Society's Child
Valentina Lisitsa - Hero Pianist
Amidst all the horror of the Ukrainian conflict, 22nd June 2015 produced a moment of true heroism.
In #Donetsk, a crowd of several thousand remembered heroes, and listened to breathtaking talent! @ValLisitsa #Donbass pic.twitter.com/Mh3DwaVaDA
— Graham W Phillips (@GrahamWP_UK) June 22, 2015The pianist Valentina Lisitsa — prevented from performing in Toronto because of her opposition to the war being waged in her native Ukraine — performed a concert in Donetsk.
This was a true anti-war concert - commemorating those who fought fascism on the anniversary of the Nazi attack on the USSR (Operation Barbarossa).
© Reuters/Evan Habeeb
Michael A. Wood, Jr. used nine tweets on Wednesday to blow the whistle about things he had "seen & participated in, in policing that is corrupt, intentional or not."
Wood wrote that he will tweet some examples each day "so that we have time for ?s, reflections, and improvement in between."
Comment: Does he have an agenda to get people riled up?
© Reuters / Adrees Latif
Gray had no previous injuries indicating a neck hold or caused by physical restraint by police officers who arrested him on April 12, says the report obtained by the Baltimore Sun on Tuesday. Assistant medical examiner Carol H. Allan concluded that Gray may have gotten to his feet inside the van, and was thrown into a wall during a sudden change in direction.
Though his death fit the medical and legal definition of an accident, Allan ruled it a homicide because the arresting officers failed to follow safety procedures "through acts of omission." The officers shackled Gray's wrists and ankles and loaded him into the van on his belly, rather than belting him into a seat as Baltimore PD guidelines called for.
© Reuters / Marcos Brindicci
The lawsuit, filed by 24 Veterans Affairs police officers, claimed they discovered the bugging when a colleague alerted them that their chief of police "may be monitoring their activities," on January 19, 2014.
Five days later a group of officers found a camera with a microphone mounted on a support bracket hidden behind CCTV monitors. Indicator lights on the device were covered up in black tape. When officers covered up the microphone to discuss their find, the chief of police, Jerry Brown, entered the control room demanding to know what the officers were doing, and ordered them to draft statements about what was happening, according to the complaint.
Officers subsequently found another hidden camera and microphone in a break room in March, 2014. Footage and audio recordings from this camera were used by the police chief to make disciplinary charges against one of the plaintiff's in the suit, Luis Rodriguez-Soto, which included a two-week suspension without pay, according to the complaint.
Comment: No one is safe from government surveillance, even government employees themselves.
© Facebook
"It is so harrowing and so ridiculous the amount of neglect, torture," Frederick Farris, Keaton's father said.
"We would like to see all inmates receive proper medical attention, food, water, that's needed to be healthy, and be monitored and checked on a reasonable amount [of time]," the father added.
Farris mentioned that his son had received just 20 percent of the water needed by someone to survive, let alone live a healthy life. The water supply to his cell had been shut off because Keaton had previously put a pillow in the toilet, which caused his cell to flood.
"This blatant disregard, they treated him like a subhuman. My theory was that he was crying out for help because no one was checking up on him," Keaton said, mentioning that his 25-year-old son was"compassionate and had a great smile."
Haitian Migrants Face Mass Deportations from Dominican Republic
The Dominican government has been creating a stateless underclass out of those of Haitian descent for decades, however, the decision to deport them in massive premeditated quantities—despite fervent opposition by foreign governments and international legal and humanitarian bodies—is a decisive escalation from structural violence to physical violence at the hands of President Danilo Medina's government. The prevalence of antihaitanismo, a pejorative ideology which "serves elite interests well and has even been accepted by the great majority of the Dominican people as part of their political culture", has its roots in the era of Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo, whose regime infamously warned against "Haitianizing influences, whose consequences will always be extremely fatal for Dominican society."[3] This ideology pulsed throughout the Parsley Massacre of 1937, in which the Trujillo regime murdered upwards of 20,000 alleged Haitians on the basis of whether or not they could trill the "r" in perejil, the Spanish term for parsley—a perverse semantic exercise that often proved morbid for native Haitian Creole speakers.[4]
© Reuters / Gary Hershorn
The headquarters of the New York Times
The headquarters of the New York Times
An unnamed former New York Times employee provided Gawker with the photos, which were then published on Tuesday. They show an apparent disconnect between the NYT image of decorous professionalism and literal images of staff making light of mass death.
One photo shows the longtime NYT opinion page editor Andrew Rosenthal wielding a fake M16 rifle and a bottle of wine over staffers stained with fake blood, recreating the June 2001 Nepalese royal massacre. The massacre was committed by the Crown Prince Dipendra, who took the lives of nine people including the king, queen, as well as his own. One of the weapons that he used was an M16.
The calendar on the wall indicates that the reenactment also occurred in June 2001, when the memory of the tragedy would have still been fresh in the minds of the public.
NYT staff recreating the Nepali crown prince's massacre of the royal family in June 2001
http://t.co/ovoI6kNofN pic.twitter.com/N3njuFiBg0
— Isaac Stone Fish (@isaacstonefish) June 23, 2015Comment: These journalists apparently have a lot of free time on their hands, probably because they don't actually produce any copy but just regurgitate government propaganda.
Earlier today, Jill Carey Hall of Bank of America Merrill Lynch announced that their clients sold $4.1 billion in stocks last week. Coincidentally, this is largest sell-off that they've seen January of 2008. But more importantly, the bulk of these sales have been conducted by what she's calling "institutional investors." In other words, these are some of the biggest stock players, which often include insurance companies, hedge funds, banks, and pension funds. This sudden sell-off was just that. Sudden. According to Jill Carey "After three weeks of net buying, institutional clients' net sales last week were the largest in our data history"
Comment: Financial chaos and collapse may be just around the corner. It would be wise to get your own "financial" house in order.
© Reuters / Bruno Domingos
"If the allegations are substantiated, this would constitute a grave violation of UN principles and of the code of conduct of peacekeepers," spokesperson of the Secretary General, Stephane Dujarric said in New York. "The member-state will be requested to take swift and appropriate punitive action."
According to the UN, countries that have troops in the Central African Republic (CAR) were notified on Monday and now have ten days to report back to UN on their action plans in response to the allegation.
The latest case of sexual abuse by peacekeepers in Bangui was recorded by the UN CAR mission (MINUSCA) last Friday, and involves underage girls. Dujarric did not specify how many girls were involved or the country of origin of the perpetrators.
Comment: The UN peacekeepers seem to be a hotbed for sexual predators, with seemingly very little interest from the UN in stopping such behavior
- UN aid worker faces dismissal for leaking evidence of child sexual abuse by French peacekeepers
- UN warns 'horribly possible' more child-rape cases by peacekeepers could emerge
- Swedish Foreign Minister lashes out at UN for suspending child abuse whistleblower
- Report: Hundreds of women & children forced into sex by United Nations "peacekeepers"
- UN Peacekeepers and 42 NGOs Under Investigation for Sexual Abuse of Children at Refugee Camps
Comment: See: