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Voters Rights In Texas


90 Year Old Legendary Speaker of the House Jim Wright Denied Texas Voter ID Card

by Heavy Mettle Follow

  • A 90 year old man who happens to be the former Speaker of the US House was denied a voter ID according to Texas’s new voter ID requirements.

FORT WORTH — Former House Speaker Jim Wright was denied a voter ID card Saturday at a Texas Department of Public Safety office.“Nobody was ugly to us, but they insisted that they wouldn’t give me an ID,” Wright said.

The legendary Texas political figure says that he has worked things out with DPS and that he will get a state-issued personal identification card in time for him to vote Tuesday in the state and local elections.

Because a 90 year old man is trying to game the system, right?

But here is the real problem:

But after the difficulty he had this weekend getting a proper ID card, Wright, 90, expressed concern that such problems could deter others from voting and stifle turnout. After spending much of his life fighting to make it easier to vote, the Democratic Party icon said he is troubled by what he’s seeing happen under the state’s new voter ID law.“I earnestly hope these unduly stringent requirements on voters won’t dramatically reduce the number of people who vote,” Wright told the Star-Telegram. “I think they will reduce the number to some extent.”

Wright and his assistant, Norma Ritchson, went to the DPS office on Woodway Drive to get a State of Texas Election Identification Certificate. Wright said he realized earlier in the week that the photo identifications he had — a Texas driver’s license that expired in 2010 and a TCU faculty ID — do not satisfy requirements of the voter ID law, enacted in 2011 by the Legislature. DPS officials concurred.

Not everyone will have the resources, or knowledge, that Wright has to overcome these obstacles. And Wright puts it very well:

We want to make sure that every eligible Texan who wants to cast a ballot can,” Pierce said. “We want to help any Texan who needs additional information.”Wright, who said he has voted in every election since 1944, lamented that such help is called for.

“From my youth I have tried to expand the elections,” Wright said. “I pushed to abolish the poll tax. I was the first to come out for lowering the voting age to 18.”

The state put up these obstacles in the firstplace- now they are ‘concerned’ to make sure everyone can overcome them. They have ‘solved’ non-existent voter fraud problems by creating actual problems.9:59 AM PT: For help with getting Voter ID the linked article suggests:

For more information, voters may call the Texas secretary of state’s office at 800-252-VOTE (8683) or the Tarrant County Elections Office at 817-831-VOTE (8683). Go online for more information at http://www.tarrantcounty.com/evote or votexas.org.

 

Originally posted to Heavy Mettle on Sun Nov 03, 2013 at 08:33 AM PST.

Also republished by Turning Texas: Election Digest and TexKos-Messing with Texas

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No More To Be Said


Darrin Bell

Post from Darrin Bell

Jim Hightower on BIg Money’s Influence


June 2015, Volume 17, Number 6

Written by Jim Hightower

Plan to visit a national park this year?

Let’s defend our public treasures: ‘America’s best idea’ is under attack

In his 2012 presidential escapade, Mitt Romney cast himself as just a regular fella, but his inner son-of-privilege kept coming out, exposing him as completely out of touch with regular Janes and Joes. Meeting with Nevada newspaper editors in February 2012, for example, Romney confided his concern for a problem of rising importance: America’s national parks.

Great! Parks really matter to the Janes and Joes, too. They’d be excited by any presidential contender making an issue of our parks’ dilapidated facilities, shortened hours, closed-off sections, locked visitor centers, cancelled programs, ranger shortages, etc. Folks are angry that politicians subsidize rich peoples’ private jets, yachts, and multiple vacation homes while constantly and callously cutting funds for public parklands. So was Mitt their guy–who’d fully fund, restore, and expand these neglected jewels of our common wealth?

Get real. This multimillionaire’s concern was not the parks’ deterioration, but their very existence. Noting that millions of US acres are tied up in public parks, forests, seashores, wilderness areas, historic lands, and preserves, a baffled Romney told the editors: “I don’t know why the government owns so much of this land… what the purpose is.”

Really, Mitt? Any Jane or Joe could tell you “the purpose” of our 84 million acres of public lands. From the Everglades National Park down in Florida to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska, from Yosemite’s giant sequoia trees out west to the wild horses back east on Assateague Island, their purpose is plain: Just be there.

First, be there for their own sake, for their unique natural beauty, history, ecological importance, or simply for their survival. Second, be there as proof that not every acre in our land has to be a theme park, a strip mine, a mall, an oilfield, or anything that produces even a dime in profit for some rapacious group of humans. And third, be there for us– for the millions of workaday families who don’t summer in the south of France or have a getaway ski mansion overlooking Aspen.

We have so many public spaces because we have so many un-rich people who count on, enjoy, and love them. Far from having too many, we need more. Last year, our national parks had 292 million visitors, 19 million more than the year before. This year is expected to be the busiest summer yet, and next year–the centennial of the National Park Service (NPS)–even busier.

Ironically, this expansive network of public lands was launched by the conservatives of Romney’s own party. Before today’s daffy Koch-headedness, “conserving” was a core principle of Republican conservatism, and preservation of the people’s natural treasures in public parks was touted as a party goal.

HISTORICAL TIDBIT I. The GOP’s own Abraham Lincoln started this national set-aside of park land in 1864 when he designated California’s Yosemite Valley as a state park expressly “held for public use, resort, and recreation.”

HISTORICAL TIDBIT II. Which president created a system of national parks and made their maintenance a core responsibility of the federal government? Roosevelt. The Republican one, Teddy, who with vim and vigor reserved 280,000 square miles–an area the size of Texas–for future generations of the public.

“(O)ur people should see to it that [America’s national parks] are preserved for their children and their children’s children forever, with the majestic beauty all unmarred.” –Theodore Roosevelt, 1905

TR’s initial network–five parks, 150 forests, the US Forest Service, four game preserves, 51 bird sanctuaries, the Antiquities Act, and 18 monuments– provided the foundation for the NPS, which President Wilson established as a federal agency in 1916. Every president since has added treasures to America’s unparalleled and universally admired trove of protected public lands, rivers, sites, structures, and other spaces. So today–whether for a two-week camp-out, a lunch hour stress break, a cross-country road trip, or a dip into America’s rich history and diverse cultures–there’s an affordable, accessible place for us.

These places are available to us only because they belong to us.

When Romney–aspiring to sit in the chair of Lincoln and Roosevelt–revealed his cluelessness, Ed Schultz, the plain-spoken populist host of the The Ed Show, was blunt: “Our public lands make everyone rich. Not Mitt Romney-rich, but… you can drive a couple of hours into the wilderness, and all of sudden, you have more than Romney ever will.”

Year after year, polls make clear that these public resources are not merely supported, but cherished. A 2012 survey is typical: 88 percent of registered voters–and 81 percent of Republicans–consider it “extremely important” (59 percent) or “quite important” (29 percent) for the federal government to protect and support these public places, with zero percent considering them “not at all important.” Meanwhile, 80 percent of voters complained that officials are not funding the essential upkeep of the parks.

A thousand cuts

An unfortunate recent trend is for presidents to praise parks but fail to pay for them. Bill Clinton-the-candidate spoke of how lucky he was to have Hot Springs National Park as a childhood playground. Yet Clinton-the-president sat idle as natural wonders crumbled, facilities deteriorated, and the NPS maintenance backlog soared to $5 billion.

In his 2000 campaign, a khaki-clad George W posed in the majestic Cascade Mountain Range, wailed that parks were “at the breaking point,” and vowed to eliminate Clinton’s backlog. Instead he slashed the NPS budget (including a 40 percent cut in repair funds for the Cascade parklands he’d used as a political prop). The maintenance backlog ballooned to nearly $9 billion.

Ranger George did make one fix, however–a PR fix. Bush operatives instructed park superintendents to make budget cuts in “areas that won’t cause public or political controversy.” When discussing park deterioration they were to avoid the phrase “budget cutbacks” and say instead that parks were undergoing “service level adjustments.”

Under Obama, who speaks movingly of a childhood Greyhound bus trip with his family to see some of our parks, another 12 percent has been chopped from the NPS budget–bumping the deferred maintenance bill to a staggering $11.5 billion!

To his credit, Obama has proposed a 2016 “Centennial Budget” for NPS, mitigating years of destructive underfunding and calling for $1 billion to address the backlog. Good for him. But the sour duo of Sen. Mitch McConnell and Speaker John Boehner, with Mitt-like cluelessness about “what the purpose is,” will oppose even a dime increase. Hidebound by their twisted corporate ideology, they dismiss public parks as government intrusion into the private realms of Disneyland and Sea World.

Washington is literally stripping “service” out of the National Park Service. And, by refusing essential upkeep year after year, America’s so-called “leaders” are guaranteeing that this invaluable national asset–deemed America’s “best idea” by novelist and historian Wallace Stegner–will fall into acute disrepair. The only solution, they say, is to commercialize, industrialize, and privatize, converting our common good into just another corporate cash cow.

PROUD PARTNERS. Step one in the corporatization process was “co-branding” agreements, rationalized by NPS as “aligning the economic and historical legacies” of public parks with crassly commercial advertisers. They are selling the Park Service’s proud public brand… as well as its soul.

First in line was Coca-Cola. In 2010, the multibillion-dollar colossus donated a mere $2.5 million (tax-deductible, meaning we taxpayers subsidized the deal) to the NPS fundraising arm. In return, not only did Coke get exclusive rights to use park logos in its ads, but it was effectively allowed to veto a scheduled NPS ban on selling bottled water in the Grand Canyon park. Disposable plastic bottles are the park’s biggest source of trash, but Coke’s Dasani is the top-selling water, so bye-bye ban. Public outrage forced the ban to be reinstated, but NPS’ integrity has yet to recover.

Then this April, the park service abandoned its longstanding policy of disallowing links to alcohol or tobacco products. Anheuser-Busch became a “Proud Partner” with NPS by making a $2.5 million tax-deductible “gift.” In turn, its Budweiser brand was given the Statue of Liberty. Not literally, but symbolically, authorized to roll out “patriotic packaging” featuring Lady Liberty, the iconic symbol of the USA.

Never mind that Busch is now Belgian-owned, the real hypocrisy is the claim that such co-branding is a philanthropic service to the commons. Indeed, creeping commercialization no longer creeps but runs rampant, with brands such as Disney, L.L. Bean, and Subaru buying their pieces of NPS integrity. And take a whiff of this: Air Wick is being allowed to market a fragrance collection “uniquely inspired by America’s national parks.”

DRILLERS, MINERS, DEVELOPERS. A rash of corporate exploiters is all over our pristine lands, cashing in on the public’s wealth. Oil and gas giants, for example, have drilling leases on 38 million acres (45 percent of the people’s parkland), where they are producing record levels of fossil fuels, especially natural gas. They get the profits, foreign countries get much of the energy, and everyone gets more global climate change. Annual gas production on public lands and waters produces as much global warming methane pollution as 42 million cars.

Now comes uranium mining to the very edge of the Grand Canyon. Energy Fuels, Inc. intends to re-open Canyon Mine, a uranium venture that failed in 1992. Located in the Kaibab National Forest, just six miles from the majestic park, the mine perches atop an aquifer that supplies water to locals and discharges into creeks along the South Rim, as well as into Havasu Falls in the park itself. Levels of cancer-causing uranium in excess of EPA drinking water standards have already been found. Full-scale mining threatens to contaminate the Colorado River, a major water source for cities in Arizona and California.

On April 7, American Rivers, an environmental advocacy group, named the Colorado the “Most Endangered River” of 2015. That very same day, a federal judge in Arizona okayed Energy Fuel’s plan to restart Canyon Mine–without even requiring an update of an obsolete 1986 environmental review. Wasting no time, the corporation has begun refurbishing the site in preparation for mining. But the battle continues: The Havasupai tribe that lives on the Canyon floor and Sierra Club, which sued to stop the mine, have filed an appeal.

Piling insanity on insanity, the US Forest Service is now considering a crass scheme of plunder by Italian consortium Grupo Stilo, which is hot to build a grandiose mega-mall at the park’s south entrance. Bigger than Mall of America, it includes plans for a shopping mall, a dude ranch, resort hotels, high-end restaurants, and 2,100 housing units. Rather than allowing Grupo to bring the traffic, pollution, noise, artificial light, and sprawl of Everyplace USA into the mystical ambience of the Canyon’s natural wonder, the Forest Service should simply heed the timeless advice of Teddy Roosevelt: “Leave [the Grand Canyon] it as it is. You cannot improve on it. The ages have been at work on it, and man can only mar it.”

RIGHT-WING LANDGRABBERS. After de-funding and commercialization, the next step is obvious: Privatization. For that job, bring in the clowns. And here they come–a gaggle of GOP congress critters, ALEC-trained state legislators, tea-party-infused presidential candidates, and corporate front groups–all with pockets stuffed with cash from the Koch brothers, Big Oil, and other plutocratic interests that combine ideological disdain for anything “public” with selfish coveting of our public assets.

This clique is riding in from the right-wing fringe on a tired old horse named “states’ rights,” shouting that the Western territories were induced to join the Union with a pledge that all federally owned lands within their boundaries would be transferred back to them. This “take-back” campaign panders to and energizes far-right extremists who hate the national government. The attack is orchestrated by two Koch-funded groups: ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council) and Americans for Prosperity.

Legislators in several Western states, as well as a swarm of DC Republicans and such presidential wannabes as Ted Cruz and Rick Santorum, have been hawking cookie-cutter versions of a model take-back bill dubbed the “Sagebrush Rebellion Act.” It was written and distributed by ALEC, based on legal fantasies concocted by corporate lawyers.

There are, however, four large hickies on the GOP’s scheme. First, none of the “sagebrush” states could begin to afford man-aging these lands–wildfire control alone costs $4 billion a year. Second, lawmakers pushing for federal disinvestments brag that state control would allow them to privatize the lands and raise big bucks for the states. But privatization would mean locking out millions of people with signs reading “Private Property–No camping, swimming, hunting, fishing, or trespassing.”

Third, their pipedream is enormously unpopular with normal people who don’t wear tri-cornered hats with teabags dangling from them. A 2012 bipartisan survey of voters found that 95 percent (!) agree that protecting and supporting national parklands is “an appropriate role for the federal government.” Nine out of 10 Republican voters agreed. Moreover, in two recent polls of Western-state voters, big majorities say “too much public land” is not a problem; 80 percent want our presidents to continue protecting public lands; six out of 10 disapprove of their states taking over management; and 96 percent want to ensure universal access to public lands.

Fourth, the states’ rights claim is pure hokum. When they joined the US, all the Western states signed standard agreements specifically renouncing claims to the public properties. Utah’s agreement, which is typical, states that “the people inhabiting said proposed state do agree and declare that they forever disclaim all right and title to the unappropriated public lands lying within the boundaries thereof.”

Keep public parks in public hands

The political attack on America’s public lands is the work of a tiny but powerful minority of elitists, ideologues, and profiteers. They have only the most shriveled, narcissistic sense of America–so shriveled that they are selfishly rejecting the essential, democratic maxim that we’re all in this together. They’d gladly reduce National Parks to the spiritless level of property transactions and profit.

In fact, much more than acreage and sites, our parks embody the core idea of America itself–the Big Idea of egalitarianism. These treasures belong to all of us. For a self-absorbed few to think that they’re entitled to take them for personal gain is a shameful affront to our shared heritage, democratic ideals, and future generations. Keeping public parks in public hands is not only logical, but necessary–a continuum of the historic struggle of us commoners against would-be royals. It’s nothing less than a battle for America’s soul.

Do something!

This summer, many people will visit our national parks, but may not be aware of the history of the system or the threats it faces. Share this issue with friends, family, and colleagues. Even those who don’t agree with Lowdowners on other issues are very likely to agree that we need our parks, and they need us. (And to those unpersuaded by the pure public good of national parks, it’s worth noting that parks add billions of dollars to regional economies and support hundreds of thousands of private sector jobs.) And with the upcoming 2016 centennial, now is the time for our public officials to hear from us about the importance of our national parks. Here are some groups leading the fight to save our public parklands and national monuments:

Center for Western Priorities: http://westernpriorities.org
National Parks Conservation Association: http://npca.org
Our American Public Lands: http://americanpubliclands.com
Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility: http://peer.org

Andrew Bacevich On Iraq, ISIS


It should be clear to all of us that the debacle initiated by The Bush Administration searching for the now legendary WMD’s has created more problems cost more money and lives than we understand. While support NGO’s made millions, the U.S. Military lost equipment, men and ultimately prestige. Former General Stanley McChrystal stated the same thing on The Daily Show several days ago. The Middle east issues can only resolved by the Middle Eastern powers, not The US, Britain or any European nation. The war (if that’s what it is)  is non-conventional and we as a country cannot fight such a war and that was proven at Custer’s Last stand and also at the inception of our Country while fighting for our own independence. We have a few elite troops who are trained to fight such a war but not nearly enough to make a difference and we should not attempt any involvement on that score. We (the US) needs to get out and let the Middle Eastern powers work this out. Any of our Legislators who think differently needs to be removed from office as they are not representing this country just themselves and their big money backers.

Andrew Bacevich On Iraq, ISIS

As the U.S. led fight against ISIS continues in Iraq, Here & Now starts a series of segments about how that war is going and the role the original U.S. invasion of Iraq plays in the current fight. Here & Now’s Jeremy Hobson speaks to a former Bush administration official who supported the previous war, a journalist who covered it, and a Marine who fought in Iraq. The series starting Monday features Andrew Bacevich, a military analyst who opposed the war from the start.

Interview Highlights: Andrew Bacevich

On how U.S. actions lead to the rise of ISIS
“When the George W. Bush administration decided to go into Iraq to overthrow Saddam Hussein, it did so with the expectation that removing Saddam would somehow, not simply pacify Iraq itself, but lead to some broader benefits in terms of calming the situation in the region, and I think the rise of ISIS as the new threat really is the ultimate demonstration of the American failure in the previous Iraq War.”

On why ISIS exists
“The reason ISIS exists is because the George W. Bush administration introduced U.S. forces into Iraq in the first place. More broadly, our Iraq War, or ‘Bush’s Iraq War,’ broke Iraq, ended its stability. The Iraqi government we’ve created, the Iraqi army that we’ve created has proven itself unable to cope with the instability we created. ISIS is simply a symptom, or a manifestation of that instability.”

“The Iraqi government we’ve created, the Iraqi army that we’ve created has proven itself unable to cope with the instability we created. ISIS is simply a symptom, or a manifestation of that instability.”

– Andrew Bacevich

On whether the U.S. prepared Iraqi troops to fight ISIS
“Any effective fighting force is effective if it can claim two qualities: The one quality is the capacity to fight — the skills, the weaponry, the wherewithal. But the second quality is the will to fight. We spent several years building up this new Iraqi army, and I’m not frankly in a position to question whether or not the training was adequate, or whether we provided them with sufficient arms. My sense is that we did a lot in that arena, but I’m not sure we ever had the ability to inculcate that will to fight to persuade young Iraqi men that the nation of Iraq, the state that we created, the government apparatus we created was worth fighting and dying for. So the argument that the current mess is Obama’s fault, seems to me has merit only if the people making that argument are also willing to argue that we should have stayed in [Iraq] far longer than we did with a far greater military presence. And frankly there was no willingness on the part of the American people to undertake that endless occupation.”

On what American military leaders should do now
“We need to begin by making a sober and realistic assessment of exactly what sort of threat we’re facing. And I think the most important point to recognize is that what we’re facing, as vile and as vicious as ISIS clearly is, it doesn’t represent an immediate threat to the United States of America. It has no air force, it has no navy, it has a relatively small army, no weapons of mass destruction, no ability to project power across the ocean to threaten the United States. And so we need to have a sober appreciation of exactly what they are able to do. Now that said, ISIS does represent a profound threat to the region. And it seems to me that recognizing that should lead us to examine more carefully whether or not there are actors within the region who have a greater interest than we do in taking up this fight and who may have the capacity to do so. In other words, this is a burden that should be borne by nations within this region that do not wish to see this supposed new caliphate succeed.”

“[The fight against ISIS] is a burden that should be borne by nations within this region that do not wish to see this supposed new caliphate succeed.”

– Andrew Bacevich

On how the U.S. should address threats from ISIS
“I would want to push back against the notion that doing something necessarily means doing something militarily. I push back on that because it seems to me that the historical record over the past several decades is quite clear. There’s a historical record that shows that U.S. military involvement in the region simply does not work. When we intervene, directly or indirectly, the result is not greater stability, it’s greater instability. And therefore, the question ‘what should we do?’ seems to me should spur us to think creatively, about non-military means to address this military threat.”

On actions Bacevich would support
“I would support President Obama announcing tomorrow that the United States recognizes the failure of its effort to re-stabilize the greater Middle East by relying on U.S. military power. In other words, that he indicated the direction of U.S. policy henceforward will be towards reducing our military footprint, reducing our military obligations to the region.”

  • Andrew Bacevich, professor of international relations and history at Boston University’s Pardee School of Global Studies
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This is a post from Jstor.org. This points out where we have been and unfortunately have made too little progress. Our government complicity was and still is inherent in our modern day Congress and by extension the High court.

Ossian Sweet rose from humble beginnings and became a doctor who tried to help the poor. His story is admirable. In a better world, it would be fairly unremarkable. But Dr. Sweet was African American in the 1920s, and his life tells the story of race struggles in this country—then and now. “To know the history of the Sweet case,” wrote scholar Victoria W. Wolcott, “is to know the history of segregation in America.” Unfortunately, his life also shines a light on issues still facing black Americans today: not just segregation (prescribed or by default), but also injustice at the hands of those meant to keep the peace. * * * Ossian Sweet was born in 1895 in Bartow, Florida. He was the grandson of a former slave who lived in the Jim Crow South. When he was five, he watched from the bushes as a black man was burned at the stake. Years later, at his murder trial, Sweet would recall the smell of kerosene, the crowd taking pieces of the charred flesh as souvenirs. When he was 13, his parents sent him north. He worked his way through prep school and college at Wilberforce University in Ohio, the first black university owned and operated by black Americans. He went on to study medicine at Howard University in Washington, DC. While in Washington, Sweet witnessed the race riots of 1919, during what was known as “The Red Summer.” From November of 1918 to February of 1920, there were nine major race riots across the United States as well as 97 lynchings. In Washington, DC, the riots lasted four long days, from July 19 to July 22. According to scholar David F. Krugler, there was a “lingering confusion over authority in the wake of war.” Many voluntary vigilante groups were still operating. Returning soldiers and private citizens who had been deputized by federal authorities during the war—to help identify German sympathizers—blurred the lines between soldier, police officer, and citizen. Sweet lived a few blocks from the heart of the riots, but after seeing a mob pull a black man from a streetcar onto the sidewalk and beat him senseless, he chose not to leave his fraternity house * * * Upon receiving his medical degree, Sweet joined thousands of other black Americans who were migrating to Detroit, most to work in the burgeoning auto industry. Between 1910 and 1930, Detroit’s black population increased twentyfold. The fast-growing population, however, meant competition for housing and jobs. Sweet arrived in the summer of 1921, seeking to become a doctor in the overpopulated Black Bottom neighborhood. Here, homes were decaying and conditions were unsanitary. Many black migrants were restricted to this area. Despite being a Northern city, away from the constraints of Jim Crow laws, Detroit was not exactly a welcoming environment. White residents organized neighborhood associations with the sole purpose of keeping non-whites out. Realtors drafted contracts that excluded people from neighborhoods based on race. In 1923, Michigan’s Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of these restrictions, which stayed in place until 1948. Black Americans who tried to move into all-white areas were often met with not only with these legal restrictions, but also with mob violence. In 1922, Sweet met Gladys Mitchell. After they married in 1923, Sweet and his new wife went to Vienna and Paris so he could further his medical training. He attended lectures by noted scientists, including Nobel Prize–winning physicist and chemist Marie Curie. In Paris, the Sweets were treated as equals—or near-equals, at least. However, when his wife was ready to deliver their baby, Sweet wanted to reserve a space at the American Hospital, where he had made a relatively large donation. The hospital refused, however, saying that white Americans would not want to mix with black patients. It was a reminder of what he and Gladys were returning to. Upon returning to Detroit, the Sweets sought to own their own home in a nicer neighborhood than Black Bottom—or the other predominantly black neighborhoods. They bought a house at 2905 Garland Street. Aware of the brewing tensions in the city—and the dangers of moving to an all-white neighborhood—Sweet waited to move until after the summer, when things might be calmer. The Ku Klux Klan was powerful in Detroit at this time, with more than 100,000 members in the city. In 1924 and 1925, the Klan ran Charles S. Bowles as a candidate for mayor, and he nearly won the first year as a write-in candidate. His opponent was declared the winner only after 15,000 write-in ballots were disqualified for misspellings and other errors. The Klan was not the only organization to be fearful of. In the two years from 1923 to 1925, Detroit police killed 55 African Americans with impunity. As soon as neighbors heard a black family was moving in, they organized the Waterworks Improvement Association. The Sweets sent their young daughter to stay with her grandmother and, after requesting police protection from the local precinct and help from a handful of friends and relatives, they moved into their new home. On the first night, Sweet and his wife were joined by his brother, Henry, and three friends. In anticipation, they brought guns and ammunition. “Well, we have decided we are not going to run. We are not going to look for any trouble,” said Sweet. “But we are going to be prepared if trouble arises.” Crowds formed near the house, but the night was relatively peaceful. By the second night, however, the crowds had increased, so Sweet invited more friends to help. The local police inspector and a detail of officers stood outside the house, ostensibly to protect the Sweets, as aPeople threw rocks relentlessly, and the police did nothing but look on… until a shot was fired from inside the house by Henry Sweet, Ossian’s brother. A white man outside was killed. All eleven adults in the house were arrested, initially denied counsel, then denied bail by Judge John Faust who presided over the preliminary hearing, and tried for murder. But mob justice and a prejudiced police force did not rule the day. The NAACP agreed to support the Sweet defendants. Fundraisers were held in large cities throughout the country, and the NAACP contacted Clarence Darrow, the famous Scopes Trial lawyer, who took on the case for a small fee. Darrow’s defense was based on the history of race relations in the country, including testimony about the history of racial violence and lynching. In his testimony, Ossian Sweet explained, “When I opened the door, I saw the mob and I realized I was facing the same mob that had hounded my people throughout our entire history. I was filled with a fear that only one could experience who knows the history and strivings of my race.” After long deliberations, there was a hung jury. The judge was forced to declare a mistrial. A subsequent trial of Ossian’s brother, Henry, resulted in an acquittal, after which the prosecutor dismissed the charges against the remaining defendants, including Ossian Sweet. As American Bar Association journal columnist James W. McElhaney explains in “The Trial of Henry Sweet,” Darrow’s approach to the defense of Sweet and his co-defendants was to illustrate systematic prejudice. He insisted, in other words, that black lives matter, a simple fact that unfortunately still has not been heard or understood. Darrow said in his closing arguments, “To me this case is a cross-section of human history; it involves the future, and the hope of some of us that the future shall be better than the past.” * * * It has been 90 years since Ossian Sweet tried to move into his new home; since police stood by and did nothing as a mob threw rocks. Unfortunately, while there have been great strides in civil rights, black Americans, particularly black men, still face barriers—access to housing, issues with law enforcement, and discrimination in the justice system. We are confronted with police violence against black men in many cities across the United States. The deaths of Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, Freddie Gray, and countless others have underscored how much still needs to be done to end racial violence. According to a 2013 survey by the Pew Research Center, nearly 70 percent of black Americans feel they have received unfair treatment in dealing with the police or the courts. And a 2013 Gallup poll found that nearly a quarter of black males between the ages of 18 and 34 believed they had been unfairly treated by the police in just the last 30 days. The justice system is not the only arena in which black Americans face discrimination. For example, a Department of Housing and Urban Development study in 2000 found that nearly 17 percent of black and 20 percent of Latino homebuyers received unfavorable treatment. Racism in the United States continues to be so pervasive and systematic that, in August 2014, the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) published a report that examined racial equality and justice in the US. CERD noted that black Americans disproportionately face economic and social disparity and urged the US to halt not only the excessive use of force by police, but also broader racism. “This is not an isolated event and illustrates a bigger problem in the United States, such as racial bias among law enforcement officials, the lack of proper implementation of rules and regulations governing the use of force, and the inadequacy of training of law enforcement officials,” said Noureddine Amir, CERD committee vice chairman. “Racial and ethnic discrimination remains a serious and persistent problem in all areas of life from de facto school segregation to access to health care and housing.” Dr. Sweet and his family never moved back to their house on Garland. Gladys caught tuberculosis while in jail and passed the disease on to their infant daughter, who died soon after contracting TB. In 1928, Gladys also died from TB. Sweet’s misfortune’s continued: he had to sell his house in the ‘50s, and in 1960, he committed suicide. Today, his Garland Street home is recognized as a historic landmark because it shows, as the National Park Service notes, “the role of ‘ordinary’ places in the extraordinary history of American race relations.”

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We are better than this!


Stuart Carlson

Thank you Stuart Carlson.

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Diet Soda


8 Things That Happen When You Finally Stop Drinking Diet Soda

Prevention‎June‎ ‎13‎, ‎2015

Every think, “Why should I give up soda?” (Photo: Getty Images)

You’ve decided to give up diet soda—good idea! Maybe you weren’t hitting your weight-loss goals or couldn’t stomach that long list of ingredients anymore. Or perhaps you heard one too many times that it’s just not good for you.

Whatever the reason, eliminating diet soda from your diet will improve your health from head to toe. Research on diet soda is still in its infancy, but there’s enough out there to identify what you can look forward to when you put down the can and cool down with an unsweetened iced tea instead.

Migraines disappear and focus sharpens.

(Photo: Getty Images)

It turns out the headaches you expected from a diet soda withdrawal didn’t materialize. And now that you’ve quit the stuff, you probably find yourself thinking clearly for the first time in a while. That’s because the chemicals that make up the artificial sweetener aspartame may have altered brain chemicals, nerve signals, and the brain’s reward system, which leads to headaches, anxiety, and insomnia, according to a review in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition. And a 2013 animal study found that rats that drank diet soda had damaged cells and nerve endings in the cerebellum—the part of the brain responsible for motor skills. (If you’re still drinking diet soda, take a look at what’s happening in your body right now.)

Taste buds are more sensitive.
It’s not your imagination: Without your usual diet soda chaser, you may find that food has more flavor. It has subtlety. It’s more enjoyable. That’s because the artificial sweeteners in your diet soda overwhelmed your taste buds with an onslaught of sweetness. Aspartame ranks 200 hundreds times sweeter than table sugar. Splenda? 600 times. In fact, brain scans show that diet soda alters sweet receptors in the brain and prolongs sugar cravings rather than satisfies them. “We often see patients change snack choices when they give up diet soda,” says Heather Bainbridge, RD, from Columbia University Medical Center Weight Control Center. “Rather than needing sugary treats or something really salty like pretzels and chips, they reach for an apple and a piece of cheese. And, when they try diet soda again, they find it intolerably sweet.”
(Ready to eliminate harmful sugar from your diet for good—and lose weight for life? Check out the Sugar Smart Express!)

The scale finally goes the right way.

(Photo: Getty Images)

While you may have started drinking diet soda to facilitate weight loss, quitting it may actually do the trick. A recent 9-year study found older adults who drank diet soda continued to pack on belly fat. The study piggybacks on research that found each daily diet soda increases your chance of becoming obese in the next decade by 65%, and a study published in Diabetes Care that found drinking diet soft drinks daily was associated with an increase in metabolic syndrome—obesity, high blood-pressure, high triglycerides—which leads to heart disease and diabetes.

Bones strengthen.
Putting down the soda may be the best way to improve your bone strength and reduce your risk of fractures. One 2014 study found that each daily soda increased the chance of hip fracture by 14% for postmenopausal women. And another found that older women who drank cola had lower bone mineral density in their hips. The jury is still out on why soda has this effect, but the science pretty clearly suggests that a soda habit weakens your bones. (Diet soda’s not the only sugar-free food making you miserable—check out 6 gross things that happen when you chew gum.)

Your attitude towards food changes.
Since diet sodas have no calories, people drinking them often feel it’s okay to indulge elsewhere, finds Bainbridge. Often she sees her diet soda-drinking patients make poor food choices, like a burger and fries, a piece of cake, or potato chips, because they think they can afford those extra calories. Plus, soda often accompanies unhealthy foods. “Sometimes those poor choices are built up habits,” she says. “You’re conditioned to have soda with chips, fries, or something sweet. When you eliminate the soft drink, you also break the junk food habit.”

You handle booze better

(Photo: Getty Images)

It’s a fact: Diet soda gets you drunk faster. When you mix it with alcohol, your stomach empties out faster than if you used regular soda, causing a drastic increase in blood alcohol concentrations, according to an Australian study in the American Journal of Medicine. And when you add caffeine, look out. Another study in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research found that bar patrons who mixed drinks with diet colas were intoxicated much more easily and frequently. Your best bet for a mixer? Club soda, which is naturally sugar- and calorie-free. (Try these slimming Sassy Water recipes to stay hydrated and make your taste buds happy.)

Fat storage and diabetes risk decreases.
Our hormones may explain the great paradox of why people gain weight when they switch to diet soda. A study in Diabetes Care found that drinking two-thirds of a diet soda before eating primed the pancreas to release a lot of the fat-storing hormone insulin. When the pancreas is overworked from creating insulin to control blood-sugar levels, diabetes rears its ugly head. And a recent study in Japan found that middle-aged men who drank 1 or more diet sodas daily were much more likely to develop type 2 diabetes over a 7-year period.

Kidney function improves.
Now that your body no longer has to make sense of the unpronounceable ingredients in diet soda, your kidneys can get back to clearing toxins, stabilizing blood pressure, and absorbing minerals. One study looked at 11 years of data and found that women who drank 2 or more servings of diet soda doubled their chances of declining kidney function.

By Jordan Davidson

This article ‘8 Things That Happen When You Finally Stop Drinking Diet Soda’ originally ran on Prevention.com.

More from Prevention: 

19 Foods That Aren’t Food 

25 WORST Diet Tips Ever (How Many Are You Still Following?) 

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An Entry From Martin in Battle Creek


My Dear Friend Martin submits another read worthy bit.

Abel Oldsworth, my reticent friend, wishes he could interview presidential candidates about some of their stated positions.  These are his questions.

 

Back to the Bible to guide our Christian decisions

What version of the Bible should we choose:  King James, New Standard Version, Revised Standard Version, or their Translation?

Constitutional right to bear any kinds of weapons, in any place, and at any time?

Is this the new way to law and order?

Boots on the ground

In which Middle Eastern countries should we station our fighting soldiers, and which countries should fight their own battles?

Less government

Are members of Congress providing a clear example of less government by working three days a week with multiple recesses, yet getting full time pay?

Repeal Obama Care (Affordable Health Care Act)

What do we tell the 15 million people newly insured under the program—we can’t afford to cover you?

 

Presidential candidates love to berate

Opponents’ follies they can’t tolerate.

It is a form of condescension

Aimed to heighten dissention

And a zap and run tactic to avoid debate.

 

Martin Egelston

Battle Creek Enquirer

May27, 2015

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John F. Nash


CEO Conquer Risk | Risk & Strategy Consultant

What It Was Like to Glimpse John Nash’s Beautiful Mind

May 24, 2015

While finishing my dissertation at Princeton, I had the distinct pleasure of taking a seminar with John Nash. If you’ve read the book or seen the movie, “A Beautiful Mind”, you’ll know that Nash suffered from schizophrenia and this seminar was one of his first appearances since having brought that mental ailment under control.

Not knowing what to expect, most of us signed up just for the opportunity to spend time with Nash. He was a legend. Though we’d seen him as a shadowy figure that often lurked around Firestone library with a stack of paper scribblings, none of us ever spoke to him and we were curious about what a true genius might actually say.

Strangely enough, that didn’t make everyone on the faculty happy. I remember one game theorist telling me that taking Nash’s seminar would be a ‘distinct waste of time’. That was an ironic comment since Nash essentially ‘invented’ game theory–non-cooperative game theory, in particular.

Non-coop game theory is the study of how individuals or institutions might interact strategically if they don’t communicate and Nash won the 1994 Nobel Prize for presenting the first, stable solution to such a situation. If you loved the films, “The Usual Suspects” or “LA Confidential”, for example, those plots demonstrated non-cooperative game theory in its great, Hollywood form.

Surprisingly, however, Nash didn’t speak about non-coop game theory. Instead he presented the work he’d been doing on cooperative game theory. Coop-game theory is about how groups of individuals might enforce behaviour to achieve certain outcomes. Just about every spy movie with a dastardly syndicate influencing its members involves coop theory.

Yet, what made Nash’s presentation amazing was his sharp mind and wit. He simply looked at things differently. His whole approach involved painting a picture of an idea–not simply stating a few results. Having not presented anything publicly in nearly 50 years, some complained that his work failed to connect with the recent direction of the literature and didn’t seem to have a point. That seemed like dismissive jealousy to many of us, since what Nash presented was simply fresh, true and relevant to the real world.

After the presentation, our group went to a small room with Nash for cookies and a discussion. Of course, while Nash wanted to talk about his results and possible extensions, we all wanted to know about his life and how he came to be “Nash”. That made him noticeably uncomfortable, so the group of us became a bit clever and started asking Nash questions that we hoped would reveal his genius.

I asked him who had influenced his choice of dissertation topic and he said, no one. Another person wondered whether Nash’s work was accepted readily by people around the mathematics department at the time and Nash said, no. Finally, we hit the jackpot when I asked Nash how his model could explain the politics of the world we currently see.

All of a sudden, this 70-something year old man stood up and spoke to us with a 20-something year old’s energy. He started illustrating the interesting point that powerful, cooperative relationships actually stem from the lack of power, not from the possession of it. Enforcing the rules of a coalition was really about playing on the fears and insecurities of other members.

All of that made a sort of counterintuitive sense to us. It made me think, for example, about Hitler’s rise to power and his ability to create alliances with the leadership of ‘seemingly nice countries’. In school, we were taught that most of these countries fell under Hitler’s sway for fear Nazi invasion. Nash’s model, however, suggested that insecurity was what might have motivated the Axis powers.

While we pondered Nash’s ideas, what further amazed us was his humility and hunger for intellectual interaction, even with us lowly graduate students. He spoke to us as colleagues and invited us to validate his thinking. He also encouraged us when he believed we were on the right track, and gently corrected us when we got things wrong.

I was definitely the dumbest person in the room and felt especially fortunate to interact with him in this way. At one point, when he complimented me on something I said, I remember thinking, “A genius has just said he likes the way I think: I gotta’ tell my boys at home about this!”

Like all good things, our time with Nash eventually came to an end. I doubt that he took much away from us, but we definitely took a great deal away from him.

Nash taught me, for example, that brilliant ideas are not the exclusive domain of people with great minds; yet it’s hard to imagine many people deserving the title “great” without brilliant ideas.

Nash taught me that we thinkers are no less artistic and creative in our ideas than the greatest of artists, unless we choose to be so.

Nash taught me that even geniuses need other people to correct their thinking and vet their ideas (as he had done in interacting with Von Neumann).

Most importantly, however, Nash taught me that anyone’s mind can be beautiful if it focuses on producing beautiful ideas.

Maurice Ewing is a globally-experienced risk and strategy consultant that has worked in over 50 countries. You can follow him on his blog and on Twitter @mauriceewing.

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Telling IT In Music


Just before President Nixon resigned his office, Stevie Wonder presented this song with the Jackson 5, I have  shortened for the purpose of  brevity. This is still applicable to our Congress now! 

We are amazed but not amused
By all the things you say that you do
Though much concerned but not involved
With decisions that are made by you

But we are sick and tired of hearing your song
Telling how you are gonna change right from wrong
‘Cause if you really want to hear our views
You haven’t done nothin’

It’s not too cool to be ridiculed
But you brought this upon yourself
The world is tired of pacifiers
We want the truth and nothing else, yeah

And we are sick and tired of hearing your song
Telling how you are gonna change right from wrong
‘Cause if you really want to hear our views
“You haven’t done nothing”

We would not care to wake up to the nightmare
That’s becoming real life
But when mislead who knows a person’s mind
Can turn as cold as ice

Why do you keep on making us hear your song?
Telling us how you are changing right from wrong
‘Cause if you really want to hear our views
“You haven’t done nothing”, yeah no, no nothin’, nothin’

Thank you Stevie.

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