Further...

05.22.13 - 11:59 PM

During a raw and raucous meeting, Chicago's "unrepresentative, unelected corporate school board" approved a plan to close 50 schools in a move teachers' union president Karen Lewis called "not an education plan (but) a scorched earth policy." Among just four schools spared is Marcus Garvey, where Asean Johnson, 9, goes. A fierce Johnson got the crowd on its feet with an incredible, impromptu, blistering attack on Rahm Emanuel and his racist indifference. One small good out of so much bad.

"You should be investing in these schools, not closing them...We are not going down without a fight.”

-Abby Zimet
05.22.13 - 2:08 PM

Over 20 shootings today, including two two-year olds, a 19-month-old killed at a backyard picnic, a 10-year-old killed near a childcare center, and a man who fired an assault rifle at a cop during a traffic stop. We wonder if he grew up watching the “Coolest Gun Movies” so lovingly listed by American Rifleman, flagship publication of the NRA, which after Newtown blasted Hollywood as “a callous, corrupt and corrupting shadow industry that sells, and sows, violence against its own people” - and which now praises blood-soaked spectacles that "take us back to simpler times, when dreaming of saving the day got us through."

“Isn’t fantasizing about killing people as a way to get your kicks really the filthiest form of pornography?" - NRA's LaPierre

-Abby Zimet
05.22.13 - 10:37 AM

Jubilant residents of South Paterson, N.J. - aka “Little Ramallah” - raised a Palestinian flag over City Hall this weekend, reportedly the first time the flag has flown over an American city, in honor of Palestinian-American Day. The day before, Raed Zidan became the first Palestinian to reach the summit of Mt. Everest - part of an "Arabs with Altitude" quartet that included the first Saudi Arabian woman - where he raised a Palestinian flag and dedicated his feat to Palestinians, notably those "languishing in Israeli prisons."

-Abby Zimet
05.21.13 - 11:08 PM

What next. To the horror of many snooty traditional gardener types, the U.K.'s Royal Horticultural Society has for the first time in a century allowed garden gnomes - long viewed as the ultimate in tacky anti-classism - to appear at the fancy-pants Chelsea Flower Show. The (slight) bow to democratization was made to help raise money for a school garden program. But still. On the off-chance you want to know more, there's a whole weird gnome world (zombie gnomes! gnome penises!) out there.

-Abby Zimet
05.21.13 - 9:40 PM

With Illinois poised to approve fracking, Gasland II, the second part of Josh Fox' acclaimed anti-fracking documentary, kicked off a 23-city tour of the film with a free showing in Normal, Il. The film tells stories of fracking victims and explores the financial clout of Big Oil, best if perversely exemplified by the industry's admitted use of psyops to manufacture consent - a tactic celebrated, with apologies to Francis Coppola, with a new video.

-Abby Zimet
05.21.13 - 12:48 PM

In the time-honored tradition of setting abstract and often wrong-headed partisan politics above the needs of real people, Oklahoma's GOP Sen. Tom Coburn, a longtime climate change skeptic and foe of federal aid, announced right after the devastating tornadoes hit his state that any disaster relief should be offset with other budget cuts, no doubt preferably affecting poor people. So when he tweeted that his "thoughts and prayers" were with the suffering victims, they weren't having any of it.

From posts on his Facebook page: "You are just a bad person...You are failing miserably as a senator and a human being. Fucking piece of garbage....To hell with you sir, and enjoy the weather...You are the enemy - you disgust us all."

Update: Coburn's office has blasted his "crass" critics for "playing disaster aid politics." He knows whereof he speaks.

-Abby Zimet
05.21.13 - 11:01 AM

Shareholders of JPMorgan Chase have reportedly declined to strip Jamie Dimon of his job as mega-fat-cat Chairman/CEO of the too-big-to-fail-or-jail Chase, despite an unending litany of illegal activities, an upcoming Senate hearing, and an astonishing new 45-page report documenting case after case of fraud and abuse, from foreclosure fraud to obstruction of justice to making fictitious trades to money laundering for drug cartels - all by a company that's essentially "a criminal racket just days away from imploding, were it not propped up by implicit bailout guarantees and light-touch regulators." Yeah, sure, let's keep the guy who ran it.

-Abby Zimet

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Thursday May 23, 2013

Valerie Strauss:
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Wednesday May 22, 2013

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Tuesday May 21, 2013

Lina Newhouser