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Unequal education: Is anyone listening?

The Department of Education just released its annual study on civil rights in our education system. The report, Attorney General Eric Holder summarized, "shows that racial disparities in school discipline policies are not only well-documented among older students but actually beginduring preschool." Pre-school? Yes, from preschool on, boys of color are disproportionately afflicted by suspensions and zero-tolerance policiesin school. They are more likely to be disciplined, more likely to be suspended, and more likely to be held back a grade. Suspended students are less likely to graduate on time and more likely to be suspended a second time. They are more likely to drop out, and to end up in trouble. The report shows that preschool is not a reality for much of the country, particularly in poorer districts. Where it does exist, students of color -- blacks and Latinos -- are more likely to be suspended. This has been documented repeatedly in older grades, but now we learn it starts even in preschool.

Mahoning County Earthquakes and ODNR Deja Vu all over again

March 2014 marks the third anniversary of the first reported earthquakes in the Mahoning Valley. The largest one was a magnitude 3.9. These tremors have been proven scientifically to be injection-induced earthquakes due to pumping fracking waste deep underground. March 2014 also saw twelve earthquakes at the Carbon-Limestone landfill in Poland Township, south of Lowellville, Ohio. The depths of these earthquakes were reported between 8,200 feet and 17,000 feet but the uncertainties in these values are very high. According to The Business Journal and The New York Times, Hilcorp Energy Company was fracking one of its wells at the site when the earthquakes occurred. The exact specifics regarding timing, fluid volumes and pressures have not been made public. A completion report for one of the wells puts the horizontal leg at 8,100 feet below the surface. I estimate the Precambrian basement to be an additional 1,500 feet below the well.

US Army detains journalists on American soil and destroys photos Toledo Blade sues

March 29 was just another working day for two working journalists from the Toledo Blade. They began by attending a press conference at a Ford factory in Lima, Ohio. On the way back to the office, the pair, Jetta Fraiser and Tyrel Linkhorn, were assigned to update their publication's stock photo library by taking exterior shots of industrial facilities in the area. Their trip to a Heinz ketchup plant was followed by a stop at the General Dynamics tank plant. That is where the camouflage painted face of post constitutional America raised its ugly head and the day turned sour. The conduct of the soldiers on American soil has caused Fraiser and Linkhorn's employer, the Toledo Blade to file a federal lawsuit against the army, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, and several individual soldiers.

One Rich Guy Primary

Pissed Off

People living with mental illness share many common traits. In the advocacy world, we share many of them openly. We discuss the symptoms of the illness, the uncertainty, the fear, and we share ways that people with mental illness can receive better treatment, better services, more understanding, and have better outcomes. We have another common trait that is seldom shared. We all experience it, on some level, and most of us share it only with our trusted friends and family. When we sit alone with other mentally ill people, we swap stories. That is when the true, unaltered, unpolished feelings come out. And what comes out is anger. More than anything, people with mental illness are pissed off. I am pissed off. This should not come as a surprise. The surprising thing would be if I wasn't. Pissed off should be expected. I have been discriminated against, marginalized, ignored, insulted, talked down to, and cast out by the greater society. I am viewed as defective.

Ohio Roller Girls Sail to a Double Victory Against Tri-City

 

The Ohio Roller Girls may be fresh back from a 2 and 1 charter team showing at the Quad Cities Chaos tournament in Toronto, but Canada pursued. The Tri-City Roller Girls from Kitchener-Waterloo Ontario traveled South to feel the warmth at the Lausche building in the Ohio Expo Center on April 5. A hot reception from the crowd and two very physical bouts was what they got. Their charter team, Tri-City Thunder, faced OHRG's All Stars while their B-team, Plan B, faced Ohio's Gang Green. In the end, Tri-City's Thunder was stolen and their Plan B was not a backup as OHRG claimed two definitive wins over the forty-first ranked division two team.

 

OHRG All-Stars Vs. The Tri-City Thunder

 

CONSERVANCY DISTRICT ORDERED TO RELEASE PUBLIC RECORDS

The FreshWater Accountability Project (FWAP) prevailed in court last week in a lawsuit initiated under Ohio’s Open Records Act to obtain the addresses of those who lease residential and commercial property from the Muskingum Watershed Conservancy District (MWCD). FWAP sought the records as public information in order to directly communicate with people whose property rights and values can be affected by the Muskingum District's huge lease deals for oil and gas fracking on public lands around the District's reservoirs. The MWCD denied the public records and lost the issue in court. The Fifth District Court of Appeals courts fined the MWCD and awarded attorney fees to FWAP as plaintiff.

Barrett Brown plea a symptom of government harassment of journalists

On April Fool’s Day, Wired magazine reported that long imprisoned journalist Barrett Brown had accepted a plea agreement. Brown's pending case on hacking charges that many called flimsy at best. The best-selling author of Flock of Dodos: Behind Modern Creationism, Intelligent Design and the Easter Bunny, Brown was facing over 100 years for posting a link in a chat room. The link was to a list of clients of the defense and intelligence firm Stratfor that included some credit card information. None of the information linked to publicly and openly by Brown was used to defraud anyone.

Brown is accused of posting the link in a chat room used by other journalists working on a project he founded known as Project PM. Project PM was founded in part to examine information released by hacktivists associated with the group Anonymous about domestic spying by corporations on private citizens. Brown is also accused of hiding his laptop at his mother's home to avoid it being found during the execution of a search warrant. Brown's mother was charged with obstruction of justice and remains on federal probation.

Captain America The Winter Soldier

It’s a common conceit that any new series of superhero movies has to start with the origin. It doesn’t matter if 90% of the world’s population already knows that the death of Batman’s parents drove him to become a ludicrously rich vigilante, or that Superman came from the planet Krypton, or that Spider-Man was bitten by a radioactive spider. Movie studios are convinced that the story still needs to be retold on the screen, and then retold yet again if the series gets a new lead actor or director or executive producer or key grip. It’s a rare case—say, the upcoming Guardians of the Galaxy—where the first movie of a superhero series gives us anything terribly new. More often they come into their own with the second movie. With the origin retelling out of the way we get The Dark Knight, we get Iron Man 2, we get The Avengers. We get Captain America: The Winter Soldier.

A 15-Year Murder Spree

Fifteen years ago, NATO was bombing Yugoslavia. This may be difficult for people to grasp who believe the Noah movie is historical fiction, but: What your government told you about the bombing of Kosovo was false. And it matters. While Rwanda is the war that many misinformed people wish they could have had (or rather, wish others could have had for them), Yugoslavia is the war they're glad happened -- at least whenever World War II really fails as a model for the new war they're after -- in Syria for instance, or in Ukraine -- the latter being, like Yugoslavia, another borderland between east and west that is being taken to pieces. The peace movement is gathering in Sarajevo this summer. The moment seems fitting to recall how NATO's breakout war of aggression, its first post-Cold-War war to assert its power, threaten Russia, impose a corporate economy, and demonstrate that a major war can keep all the casualties on one side (apart from self-inflicted helicopter crashes) -- how this was put over on us as an act of philanthropy.

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