Society's ChildS


Black Cat 2

Professor weighs in on David Bowie's statutory rape allegations

David Bowie
David Bowie performs in Hilversum, Netherlands on February 13th, 1974. Image by Gijsbert Hanekroot/Redferns
Today, on the day of David Bowie's death, people have been discussing an upsetting issue: Early in his career, David Bowie statutorily raped young teen girls—the underage "baby groupies" who were an open secret in the rock scene of the 1970s. This was despite the age of consent being 18 in California. (Their scene was the Sunset Strip.)

It's difficult to receive this information while mourning Bowie's death. It's particularly complex to negotiate for those fans who are aware of the complexities of rape culture and who have made a conscious decision to believe women.

The idea that Bowie is a rapist (albeit a statutory one) places him within a broader behind-the-scenes pattern that is not uncommon enough among male stars. Bill Cosby. Roman Polanski. Woody Allen. Mike Tyson. R. Kelly. Michael Jackson. John Lennon. The list of famous men who have raped or battered women or children seems endless. Though these cases vary in significant ways, they all reflect the same underlying problems: criminally predatory behavior and entitlement in men's celebrity culture.

Read the rest of this article here

Comment: Just because someone made well-respected art does not mean their sexual predation towards young girls should be overlooked or excused, even if it was early in their career, and especially when said artist never took responsibility for their actions.


Magnify

FBI conducting Hillary Clinton corruption probe into "intersection" between the Clinton Foundation work and State Department

hillary

"Unusually high number" of FBI agents working on Clinton public corruption probe


Independent researchers have long detailed the sordid history of the Clinton crime family, from documented drug running operations, to suspicious murders, all the way to accusations of pay to play corruption at the families "charitable" foundation.

Both Bill and Hillary Clinton have deep ties to criminal activity yet have somehow remained largely outside the cross-hairs of law enforcement. Amazingly, that is all possibly about to change.

On Monday multiple shocking reports surfaced that detail the fact that the FBI is not only investigating Hillary for improper use of a personal email account to conduct official government business but, more importantly, they are also conducting a massive corruption probe into the intersection between Clinton's work at her family foundation and her time at the State Department.

Comment: Considering the amount of support she is getting in the media, and considering the free ride towards the Presidency she seems to be enjoying from all other quarters, it will be interesting to see how far the FBI will be allowed to go in its investigation. And just how that investigation will ultimately come to be quashed.


People 2

The great forgetting: Intellectual amnesia in Western society

Hillary Clinton rally
© Jae C. Hong / APHillary Clinton during a rally recently in Sioux City, Iowa
America's refusal to fund and sustain its intellectual and cultural heritage means it has lost touch with its past, obliterated its understanding of the present, crushed its capacity to transform itself through self-reflection and self-criticism, and descended into a deadening provincialism. Ignorance and illiteracy come with a cost. The obsequious worship of technology, hedonism and power comes with a cost. The primacy of emotion and spectacle over wisdom and rational thought comes with a cost. And we are paying the bill.

The decades-long assault on the arts, the humanities, journalism and civic literacy is largely complete. All the disciplines that once helped us interpret who we were as a people and our place in the world—history, theater, the study of foreign languages, music, journalism, philosophy, literature, religion and the arts—have been corrupted or relegated to the margins. We have surrendered judgment for prejudice. We have created a binary universe of good and evil. And our colossal capacity for violence is unleashed around the globe, as well as on city streets in poor communities, with no more discernment than that of the blinded giant Polyphemus. The marriage of ignorance and force always generates unfathomable evil, an evil that is unseen by perpetrators who mistake their own stupidity and blindness for innocence.

"We are in danger of forgetting, and such an oblivion—quite apart from the contents themselves that could be lost—would mean that, humanly speaking, we would deprive ourselves of one dimension, the dimension of depth in human existence," Hannah Arendt wrote. "For memory and depth are the same, or rather, depth cannot be reached by man except through remembrance."

USA

Human traffickers use broken US immigration system to bring victims into country

migrant fence
© John Kolesidis / Reuters
Lack of communication and data sharing between the major immigration services has allowed human traffickers to bring hundreds of their victims into the US on work and fiancé visas, a Department of Homeland Security report has revealed.

According to the new DHS report, between 2005 and 2014, 17 of 32 human trafficking cases known to the feds primarily involved those two types of visas, which were used to legally bring victims into the country. In the remaining 15 cases, victims either entered the US illegally or failed to leave the country when their visas expired.

The DHS determined that family reunification visas have also been used.

All trafficking victims in these cases were then exploited for labor or prostitution, in some cases through physical or psychological abuse.

Syringe

Researchers expose police field drug test kits - they test positive to just about everything

Drug test kit sometimes used by police departments
© TriTech ForsensicsDrug test kit sometimes used by police departments
According to the national litigation and public policy organization, the Innocence Project, at any given time there are an estimated 40,000 to 100,000 innocent people currently locked in a cage in U.S. prisons.

Couple this staggering number with the number of people locked up for non-violent drug possession and the United States looks more like the Gulag of the 1930's than the Land of the Free.

Attention

LA County supervisor calls California methane leak a 'mini-Chernobyl'

methane leak Los Angeles
© Danny Moloshok / Reuters The entrance to Aliso Canyon Gas Storage Field is seen in the Porter Ranch area of Los Angeles, California January 9, 2016
The California gas company responsible for the storage site where methane has been leaking from a damaged well for over two months has promised action to stop the breach, while a Los Angeles County supervisor has branded the situation a "mini-Chernobyl."

SoCal Gas said it was working on a plan to siphon off and safely burn some of the leaking methane, a crisis which has led to months of protests and the displacement of thousands of families in the Los Angeles County community of Porter Ranch. The gas has also leaked into homes and schools.

"SoCalGas is developing a system designed to capture and control a portion of the natural gas leaking from the well," a spokeswoman said in an email on Sunday, according to The Guardian.

The operation is designed to reduce, but not eliminate, the leak, the company added.

"The design calls for a pipe to be installed in the area of the gas flow to capture a portion of the leaking gas and then carry it to separate units that will remove the fluids from the gas and then either incinerate it or filter the odorant out of it," SoCal Gas stated.

Comment: Another regulatory failure, where corporate profits trumps citizens' safety?


Wall Street

The real 2016 State of the Union: Things couldn't be better for Wall Street

Obama
Tomorrow night, the President Obama will deliver his final annual "State Of The Union" address. Just recently, the President gave a preview of his upcoming speech from the White House.


Heart - Black

Florida woman dies outside hospital after being arrested, forcibly removed by police from her room

Barbara Dawson
© ABC NewsBarbara Dawson
A Florida woman who was arrested for refusing to leave an emergency room of a local hospital collapsed and died in the hospital's parking lot later that day. Medical staff called police on her because they reportedly thought she was feigning her illness.

Barbara Dawson, 57, went to the Calhoun Liberty Hospital in Blountstown, Florida, on Dec. 20, 2015, to get treatment for her abdominal pain, ABC reports. She died in the early hours of Dec. 21, 2015.

Hospital officials said that Dawson was being unruly and refused to leave the hospital after medical staff examined and released her. A police officer was called to the hospital, and he arrested Dawson for disorderly conduct and trespassing.

Lawyers representing Dawson's family have released a police dash-cam video of the incident. Martha Smith-Dixon, Dawson's aunt, said in a news conference on Jan. 6 that she hopes the footage will bring "justice for Barbara," according to ABC.

Dawson is not visible in most of the dash-cam video but can reportedly be heard saying "Oh my God" and "I can't breathe" multiple times."You hear them insisting that she is going to jail," Benjamin Crump, the Dawson family lawyer, said about the video, Reuters reports. "You also hear hospital personnel repeating to her, 'There's nothing wrong with you,' as she continues to be in distress."


Comment: How utterly horrifying for this woman and her family. We hope the family sues and get millions. It's heinous that the police are now killing weak, infirm citizens in entirely new ways.


Handcuffs

Ex-inmate Shaker Aamer interview: Gitmo designed to 'destroy human beings'

Shaker Aamer
© Luke MacGregor / ReutersShaker Aamer speaks as he is reunited with other detainees from Guantanamo outside the U.S. Embassy in London January 11, 2016.
Guantanamo is run by psychologists with the sole purpose of destroying the human beings it holds, Shaker Aamer told RT in an exclusive interview. The US prison camp, from which he was released in October, is starting its 15th year of work.

"Guantanamo is being run by one concept: how to destroy a human being," Aamer, who regained his freedom on October 30 of last year after being held at Gitmo without charge since 2002, said.

MIB

Insignificant arrest of El Chapo versus the longstanding CIA global drugs business

CIA Drugs

Drug lords come and go, El Chapo's arrest of little consequence, doing nothing to stem the flow of illicit drugs. Business as usual continues.


His operation and others like his pale compared to CIA global drugs trafficking - a topic the media won't touch.

Its involvement began in 1947, its first year of existence. In his book titled "The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade," Alfred McCoy documented CIA and US government complicity in drugs trafficking at the highest official levels.

It continues today in Asia, Europe, the Middle East, South and Central America, facilitating the global supply of illicit drugs.

Gary Webb's expose of CIA involvement in Nicaraguan drugs trafficking, supporting the Contras, dealing with Los Angeles crack dealers, made him a target for vicious vilification - hounding him out of journalism into deep depression, either committing suicide or succumbing to foul play.