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The death penalty – on request?
For years, I’ve been a staunch opponent of the death penalty. To me it seems both barbaric and unjust. In a fallible and inequitable criminal justice system, one can never be sure that the death penalty is applied evenly and without bias. And with the spate of false convictions that have been uncovered in the…
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NYPD activist surveillance documents surrounding the RNC released
After a long legal battle, I-Witness Video has obtained and posted more than 600 pages of NYPD RNC-related activist surveillance documents, spanning from October 2003 to September 2004. On the I-Witness site, you can read more about the preceding legal fight, download a large PDF of the documents, or perform single-word searches on the documents.…
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in case you ever doubted that prison is an industry
From the New York Times, via futurebird on the debunkingwhite Livejournal community: California inmates who meet certain requirements and can fork over a significant amount of dough get to have a cushier stay in prison than their less wealthy fellow inmates: For roughly $75 to $127 a day, these convicts — who are known in…
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america loves a fall guy
Hi, everybody. I’m back from my month plus blogging sabbatical, during which I did many constructive things like playing hours of World of Warcraft, closely following women’s and men’s March Madness basketball (somehow, my first try ever brackets got first place in both my pools, woohoo!), and most recently, setting up a fantasy baseball team…
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ACTION ALERT: Tell the NY Post to quit its transphobic “reporting”
3/2/07 Update: I’ve been kind of busy since posting this, so I wanted to post a quick thank you to everyone who’s written to the Post, and to everyone who’s reposted this. I didn’t expect such a great and large response, and it’s wonderful. Please keep reposting! NOTE TO OTHER BLOGGERS: Please link to or…
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ACTION ALERT: Support Florida rape survivor and condemn police actions
Planned Parenthood has launched a campaign around the Florida rape survivor who was arrested and subsequently denied emergency contraception after going to the police. Take a moment to go to the PP page and voice your outrage to the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office. (Thanks to Jessica at Feministing for the heads up.)
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Report a rape – get arrested?
That’s precisely what happened to a young woman in Tampa, Florida. After reporting her rape to the Tampa police, she was arrested and kept in jail for two nights after the police ran a background check and found a four year old warrant on her record. This article from the Tampa Tribune describes how this…
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ACTION ALERT: Entire Queens Family Arrested as Intimidation
Note from Jack: I heard about this on NPR the other morning, but unsurprisingly didn’t get the whole story, not even from them. I’ve added emphasis on some parts of this press release from DRUM (Desis Rising Up and Moving), which is an important and kick-ass organization that everyone should know about. Also, for more…
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not all rainbow balloons and frolicking gay boys
Not that there’s anything wrong with either of those things. But below is a press release from the Audre Lorde Project, an organization for queer people of color in NYC, that addresses a far less joyful and celebratory incident that occurred at Sunday’s Pride march. It’s a good reminder that, despite the raucous celebrations and…
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jury duty, part deux
First off, a quick note: my letter on gentrification to Time Out New York was published in this week’s edition. And they didn’t edit all that much out, though they did leave out the sentence about poverty and neglect in Bushwick. Ah well, that they published it at all is somewhat surprising! So – my…