Some of you may have been following the case of Cecily McMillan. She was one of the Occupy Wall Street protestors who was arrested and she was accused of injuring a police officer in a scuffle although she alleged that she had acted reflexively when he grabbed her breast.
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The Idaho Republican primary may turn out to be the most notable one of this season, not because of its politics but because of the debate between its four candidates running for governor, two of whom were definitely not your usual boring old run-of-the-mill right wing politicians.
Stephen Colbert brings us some of the highlights of that debate and says that the choice is now clear as to who should be Idaho’s next governor.
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As a result of negative reactions, more and more fast food places are telling their customers not to carry their guns openly into their stores. The list now includes Starbucks, Wendy’s, Applebees, Jack In The Box, Chipotle, Chili’s and Sonic. Some gun owners feel that these places are no longer safe to eat in because they are not allowed to take their guns into them, because of course no place is more dangerous than your neighborhood Wendy’s.
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News media were agog with the news of how during his visit to Israel and the Occupied Territories, pope Francis stopped his motorcade and went up to the apartheid wall that Israel has constructed, touched it with his head and prayed. Kelly Lynn describes, along with many photographs, how Palestinian activists managed to evade Israeli security guards and spray paint messages on the wall and a massive gate that the government had just painted over earlier to hide previous messages.
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Glenn Greenwald has confirmed to the British Sunday Times what I speculated about, that the big Snowden finale to appear soon will be the names of Americans who have been spied upon by the NSA and that this will appear on The Intercept.
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We are approaching the first anniversary of the publication on June 5, 2013 of the first revelation from Edward Snowden, that the US government had obtained from Verizon without a warrant the phone records of all its customers. I want to reproduce some of the messages that Snowden gave Glenn Greenwald early in their interactions, where he explains what motivates him. These passages are in Greenwald’s book No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the US Surveillance State that I reviewed here.
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In a comment to my review of the three Simon Pegg-Nick Frost comedies, reader sumdum suggested that I might also enjoy seeing another film involving this pair and that is Paul, in which the duo leave the cozy confines of the English pub and play two science fiction graphic novel fans who attend the annual Comic-Con in San Diego and then go on a road trip in an RV to visit all the sites in the US that are believed to been the site of extra-terrestrial visitations.
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Pope Francis may not have changed anything as far as rigid Catholic doctrine goes but he has been outspoken about the problems of inequality and the need to improve the conditions of the poor, and this is an area where he can take action without contravening entrenched dogma.
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Everyone is weighing in on the killing spree indulged in by an emotionally disturbed young man who was seething at the fact that women were rejecting him and choosing others. Since he was good-looking (at least from the photos) one can only surmise that his personality gave clues to women that they should steer clear of him.
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Jason Jones files his final report on the Indian elections with a look at the controversy over the new prime minister Narendra Modi’s record while he was chief minister of Gujarat state when riots resulted in the deaths of 1000 people, mostly Muslims. In the manner of Michael Moore in his Roger and Me documentary, Jones tries repeatedly to interview Modi to get answers about his role in those events.
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