” Caley said here. He and other prison reform leaders spoke Saturday at the Elmwood Presbyterian Church.
“We have to shut down the system,” said Gale Muhammad, another speaker and the founder and CEO of Women Who Never Give Up. “All the companies that use prison labor have to be boycotted. And we can’t stop there. We have to boycott the vending machines in the prisons and the phone companies. We have to stop spending our money. Until we hit them in the pocket they won’t listen.”
Former prisoners and prisoners’ relatives—suffering along with the incarcerated under the weight of one of the most exploitative, physically abusive and largest prison systems in the world, frustrated and enraged by the walls that corporations have set in place to stymie rational judicial reform—joined human rights advocates at the church to organize state and nationwide boycotts inside and outside prisons. These boycotts, they said, will be directed against the private phone, money transfer and commissary companies, and against the dozens of corporations that exploit prison labor. The boycotts will target food and merchandise vendors, construction companies, laundry services, uniforms companies, prison equipment vendors, cafeteria services, manufacturers of pepper spray, body armor and the array of medieval instruments used for the physical control of prisoners, and a host of other contractors that profit from mass incarceration. The movement will also call on institutions, especially churches and universities, to divest from corporations that use prison labor. .......................(more)
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/boycott_divest_and_sanction_corporations_that_feed_on_prisons_20150405
The Sweet Briar Dilemma: Will Predatory Lending Take Down More Colleges?
The Sweet Briar Dilemma: Will Predatory Lending Take Down More Colleges?
Sunday, 05 April 2015 00:00
By Alan Smith, Next New Deal | Op-Ed
After 114 years of educating young women in rural Virginia, Sweet Briar College recently announced that the 2015 academic year would be its last. It’s closing its doors, administrators say, because its model is no longer sustainable.
There are plenty of people coming out of the woodwork to explain Sweet Briar's problems. Dr. James F. Jones, the school’s president, claims that there are simply not enough people who want to attend an all-women's rural liberal arts school (though application numbers and some pundits disagree); he blames the discount that the school was giving to low-income students for the institutional budget shortfall. Billionaire investor Mark Cuban says that Sweet Briar has fallen victim to the student loan bubble and that students are unwilling to commit the money to attend, which sounds a lot like the blame-the-homeowner narrative that came out of the 2008 financial crisis.(more) Others are wringing their hands that small colleges in general are doomed.
These takes are varied and complex, but they are all missing an important point: that predatory banking practices and bad financial deals played an important and nearly invisible role in precipitating the school’s budget crisis.
A quick look at Sweet Briar’s audited financial reports (easily available in public records) reveals enough confusing and obfuscating financial-speak to last a lifetime, but a few days of digging did manage to unearth a series of troubling things.
A single swap on a bond issued in June 2008 cost Sweet Briar more then a million dollars in payments to Wachovia before the school exited the swap in September 2011. While it is unclear exactly why they chose 2011 to pay off the remainder of the bond early, they paid a $730,119 termination fee. For a school that was sorely strapped for cash, these fines and the fees that accrued around this deal (which are hard to definitively pick out from financial documents) couldn't have come at a worse time. ....................(more)
http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/30040-the-sweet-briar-dilemma-will-predatory-lending-take-down-more-colleges
Why North Carolina's "Religious Freedom" Bill Is Even Worse Than Indiana's
Why North Carolina's "Religious Freedom" Bill Is Even Worse Than Indiana's
Sunday, 05 April 2015 00:00
By Chris Kromm, Facing South | News Analysis
Indiana Gov. Mike Pence (R) ignited a national firestorm last week after signing into law the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which critics argue provides a "license to discriminate" against gay people and others. Angie's List, Apple, Yelp and other companies condemned the move and even threatened to nix expansion projects in the state, prompting the governor to say he wants lawmakers to "clarify the intent" of the law.
But just as Indiana's law was gaining national infamy, North Carolina lawmakers introduced matching Religious Freedom Restoration Act bills in the state House and Senate -- and according to legal scholars, the legislation introduced last week could pose an even greater threat than Indiana's to civil rights.
As in Indiana, proponents of the North Carolina Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) argue the legislation is modeled on a 1993 law passed by Congress and signed by President Clinton. The federal law proclaimed that the government cannot pass laws that "substantially burden" people's ability to follow their religion, unless the state can prove there's a "compelling interest" in doing so and has no other way to meet that compelling interest.
In 1997, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the federal law applied only to the federal government, spurring a number of states to enact their own RFRA laws -- a trend that has grown in the wake of debates over gay civil rights and marriage equality. ...................(more)
http://truth-out.org/news/item/30039-why-north-carolina-s-religious-freedom-bill-is-even-worse-than-indiana-s
The Sweet Briar Dilemma: Will Predatory Lending Take Down More Colleges?
The Sweet Briar Dilemma: Will Predatory Lending Take Down More Colleges?
Sunday, 05 April 2015 00:00
By Alan Smith, Next New Deal | Op-Ed
After 114 years of educating young women in rural Virginia, Sweet Briar College recently announced that the 2015 academic year would be its last. It’s closing its doors, administrators say, because its model is no longer sustainable.
There are plenty of people coming out of the woodwork to explain Sweet Briar's problems. Dr. James F. Jones, the school’s president, claims that there are simply not enough people who want to attend an all-women's rural liberal arts school (though application numbers and some pundits disagree); he blames the discount that the school was giving to low-income students for the institutional budget shortfall. Billionaire investor Mark Cuban says that Sweet Briar has fallen victim to the student loan bubble and that students are unwilling to commit the money to attend, which sounds a lot like the blame-the-homeowner narrative that came out of the 2008 financial crisis.(more) Others are wringing their hands that small colleges in general are doomed.
These takes are varied and complex, but they are all missing an important point: that predatory banking practices and bad financial deals played an important and nearly invisible role in precipitating the school’s budget crisis.
A quick look at Sweet Briar’s audited financial reports (easily available in public records) reveals enough confusing and obfuscating financial-speak to last a lifetime, but a few days of digging did manage to unearth a series of troubling things.
A single swap on a bond issued in June 2008 cost Sweet Briar more then a million dollars in payments to Wachovia before the school exited the swap in September 2011. While it is unclear exactly why they chose 2011 to pay off the remainder of the bond early, they paid a $730,119 termination fee. For a school that was sorely strapped for cash, these fines and the fees that accrued around this deal (which are hard to definitively pick out from financial documents) couldn't have come at a worse time. ....................(more)
http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/30040-the-sweet-briar-dilemma-will-predatory-lending-take-down-more-colleges
Boycott Indiana—for Imprisoning a Woman Who Miscarried
(Truthdig) Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) has justifiably provoked outrage nationwide for its apparent intent to legalize anti-gay discrimination by private businesses.
But another controversial law that this week resulted in a draconian 20-year prison sentence for a woman named Purvi Patel has received far less attention. That law is a fetal homicide mandate under which Patel was charged and convicted earlier this year, alongside a charge of negligence. But Patel is being criminalized for likely having had a late-term miscarriage or stillbirth.
If this sounds utterly outrageous, it is exactly that. Some years ago I, like millions of women, suffered a miscarriage. Mine was an intentional pregnancy and the miscarriage occurred just a few weeks after conception. It was a bewildering and traumatic experience after which I wanted nothing more than to be left alone to recover.
In Patel’s case, the pregnancy was unintended and the miscarriage is estimated to have occurred at about 22 to 24 weeks of gestation. (While exact definitions vary, some doctors consider a miscarriage at 20 or more weeks to be a stillbirth, while others use 24 or even 28 weeks as the cutoff between miscarriage and stillbirth.) ................(more)
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/boycott_indiana_-_for_imprisoning_a_woman_who_miscarried_20150402
Serena and Novak: Love them or hate them, you gotta admit ...............
....... they're in their own universe right now.
Monsanto Is in Hot Water - Again
Monsanto Is in Hot Water - Again
Thursday, 02 April 2015 00:00
By Mike Ludwig, Truthout | Report
It's been a tough few weeks for Monsanto.
Late last week, companies "such as Monsanto" were implicated in a watchdog group's petition to the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) on behalf of anonymous scientists within the agency who say their research is suppressed when it upsets powerful agrichemical interests.
The allegations enraged the industry's critics, who have been busy touting recent reports linking popular herbicides often used in tandem with genetically engineered crops, or GMOs, to cancer and antibiotic resistance.
Both controversies are renewing calls for tougher restrictions on certain herbicides and mandatory packaging labels for groceries containing GMO ingredients.
"If true, this is a major scandal at the USDA," wrote Gary Ruskin, director of the pro- labeling group US Right to Know, in a March 30 letter to the US House and Senate agricultural committees demanding an investigation. "It is not the proper role of the USDA to engage in a cover up for Monsanto and other agrichemical companies." ..............(more)
http://truth-out.org/news/item/29992-monsanto-is-in-hot-water-again
Smeltdown: Small fish continues Great Lakes vanishing act
(Detroit Free Press) Tom Durecki remembers the glory days for smelt fishing — or smelting — in Michigan in the 1970s.
"The smelt are running!" was a call that sent fisherman scrambling to Michigan rivers and streams to dip nets and catch buckets full of the silvery fish as they moved into tributaries to spawn at the onset of spring — right around this time, every year.
"It was absolutely fantastic," said Durecki, owner of Tom's Bait and Tackle Shop in East Jordan. "Even into the '80s, we'd go up to Carp River in the U.P. and you'd get what you wanted in an hour — five, 10, 15 gallons."
Those days are gone. The smelt population has declined so much, so quickly over the past two decades that most anglers don't even bother trying anymore. .......................(more)
http://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2015/04/04/great-lakes-smelt-decline-lake-michigan-invasive/25292463/
Chalkboards and textbooks ...... and tasers and pepper spray
(HuffPost) Noe Niño de Rivera spent nearly two months in a medically induced coma after a Texas school resource officer shocked him with a Taser in November 2013. Niño de Rivera, who was 17 at the time, had been trying to break up a fight between other students, his attorney said, though the officer claimed he had been trying to diffuse the violence and the teen interfered.
The shock from the Taser knocked Niño de Rivera to the ground. He hit his head and sustained a severe brain injury. The incident changed his life and deeply affected his family members.
It was "emotionally devastating for them to see their 17-year-old son in a coma," said Adam Loewy, the family's attorney. "When this happened, the parents stayed by his bedside for three straight months, day and night -- literally from crack of dawn to 11 o'clock at night. It put them in very serious economic danger."
In Birmingham, Alabama, school police officers regularly use another type of weapon to subdue students. Since 2006, over 1,000 area students have been directly or indirectly exposed to pepper spray at school, according to a Southern Poverty Law Center lawsuit arguing that the school district should be held to stricter standards regarding the use of chemical spray. At least three of the students who were pepper sprayed ended up in the hospital. ...............(more)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/04/03/taser-pepper-spray-in-school_n_6882920.html?ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000013
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