Monday, October 01, 2007
Chicago cop in murder-for-hire case will remain in custody -- chicagotribune.com
Chicago cop in murder-for-hire case will remain in custody -- chicagotribune.com: "The Chicago police officer charged last week in a murder-for-hire plot will remain in custody after his lawyers chose not to challenge his detention at a bail hearing this morning. Suspended officer Jerome Finnigan, 44—already at the center of a widening probe of corruption, kidnapping and robbery in the Police Department's Special Operations Section—appeared briefly at the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse, shackled and in an orange jumpsuit. Assistant U.S. Atty. John Blakey told U.S. Magistrate Judge Jeffrey Cole that the government and Finnigan's lawyers had agreed on Finnigan's detention."
Saturday, September 29, 2007
Compiler - Wired Blogs
Compiler - Wired Blogs: "Early this week we told you about a cross-site request forgery (CSRF) flaw in GMail that would allow attackers to create a filter in your account — possibly forwarding copies of your mail to themselves. This morning I received an e-mail from a spokesperson at Google who said that the GMail team rolled out a patch last night which fixes the problem. “Google takes the security of our users’ information very seriously,” the e-mail says, “We worked quickly to address the recently reported vulnerability, and we rolled out a fix. We have not received any reports of this vulnerability being exploited.”"
Friday, September 28, 2007
O’Reilly Shocked to Find Restaurants Owned and Frequented by Black People Are Actually Restaurants
O’Reilly Shocked to Find Restaurants Owned and Frequented by Black People Are Actually Restaurants: "It’s always fascinating to hear racist white people try to “compliment” minorities. On the September 19, 2007 edition of Bill O’Reilly’s radio show, BOR recounted a dinner he had with Al Sharpton at Sylvia’s, a famous restaurant in Harlem: I couldn't get over the fact that there was no difference between Sylvia's restaurant and any other restaurant in New York City. I mean, it was exactly the same, even though it's run by blacks, primarily black patronship [sic]. -snip- There wasn't one person in Sylvia's who was screaming, 'M-Fer, I want more iced tea.' -snip- You know, I mean, everybody was — it was like going into an Italian restaurant in an all-white suburb in the sense of people were sitting there, and they were ordering and having fun. And there wasn't any kind of craziness at all. BOR also expressed amazement at the absence of both spear chucking and 360-degree basketball dunking."
Video: Bill O'Reilly Discovers Black Culture
Video: Bill O'Reilly Discovers Black Culture: "How old is Bill O'Reilly again? If he is older than 10 years old, he must have interacted with blaks in his neighborhood, at his workplace or any where. So, what i don't understand is that he CANNOT get over the fact that blacks are able of civility and going and eating in normal restaurants and talking normally. This is the most racists remark that i have heard and i am 55 years old. This is worst than the N-words. 'The blacks were dressed...' says O'Reilly...why are you saying that? Are they usually to go around naked?"
Monday, September 24, 2007
Little Rock: 50 Years Later
Central High Marks 50 Years of Desegregation
by Juan Williams
Morning Edition, September 24, 2007 · Fifty years ago President Dwight D. Eisenhower addressed the nation from his desk in the Oval Office. A mob — backed by the Arkansas National Guard — had blocked nine black students from entering an all-white high school in Little Rock. President Eisenhower decided that he had to act.
"The responsibility is inescapable. In accordance with that responsibility, I have today issued an executive order directing the use of troops under federal authority to aid in the execution of federal law at Little Rock, Arkansas," he said.
And so, some 1,000 troops from the 101st Airborne Division deployed to Little Rock. President Eisenhower said they would escort the teenagers to school.
Segregation Showdown at Little Rock
Little Rock Remembers Troops' Arrival
by Alex Chadwick
Enlarge
Francis Miller
Arkansas Gov. Orval Faubus displays the front page of the Manchester, N.H. Union Leader to illustrate what "northern papers" are saying about President Eisenhower's use of federal troops to enforce integration in Little Rock. He charged the president with using unprecedented "police state methods." Bettmann/Corbis
Fifty years ago this month, Little Rock began to desegregate its public schools. Nine black students were assigned to attend the city's Central High. But when the school opened right after Labor Day, white segregationists gathered in a mob. Gov. Orval Faubus defied a federal judge and called in the National Guard to keep the black students out.
The mob won that first day; the mob and the governor, who sensed their power and passion.
The NAACP kept the nine students home for three weeks out of fear for their safety.
A court ordered Faubus to withdraw the Guard, and he did. The Little Rock Nine returned to school on Sept. 23. Outside the building, local police tried to control at least a thousand angry segregationists. When they threatened to storm the school, the police got the children out a back door.
The mob beat several black journalists, one a World War II combat veteran. The pictures were broadcast on television.
'Occupied Territory'
That night, the president of the United States, Dwight Eisenhower, took control.
"An extreme situation has been created in Little Rock," he said. "This challenge must be met, and with such measures as will preserve to the people as a whole their lawfully protected rights."
He ordered units from the 101st Airborne Division to Little Rock. They were there by dawn on Sept. 24, 1957. The next day, soldiers escorted the nine students through the front door and into their classrooms.
There was no real trouble on that day. But more was coming.
"My fellow citizens, we are now an occupied territory," responded Gov. Orval Faubus, appealing to generations-old fears.
"In the name of God, whom we all revere," Faubus continued, "in the name of liberty we hold so dear, in the name of decency, which we all cherish, what is happening in America?"
"It's a very strong strain in southern thought to be independent, and to act independently and not to be forced, especially not by the Yankee enforcer," says Betsy Jacoway, an independent scholar and author of a recent book about the crisis, Turn Away Thy Son.
Jacoway was a child in Little Rock then, not yet in high school. Her uncle was the school superintendent, who had a "go-very-slow" integration plan. President Eisenhower's decision to send troops actually worked for Gov. Faubus, she says. It pushed the issue beyond race, and actually revived painful old memories. Many whites were reminded of the years after the Civil War.
"We hadn't had troops in the streets here since 1865," Jacoway says, "and that was so horrifying to us that we thought 'Well, Faubus is the only leader we have right now, so maybe we should follow him.'"
So why did Faubus prevent the black students from attending Central High? The governor died more than a dozen years ago, but to the end, he denied charges of political opportunism. He had ordered the National Guard around Central High for one reason, he said: to keep the peace.
"I do not mean and had no intention of challenging the federal union," Faubus said later. "But the maintenance of the peace and order of a community is paramount to other considerations. And I found it necessary in order to preserve the peace and order in the community, and to protect the lives, even of the negro students and the negro people, to take the actions which I did."
Race and Sexuality
"Faubus wanted to be governor for life, bless his heart," said Jim Johnson. Johnson ran for governor as an ardent segregationist in 1956 — and lost to the far more moderate Faubus. But, he said, Gov. Faubus soon began to see civil rights stirring an ever angrier white reaction — and a kind of opportunity. In an interview, Johnson said the mob at the school was there after the governor called and asked him to make trouble.
"It was an orchestrated show," he said. Faubus "got the word out to all of us to get our friends to come out. If the people were assembled, he didn't have any doubt that he could get a 'rah rah' going. That would appear to be a mob, to the point that it could cause damage."
In the turmoil that followed, Faubus would lead white resistance to integration — in Arkansas and the South. It made him governor three more times. And he rewarded his main segregationist ally, Jim Johnson, by helping him to a seat on the Arkansas Supreme Court.
Now retired from the court, Justice Johnson has changed his views very little, if at all, in 50 years. For "integration", he still prefers the term "forced race mixing." It conjures up undertones.
"That is emotional, when you're talking about the forced race mixing," Johnson said. "The emotion of, as a friend of mine used to say, 'the integration of the bedroom,' gets the attention of people quicker than if you're talking about the A-B-C's being taught in school."
And that finally explains so much of what happened, according to historian Betsy Jacoway. Whites feared exactly that desegregation would lead to race mixing, she said. "And it's so fascinating, because when I talk to Southerners about this, they say, 'duh!'"
Basically, Betsy Jacoway said, it's about sex:
"When I talk to anybody else about this, they say, 'You've got to be kidding. Really, is that what this is about?' she said. "But yes. Southern concerns and … I think, largely American concerns, about integration stemmed from sexual fears, fears of black male aggressiveness and potency."
The Crisis Continues
With the Army's help, the nine black students did start classes that fall. For awhile, things seemed to settle down a little, and the story fell off newspaper front pages across the country. But in Little Rock, anger and fear lingered, and so did the crisis — personally and painfully for those who were there.
"You're being hit and kicked, so our legs were always bruised," remembered Minnijean Brown Trickey, one of the nine black students.
"Stepping on heels is particularly horrible," she continued, "because it's something that only you know is happening. Spit I didn't like at all. It makes me nauseous thinking about it."
The crisis continued to grow. Gov. Faubus wasn't done with history and he knew it. A few years later, he was asked, "What if you had just stood aside and let those kids into the school?"
"Well, I might have survived to the end of my term," the governor answered, "but that would have been the last you would have heard of me."
Related NPR Stories
Sep. 24, 2007Central High Marks 50 Years of Desegregation
Sep. 21, 2007Daisy Bates and the Little Rock Nine
Sep. 19, 2007Fifty Years Later, 'Little Rock Nine' Stories Resonate
Sep. 5, 2007School Desegregation: At What Price?
Sep. 4, 2007One of the 'Little Rock Nine' Looks Back
Aug. 31, 2007Recalling Little Rock's Segregation Battle
Aug. 31, 2007The Legacy of the Little Rock Nine
Feb. 24, 2007Federal Oversight of Little Rock Schools Ends
by Juan Williams
Morning Edition, September 24, 2007 · Fifty years ago President Dwight D. Eisenhower addressed the nation from his desk in the Oval Office. A mob — backed by the Arkansas National Guard — had blocked nine black students from entering an all-white high school in Little Rock. President Eisenhower decided that he had to act.
"The responsibility is inescapable. In accordance with that responsibility, I have today issued an executive order directing the use of troops under federal authority to aid in the execution of federal law at Little Rock, Arkansas," he said.
And so, some 1,000 troops from the 101st Airborne Division deployed to Little Rock. President Eisenhower said they would escort the teenagers to school.
Segregation Showdown at Little Rock
Little Rock Remembers Troops' Arrival
by Alex Chadwick
Enlarge
Francis Miller
Arkansas Gov. Orval Faubus displays the front page of the Manchester, N.H. Union Leader to illustrate what "northern papers" are saying about President Eisenhower's use of federal troops to enforce integration in Little Rock. He charged the president with using unprecedented "police state methods." Bettmann/Corbis
Fifty years ago this month, Little Rock began to desegregate its public schools. Nine black students were assigned to attend the city's Central High. But when the school opened right after Labor Day, white segregationists gathered in a mob. Gov. Orval Faubus defied a federal judge and called in the National Guard to keep the black students out.
The mob won that first day; the mob and the governor, who sensed their power and passion.
The NAACP kept the nine students home for three weeks out of fear for their safety.
A court ordered Faubus to withdraw the Guard, and he did. The Little Rock Nine returned to school on Sept. 23. Outside the building, local police tried to control at least a thousand angry segregationists. When they threatened to storm the school, the police got the children out a back door.
The mob beat several black journalists, one a World War II combat veteran. The pictures were broadcast on television.
'Occupied Territory'
That night, the president of the United States, Dwight Eisenhower, took control.
"An extreme situation has been created in Little Rock," he said. "This challenge must be met, and with such measures as will preserve to the people as a whole their lawfully protected rights."
He ordered units from the 101st Airborne Division to Little Rock. They were there by dawn on Sept. 24, 1957. The next day, soldiers escorted the nine students through the front door and into their classrooms.
There was no real trouble on that day. But more was coming.
"My fellow citizens, we are now an occupied territory," responded Gov. Orval Faubus, appealing to generations-old fears.
"In the name of God, whom we all revere," Faubus continued, "in the name of liberty we hold so dear, in the name of decency, which we all cherish, what is happening in America?"
"It's a very strong strain in southern thought to be independent, and to act independently and not to be forced, especially not by the Yankee enforcer," says Betsy Jacoway, an independent scholar and author of a recent book about the crisis, Turn Away Thy Son.
Jacoway was a child in Little Rock then, not yet in high school. Her uncle was the school superintendent, who had a "go-very-slow" integration plan. President Eisenhower's decision to send troops actually worked for Gov. Faubus, she says. It pushed the issue beyond race, and actually revived painful old memories. Many whites were reminded of the years after the Civil War.
"We hadn't had troops in the streets here since 1865," Jacoway says, "and that was so horrifying to us that we thought 'Well, Faubus is the only leader we have right now, so maybe we should follow him.'"
So why did Faubus prevent the black students from attending Central High? The governor died more than a dozen years ago, but to the end, he denied charges of political opportunism. He had ordered the National Guard around Central High for one reason, he said: to keep the peace.
"I do not mean and had no intention of challenging the federal union," Faubus said later. "But the maintenance of the peace and order of a community is paramount to other considerations. And I found it necessary in order to preserve the peace and order in the community, and to protect the lives, even of the negro students and the negro people, to take the actions which I did."
Race and Sexuality
"Faubus wanted to be governor for life, bless his heart," said Jim Johnson. Johnson ran for governor as an ardent segregationist in 1956 — and lost to the far more moderate Faubus. But, he said, Gov. Faubus soon began to see civil rights stirring an ever angrier white reaction — and a kind of opportunity. In an interview, Johnson said the mob at the school was there after the governor called and asked him to make trouble.
"It was an orchestrated show," he said. Faubus "got the word out to all of us to get our friends to come out. If the people were assembled, he didn't have any doubt that he could get a 'rah rah' going. That would appear to be a mob, to the point that it could cause damage."
In the turmoil that followed, Faubus would lead white resistance to integration — in Arkansas and the South. It made him governor three more times. And he rewarded his main segregationist ally, Jim Johnson, by helping him to a seat on the Arkansas Supreme Court.
Now retired from the court, Justice Johnson has changed his views very little, if at all, in 50 years. For "integration", he still prefers the term "forced race mixing." It conjures up undertones.
"That is emotional, when you're talking about the forced race mixing," Johnson said. "The emotion of, as a friend of mine used to say, 'the integration of the bedroom,' gets the attention of people quicker than if you're talking about the A-B-C's being taught in school."
And that finally explains so much of what happened, according to historian Betsy Jacoway. Whites feared exactly that desegregation would lead to race mixing, she said. "And it's so fascinating, because when I talk to Southerners about this, they say, 'duh!'"
Basically, Betsy Jacoway said, it's about sex:
"When I talk to anybody else about this, they say, 'You've got to be kidding. Really, is that what this is about?' she said. "But yes. Southern concerns and … I think, largely American concerns, about integration stemmed from sexual fears, fears of black male aggressiveness and potency."
The Crisis Continues
With the Army's help, the nine black students did start classes that fall. For awhile, things seemed to settle down a little, and the story fell off newspaper front pages across the country. But in Little Rock, anger and fear lingered, and so did the crisis — personally and painfully for those who were there.
"You're being hit and kicked, so our legs were always bruised," remembered Minnijean Brown Trickey, one of the nine black students.
"Stepping on heels is particularly horrible," she continued, "because it's something that only you know is happening. Spit I didn't like at all. It makes me nauseous thinking about it."
The crisis continued to grow. Gov. Faubus wasn't done with history and he knew it. A few years later, he was asked, "What if you had just stood aside and let those kids into the school?"
"Well, I might have survived to the end of my term," the governor answered, "but that would have been the last you would have heard of me."
Related NPR Stories
Sep. 24, 2007Central High Marks 50 Years of Desegregation
Sep. 21, 2007Daisy Bates and the Little Rock Nine
Sep. 19, 2007Fifty Years Later, 'Little Rock Nine' Stories Resonate
Sep. 5, 2007School Desegregation: At What Price?
Sep. 4, 2007One of the 'Little Rock Nine' Looks Back
Aug. 31, 2007Recalling Little Rock's Segregation Battle
Aug. 31, 2007The Legacy of the Little Rock Nine
Feb. 24, 2007Federal Oversight of Little Rock Schools Ends
Updates on the WV Torture Victim
I'm not suprised at all by media and society's smearing of the Black victim of the WV hate crime. Those people need to show a little more compassion instead of judging her like she deserved it. May God watch over her and her family and to receive the justice she so deserved.
Thursday, September 20, 2007
West Virginia torture and rape victim arrested for writing bad checks at Racialicious - the intersection of race and pop culture
West Virginia torture and rape victim arrested for writing bad checks at Racialicious - the intersection of race and pop culture: "The victim in an alleged weeklong torture in Logan County was arraigned in Kanawha County Magistrate Court on multiple counts of writing bad checks. Megan Williams is charged with offenses in Summers, Raleigh and Greenbrier counties. There are 11 misdemeanor counts of writing worthless checks, one misdemeanor count of obtaining under false pretenses and one felony count of failure to appear in circuit court in Summers County, according to documents provided by Kanawha County Magistrate Ward Harshbarger. …Megan Williams is charged with obtaining under false pretenses and writing a worthless check in Raleigh County, according to the Raleigh County warrant. The false check charge is for a $32.21 check to Dominos Pizza. The false pretenses charge is for $96.40 to the Kiddie Junction Consignment Shop in Beaver. In Greenbrier County, Williams is wanted for eight worthless checks, according to the warrant for her arrest filed in Greenbrier County. One of the checks was for $173.79 to BSR Auto Supply."
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Democracy Now! | Harlem Residents Head to Jena Louisiana for Rally to Free the Jena Six
Democracy Now! | Harlem Residents Head to Jena Louisiana for Rally to Free the Jena Six: "Activists from across the country are heading to Jena, Louisiana for a major demonstration on Thursday to protest the treatment of six African American high school students who were jailed and faced attempted murder charges for taking part in a fight after nooses were hung from a tree in the schoolyard. Last night we interviewed activists in Harlem as they boarded buses bound for Jena. [includes rush transcript] Last week, ten months after the initial charges, a state court in Louisiana overturned District Attorney Reed Walters's first conviction in the Jena Six case. An all-white jury had convicted seventeen-year-old Mychal Bell but the Third Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Friday that he should not have been tried as an adult. Walters says he plans to appeal Bell’s overturned conviction and also pursue the other five prosecutions. But that's only making people across the country even more determined to fight for justice for the Jena Six. Tomorrow Jena's population of 3,000 could swell to several times its size. Thousands of people are expected to pour into town in solidarity with the six teenagers."
YouTube - Jena 6 update
YouTube - Jena 6 update: "A movement is growing in support of the Jena Six -- the black Louisana high school students charged with attempted murder for a school fight in which a white student was beaten up. The fight broke out after white students hung three nooses from a tree where the black students had sat. School board officials cut down the tree last week. Hundreds of people from all over the country gathered Tuesday for a march through Jena's streets. Independent reporter Jordan Flaherty reports."
2theadvocate.com | News | Jena getting ready for massive crowd expected at march — Baton Rouge, LA
2theadvocate.com | News | Jena getting ready for massive crowd expected at march — Baton Rouge, LA: "NEW ORLEANS — With tens of thousands of protesters expected to march through a tiny central Louisiana town Thursday in defense of six black teenagers, Jena police and residents were busy Tuesday making plans. Estimates range as high as 60,000 marchers for the two-mile trek, which originally was to protest the conviction of Mychal Bell on second-degree battery charges. Bell could have been sent to prison for 15 years on that charge, but the state 3rd Circuit Court of Appeal said Bell, who was 16 at the time of the alleged December 2006 beating of a Jena High school mate, should not have been tried as an adult. Bell is one of six black Jena High students charged in an attack on Justin Barker, who is white. Bell and four others were originally charged as adults with attempted second-degree murder. The charges were widely criticized as overly harsh. A sixth person was charged in the alleged assault as a juvenile. The group has become known as the “Jena 6.” Schools in Jena will close Thursday and many businesses in the town of 2,900 also say they will shut down, concerned about whether the march will remain peaceful."
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