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newstechreviews · 4 years

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“I really do believe that, if people do a crime, they need to do the time,” Kim Kardashian West tells TIME in a recent phone interview (from one self-quarantine zone to another). “But it’s a matter of, what is that fair [amount of] time?”

That’s a question she leaves open-ended — seemingly deliberately. But as her efforts to raise the profile of criminal justice reform movements continue, as showcased in Kim Kardashian West: The Justice Project, a documentary special set to air on Oxygen on April 5, it’s increasingly clear that her answer is along the lines of, well, less.

As The Justice Project documents, there are some important caveats: Kardashian West’s activism has primarily focused on change at a granular level, championing the causes of individual inmates versus larger swathes of the U.S. prison population. (Still, Kardashian West notes, that’s not to say it’s a strategy that can’t be scaled.) The Justice Project highlights five currently or recently incarcerated people, juxtaposing a focus on their crimes with efforts they have since made behind bars toward personal growth and rehabilitation. It’s at times a jarring narrative — the disconcertingly cheesy soft-focus crime re-enactment scenes in particular — but perhaps that’s deliberate too? (If not, that’s cable TV for you.) The repeated ‘flip’ in each inmate’s story, from crime and consequence to rehabilitation (and beyond), seems to mirror the journey Kardashian West has taken herself to learn about the prison system and what she now understands to be its many flaws.

Take the now well-known case of Alice Marie Johnson, who in 1996 received a life sentence, without parole, for working as a “phone mule” for a ring of Memphis drug dealers. (At Johnson’s trial, prosecutors argued she had taken on a “leadership” role in the trafficking operation.) The case leads The Justice Project, just as it spurred Kardashian West into action for the first time.

Learning of Johnson’s story was a “huge eye opener,” Kardashian West explains; a campaign working for her release surfaced in her Twitter feed in October 2017 and caught her attention. The injustices she believed Johnson had suffered — “that someone who was a phone mule [received] a harsher sentence than Charles Manson made absolutely no sense to me,” she says — was a lightbulb moment. “It just really broke my heart, and I just wanted to help her,” Kardashian West says. “Because [I knew] I could.”

Cheriss May—NurPhoto/Getty ImagesAlice Marie Johnson speaks at the 2019 White House Prison Reform Summit and First Step Act celebration at the White House in Washington, D.C. on Monday, April 1, 2019.

Kardashian West began working with Johnson’s own lawyers, advocacy groups and, eventually, the White House. In May 2018, Kardashian West met with President Trump to petition for Johnson’s release; Trump commuted her sentence the following month. Johnson attended the 2019 State of the Union as a guest of the President, and has since returned to the White House to successfully lobby for the release of three other prisoners, Kardashian West notes.

In subsequent campaigning for prison reform, Kardashian West was among those lobbying Trump to pass the First Step Act, bipartisan legislation seeking to reduce recidivism in people released from prisons and improve related services both in and outside of prisons.

“I think when people saw Alice’s face and heard her speak, they felt safe, feeling [of her release] that, ‘Oh, this is going to be OK. Our society is going to be safe; she deserves a second chance,’ Kardashian West tells TIME. “I don’t look at prison reform as very political… The key is humanizing these [people] and taking on these individual stories, to let everyone know that people on the inside are just like us.”

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Alexis Martin was just a child when her sex trafficker was killed and she was charged with murder. Hear her powerful story when @KimKardashian West's documentary #KKWTheJusticeProject premieres, Sunday, April 5 at 7/6c on @Oxygen.

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While her platform and, in many respects, her resources stand alone, The Justice Project also works shrewdly to present (reframe, even) Kardashian West in a similar vein — that, in the context of her activism awakened, she’s a regular person “just like us.” Or, more importantly, that any of “us” could step up too if we chose to.

Kardashian West is very conscious to highlight the work of her collaborators, attorneys and long-standing activists — many of whom are people of color — whose work her celebrity status could be seen as overshadowing. In any context, but particularly so when considering community-building and social justice work, appropriation or a ‘white savior’ narrative is “problematic,” as Brittany Barnett, an attorney who worked on Alice Marie Johnson’s case said in a 2019 interview with Essence. “I’ve never done this work for credit,” she continued, noting that she was “grateful” for Kardashian West’s “complementary efforts” and support, “but I do feel it’s important for little Black girls to see that two Black woman lawyers are doing this work.”

Kardashian West says she has reckoned with this, and continues to do so. “We talk about it all the time,” she says on this subject. “I always say this is a team effort, I tell everyone I’m the last push at the end. I’m that vessel.” And there are occasions she says she now steps behind the curtain herself; “We are very strategic,” Kardashian West explains. “There’s cases that I’m working on that people know nothing about and maybe never will—cases where we know that a state governor, say, would probably not like to receive a call from me, and that [my involvement] could even be used against our client. I speak up when I’m needed, and when it’s not, I don’t.”

Read more: Amid Growing Support Campaign, Texas Death Row Inmate Rodney Reed’s Planned Execution Has Been Stayed. Here’s What You Need to Know

She’s likewise conscious to air her privilege — having grown up in a family that, save sister Khloé’s very brief jail stint for violating probation from a DUI arrest (and yes, that viral KUWTK moment), was never directly impacted by the prison system — and the lack of awareness that, in her case, came with. “I wish I had paid attention sooner,” Kardashian West tells TIME; an admission that could undercut some of the criticism a Kardashian near-inevitably faces for doing anything, let alone something serious.

A particularly poignant, if overtly-staged scene in The Justice Project features Kardashian West and a friend discussing some of the cases she’s taken on, and her successes. They’re sitting at a table covered in letters received from, presumably, prisoners whose cases she surely couldn’t have had time for. But, The Justice Project argues, she’s doing something.

In this vein, Kardashian West and her Justice Project becomes both aspirational and accessible for its viewers, her followers or anyone hearing of a case that didn’t sit right with them. It’s a subtle call-to-action, but impactful nonetheless.

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phooll123 · 4 years

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New top story from Time: ‘I Wish I Had Paid Attention Sooner.’ Kim Kardashian West on Her Justice Project and Quest For Apolitical Prison Reform

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Read more: Amid Growing Support Campaign, Texas Death Row Inmate Rodney Reed’s Planned Execution Has Been Stayed. Here’s What You Need to Know

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bigyack-com · 4 years

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H&M’s Different Kind of Click Bait

The H&M group sells an estimated three billion articles of clothing per year. Its revenue makes it among the top three fashion retailers in the world.Clothing for its brands, including H&M, Arket and & Other Stories, is manufactured in 40 countries, the company said; in Bangladesh alone, it sources from 275 factories that employ half a million workers. As it sprawls ever further around the globe, hopping from trend to trend, how can H&M keep track of how the skirts, pants and sweaters it sells are made? How, for example, can it monitor whether, in faraway countries, workers are being paid less than they need to live, forced to work hours of overtime in precarious conditions?This spring, after almost three years of preparation and coordination by 40 team members from Hong Kong to Stockholm, and at a time when scrutiny of the global fashion industry and its shadowy supply chain is greater than ever, H&M introduced an effort to do exactly that — and to make it public for shoppers.Now, the company says, it can be held accountable for the origins of its products. If consumers care to look.

They Made Your Leggings

Browsing the H&M website this month, you may find yourself taken with a ladies’ amber sweater with “Hiver” written on the front, or else a pair of pink children’s leggings, with smiling bunny faces and ears that stick out from the knees for $4.99.Click on the “product sustainability” tab on the page, and you will learn they were made in Bangladesh by some of the 13,000 workers at the Jinnat Apparels & Fashion plant in Gazipur, a dense manufacturing neighborhood near Dhaka.This is part of the company’s new “consumer-facing transparency layer.” H&M shoppers can now find out not only the country where clothing was manufactured, but also details on materials and recycling, the name of the supplier or authorized subcontractor where a garment was made; the factory address; and the number of workers employed there. Customers shopping in physical stores can also have access to this information by using the H&M app to scan the product price tag.There are limits to how much information you’ll get, of course. The sustainability tab won’t tell you that Jinnat sprawls over seven floors, each the size of a football field, or that employees perch in front of whirring sewing machines making white cotton T-shirts, monitoring 337 high-tech embroidery appliances and snipping at stray threads. And you won’t find out that this single company makes 400,000 pieces (roughly 110 tons) of clothing per day, or around 10 to 12 million units per month, up to a quarter of which will be bound for H&M. Still, it is nevertheless the first effort of its kind by a retailer of this scale.H&M created the system by building a bridge between its supplier and production databases and then linking it to its retail interfaces. (The company declined to say what the project had cost.) Pascal Brun, the head of sustainability for the H&M brand, said the new public transparency layer showed that the company had nothing to hide regarding labor or environmental practices, or how H&M products were made.“It is not going to change the world,” he said. “But it is about building a foundation for real change, given we can’t build this industry from the ground up all over again.”

Seeing Through Transparency

“Transparency has become the key driver of change in the fashion industry, which used to be about as untransparent an industry as it could possibly be,” said David Savman, the head of production for the H&M group, from a factory floor in Dhaka. Tanned and golden haired, the Swede filed between rows of workers and inspected sequined T-shirts, asking line managers about different cotton hybrids and admiring fire doors.Change came crashing down on the industry with the Rana Plaza disaster in Bangladesh in 2013, a factory collapse that led to the death of more than 1,000 workers, with scores more disfigured or disabled for life. In the wake of the catastrophe, several Western retailers found they had sold clothes sourced from the factory, or had little to no idea where the clothes they sold were sourced from. All have since come under increasing public pressure to investigate, police and invest in exactly where and how their products were made. There is also pressure for them to be as transparent about their findings as possible (though some have been far more forthcoming than others about taking action).The creation in Bangladesh in 2013 of two five-year fire and safety monitoring agreements between retailers and unions made significant improvements and reforms. The Accord on Fire and Building Safety, which is legally binding, was signed by more than 200 retailers including H&M and Inditex (neither of which had any ties to Rana Plaza, but plenty of other alleged supply chain abuses). The other agreement is the nonbinding Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety, which was signed by Walmart, Gap and Target. Both have spurred improved working conditions in many Bangladeshi factories, and calls for other countries to adopt similar standards.These agreements, now up for renewal, have sidelined some of the country’s most dangerous factories, and cut their ties to most Western retailers, though not all. A Wall Street Journal investigation in October found that Amazon continued to sell clothes from Bangladeshi factories that other retailers had blacklisted because of their inability to pass safety requirements. Pressure from consumers has also prompted brands like H&M to proactively support local suppliers who create safe and profitable businesses in places like Bangladesh.“We choose not to work with a lot of suppliers that other rivals work with so they can save on costs,” said Karl-Johan Persson this fall. (In 2018 six suppliers in Bangladesh were phased out by H&M because of their poor sustainability performance.) Mr. Persson, the billionaire chief executive of H&M, sat in the “hygge”-style library for the company’s army of young designers in Stockholm as he defended his family company’s business model and its contributions. He declined to specify how much H&M spent annually on transparency efforts, other than to say the investment had continually hurt short-term profit in order to ensure the long-term survival and growth of the company. His argument is that by working in low-cost areas, H&M is creating jobs and investing in the economy; by making its partnerships public, it is accepting its own liability.“But often,” Mr. Persson said, “the focus ends up on what we don’t do.”The new “transparency layer” project has been cautiously applauded by some human rights and fashion advocacy groups and union leaders. But many have also said that H&M’s efforts do not go far enough, questioning whether improvements like this are worthwhile if they merely prolong the existence of a system where profits and shareholder interests are continually placed ahead of employees, suppliers and the environment.Currently, customers do not have access to information on workers’ wages at individual factories, or local minimum fair living wage commitments and calculation methodology. Nor does the transparency layer offer a breakdown of the pricing structure that could specify how labor costs are calculated.“Transparency is primarily a means to an end, and mere information about where a garment is produced does not automatically guarantee meaningful changes in factory labor conditions,” said Aruna Kashyap, senior counsel for the women’s rights division at Human Rights Watch, which is part of a coalition that started the Transparency Pledge (of which H&M is a signatory).“H&M is among the leaders on supplier transparency, and other companies should follow this practice,” Ms. Kashyap said. “But that doesn’t mean that H&M and other companies that are transparent have fixed an industry model that is replete with problems.”

The Model and the Problems

Even after the Rana Plaza tragedy, the global business model for producing low-cost clothing remains the same. Most brands don’t own their own production facilities, but instead contract with independent factories to make their garments. Generally, in these factories, located in mostly developing economies, very low wages are paid to workers using manufacturing processes that are geared toward expediency rather than the environment.Subcontraction or homeworking remain common, and make it even harder to track where clothes come from.The industry is operating at an almighty scale. In total, across the fashion industry, 80 billion garments are produced each year, according to Greenpeace, with consumer demand and appetite for trend-fueled fashion only growing stronger, in part thanks to a digital culture powered by social media and the wallets of a young emerging global middle class. The worldwide apparel and footwear market’s expected growth, pegged at roughly 5 percent through 2030 by Euromonitor analysts, would risk “exerting an unprecedented strain on planetary resources” by raising annual production of fashion to more than 100 million tons, according to a Euromonitor report.The pressure to meet those demands, and the demand for ever-cheaper labor, are at odds with the move toward transparency and tightly managed supply chains. Many major brands in Europe and North America continue to have limited information about the factories and workers producing their wares. Inspections are usually delegated to third-party auditors, which have proven to be far from foolproof and at the mercy of the often uneven tides of developing nations.Revelations of egregious failures within the garment industry still emerge on a regular basis. A Guardian story in October reported that the active wear company Lululemon had been sourcing clothing from a factory where Bangladeshi female factory workers said they were assaulted. This month, in Delhi, India, a fire broke out in a factory that made school bags and killed 43 workers, including children, who were asleep on the floors inside.Last year, Transparentem, a nonprofit focused on investigating human and environmental abuses in the apparel industry, published a report about abusive conditions and forced labor at a set of Malaysian apparel factories that made wares for brands in North America and Europe such as Primark, Asics, Nike and Under Armour.

Servitude and Lack of a Living Wage

According to the Transparentem report, many workers, often migrants from Bangladesh and Nepal, said that they paid steep recruitment fees to acquire jobs. These could take years to pay back, resulting in “debt bondage,” a common form of modern slavery that occurs when a person is forced to work to pay off debts for little or no pay.Factories limited employees’ movements by withholding their passports; it wasn’t unusual for them to live jammed together in squalid conditions. Many also had to pay a government levy on foreign workers out of their own paychecks (a practice that was legal when Transparentem interviewed workers in 2016 and 2017).“The physical distance, cultural distance, and often time zone difference have all meant that there are inherent challenges in understanding the labor conditions in any manufacturer supply chain,” said Benjamin Skinner, the founder and president of Transparentem.Brands have largely trusted suppliers to follow certain rules with employees and the environment and then verified that those policies were being followed, Mr. Skinner said. But based on his organization’s work, he added, “the ‘verify’ part can be pretty weak.” Because auditors would alert factory owners to their visits, or only interview workers in the presence of their bosses, it created an environment where noncompliance was easy to hide.This gap between intent and reality also emerged in a May report from University of Sheffield researchers in Britain on apparel companies not delivering on promises to pay workers a living wage.Generally set by governments (sometimes with input from foreign and local businesses, unions and NGOs), living wages can differ significantly between countries, with benchmarks sometimes geared to maintaining a country’s competitiveness as a low-cost manufacturing destination rather than the needs of workers. The wages can also be significantly less — sometimes even falling below the poverty line — than the living wage as defined by outside groups, which broadly incorporates food, housing, medical care, clothing and transportation.Many companies, including Adidas and Puma, referred to components of a living wage in their supplier codes of conduct, the researchers said, but the wording around requirements was “very vague,” leaving fulfillment an option and the legal minimum wage the only requirement.On top of all this, the researchers noted that companies relied heavily on outside auditors to ensure codes of conduct were being followed, running into the same issues outlined by Mr. Skinner. Many of these firms are “beholden by financial conflict of interest since they are hired by companies who could decide not to continue to hire them if they identify too many problems,” they wrote. Often, they visited only top suppliers, leaving out the many subcontractors where abuses can be the worst.

Who Polices the Supply Chain?

After Transparentem revealed the Malaysian abuses to 23 companies with direct or indirect buying relationships with the factories, most said that they would take action.Buyers and suppliers were able to negotiate the return of passports and secure the reimbursement of recruitment fees for workers at several facilities. (By November 2018, the total amount of fees paid and scheduled to be paid exceeded $1.4 million.)Still, under the current system, the industry status quo means major garment manufacturers are mopping up mistakes, rather than not making them at all. This is the problem H&M is trying to solve.Mr. Savman of H&M said that because H&M did not own factories, all sustainability efforts and investments like a Dhaka training center ultimately focused on supporting and promoting processes and mechanisms between suppliers, unions and workers that made them self-sufficient when it came to problem solving.A self-reporting system called the Supplier Partnership Impact Program allowed H&M to see issues and regulate what sort of monitoring was needed and where. National Monitoring Committees — round table discussions between H&M employees, union representatives and factory owners — attempted to resolve pay disputes and abuse allegations at factory level.Alongside regular auditing by independent groups, Mr. Savman said, H&M still frequently sent its own employees to monitor factories, sometimes by prearrangement but often unannounced. His colleague Payal Jain, the sustainability manager for H&M’s global supply chain who started her career as a factory worker in India, said that H&M visited its factories several times per week, and 2,500 audits were made in the country per year.That may sound like a lot, but it is an average of 10 per factory — in 365 days. Or less than once per month. The company was also criticized by the Clean Clothes campaign last year, which said H&M had not met a 2013 commitment made to ensure suppliers would pay a living wage to 850,000 textile workers by 2018. (H&M said it had reached at least 600 factories and 930,000 garment workers with its fair living wage strategy, and did not share the Clean Clothes Campaign’s view of how to create change in the textile industry.)Additionally, some factory owners say that despite support from H&M’s sustainability teams, they experience pressure from the company or from production teams who still want more product at a cheaper price — or they threaten to pull their business and go to even less expensive hubs, like Ethiopia. Ms. Jain said cost of labor was not a negotiable part of a supplier contract. But if suppliers are paid less, or overtime is required to complete a contract, the likelihood is that shortfall will get passed down the chain.“Brands like H&M offer training, help union members establish themselves in my factory and guide us on investing in the business, which are all very good and important things,” said Lutful Matin, the manager of Natural Denims, another factory near Dhaka. It employs 6,900 workers to make garments for H&M, Zara, Mango and Esprit. “But then their buying teams still drive down order values and I feel such pressure,” Mr. Matin said.He had proudly shown off the conditions and quality of his products. But, he said, while “I know I’ve invested more in my factory than competitors, they still get orders. There are always new certificates and alliances that need to be passed. Globally the trading market is getting tougher. Sometimes I don’t know how easy it will be to survive.”

The Shopper’s Role

While the work it does is recognized by its recognition in projects like Fashion Revolution’s Transparency Index, H&M believes the best way to get consumers thinking about who made their clothes is to talk to them close to the point of sale.“Consumers have a lack of trust and say they don’t always know how to make the right choices,” said Anna Gedda, the head of sustainability for the H&M group. She added that it was “a constant struggle” to work out how much information a customer may want versus what might make them switch off or walk away from a sale.From Dhaka, Mr. Savman was more forthright. “We are still at the stage where if you put two T-shirts, one cotton and one recycled cotton, which is 30 percent more expensive, the majority of consumers will still take the first option,” he said. “We put a lot of information out there, like the product transparency layer. But how much do customers engage with it? Not a lot — yet.”Nearby, the managers and owners were keen to show off the scope and quality of their Jinnat complex, from their high-quality Italian knitting machines and subsidized food store and medical facilities to the anonymous complaint boxes on every floor and payment system so that workers can be compensated directly and efficiently. As tens of thousands of workers streamed back into the steamy streets for their lunch break, Abdul Wahed, the chairman, looked on.“We are extremely proud of the factory here, and the work we have done,” he said. “People can know when and where we make their clothes.” The onus is on them to click. Read the full article

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corneliusreignallen · 5 years

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The execution of Rodney Reed has been stopped

Rodney Reed listens during a hearing at the Bastrop County Criminal Justice Center in 2014. | AP Photo/Austin American-Statesman, Jay Janner

Amid a growing movement to #FreeRodneyReed, an appeals court has ruled that new evidence must be considered.

An appeals court has stayed the execution of Rodney Reed, who was scheduled to be executed next week for a murder he says he did not commit.

On Friday, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles voted unanimously to delay Reed’s execution by 120 days; shortly after that, Court of Criminal Appeals in Texas ruled to also halt the execution and ordered that new evidence be considered by the court in which Reed was originally tried.

“At every turn we have asked for a hearing at which we can present the evidence, in full, of Rodney Reed’s innocence,” one of Reed’s lawyers, Bryce Benjet, told the New York Times. “So it is extremely rewarding that we can finally have a chance to fully present his case in court, so it can be determined that he did not commit this crime.”

In October, a new witness came forward claiming that it was not Reed who killed Stacy Stites in 1996, but her fiancé at the time, a former police officer named Jimmy Fennell. Reed’s lawyers and the Innocence Project, a nonprofit organization for criminal justice reform, filed an application for clemency with the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles following the sworn affidavit of Arthur Snow, who said Fennell confessed to the murder of Stites when the two men were in prison together. In addition to Snow’s testimony, several other witnesses have come forward with similar stories around Fennell and his disdain for his fiancé, a white woman who he suspected was sleeping with Reed, a black man, behind his back.

Reed, 51, has long admitted to having been in a romantic relationship with Stites, but at the time of the trial, no witness would corroborate the affair. Now, Stites’s cousin and a former coworker have both said the two were involved, according to the Innocence Project. Reed’s lawyers told the Times that other witnesses could still come forward and they may even subpoena Fennell. (Fennell’s attorney told the Times that his client maintains his innocence.)

National attention to Reed’s case — and the call to reexamine it — had grown in recent weeks. A petition on Change.org has garnered over half-a-million signatures asking for the execution to be stopped and a new trial ordered. Nearly 100 supporters of Reed also showed up to the capitol building in Austin, Texas, earlier this month to urge Gov. Greg Abbott to show clemency. Celebrities like Rihanna and Meek Mill have also urged the governor to free Reed.

16 days left and he will be executed for a crime he didn’t commit .. get more info here! #freerodneyreed https://t.co/Njm7QsTNtx pic.twitter.com/ifSGk6ssqg

— Meek Mill (@MeekMill) November 4, 2019

”Please @GovAbbott How can you execute a man when since his trial, substantial evidence that would exonerate Rodney Reed has come forward and even implicates the other person of interest. I URGE YOU TO DO THE RIGHT THING,” tweeted Kim Kardashian West, who also notably used her influence in the clemency cases of Alice Johnson and Cyntoia Brown in recent years.

Even Republicans, like Sen. Ted Cruz, stepped in to advocate for Reed, writing a letter to Gov. Abbott and the parole board asking to stay his execution, which was scheduled for Wednesday. With the court’s late-minute reprieve, the attention and advocacy seemed to have paid off.

Reed wasn’t the first suspect in Stites’s murder. It was her fiancé, Fennell.

In 1996, the body of 19-year-old Stacey Stites was found in a wooded area in Bastrop, Texas, having been assaulted, raped, and strangled. When the case was first opened, police initially questioned and suspected Fennell of committing the crime. Fennell went on to fail two lie detector tests administered by the police, but the DNA found on Stites’s body didn’t match Fennell’s.

That’s when the investigation shifted to Rodney Reed — his DNA was a match, according to police. Reed admitted that he and Stites were having a sexual relationship behind Fennell’s back but maintained that he was innocent and was not involved her in death. Despite having another viable suspect in Fennell, police arrested Reed. He was tried, found guilty of murder, and sentenced to death.

Now nearly 21 years since the verdict, much is in question following the new evidence obtained by Reed’s attorneys and the Innocence Project. On October 30, Snow filed a sworn affidavit stating that in 2010, Fennell admitted to killing Stites while the two men were both serving time at a DeWitt County, Texas, prison. According to the affidavit, Fennell, who was there on a rape conviction, was in need of protection from the Aryan Brotherhood, so he went to Snow, who was a brotherhood member, and confessed to the crime as a way to build trust.

“Toward the end of the conversation, Jimmy said confidently, ‘I had to kill my n*****-loving fiancé,’” Snow wrote in the affidavit. Snow said he later realized that Reed was serving time for Stites’s murder after reading an article about him; he has only come forward now after seeing a more recent story about Reed, he said.

Fennell’s attorney responded to Snow’s allegation by calling Snow a career criminal, according to CNN, and that following Fennell’s release for rape, his client has converted to Christianity and begun helping people with drug addictions.

However, others have also claimed in recent weeks that it was Fennell who killed Stites. Heather Stobbs, a cousin of Stites’s, now feels that Reed was wrongly convicted and even possibly framed. She told the Fox affiliate in Austin that she has no doubt in her mind that Fennell did it.

The movement to #FreeRobertReed spread wide

Even before Snow came forward, a social media movement started putting pressure on Gov. Abbott to release Reed. Kardashian West’s tweet plea came about a month ago. Meanwhile, Black-ish star Yara Shahidi quoted Audre Lorde in a tweet: “Without community there is no liberation,” urging people to sign the petition. Cyntoia Brown, who was granted clemency earlier this year for killing a man who had allegedly solicited her for sex as a teen, also tweeted out the petition for Reed’s clemency.

I just signed this petition to tell @GovAbbott to stop the execution of Rodney Reed. You should too! #FreeRodneyReed https://t.co/qOhsaEJGbH

— Cyntoia Brown Long (@cyntoia_brown) November 4, 2019

The biggest surprise, though, came from Republicans who also asked the governor to delay the execution. Sen. Cruz, along with seven fellow Republican state senators and eight Democrats, wrote Abbott and the parole board a letter on Wednesday asking them to look at the new evidence and witness testimony.

“If there’s a real question of innocence, the system needs to stop and look at the evidence, because an innocent man should be set free,” said Cruz.

While the pressure to stay Reed’s execution ultimately worked, cases like his have not historically ended in the inmate’s favor. According to a 2014 study, one in every 25 people with a death sentence is innocent. Between 1973 and 2014, 144 people on death row have been exonerated, or 1.6 percent of all death sentences. That means that many innocent people — over twice the number of those who’ve been spared — have likely been executed.

In a case similar to Reed’s, Troy Davis was executed in 2011 for killing a cop in the state of Georgia. According to the Innocence Project, the organization sent a letter to commute Davis’s sentence “due to serious questions about his guilt,” along with a petition with more than 660,000 signatures, shortly before his death. But in a 3-2 vote, the members of the Board of Pardons and Paroles ultimately rejected the clemency bid.

In Davis’s case, seven out of nine witnesses who aided in the guilty verdict all recanted their statements. Kimberly Davis, sister to Troy, told the Guardian, “If those seven witnesses were credible enough to put my brother on death row, then why weren’t they credible when they recanted?”

She added, “My brother was murdered by the state of Georgia. For the Troy Davises who came before him and the Troy Davises who will come after him, we want to stop the killing of innocent men.”

In recent years, lawmakers and the public have been forced to reckon with the harsh sentences and convictions of black people caught up in a biased justice system. A few of those cases have even ended redemption, like that of Brown and Alice Johnson, a great-grandmother who was serving a life sentence for drug-trafficking. The power of social media, protest, and petition created enough pressure to sway those in power to grant those women clemency. While Abbott hasn’t done the same for Reed, the courts have at least opened the doors, once again, to allow him to prove his innocence.

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#Vox - All

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shanedakotamuir · 5 years

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The execution of Rodney Reed has been stopped

Rodney Reed listens during a hearing at the Bastrop County Criminal Justice Center in 2014. | AP Photo/Austin American-Statesman, Jay Janner

Amid a growing movement to #FreeRodneyReed, an appeals court has ruled that new evidence must be considered.

An appeals court has stayed the execution of Rodney Reed, who was scheduled to be executed next week for a murder he says he did not commit.

16 days left and he will be executed for a crime he didn’t commit .. get more info here! #freerodneyreed https://t.co/Njm7QsTNtx pic.twitter.com/ifSGk6ssqg

— Meek Mill (@MeekMill) November 4, 2019

Reed wasn’t the first suspect in Stites’s murder. It was her fiancé, Fennell.

The movement to #FreeRobertReed spread wide

I just signed this petition to tell @GovAbbott to stop the execution of Rodney Reed. You should too! #FreeRodneyReed https://t.co/qOhsaEJGbH

— Cyntoia Brown Long (@cyntoia_brown) November 4, 2019

“If there’s a real question of innocence, the system needs to stop and look at the evidence, because an innocent man should be set free,” said Cruz.

She added, “My brother was murdered by the state of Georgia. For the Troy Davises who came before him and the Troy Davises who will come after him, we want to stop the killing of innocent men.”

from Vox - All https://ift.tt/2qoIDzN

#Vox - All

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timalexanderdollery · 5 years

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The execution of Rodney Reed has been stopped

Rodney Reed listens during a hearing at the Bastrop County Criminal Justice Center in 2014. | AP Photo/Austin American-Statesman, Jay Janner

Amid a growing movement to #FreeRodneyReed, an appeals court has ruled that new evidence must be considered.

An appeals court has stayed the execution of Rodney Reed, who was scheduled to be executed next week for a murder he says he did not commit.

16 days left and he will be executed for a crime he didn’t commit .. get more info here! #freerodneyreed https://t.co/Njm7QsTNtx pic.twitter.com/ifSGk6ssqg

— Meek Mill (@MeekMill) November 4, 2019

Reed wasn’t the first suspect in Stites’s murder. It was her fiancé, Fennell.

The movement to #FreeRobertReed spread wide

I just signed this petition to tell @GovAbbott to stop the execution of Rodney Reed. You should too! #FreeRodneyReed https://t.co/qOhsaEJGbH

— Cyntoia Brown Long (@cyntoia_brown) November 4, 2019

“If there’s a real question of innocence, the system needs to stop and look at the evidence, because an innocent man should be set free,” said Cruz.

She added, “My brother was murdered by the state of Georgia. For the Troy Davises who came before him and the Troy Davises who will come after him, we want to stop the killing of innocent men.”

from Vox - All https://ift.tt/2qoIDzN

#Vox - All

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gracieyvonnehunter · 5 years

Text

The execution of Rodney Reed has been stopped

Rodney Reed listens during a hearing at the Bastrop County Criminal Justice Center in 2014. | AP Photo/Austin American-Statesman, Jay Janner

Amid a growing movement to #FreeRodneyReed, an appeals court has ruled that new evidence must be considered.

An appeals court has stayed the execution of Rodney Reed, who was scheduled to be executed next week for a murder he says he did not commit.

16 days left and he will be executed for a crime he didn’t commit .. get more info here! #freerodneyreed https://t.co/Njm7QsTNtx pic.twitter.com/ifSGk6ssqg

— Meek Mill (@MeekMill) November 4, 2019

Reed wasn’t the first suspect in Stites’s murder. It was her fiancé, Fennell.

The movement to #FreeRobertReed spread wide

I just signed this petition to tell @GovAbbott to stop the execution of Rodney Reed. You should too! #FreeRodneyReed https://t.co/qOhsaEJGbH

— Cyntoia Brown Long (@cyntoia_brown) November 4, 2019

“If there’s a real question of innocence, the system needs to stop and look at the evidence, because an innocent man should be set free,” said Cruz.

She added, “My brother was murdered by the state of Georgia. For the Troy Davises who came before him and the Troy Davises who will come after him, we want to stop the killing of innocent men.”

from Vox - All https://ift.tt/2qoIDzN

#Vox - All

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coolblog2stuff-blog · 5 years

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Former CPUR President advocates for Mental Health

By Keziah G. Huelar

Former CPU Republic President, JM Suelo (4th from right, second row) aims to empower communities by advocating for men’s mental health.

Empowering communities through mental health awareness—John Michael Suelo, Central Philippine University Republic President, School Year 2018-2019, and currently, a 4th year Juris Doctor student of the CPU College of Law, launched his advocacy initiative Man Out! Philippines Project at the Atria Activity Center on June 12, 2019. The launching is also in line with the celebration of Men’s Health Month and Father’s Day.

According to Suelo, the men’s mental health is an issue oftentimes overlooked by society and by men themselves. He highlighted the 2017 Report by World Health Organization, which stated that suicide is the second most common cause of death among young people aged 15-29. Close to 800,000 people die because of suicide every year, which is one person every 40 seconds.

In the Philippines, the age-standardized suicide rate is 5.8 for male and 1.9 for females based on the number of cases affected per sample size of 100,000 people—which means that there are more males committing suicide than females.

As founder of Man Out! Philippines Project, Suelo hopes that by advocating for men’s mental health, we can promote healthier and better relations within the community and break the social stigma that surrounds the issue: “We grow up in a society that tells us that crying is only for the weak and that it’s feminine for men to express how we feel. Hence, we end up suppressing our emotions. With Man Out! PH, a volunteer-led advocacy movement and support group, men can be vulnerable and become emotionally intelligent with a deeper sense of purpose, integrity, and accountability”.

Suelo has pioneered Pag-Amliganay: The 1st Iloilo Mental Health Summit during his term as CPUR President. As an advocate, he is the Iloilo team lead of Mental Health PH and a certified mental health first responder. He also started his own personal blog, Ilonggo Warrior, to raise mental health awareness on social media.

Centralians present during the said event include: Miekel Allen Delmoro, a Multi-Awarded Fitness Champion, Stance Mitchell, Co-Founder of Barista Street Workout and Mr. Earth Philippines Water Kevin Escopel.

Men who are interested to join the support group are encouraged to like the Ilonggo Warrior page on Facebook for more details or join the FB group page Man Out PH Project.

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cobdrspadvocacy · 6 years

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The Utah Death Penalty

Not all death row prisoners are executed against their will. Some prisoners opt to drop all of their appeals and become “volunteers.”

One of the most infamous of these volunteers is Gary Gilmore of Utah. A notorious volunteer, he was executed by firing squad in 1977. His was the first execution after the United States Supreme Court reinstated the penalty after a brief repeal.

Gilmore was …

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#COB_DRSP #death penalty #Death Row Support Project #death row support project advocacy #DRSP #Governor Gary Herbert #no death penalty #Not in my name #Utah

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itsfinancethings · 4 years

Link

April 03, 2020 at 09:13PM

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Oxygen (@oxygen) on Mar 17, 2020 at 3:48pm PDT

Read more: Amid Growing Support Campaign, Texas Death Row Inmate Rodney Reed’s Planned Execution Has Been Stayed. Here’s What You Need to Know

#IFTTT #Blogger

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maxwellyjordan · 4 years

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Wednesday round-up

The justices have one oral argument on their agenda this morning, in Lomax v. Ortiz-Marquez, about whether dismissal without prejudice for failure to state a claim counts as a “strike” under a federal statute that limits prisoners’ ability to file lawsuits without paying the filing fees. Margo Schlanger previewed the case for this blog. Emma Horne and Nicole Jaeckel have a preview at Cornell Law School’s Legal Information Institute.

Yesterday, the justices boosted their disposition rate for the term, releasing opinions in four cases. In Hernandez v. Mesa, the court held 5-4 that the family of a Mexican teenager who was killed by a U.S. Border Patrol agent in a cross-border shooting cannot sue the officer for damages under the Constitution. Amy Howe has this blog’s opinion analysis, which was first published at Howe on the Court. At Fox News, Ronn Blitzer and Bill Mears report that the court held that “precedent regarding lawsuits against officers, known as ‘Bivens claims,’ does not apply to cross-border shootings’: [Justice Samuel] Alito noted the high standard of extending Bivens to a ‘new context’ and gave several reasons why it was inappropriate in this case.” At Capitol Media Services (via the Arizona Capitol Times), Howard Fischer reports that “Tuesday’s ruling is virtually certain to quash a nearly identical lawsuit filed by Araceli Rodriguez following the 2012 shooting death of her son, Jose Antonio Elena Rodriguez.” For The New York Times, Adam Liptak reports that “[i]n a concurring opinion, Justice Thomas, joined by Justice Gorsuch, called on the court to overrule the Bivens decision entirely.” Additional coverage comes from Kevin Daley at The Washington Free Beacon.

At PrawfsBlawg, Howard Wasserman notes that “[i]f any case not on all factual fours with Bivens represents a new context, the majority gets where Justice Thomas wants to go, without the political cost of overrulings.” At Vox, Ian Millhiser argues that “[t]he Supreme Court’s decision in Hernández transforms the Bill of Rights into a paper tiger in many cases involving law enforcement overreach.” Tuan Samahon wonders at PrawfsBlawg whether “[a]fter Hernandez, … Congress [is] ready yet to codify Bivens.” Kym Stapleton discusses the opinion at Crime & Consequences.

In another 5-4 decision, the court ruled against a death-row inmate in McKinney v. Arizona, holding that a court of appeals, not a jury, can reweigh aggravating and mitigating circumstances on collateral review. This blog’s opinion analysis comes from Amy Howe, in a post that first appeared at Howe on the Court. At Crime & Consequences, Kent Scheidegger writes that “[a] great deal of post-conviction litigation in capital cases consists of claims that some marginally relevant mitigating evidence, often with no connection to the crime, was erroneously omitted from the sentencing process,” and that “[a]llowing the state collateral review court to say ‘even assuming that was an error, the aggravating still outweighs the mitigating, and the sentence is still proper’ would go a long way toward mooting those claims relatively early in the process.”

In Monasky v. Taglieri, the court ruled unanimously that under the Hague Convention on international abductions, a child’s “habitual residence” depends on the totality of the circumstances, not on categorical requirements such as an actual agreement between the parents. Amy Howe analyzes the opinion for this blog, in a post that first appeared at Howe on the Court. In another unanimous ruling, Rodriguez v. FDIC, the court held that a judicially created rule about how courts should determine ownership of a tax refund paid to an affiliated corporate group is not a legitimate exercise of federal common law rulemaking, and sent the case back for the lower courts to apply state law.

Adam Liptak reports for The New York Times that during yesterday’s argument in United States v. Sineneng-Smith, the court “seemed doubtful that a 1986 federal law that makes it a crime to ‘encourage’ unauthorized immigrants to come to or stay in the United States could be squared with the First Amendment.” At Education Week’s School Law Blog, Mark Walsh reports that “[t]he lively hour-long argument … touched on the roles of sanctuary cities and advocacy groups in aiding undocumented immigrants, as well as other areas in which speech inducing someone to commit a legal violation might be at issue.” For The Wall Street Journal (subscription required), Jess Bravin reports that “[s]everal justices questioned whether the statute could be read more narrowly, limiting its application to clearly criminal conduct and sparing the court from having to strike down the law as unconstitutional.” At the Constitutional Law Prof Blog, Ruthann Robson observes that the argument “criss-cross[ed] the lines between conduct and speech, between criminal law and the First Amendment, and between constitutional avoidance and judicial ability to redraft a statute.”

Noah Sachs analyzes Monday’s argument in U.S. Forest Service v. Cowpasture River Preservation Association, involving the power of the Forest Service to grant rights of way through lands traversed by the Appalachian Trail, for this blog. Ellen Gilmer reports at Bloomberg Environment that “[t]he Atlantic Coast pipeline appears likely to clear a major legal hurdle after a majority of Supreme Court justices seemed to lean in favor of allowing the project to cross the Appalachian Trail.” At E&E News, Niina Farah reports that, although the outcome “will remain unknown until the Supreme Court issues its opinion in the coming months, legal experts said they largely expect the justices to overturn a lower court’s finding that the Forest Service could not authorize the trail crossing.” [Disclosure: Goldstein & Russell, P.C., whose attorneys contribute to this blog in various capacities, is counsel on an amicus brief in support of the respondents in this case.]

At Fox News, Edmund DeMarche reports that “[i]n a remarkable public rebuke, President Trump late Monday called on Supreme Court justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg to recuse themselves from any cases involving his administration over their past comments.” Robert Barnes and Ashley Parker report for The Washington Post (subscription required) that “Trump interpreted as biased a dissent from Sotomayor about his administration’s tendency to seek emergency interventions from the Supreme Court” and “[h]e reminded Ginsburg of remarks she made about him as a candidate in 2016, for which she has expressed regret.” Mark Sherman reports at AP that “[j]ustices decide for themselves when to step aside from cases the court is considering, and it is highly unlikely either justice would sit out cases involving Trump, including two cases the court will hear on March 31 over subpoenas for Trump’s tax, bank and financial records.” At The Washington Free Beacon, Kevin Daley reports that “[t]he justices generally do not disclose why they remove themselves from particular cases, though reasons are sometimes readily identifiable.” At the Constitutional Law Prof Blog, Ruthann Robson comments on ‘[t]he seemingly persistent question of the type of bias of SCOTUS Justices that should merit recusal.”

Briefly:

At the Brennan Center for Justice, Andrew Cohen weighs in on the court’s decision last week to allow the federal government to enforce a new “public charge” rule limiting noncitizens’ access to green cards, the case that triggered Sotomayor’s dissent, arguing that the court has “already has declared itself in Trump’s camp this term, over and over again, using stay procedures as both a shield and a sword for the administration, without paying much of a price in terms of its institutional credibility.”

Ian Millhiser writes at Vox that Fulton v. Philadelphia, a challenge to Philadelphia’s exclusion of Catholic Social Services from the city’s foster care system because the group will not place children with same-sex couples that the court will hear next term, “is a significant escalation from most of the Supreme Court’s previous cases asking when religious people may seek an exemption from the law.”

We rely on our readers to send us links for our round-up. If you have or know of a recent (published in the last two or three days) article, post, podcast or op-ed relating to the Supreme Court that you’d like us to consider for inclusion in the round-up, please send it to roundup [at] scotusblog.com. Thank you!

The post Wednesday round-up appeared first on SCOTUSblog.

from Law https://www.scotusblog.com/2020/02/wednesday-round-up-513/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

#law #justice

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archeyesmagazine · 4 years

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American architect Philip Johnson designed in 1969 the John Fitzgerald Kennedy Memorial as a thoughtful piece of art intended for reflection and remembrance. Johnson’s design is a “cenotaph,” or open tomb, that symbolizes the freedom of John F. Kennedy’s spirit.

JFK Memorial Square Information

Architects: Philip Johnson

Location: West End Historic District, Dallas, Texas

Material: Concrete and Granite

Typology: Cultural Architecture / Memorial

Scale : 50x50x30 ft (15x15x9,1m)

Project Year : 1969-1970

Drawings and Photographs: © Leonid Furmansky

A place of quiet refuge, an enclosed place of thought and contemplation separated from the city around, but near the sky and earth.

– Philip Johnson

Kennedy Memorial Plaza Photographs

The John F. Kennedy Memorial was the first memorial by American architect and Kennedy family friend Philip Johnson, and was approved by Jacqueline Kennedy. Dallas raised $200,000 for the memorial by August 1964, entirely from 50,000 individual donations contributed by private citizens. The simple concrete memorial lies approximately 200 yards (180 m) east of Dealey Plaza, where Kennedy was assassinated.

Philip Johnson’s design is a cenotaph, or empty tomb, that symbolizes the freedom of Kennedy’s spirit. The structure is a square, roofless room, 30 feet (9.1 m) tall and 50 by 50 feet (15 by 15 m) square with two narrow openings facing north and south. The walls consist of 72 white precast concrete columns, most of which end 29 inches (740 mm) above the earth. Eight columns (two in each corner) extend to the ground, acting as legs that support the monument. Each column ends in a light fixture. At night, the lights create the illusion that the structure is supported by the light itself. The corners and “doors” of this roofless room are decorated with rows of concrete circles, or medallions, each identical and perfectly aligned. These decorations introduce the circular shape into the square architecture of the Kennedy Memorial.

The cenotaph lies atop a low concrete hill, embossed with squares and slightly elevated compared to street level. Inside is a low block of dark granite, 8 feet (2.4 m) square, set into a larger shallow depression. The granite square is decorated on its north and south faces with the name “John Fitzgerald Kennedy” carved in gold letters. The letters have been painted gold to capture the light from the white floating column walls and the pale concrete floor.

Dallas commemorated the 30th anniversary of the Kennedy Memorial with a comprehensive conservation treatment that restored the monument to its original vitality. With the support of the City of Dallas and Dallas County, the Museum launched a full-scale restoration project in the summer of 1999. Philip Johnson guided the restoration process, which was implemented by Phoenix I Restoration and Construction Ltd. Numerous local suppliers donated the labor, materials and equipment required to return the memorial to its original beauty.

Epitaph

Two dark granite squares are set in the plaza surrounding the memorial, each approximately 50 feet (15 m) from the narrow entrances to the cenotaph. They are each inscribed with an epitaph that reads:

The joy and excitement of John Fitzgerald Kennedy’s life belonged to all men.

So did the pain and sorrow of his death.

When he died on November 22, 1963, shock and agony touched human conscience throughout the world. In Dallas, Texas, there was a special sorrow.

The young President died in Dallas. The death bullets were fired 200 yards west of this site.

This memorial, designed by Philip Johnson, was erected by the people of Dallas. Thousands of citizens contributed support, money and effort.

It is not a memorial to the pain and sorrow of death, but stands as a permanent tribute to the joy and excitement of one man’s life.

John Fitzgerald Kennedy’s life.

— Jim Lehrer, journalist

About Philip Johnson

Philip Johnson was a renowned American architect who is particularly known for his postmodern work. Postmodern architecture signifies the return of “wit, ornament and reference” to architecture. His zeal for architecture was such that he made its advocacy his lifelong aim; he did so through his works, writings, and words. Though not the father of modern architecture, he certainly was its best progeny.

Kennedy Memorial Plaza Image Gallery

#gallery-0-4 { margin: auto; } #gallery-0-4 .gallery-item { float: left; margin-top: 10px; text-align: center; width: 25%; } #gallery-0-4 img { border: 2px solid #cfcfcf; } #gallery-0-4 .gallery-caption { margin-left: 0; } /* see gallery_shortcode() in wp-includes/media.php */

Aerial

Interior

Other works from Philip Johnson

John F. Kennedy Memorial Plaza in Dallas by Philip Johnson American architect Philip Johnson designed in 1969 the John Fitzgerald Kennedy Memorial as a thoughtful piece of art intended for reflection and remembrance.

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feetglider2-blog · 5 years

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The Driver’s Side” – News From The Motorist’s Perspective

Compiled by Otto Mobile

Your transportation related headlines for Tuesday, October 30th, 2018

CHICAGO, CHICAGOLAND, ILLINOIS HEADLINES

THE EXPIRED METER’S HALLOWEEN SAFETY TIPS FOR DRIVERS, TRICK OR TREATERS; CHICAGO POLICE HALLOWEEN SAFETY TIPS; SAFETY CONCERNS FOR PETS ON HALLOWEEN

IDOT INCOMPETENCE STRIKES AGAIN — IN A MASTERPIECE OF MISERABLE MISMANAGEMENT AND CONSTRUCTION CLUSTERFUCKERY, EVEN MORE LANES TO BE CLOSED ON THE INBOUND EISENHOWER, STRANGLING INBOUND TRAFFIC UNTIL NEXT YEAR, SUPPOSEDLY NECESSARY TO ALLOW WORK ON JANE BYRNE INTERCHANGE – WBBM AM 780 NEWS RADIO CHICAGO

‘I Was Afraid For His Life,’ Good Samaritan Recounts Saving Man From CTA Blue Line Tracks In Logan Square – CBS 2 Chicago

A MOMENT OF SCHADENFREUDE: Redflex, The Crooked Company At The Center Of Chicago’s Red Light Camera Bribery Scandal, Has Now Lost Money For 5 Consecutive Years – The Newspaper

ONLY IN ILLINOIS IS GOVERNMENT THIS AGGRESSIVELY STUPID — After The State Closed All Of The Auto Emissions Testing Sites On The North Side, One Of Them Is Now A Tesla Parking Lot – Block Club Chicago — Any Guesses How Much Additional Carbon Was Released Into The Air, As Tens Of Thousands Of Cars Have Had To Be Driven To The Suburbs And Back For Emissions Tests

Chicago Has Had 38 Expressway Shootings This Year, Wounding 23, Killing 4 – Chicago Tribune

Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle And States Attorney Kim Foxx’s ‘COOK COUNTY CARJACKAPALOOZA’ — West Town Armed Carjacking Captured On Surveillance Video – Block Club Chicago

Man Dies After Being Dragged Underneath A Car By A Hit-And-Run Driver For About Seven Blocks In East Chatham – WBBM AM 780 News Radio Chicago; Streetsblog Somehow Blames The Street Instead Of The Reckless Driver – Chicago Streetsblog

Motorcycle-Advocacy Group ABATE Pulls Support For Gov. Bruce Rauner Over Autonomous Vehicles Order – Chicago Tribune

Chicago Daily Herald Transportation Writer, Marni Pyke: O’Hare Will Open A New Multi Modal Facility With Consolidated Car Rentals And Parking On Wednesday – Chicago Daily Herald

Uber, Divvy Offer Free Rides On Election Day – Chicago Sun-Times

IDOT Worker Fixes Flat Tire On The Eisenhower, Saves Chicago Engagement Date – Chicago Tribune

Walter Payton’s Porsche Sells For $324,500 At Auction – Chicago Tribune

Obama Has One Of The Most Successful Charity Fundraising Operations – Crain’s Chicago Business — So Why Is He Looting The Illinois Treasury For $200M To Pay For Destroying Commuter Roads To Build His Cult Of Personality Compound, On Public Land He Is Getting For Free In Jackson Park; Chicago Tribune Editorial: Protect Our Parks’ Lawsuit May Kill The Obama Center – Chicago Tribune

River North Mega-Tall Project, With 869 Units, Retail, And 1,100 Parking Spaces Will Start Construction In January – Curbed Chicago — Developers Will Fund Street Improvements

Active Transportation Alliance Cheers CDOT Plan To Put Buses And Bikes In Same Lane On Halsted Street — What Could Go Wrong – Active Transportation Alliance

Reagan, The Contras, And The Orange Line — A CTA Route’s Curious Backstory – Chicago Tribune

Chicago’s Proposed ‘Mansion Tax’ May Turn Off High-End Buyers, Brokers Argue – Crain’s Chicago Business

Developer Behind Failed High-Rise Plan Moves To Tear Down Historic Row Houses Near Mag Mile — Again – Block Club Chicago

These Chicago Public Artworks Will Give You Nightmares – Chicago Magazine

Here’s The 60-Foot Christmas Tree That Will Decorate Millennium Park This Winter – Block Club Chicago

Privatize Chicago’s Port? Maybe Not – Crain’s Chicago Business

Kane County’s Unique Mobile Vote RV Makes A Stop In Elgin – Chicago Tribune

Oak Park Project Includes Pete’s Fresh Market, 116 Space Parking Lot – Chicago Tribune

Don’t Give Up On South Suburban Airport, Speaker Tells Crowd In Lansing – Chicago Tribune

From Underground Railroad To Cross Country Highways, South Suburban Sauk Trail Represents ‘History Of Movement,’ Historian Says – Chicago Tribune

Online Retail Giant Amazon Is Opening A Distribution Center In Elgin – Chicago Tribune

Glen Ellyn Rallies Around Own Parade Fixture ‘Superman’ In His Time Of Need – Chicago Daily Herald

Pilot Says Crash Into Camp Lake In Kenosha ‘No Big Deal’, Authorities Say Otherwise – WBBM AM 780 News Radio Chicago

Police Searching For SUV Used In Restaurant Owner’s Fatal Shooting – WBBM AM 780 News Radio Chicago

Schaumburg Man Pleads Not Guilty To Crashing Into Hanover Park Squad While Drunk – Chicago Daily Herald

2 Men Charged After East St. Louis Officer Chasing Them Fell To His Death From Bridge – Chicago Daily Herald

CHIRAQ REPORT — 6 Shot In Chicago Monday Shootings – Chicago Sun-Times; Sunday Was The Second Most Violent Day Of The Year In Chicago: At Least 26 People Shot – Chicago Tribune; Panel Rejects Plan For Elected Civilian Board To Oversee CPD – Chicago Sun-Times; Off-Duty CPD Detective Found Dead Of Suicide At Garfield Ridge Home – Chicago Sun-Times; Superintendent Defends $95 Million Plan For New Chicago Police Academy – Chicago Tribune

2 Shot, 1 Critically Wounded, While Driving In Englewood – Chicago Sun-Times

Boy, 17, Hurt In Humboldt Park Drive-By Shooting – Chicago Sun-Times

Willowbrook Man Headed To Prison For 2017 Fatal Hit And Run – Chicago Daily Herald

Officer, 2nd Driver Hurt When Squad Car Gets In Crash On Near North Side – Chicago Tribune

3 Children Fatally Struck, Another Injured In Crash At School Bus Stop In Indiana – WBBM AM 780 News Radio Chicago

11 Cars Involved In Massive Wreck On U.S. 30 That Ended In Chuck E Cheese’s Parking Lot – The Times Of Northwest Indiana

Car Crashes Into Cary Funeral Home, Area Evacuated Due To Gas Leak – Chicago Daily Herald

NATIONAL AND WORLD HEADLINES

Socialist San Francisco Declares War On Parking – San Francisco — As If That’s The Biggest Problem In A City Where Streets Have Become Outdoor Toilets/Drug Markets

Mississippi Court Tells Deputy He Can’t Lie About Reasons For A Traffic Stop And Expect To Keep His Evidence – Tech Dirt

Share Of Pedestrian Deaths Attributable To SUVs On The Rise – National Motorists Association Blog

Study Finds Drivers Trust Active Safety Tech But Are Unaware Of Limitations – The Car Connection

The Death Spiral Of Bloated Public Transit – Governing; How Boosters Of Failing Transit Are Cynically Using Race As The Issue To Bail It Out – City Lab

The Downside Of Privately Run Infrastructure – Governing

NHTSA’s Proposed Rule Change Should Help Tame Headlights – Automotive News

Gimme Smartphone Experience, Car Buyers Say – Ward’s Auto

Trucking Industry: Driver Shortage Again Ranks No. 1 Industry Issue, With Hours Of Service Right Behind – Commercial Carrier Journal

Oil Companies Fighting Washington State Carbon Tax – Governing

The Politicized Climate Change War Of State Attorney Generals Against The Oil Industry – The Hill; The Case For Taxpayer-Funded Frivolous Climate Change Lawsuits – Governing

GM Says It Favors Fuel-Efficiency Rules Based On Historic Rates – Autoblog

Automakers Fight Trump’s Auto Emissions Rollback – The Hill

CEO Mary Barra Wants People To Think Of GM As A Tech Company – Detroit News

Ford Results Are Surprisingly Good, With 1 Huge Exception: China – The Motley Fool

Harley-Davidson To Recall Nearly 178K Bikes To Fix Clutches – U.S. News & World Report

Elon Musk: I’m Now The Nothing Of Tesla – The Hill

Tesla Publishes The Parts Catalog For Its Electric Cars – Engadget

We’ve Been Talking About Self-Driving Car Safety All Wrong – WIRED

Editorial: Does AI Ethics For Automated Cars Need To Be More Inclusive – Forbes

California: AI-Powered Micro-Grocer Brings Autonomous Grocery Delivery To Bay Area – Progressive Grocer

VW To Launch Autonomous Ride-Hailing Service Using EVs – Car Scoops

Natural Gas Vehicle Groups Fight For Regulatory Changes – Next-Gen Transportation

Federal Trade Commission Approves Settlement With Uber Over Customer Data – Electronic Privacy Information Center

Pizza Hut Prototype: Robot Chef In Pickup Truck Could Slice Delivery Times – Chicago Tribune

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Source: http://theexpiredmeter.com/2018/10/the-drivers-side-news-from-the-motorists-perspective-812/

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daveblume · 6 years

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Don’t Look Away

Speech to the Museum of Social Justice’s annual Tardeada event, September 29, 2018.

The Brazilian economist-turned documentary photographer Sebastiao Salgado said, “I have never put myself in a situation where I have a moral question about whether or not to photograph, such as ‘Do I have a right to photograph when the death is there in front of me, the suffering is there in front of me? ’I never ask these questions, because I asked myself the more important questions before I arrived there. Do we have the right to the division of resources that we have in the world? Do I have the right to eat when others don’t eat?” This philosophy has informed my approach to documentary work from my college days, through my years working in Africa, on up to the present.

One of the biggest challenges when presuming to represent life’s various “marginalized” populations or communities, is not the act of seeing, or of wanting to be there, listening, watching, empathizing, commiserating, and collecting images and anecdotes. Ultimately it is in the editing, curation and display where the work is given form and context. This is why it has been a unique pleasure to work with the Museum of Social Justice staff and board members.

One of Us grew out of a collaboration with then-director Wade Trimmer of the SFVRM, who suggested that I visit sites where their mobile shower unit went in the early morning hours. From there it was a matter of gaining permission from the respective directors of MEND Poverty in San Fernando, North Valley Caring Services in North Hills, St. Charles Borromeo Church in North Hollywood, and the Living Praise Christian Church in Chatsworth, to introduce myself to those who would come to these facilities for breakfast, a shower, maybe some fresh clothing, and hopefully some supportive human contact. Asking them if they wanted to sit for portraits and interviews required gaining trust, and trying to reassure them that this was not just another variation on the media stereotyping that many of the people I spoke to were painfully wary of. Those who agreed to speak and sit for portraits tended to be among the people who sensed that their participation might help lead to some improvement in their condition, or a softening of the critical way society in general looks at them, and in so many cases, treats them as outcasts, even untouchables. I’m grateful to each one of these people, as well as the group of homeless friends along the 405 freeway in North Hills that I have become close with over the past few years , including Terry and Aimee, Lynda, Gracie, Craig, and a revolving cast of others who have come and gone, sometimes to prison, sometimes temporarily into shelter, sometimes just gone. Visiting them regularly on my bicycle, whether just hanging out and talking or documenting their endless survival strategies as they engaged in a cruel game of cat and mouse with law enforcement, was an education in itself. Witnessing their struggles with endemic poverty, their prospects of ever rising above their circumstances compromised by whatever mental, physical or dependence issues they were dealing with, I always leave their company with a profound sense of their humanity, even generosity of spirit. I often think of something Manny Flores told my students when they interviewed him: “I’ve come to realize that homelessness is like a disease. The longer you have it the harder it becomes to cure.” But that doesn’t make someone any less human. We all know people that have these same afflictions but are not homeless, and that this overgeneralization of equating the homeless with mental illness and addiction is a false equivalency.

With Manny Flores

I carried two books with me in 1987, when I moved to Kenya run the information department for an NGO called InterAid International; James Agee and Walker Evans’ Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, which still serves as a crucible and a vital check on one’s ego while engaged in advocacy work, and William Stott’s Documentary Expression in Thirties America. Stott wrote something that I would like to share: “That the world can be improved and yet must be celebrated as it is are contradictions. The beginning of maturity may be the recognition that both are true.”

This reminds me of Father Arnold Grol, a Roman Catholic parish priest and a fixture in Nairobi's slums and streets for nearly 30 years, until his death at 73 in 1997. In 1975 he started the Undugu Society, an organization that still works today with the urban poor, and especially street children. From the time I arrived in Kenya and started photographing the street kids out of personal interest, we would cross paths occasionally in the streets and alleys, and I eventually joined forces with Undugu in 1992, running their Information Department during my last two years in Africa.

Fr. Grol was as comfortable in the alleys as I was; the difference being he was also at home in the boardrooms, involved in a lot of his own fundraising. He once told me, as we talked about the frustrations we shared at the lack of civic concern and empathy for the street kids, "The point where we have failed is that we have not involved the rich people; we have not made clear to those who have money, and especially big firms, that money is there to be a little bit equally distributed. I'm not against big salaries, but what I am against is that when you get the big salary you use it in order to buy your third or fourth car, your third or fourth house, or a private plane. In my own family, I've had people who only lived for money. I don't know one of them who only lived for his personal pleasure and money that has become happy. Those who shared their big salaries-- not giving half away, but a reasonable sum-- they are the ones who are the happiest."

Advocating on behalf of the street kids and others was an extraordinarily formative time in my life. The daily experiences, the endless frustrations tempered by the small victories and shared moments of humanity… I don’t think anyone in this room could feel any different than I did when a small barefoot girl, part of a gaggle of kids who were following me around near the city market one day, tapped me on my back and returned half of a mandarin I had just given her. Such a simple act, but one that puts to shame those with plenty who refuse to share. More frequently though I watched a loaf of bread fall in pieces to the ground as two ravenously hungry boys fought over it, or listened through the door in guilty horror as a group of boys were beaten in a police station after I reported them for breaking into the trunk of my car and stealing a laptop.

As I like to say, “don’t look away.” You never know when you will be able to reach someone and help them to a better place, or at least give them hope. That’s what Undugu did so well. One street girl named Mercy Gichengi was helped out of the particularly dangerous conditions and circumstances that the girls faced in the streets, and lived for a time in a home we rented in a rural village named Rioki. Years later as I was editing together the book on Africa (that is finally being printed), we reconnected on social media; I learned that after being helped through school, Mercy went all the way to higher education, and today she is involved in a number of development initiatives related to urban poverty and women. Mercy was kind enough to write something about her experiences for my book, the horrific details of which I decided not to include in this speech because I am still not able to read through them dry-eyed.

I couldn’t be prouder of anyone that I am of Mercy Gichengi today, and so happy to learn she rose above the conditions I was compelled to write editorials and other essays about, advocating for the protection of these children from government policies and the conditions in remand homes and prisons which directly violated not only the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, but Kenya’s own Child Law Project Children’s Act.

So all of this informed my worldview when I moved back to Los Angeles in 1994, almost immediately drawn to Skid Row and other places where homelessness had taken hold. Photographing for the LA Reader, I met Ted Hayes in Justiceville, the utopian dome city that he had started in what is now the LA Live part of the city. His vision was overrun by economic realities, and looking back I think now that this was a squandered opportunity; his concept wasn’t embraced and replicated, instead it was allowed to fizzle out.

The criminalization of poverty is a recurring theme. During a particularly harsh raid of their encampment in North Hills in December 2016, orchestrated between city and county agencies, I received a text message from Gracie urging me to rush down to the freeway— which I did in time to see several of them in handcuffs, hauled off to the courts and prison system, only to gradually, one-by-one, return to the same location where they were supposedly banned from. An exercise in futility and shortsightedness…

I think it says a lot when I receive comments from old friends like John Muiruri, who was one of many selfless social workers at Undugu back in the day, responding a few days ago to a photograph I posted on social media, of a homeless woman holding a sign essentially begging for food and shelter: “It hurts to see people sleep outside and hungry while so much space is available.” This from a man who has worked for decades with street children and the dirt-poor residents of some of Africa’s most desolate slum communities. It’s sobering to recall how the people of Rioki welcomed those street girls into their village, and into their schools, with the headmaster telling me that they were excellent students, “just like any other children.” If only our NIMBY hard-liners could demonstrate the same open-heartedness to their less fortunate neighbors.

But here we are. In light of the fact that this city waited too long to tackle homelessness with the resources that are surely available, we cannot now depend on the real estate profiteers and political operatives under their sway to somehow fix an intractable problem that is essentially baked into the cake of our “ownership society,” and so it falls on everyone to pitch in, and watch in awe as outreach workers venture into the encampments to meet the dispossessed head on, and dedicated activists fight tooth and nail for every concession regarding bridge housing, safe parking, and other crumbs that fall slowly off the table.

I’ll finish with one more thought from Salgado, who declared that “The most interesting function of this kind of photography is exactly this: to show and to provoke debate and to see how we can go ahead with our lives. The photographer must participate in this debate.”Thank you to the Museum of Social Justice, to all the activists and other Change Agents, and to the members of the homeless community for giving me access and allowing me to participate in the debate, even though I tend to agree that “Humanitarian imagery,”as the historian Heide Fehrenbach has suggested, “is moral rhetoric masquerading as visual evidence.” With this in mind, I encourage everyone to read and listen to the stories in the One of Us collection with as much interest as you might study their faces and living conditions. Simply bringing these photographs to your attention is not enough—there’s no shortage of dramatic imagery of human suffering, and without their stories, these images are in my mind even less than moral rhetoric, they promote a brand of voyeurism and spectacle, even entertainment, that led the Kenyan author and social critic Binyavanga Wainaina to coin the term “poverty porn,”a phrase akin to the “poverty pimping”coined by Skid Row’s General Jeff Page to describe the well-meaning but misguided efforts being made to combat urban poverty and homelessness in Los Angeles. I often wonder how it would look to have the collective force of corporate philanthropy married to the most idealistic vision of social engineering possible.

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dangeroussheepbread-blog · 6 years

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Abortions in Nigeria are legally restricted unsafe вЂ“ and common Al Jazeera America

Abortions in Nigeria are legally restricted, unsafe вЂ“ and common

In the West African country, unsafe abortions are a major cause of maternal death

LAGOS, Nigeria вЂ” Bunmi Aiyenuro slips through the cramped alleys and crowded marketplaces that twist through her neighborhood. Mostly, her impeccable manners and quiet demeanor help her fade into the mass of vendors and pedestrians. But every so often, she runs into teenage boys catcalling her or clashes with an uncle, her evening walk devolving into a screaming match next to the train tracks.

Aiyenuro grew up in Badia East, a crowded slum tucked off a Lagos highway, hugging a rail line. The neighborhood is dense and urban, and Aiyenuro has learned to negotiate the frenetic scene. But at 23, she is still learning to juggle the conflicting expectations for her as a young woman.

At 16, she fell in love with her second boyfriend, a student. They spent seven years together. Over the course of the relationship, she had seven abortions.

In Nigeria abortion is legally restricted, permitted only to save the life of the mother. But at least 760,000 abortions happen every year, mostly outside the legal parameters, and from 3,000 to 34,000 women die annually from unsafe abortions, according to reports by the Guttmacher Institute and the government of Nigeria. (The numbers range widely because of the difficulty tallying the secret procedures.) While safe abortions have a very low complication rate, unsafe ones вЂ” those performed by providers without adequate training or in a setting that does not meet medical standards вЂ” can lead to hemorrhaging, infection and perforation of the bowels or uterus and death.

Abortion providers here are part of a shadowy economy. Many are poorly trained, and the market is unregulated. But while abortions are secret, they happen all the time and across the social spectrum. Some wealthy Nigerians can access and afford skilled doctors; many poor women like Aiyenuro are left with dangerous, cut-rate quacks.

In the United States, where abortions are legal, there are 0.6 deaths for every 100,000 procedures; in sub-Saharan Africa, the rate is 460 deaths per 100,000 procedures, according to Guttmacher. Africa has a higher abortion rate than the U.S., despite restrictive laws in most countries. Across the continent there were 29 abortions per 1,000 women in 2008, compared with 19 in the U.S., Guttmacher figures show.

Nigeria has one of the highest rates of maternal death in the world, with 545 per 100,000 live births in 2008, though estimates vary. In Lagos, abortions cause half of the deaths of pregnant women, according to the Campaign Against Unwanted Pregnancy, an advocacy group.

"We all know that septic abortion precisely has a lot of impact on maternal mortality in Nigeria," said Dr. Bose Adeniron, head of the reproductive-health division at the Federal Ministry of Health.В

Abiodun Ibrahim lives in Badia East, a slum built on a marshy landfill. She is four months pregnant and newly homeless. The man she calls her husband is in prison. In a country where abortions are legally restricted and often unsafe, dealing with an unwanted pregnancy is particularly difficult.В

Watch a slideshow of women in Badia East and read more here.В

But aside from a few abortion-rights activists who are pressing to promote safer conditions and to liberalize laws state by state, abortion remains taboo. Reproductive-health activists are reluctant to discuss the issue for fear of undermining progress in other areas, such as access to contraception.

Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan last year pledged $33 million to increase funding for contraceptives and push states to provide free contraception in public clinics. But that program generated controversy, with Catholic organizations calling for the money to be redirected to education and other health issues.

This summer, meanwhile, the southern state of Imo passed a law that would have permitted abortion in cases of rape, incest or mental or physical health consequences for the mother. Abortion-rights activists considered this policy a victory. But after intense lobbying by the Catholic Medical Practitioners Association, the state assembly repealed the law.

Along with national and state laws, cultural perceptions of fertility, morality and religious obligation вЂ” Nigeria is the second-most religious country in the world, according to a 2012 Gallup poll вЂ” have created a deep stigma around abortion.

Clinics and pharmacies provide abortions that are paid for under the table. In Badia East, women can buy abortifacients from herbalists hawking homemade remedies or from drug vendors with pharmacies crammed into baskets on their heads. Women also go to clinics, but the low price they pay there (typically $12.64 to $31.64) is an indication that the service will be substandard and may lead to long-term pain, infertility or other complications.

"The one person who will do it for really cheap is the quack, and he will cause the abortion complications," says Olasurubomi Ogedengbe, a professor and consultant ob-gyn at the public Lagos University Teaching Hospital.

Aiyenuro has been living in a clinic вЂ” an open-air concrete structure run as an informal community center called Better Life вЂ” since she and nearly 9,000 of her neighbors were evicted from their homes to make way for a new housing project. She unrolls her mattress and lies down with dozens of other displaced people. She tries for privacy in hallways and corners, so when she speaks of her abortions, her voice and gaze drop in secrecy.

Both of her parents died when she was young, she says, so she depends on an unstable tapestry of friends and extended family. Before that, she depended on her boyfriend, who supported her and made the decisions in their relationship, including when to have her abortions and where she would go.

He paid $18.87 for each of her procedures, on the lower end of the scale. She declined to say where she got them done but described it as a clinic. The health worker suspended her legs, then, she said, "pumped" out her uterus and gave injections for the pain and antibiotics. Aiyenuro most likely had a manual vacuum-aspiration procedure, which is a suctioning of the uterus and, from the rate she paid, most likely was not seen by a doctor.

She said that, in between her abortions, she never used contraceptives. In fact, she said she didn't know what contraception was. While it seems implausible that an urban woman who studied to sixth grade, speaks English and styles hair around the city wouldn't know about birth control, only half of young Nigerian women surveyed in a 2005 study had heard of contraception. While almost two-thirds had had sex, only 11 percent had ever used contraceptives. Contraceptives are free at government health centers, and the rate of contraceptive use has crept upward, but it remains in the midteens.

After Aiyenuro's seven abortions, her boyfriend decided he was finally ready to have a baby with her. But after two miscarriages, he lost patience. "After the miscarriage, he started hating me, beating me, talking to me anyhow because I didn't have the pregnancy," she said. He left her and started dating her best friend.

Terminating her pregnancies was never her idea, Aiyenuro said. "I wanted the baby, but my boyfriend didn't want it. We had a big quarrel about it. He said if I don't go remove it, I would raise the baby by myself."

For many Nigerian women, providing their partner with children is a central role in their lives. Fear of long-term infertility, meanwhile, surfaces regularly in family-planning and abortion debates.

Adeniron said this is a key reason abortions are controversial and secret. "If a woman continues to do that, eventually when she gets married legally, she may not be able to have children, so there is a lot of stigma attached to it," she said.

"It's the cultural setting," she said. And a huge part of the culture is the country's boisterous religiosity.

In Lagos, churches and mosques dot almost every street, and services can be heard every day of the week. In addition to influencing politics, religion plays a central role in Nigerians' daily life. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the abortion debates. One former provider, who requested anonymity, said that he quit his practice after being hounded by Pentecostal Christians, who would call and tell him he was headed to hell.

Aiyenuro has attended church for many years, if not with perfect consistency; her evangelical faith has left her with regrets about her abortions. "They say in church, 'Don't do it. Anyone who does it is a sinner,'" Aiyenuro said. She was vehement, a sense of guilt evident in her voice as she said, "I've killed an innocent soul."

Walking through the bustle of sunset in Badia, she looked fresh in her pink plaid shirt, ready for church. But when https://www.the-essays.com/professional-writing-service arrived for a prayer service, she wilted next to Kudi Okere, the pastor's wife, clad in pumps, a fitted blazer, business pants and pearls. Okere has been leading services for several years and saw Badia as a neighborhood ripe for revival. "We used to call this neighborhood Sodom and Gomorrah," Okere told Aiyenuro. "Now we call it Jesus City. We go inside there and minister to them, and some of them, their lives have changed, through the word of God." Aiyenuro listened politely.

They were chatting on a balcony just over the busy paved avenue as the sun set. The sidewalk market spilled onto the road, competing with pedestrians, SUVs and rickshaws for space.

Later, after the service started, Aiyenuro prayed in an empty row. The six rows of plastic chairs, stamped with "I love God" on their backs, were more than enough to seat the small congregation, composed of three adults, three lounging toddlers and five organizers from the Christ Embassy Church. "Abortion is no good. If you abort, you are going to hellfire," she said later. "So I'm thinking when he's praying, I'm begging God for forgiveness for my sins."

Adeniron said she felt the country would not shift its approach to abortion.

"In the life of any country there are stages," she said. "The stage (where) we are now is that, for us, abortion is illegal, although we know that a lot of abortions do occur." She said she did not think Nigeria was ready to move past that yet, though she had faith that eventually change would come and policies would liberalize. "The next stage is вЂ¦ (to) review the existing policy on (the) ground so that we will be on the same page with other countries of the world."

But not, she added, anytime soon.

The reporting of this story was supported by a grant from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.

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