It was sunny and clear on Monday for Mets Opening Day, with no noisy planes overhead, so we could hear every bit of the conversations around us. The lulling pitter-patter of “fucks” in row 3 bemused our whole group—not just my father, who was new to Mets baseball, but the veterans of the trip to Flushing. I was there with my old roommate; we used to live in Flushing and walk to games along Roosevelt Avenue, through the carbon monoxide haze above the Whitestone Expressway and past the Iron Triangle’s auto repair shops and psychotic guard dogs, restrained from tearing you to pieces by chain-link fences that also allow you to look into their eyes and see the contempt you’ve earned. Getting to the game in this way can be loud and gray and windy and sticky and dirty all at once and altogether disorienting, which is why almost nobody does it. Arriving at the park doesn’t seem like you’ve reached paradise, or that you’re free of any of this filth and misery—these are the Mets we’re talking about, after all. In terms of misery and pride, it’s hard to know where the team ends and the rest of Queens begins, except on Opening Day; then, for three hours, people are happy. On Opening Day, Flushing is a place transformed, all smiles and radiance in a generally fraught place just across the way from where your stolen car’s radials are being hawked at a chop shop.Continue Reading… … Read More
102 Years After Triangle Fire, Media Still Wonder How Workers Keep Dying
On the 102nd anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist fire, Janine Jackson's article in the last issue of Extra! (3/13) is a sobering reminder that not that much has changed in the last century as far as worker safety is concerned: What should be done to prevent incidents like the January 26 fire at the Smart Fashion Export factory in Dhaka, Bangladesh, in which at least seven garment workers (three of them teenage girls) were killed, their escape impeded by a blocked exit and the absence of the most rudimentary fire safety equipment? The answer for many would be: whatever is [...] … Read More
Study finds protected coral areas should be ‘as large and diverse as possible’
A new study of Asia’s Coral Triangle, which contains nearly 30 percent of the world’s reefs, shows that when it comes to ensuring a rich and diverse range of species, size matters. “The study suggests that marine protected areas should be as large and diverse as possible,”…
Indonesia announces new sanctuary for sharks and manta rays
Indonesia has announced a new shark and manta ray sanctuary, the first to protect the species in the rich marine ecosystem of the Coral Triangle, known as the “Amazon of the ocean”. Environmentalists Wednesday welcomed the creation of the 46,000-square-kilometre (18,000-square-mile)…
U.S. Muslim terrorism close to non-existent last year
The AP exhaustively detailed last year how six years of NYPD invasive spying on and infiltrating Muslim neighborhoods never generated one lead or triggered a single terrorism investigation. Now new data shows only 14 U.S. Muslims, out of a population of millions, were indicted on terror charges in 2012.
“So much for a widespread stereotype,” commented Wired’s Spencer Ackerman on the findings of the Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland Security in North Carolina. The data tracks only indictments, not convictions, and of the nine terror plot indictments recorded in 2012, none resulted in any casualties. Via Wired:
Terrorist incidents from American Muslims is on the decline for the third straight year. After an uptick in 2009, there were 18 plots in 2011 involving 21 U.S. Muslims. And it’s not just violent plots: Fewer Muslim-Americans are getting indicted for money laundering, material support for terrorism, and lying to investigators. There were 27 people indicted on those terror-support charges in 2010, eight in 2011 and six in 2012.
U.S. Muslim terrorism close to nonexistent last year
The AP exhaustively detailed last year how six years of NYPD invasive spying on and infiltration of Muslim neighborhoods never generated one lead or triggered a single terrorism investigation. Now, new data shows only 14 U.S. Muslims, out of a population of millions, were indicted on terror charges in 2012.
“So much for a widespread stereotype,” commented Wired’s Spencer Ackerman on the findings of the Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland Security in North Carolina. The data tracks only indictments, not convictions, and of the nine terror plot indictments recorded in 2012, none resulted in any casualties. Via Wired:
Terrorist incidents from American Muslims is on the decline for the third straight year. After an uptick in 2009, there were 18 plots in 2011 involving 21 U.S. Muslims. And it’s not just violent plots: Fewer Muslim-Americans are getting indicted for money laundering, material support for terrorism, and lying to investigators. There were 27 people indicted on those terror-support charges in 2010, eight in 2011 and six in 2012.
‘The Vampire Diaries’: Rebekah Compels Elena To Tell Stefan The Truth About How She Feels (VIDEO)
Truths came to the surface under unusual circumstances on “The Vampire Diaries.” For reasons unrelated to the love triangle between Damon, Stefan and Elena, Rebekah had the latter two under compulsion. So she took advantage of the situation to fill some time by compelling them to speak the truth about their feelings for one another.Specifically, she asked Elena if she loved Stefan, and then if she was in love with Stefan. While Elena does still love Stefan, she had to admit that she’s not in love with him. In her mind, Stefan only sees her as something broken that he wants to fix, and she makes him sad. Oh, and she also had to admit that she’d slept with Damon and was in love with him.Damon was busy, too. He was trying to train up Jeremy to be able to kill more vampires and reveal the tattoo that could lead to the cure, but Klaus came up with a new plan. He nearly killed a whole slew of vamps, only leaving the final staking to Jeremy. If Jeremy goes through with it, that ink should finish up in no time.Read More…
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