Month: April 2010

Our Legacy

~ susie ~ 1 Comment

This man’s other son served in Special Forces, so he’s even more upset:

Elizabeth City, N.C. – Police say six Army Special Forces solders beat up a man at a topless bar in Elizabeth City, sending him to the emergency room with a fractured skull.

Travis Howard never expected to be in the emergency room after a night out on the town with his son Devan.

They were celebrating Devan’s 21st birthday at Headlights topless bar in Elizabeth City early Wednesday morning.

Travis says he was sitting alone at a table when out of nowhere, some soldiers in the Special Forces command out of Fort Bragg attacked him, fracturing his skull in four places

“I can remember feeling 2 punches but then my eyes were swelling shut … I don’t remember actually seeing a whole lot after that. I went to the ground with my hands to my face and had my hands covering my face and was trying to protect what I had left.”

Six soldiers are charged with assault causing serious injury. A spokesman for the Army Special Forces Command out of Fort Bragg says they had just completed training at Blackwater, also known as Xe in Moyock. One of the soldier’s stories is that Howard said something to them in the bathroom. Howard denies this.

“I don’t even know that anything that could be spoken out of one person’s mouth in a limited amount of time would warrant them getting beat to the sense of 4 or 5 skull fractures just because of something that would have come out of their mouth.”

Howard also says he suffered a broken nose, sprained neck, and a concussion. After the fight broke out, police say the soldiers left the club.

Ah yes, Blackwater. The outsourcer of choice for torture.

Philadelphia Daily News Wins Pulitzer – Company’s Up For Auction

~ susie

Yeah, the Washington Post won a bunch of Pulitzers yesterday, and so did Pro Publica, the new non-profit investigative organization. (Hank Williams won, too.) But I really have to give props to the scrappy little paper that could, my hometown paper: the Philadelphia Daily News.

Even though they’re operating in the shadow of an April 27 bankruptcy auction, and functioning with a threadbare staff, the Daily News pulled it out and won the Pulitzer prize for investigative reporting yesterday for their investigation into a squad of corrupt narcotics cops that sounded like something out of “The Shield.”

With good old-fashioned shoe-leather reporting, journalists Barbara Laker and Wendy Ruderman did a very unpopular thing – they stood up for justice, at great personal risk. This is the kind of reporting that’s all too rare today, and now they have a Pulitzer to show for it:

The newsroom was quiet this afternoon, save for the sound of a nervous editor repeatedly clicking his mouse while staring at a computer screen.

Refresh. Refresh. Refresh.

Finally, at 3 o’clock, the silence was pierced by a euphoric cry of, “YES!”

With that, word spread instantly: Daily News reporters Barbara Laker and Wendy Ruderman were named winners of the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting for the “Tainted Justice” series, their takedown of allegedly corrupt narcotics cops.

Their investigation into Officer Jeffrey Cujdik and other members of the Narcotics Field Unit began last February, when an informant told the reporters that the cops sometimes lied on search warrants.

Other serious allegations were uncovered during their reporting, which prompted an FBI investigation and numerous changes to police policy.

More than 50 convicted drug dealers are now fighting for new trials, alleging that officers fabricated evidence against them.

Laker, 52, and Ruderman, 40, are the third and fourth journalists to win a Pulitzer in the Daily News’ 85-year history.

[…] Laker and Ruderman were visibly overwhelmed by the news of their award. They hugged, laughed and jumped up and down while colleagues cheered wildly around them.

“I always felt like this is something that happens to other people, and not us,” said Laker, who joined the People Paper in 1993.

“We couldn’t have done it without our police sources, who were fantastic and who I adore,” added Ruderman, who joined the paper in 2007, following a five-year stint at the Inquirer.

[…] Daily News editor Michael Days said he believed all along that Laker and Ruderman deserved the Pulitzer Prize for the investigative work they did on “Tainted Justice.”

“They went through thousands of search warrants and knocked on hundreds of doors,” he said. “Nobody worked harder than those two.”

Because the paper is operating under the possibility of layoffs or even closure, this win was especially bittersweet:

Ruderman says winning the award is a journalist’s dream come true:

“Yeah, I feel like I can die or go into P.R. or something terrible like that. I just feel like I accomplished something that I never dreamed I’d accomplish.”

Laker agrees it’s a dream come true, but adds it’s more rewarding to give voice to the voiceless, remembering one night when she tracked down a woman who’d allegedly been sexually assaulted:

“She got out of the car and came over to me and she started to cry. And she hugged me and she said ‘I’ve been praying for this day.’ And at that one moment, I thought this is why I do what I do.”

Class War

~ susie ~ 1 Comment

I’ve been thinking lately about a story my mother told me about when she was young and worked in a bank. She said President Roosevelt was coming to town and there was going to be a downtown parade.

She said the bank bosses sternly warned the employees not to attend, and made it clear it would be frowned upon. But of course, she went anyway and was still excited about it, some six decades later.

The rich and powerful of this country have never gotten over their hatred of FDR and his New Deal policies. They fight tooth and nail about anything remotely resembling FDR’s philosophy that the poorest and weakest among us deserve our help – even when there’s not much of a resemblance.

What a great man FDR must have been, that he haunts them even today.

Turn On, Tune In

~ susie ~ 4 Comments

Maybe they’re ready to take a look at all the potential benefits:

As a retired clinical psychologist, Clark Martin was well acquainted with traditional treatments for depression, but his own case seemed untreatable as he struggled through chemotherapy and other grueling regimens for kidney cancer. Counseling seemed futile to him. So did the antidepressant pills he tried.

Nothing had any lasting effect until, at the age of 65, he had his first psychedelic experience. He left his home in Vancouver, Wash., to take part in an experiment at Johns Hopkins medical school involving psilocybin, the psychoactive ingredient found in certain mushrooms.

Scientists are taking a new look at hallucinogens, which became taboo among regulators after enthusiasts like Timothy Leary promoted them in the 1960s with the slogan “Turn on, tune in, drop out.” Now, using rigorous protocols and safeguards, scientists have won permission to study once again the drugs’ potential for treating mental problems and illuminating the nature of consciousness.

After taking the hallucinogen, Dr. Martin put on an eye mask and headphones, and lay on a couch listening to classical music as he contemplated the universe.

“All of a sudden, everything familiar started evaporating,” he recalled. “Imagine you fall off a boat out in the open ocean, and you turn around, and the boat is gone. And then the water’s gone. And then you’re gone.”

Today, more than a year later, Dr. Martin credits that six-hour experience with helping him overcome his depression and profoundly transforming his relationships with his daughter and friends. He ranks it among the most meaningful events of his life, which makes him a fairly typical member of a growing club of experimental subjects.

Researchers from around the world are gathering this week in San Jose, Calif., for the largest conference on psychedelic science held in the United States in four decades. They plan to discuss studies of psilocybin and other psychedelics for treating depression in cancer patients, obsessive-compulsive disorder, end-of-life anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder and addiction to drugs or alcohol.