Friday, September 16, 2005

MORE STUPIDITY DailyStar: "Three mice infected with the bacteria responsible for bubonic plague apparently disappeared from a laboratory about two weeks ago." 2:49:11 PM

MODERN RACISM LawyersCommittee: "A lawsuit filed today alleges that Tyson Foods, Inc. is responsible for maintaining a segregated bathroom and break room, reminiscent of the Jim Crow era, in its Ashland, Alabama chicken processing plant." CounterPunch: "The 40-year-old black woman, executed by the death-obsessed state of Texas last night following a rejection by the US Supreme Court of her attorneys' last-ditch appeal, and after the state's craven and bloodthirsty 'pardons and parole' board refused to recommend a stay to Gov. Rick Perry, hardly merited mention in the nation's media, which is now awash in stories about Bush's disaster in New Orleans." ArizonaDailyStar: "Merlene Maten undoubtedly stood out in the prison where she has been held since Hurricane Katrina. The church deaconess, 73, never before in trouble with the law, spent two weeks among hardened criminals. Her bail was a stiff $50,000. Her offense? Police say the grandmother from New Orleans took $63.50 in goods from a looted deli the day after Katrina struck. Family and witnesses insisted Maten was an innocent woman who was mistakenly arrested by tired, frustrated white officers who couldn't catch younger looters at a nearby store. Despite intervention from the nation's largest senior lobby, volunteer lawyers from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and even a private attorney, the family fought a futile battle for 16 days to get her freed. Neither Maten's diabetes, her age nor even her lifelong record of community service could get the system moving. Even the store owner didn't want her charged. Maten must still face the looting charge at a hearing in October." 12:42:29 PM

GOODBYE TO GLOBAL STABILITY Independent: "A record loss of sea ice in the Arctic this summer has convinced scientists that the northern hemisphere may have crossed a critical threshold beyond which the climate may never recover. Scientists fear that the Arctic has now entered an irreversible phase of warming which will accelerate the loss of the polar sea ice that has helped to keep the climate stable for thousands of years." 12:34:41 PM

FROM CRADLE TO GRAVE Wired: "The Dutch government will begin tracking every citizen from cradle to grave in a single database, opening a personal electronic dossier for every child at birth with health and family data, and eventually adding school and police records." As if 'keeping track' is a solution to anything, it is more part of the problem. In so many instances it is the authorities that go wrong. Recently a man was wrongly jailed for four years because the public prosecutor did not disclose information that would have acquitted that person. The Minister of Justice is still in office. During World War II a well kept database of all Jewish people was the reason that so many Jews were deported from the Netherlands to find a horrible death in concentration camps. 12:29:38 PM

© Copyright 2005 Hetty Litjens.