Society's ChildS

Red Flag

Social Decay: Golden Globes celebrate pedophile Woody Allen

Image
© Andrew Medichini/APWoody Allen, who has been given the Cecil B DeMille Lifetime Achievement award.
Not everyone welcomed the director's Lifetime Achievement award - particularly Mia and Ronan Farrow. So is it OK to praise his work?

Is it OK to celebrate Woody Allen? Many fans thought, with some relief, that this question had finally been settled, with the public beginning to relax about the public scandals that destroyed his family in the 90s, and the filmmaker himself at long last returning to professional form. (It has never been clear to me, incidentally, which was deemed by the masses to be Allen's more grievous fault: running off with his longterm partner Mia Farrow's adopted daughter, Soon-Yi Previn, or going off the boil and making dross like The Curse of the Jade Scorpion. These, shall we say, missteps seemed, in the eyes of the media, to be interchangeable, probably with some mutual causation.) Clearly the Hollywood Foreign Press Association felt all that "unpleasantness" was over when they decided to give him the Cecil B DeMille Lifetime Achievement award this year, accepted on his behalf by his former partner Diane Keaton.

But, it turned out, they were wrong. Debates about Allen's morality began to roll like angry thunder early Sunday evening when various writers voiced their impatience with the Globes for giving Allen the prize and an awards event that in recent years has been celebrated as being one of the most fun (thank you, Tina Fey and Amy Poehler) became one of the most divisive. By the end, the anger erupted into fury:

"Missed the Woody Allen tribute - did they put the part where a woman publicly confirmed he molested her at age seven before or after Annie Hall?" tweeted Ronan Farrow, Allen and Mia Farrow's son, when the event finished. Mia Farrow was more vague in her digs during the evening ("Time to grab some ice-cream and switch over to Girls [sic]," she tweeted obliquely minutes before the Allen tribute), but by the morning, perhaps inspired by her son, she was on the case with a vengeance: "A woman has publicly detailed Woody Allen's molestation of her at age 7. GoldenGlobe tribute showed contempt for her & all abuse survivors [sic]," she tweeted, while the photo of her sweetly smiling face sat somewhat incongruously next to her raging comment.

Arrow Down

Battle over police pensions in U.S. cities takes ugly turn

Image
A sign promoting the Stockton Police is seen in downtown Stockton, California in this March 6, 2012 file photo.

Credit: Reuters/Max Whittaker/Files
A drive by some American cities to cut costly police retirement benefits has led to an extraordinary face-off between local politicians and the law enforcement officers who work for them.

In Costa Mesa, California, lawmaker Jim Righeimer says he was a target of intimidation because he sought to curb police pensions. In a lawsuit in November, Righeimer accused the Costa Mesa police union and a law firm that once represented them, of forcing him to undergo a sobriety test (he passed) after driving home from a bar in August 2012.

Key

U.S. Federal Appeals Court: Bloggers have First Amendment protections

Image
© Jackiewellfonder.com
A federal appeals court ruled Friday that bloggers and the public have the same First Amendment protections as journalists when sued for defamation: If the issue is of public concern, plaintiffs have to prove negligence to win damages.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered a new trial in a defamation lawsuit brought by an Oregon bankruptcy trustee against a Montana blogger who wrote online that the court-appointed trustee criminally mishandled a bankruptcy case.

The appeals court ruled that the trustee was not a public figure, which could have invoked an even higher standard of showing the writer acted with malice, but the issue was of public concern, so the negligence standard applied.

Gregg Leslie of the Reporters Committee for the Freedom of the Press said the ruling affirms what many have long argued: Standards set by a 1974 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, Gertz v. Robert Welch Inc., apply to everyone, not just journalists.

"It's not a special right to the news media," he said. "So it's a good thing for bloggers and citizen journalists and others."

Crystal L. Cox, a blogger from Eureka, Mont., now living in Port Townshend, Wash., was sued for defamation by Bend attorney Kevin Padrick and his company, Obsidian Finance Group LLC, after she made posts on several websites she created accusing them of fraud, corruption, money-laundering and other illegal activities. The appeals court noted Padrick and Obsidian were hired by Summit Accommodators to advise them before filing for bankruptcy, and that the U.S. Bankruptcy Court later appointed Padrick trustee in the Chapter 11 case. The court added that Summit had defrauded investors in its real estate operations through a Ponzi scheme.

Info

Martin Luther King Jr. discusses JFK in rediscovered 1960 tape

MLKnJFK
© AP Photo, FileIn this Dec. 17, 1962 file photo, Ambassador Adlai Stevenson, the U.S. delegate to the United Nations, shakes hands with Martin Luther King Jr., president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Atlanta, Ga., at the White House in Washington with President John F. Kennedy at right. The meeting occurred as Kennedy met with members of the American Negro Leadership Conference on Africa. Historians generally agree that Kennedy's phone call to Coretta Scott King expressing concern over her husband's arrest in October 1960, and Robert Kennedy's work behind the scenes to get King released, helped JFK win the White House that fall. King himself, while appreciative, wasn't as quick to credit the Kennedys alone with getting him out of jail, according to a previously unreleased portion of the interview with the civil rights leader days after Kennedy's election.
As the nation reflects on the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr., an audiotape of an interview with the civil rights leader discovered in a Tennessee attic sheds new light on a famous phone call John F. Kennedy made to King's wife more than 50 years ago.

Historians generally agree that Kennedy's phone call to Coretta Scott King expressing concern over her husband's arrest in October 1960 - and Robert Kennedy's work behind the scenes to get King released - helped JFK win the White House that fall.

King himself, while appreciative, wasn't as quick to credit the Kennedys alone with getting him out of jail, according to a previously unreleased portion of the interview with the civil rights leader days after Kennedy's election.

"The Kennedy family did have some part ... in the release," King says in the recording, which was discovered in 2012. "But I must make it clear that many other forces worked to bring it about also."

A copy of the original recording will be played for visitors at the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis for a "King Day" event on Jan. 20.

King was arrested a few weeks before the presidential election at an Atlanta sit-in. Charges were dropped, but King was held for allegedly violating probation for an earlier traffic offense and transferred to the Georgia State Prison in Reidsville, Ga.

The Kennedys intervened, and King was released. Their intervention won the support of black voters who helped give Kennedy the winning edge in several key states.

Despite their help, however, King was careful not to give them too much credit.

"I think Dr. King was aware in the tape that he probably did more for John F. Kennedy than perhaps John F. Kennedy did for him," said Keya Morgan, a New York-based collector and expert on historical artifacts. Morgan acquired the reel-to-reel audiotape from Chattanooga, Tenn., resident Stephon Tull, who discovered it while cleaning out his father's attic.

Raymond Winbush, director of the Institute for Urban Research at Maryland's Morgan State University, said Kennedy's call to King's wife was political in nature because the Kennedys had been slow to get involved in the civil rights movement.

He said John Kennedy didn't actually commit to the movement until a few months before his assassination when civil rights leader Medgar Evers was gunned down by a Klansman outside his Jackson, Miss., home just after midnight on June 12, 1963.

Question

Indictment in bizarre plot - FBI says ex-GE worker conspired to make, use radiological death ray

radiation emitting device
© Lori Van Buren/Times UnionHome of Glendon Scott Crawford, 49, on Wednesday, June 19, 2013 in Providence, N.Y. Crawford is accused in a federal complaint of developing a "radiation emitting device that could be placed in the back of a van to covertly emit ionizing radiation strong enough to bring about radiation sickness or death against Crawford's enemies," states the complaint attributed to an FBI agent. He is also allegedly a member of the Ku Klux Klan.
Albany - A Galway man has been indicted on federal charges of plotting to use a weapon of mass destruction.

Glendon Scott Crawford, 49, was arrested in June along with Eric J. Feight, 54, of Hudson after an FBI task force said the men conspired to sell a homemade radiation weapon to Jewish groups or a southern branch of the Ku Klux Klan.

A federal grand jury in Albany handed up a three-count felony indictment Thursday charging Crawford with attempting to produce and use a radiological device, conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction and distribution of information relating to weapons of mass destruction.

Both men have been in jail since their arrests.

Feight, whose alleged role was to design and build an electronic triggering device so the weapon could be activated from a distance, has not been indicted but remains charged under a federal complaint. He is negotiating a plea agreement with the Justice Department, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Crawford, who worked as a General Electric Co. industrial mechanic, and Feight, a computer software expert, are accused of designing and trying to operate a vehicle-mounted radiation device that was intended to be remotely controlled and capable of aiming a high-energy lethal beam of radioactivity at humans. The concept was that victims would mysteriously die from radiation poisoning within days.

Crawford and Feight are acquaintances who over the course of a year devised a plan to sell the weapon to a terrorist organization, according to the FBI. Crawford's role was to design and build the radiation device and its power supply, according to a federal complaint.

Info

Cher tweeted Thursday that she has lost trust in Obama

Image
© Truthrevolt
Liberal self ascribed feminist Cher tweeted Thursday that she has lost trust in the government.

Cher apparently lost her trust in the federal government on Thursday.
I Wanted 2 share a Sad feeling.When I Was Young,WE DIDNT TRUST GOV.Later,I Had HOPE Now I know not 2 hope& may never trust in it again Joe

- Cher (@cher) January 16, 2014
The cause of the star's angst with government is unknown but Twitchy speculates it might have to do with a tweet about fracking:

Bad Guys

Oil leak on massive pipeline pushing tar sands through the Great Lakes

Enbridge Energy has just reported that their Alberta Clipper tar sands pipeline is being shut down because they have spilled over 5000 gallons of oil. The spill happened in Saskatchewan, Canada, and it is not yet clear what has caused the leak. Enbridge has reported that the spill occurred at one of their pumping stations but some of the oil has sprayed onto nearby private property.

This latest spill is yet another example on why Enbridge should focus a lot more time on pipeline safety instead of rushing and pushing through massive amounts of pipeline expansion projects throughout Canada and the US.

In fact, Enbridge is currently trying to gain approval in both canada and the US to expand the Alberta Clipper pipeline. They want to increase pressure on this pipeline from 450,000 barrels per day to 880,000 barrels per day!

The Alberta Clipper tar sands pipeline is the beginning point for all the Enbridge expansions throughout the Great Lakes, which will make the largest freshwater system, in the world, a super highway for transporting and refining tar sands. Enbridge is even one of the companies behind the recent proposal to ship tar sands, via tankers, throughout the Great Lakes.

Phoenix

Fire devours historic Norwegian village, 90 people hospitalized

 A fire blasts over a house, destroying many of the famed 18th- and 19th-century wooden houses
© AFP Photo / NTB / Arne Veum NorwayA fire blasts over a house, destroying many of the famed 18th- and 19th-century wooden houses in the village Laerdal, southern Norway, on January 19, 2014.
Ninety people have been treated in hospital and 30 properties burnt to the ground in a massive fire in the western Norwegian village Laerdal, on Sognefjord fjord listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Scores of people have been evacuated from the heritage village of 1,150 as around 100 personal from the emergency services battle to put out the flames. Police also fear that gas canisters at a nearby industrial facility may explode and the area has been cordoned off.

The work of firefighters is being hampered by strong winds and police told Norwegian TV they were trying to bring in a helicopter to help contain the fire but that it was being delayed by media drones, which were operating in the area.

Stormtrooper

Philadelphia teen suffers ruptured testicle during police 'patdown'

Image
© Raw Story16-year old Darrin Manning
A straight-A student suffered a ruptured testicle during a patdown by Philadelphia police and was then charged with resisting arrest.

Darrin Manning told The Philadelphia Inquirer he got off the subway Jan. 7 on his way to play in a high school basketball game with a dozen teammates wearing their team uniforms and hats, gloves and scarves given to them by a teacher.

Police claim the boys were wearing ski masks, but the teens said they had covered their faces with scarves because it was cold outside.

The 16-year-old student at Mathematics, Civics & Sciences Charter School said one of his teammates may have smarted off to an officer staring them down, and he said the boys ran when the police officer approached them.

Manning admits that he ran at first out of fear, but then he stopped.

"I didn't do anything wrong," he said.

Police records show that Manning, who is black, fought with Officer Thomas Purcell, who is white, after he stopped running, striking the officer three times and ripping off his police radio.

Manning said he was roughed up, struck with handcuffs and then placed in those handcuffs, and the teen said a female officer pulled his genitals so hard during a patdown that one of his testicles ruptured.

"She patted me down and then she touched my butt and then my private parts, and then she grabbed and squeezed and pulled my private parts and I felt something pop," Manning said.

Pistol

Illinois school put into prison-style lockdown when single .22 caliber round found in gym

Palestine High School
© WTHI TV
Palestine - A high school was put into complete lockdown when someone found a single .22 caliber round in the gymnasium.

Not a gun. Just a single bullet.

The incident happened Wednesday, January 15th at around 11:00 a.m. Someone found the tiny bullet and - instead of discarding it - took things to the absolute extreme. Superintendent Joe Sornberger placed the school into lockdown and called for police to search the entire school.

Students were confined to their classrooms for two and a half hours, as police searched the school and all of their personal property. The bullet was used as probable cause to warrantlessly search students' lockers and their personal vehicles that were parked on school property, according to WTHI TV. Anything inside lockers or vehicles was evidently fair game for a search: purses, backpacks, coat pockets, and whatever else the police felt like snooping through.

The Palestine Police Department and the Crawford County Sheriff's Office participated in the lockdown and warrantless search.

Nothing was reported found. After an extensive search, the lockdown was lifted at 1:30 p.m.