In case you’re in need of some more quality internet reading, I recommend heading over to the ACLU’s Blog of Rights. The entire blog is great but a specific piece caught my eye today for two reasons. First, it deals with an issue that is extremely important, racially-biased enforcement of drug laws. Second, it deals with that issue specifically in Cuyahoga County, Ohio (Cleveland for you not in the Ohio know) - 20 minutes from where I am now and where I grew up.

The blog entry looks at a report that came out recently called “Selective Enforcement of Drug Laws in Cuyahoga County, Ohio: A Report on the Racial Effects of Geographic Disparities in Arrest Patterns.” The report was published in January by Citizens for a Safe & Fair Cleveland (CSFC) and is by Mona Lynch, Ph.D.

A horrifying result of the report lies in the fact below:

In 2005, 81 percent of all county drug arrests involved black people, despite the fact that only 27 percent of country residents are African-American. [ACLU]

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The City of Flint, Michigan is seeking sponsorship…for its police surveillance cameras. For a mere $30,000 the Midwestern City will plaster the name and logo of an advertiser across one of its police surveillance camera boxes. The advertising space on the boxes comes mounted on a telephone pole and complete with a blue light flashing 24/7 to get would-be perp’s and potential customer’s attention. For those unwilling or unable to cough up the $30K, the City will also accept smaller sums to be prorated in the form of smaller ads spread across the boxes, similar to the advertising on NASCAR vehicles.

Flint, the hometown of General Motors, has suffered terribly from the decline of America’s largest automobile manufacturer, as documented in Michael Moore’s famous debut Roger & Me. The surveillance boxes reflect not only the poverty now rampant in this once flourishing industrial cradle of the Midwest, but the eroded tax base of a City that has to resort to one of the basest forms of capitalism to fund its policing. I just wonder who would advertise on one of these boxes. One would have to figure that the target demographic here would be people most concerned with being caught by one. Perhaps a Bail Bonds Company would be a good fit to add to the feeling of absolute civic collapse in this tragic Michigan community.

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The city of Paterson, New Jersey is considering a ban on baggy pants.   The baggy, saggy drawers look is apparently too much for the city council of the North Jersey town who are contemplating fining people for the offense.   Councilman Anthony Davis is spearheading the measure, introducing a bill that would make wearing baggy pants a violation of Paterson’s indecency laws.  

I was forced to wonder how much of this is about race and/or class upon reading this.   Then I discovered that Councilman Davis is in fact African-American which placed this rights infringing measure squarely in the “classism” column.   The baggy-saggy look obviously had its origins in the young African-American community in this country. Often these days the look is banned in an effort to maintain a certain clientele and keep a certain “element” out at certain nightclubs, some of the few places where discrimination, of all sorts, is not only alive and well, but also part of the draw for many club-goers.   But the style has grown and expanded to include multiple races, making it a statement of a subculture that spans across the old boundaries.  

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President George W. Bush was heckled yesterday at a Fourth of July naturalization ceremony speech he gave at Monticello. Members of the activist group Code Pink protested the Iraq War and the Bush Administration’s policy towards civil liberties in the middle of an address the President was giving at Thomas Jefferson’s gorgeous estate in the rolling hills of the Virginia countryside.

Code Pink protesters hurled the words “war criminal” and “fascism” at Bush almost as soon as he took the stage to address the assembled crowd. After the activists were quieted, or whisked off, by security the President told the gathering. “To my fellow citizens to be, we believe in free speech in the United States of America.” You can see video of the incident below:

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Portia de Rossi and Ellen Degeneris came out of the closet with their wedding plans! Thanks to the California State Supreme Court’s Decision overturning the ban on gay marriage (as unconstitutional) Ellen and Portia can finally say “I do. This, of course, is one small step towards equality for humankind. And one gigantic leap towards a wedding registry this couple. Yesterday, on her show, an emotional Ellen announced:

This is very exciting, I have to say. Yesterday, the California Supreme Court overturned the ban on gay marriage. So I would like to say right now, for the first time, I am announcing that I am getting married. [...] I’m so excited. It’s something that we’ve, of course, wanted to do, and we’ve wanted to be legal, and we’re very very excited.

The lucky gal, of course, is Ellen’s girlfriend Portia de Rossi. Check out the video below

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The TakePart Top 10 Weekly Roundup is a compilation of the week’s most notable stories from our entertainment-meets-social-action blogging network. Check out some of our most popular stories of the week, as well as a few TakePart blogger favorites!

Katie Halper:

“The First Time I Every Saw Your Face” May Be the First Time You Hear About Ewan MacColl

California’s Gay Marriage Ban Overturned & 5 Ways To Take Action

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Nicole Hughes:

“Bottlemania” Book Takes Bottled Water Industry To Task

Arnold Tells Automakers To “Stop Whining” About Tougher California Emissions Standards

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Andy Kondrat:

Department of Energy Forecasts Large Increase In Wind Power Usage

Edward Norton & Gavin Newsom Speak To Congress About Environmental Building Practices

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Jon Popham:

Spencer Tunick Strips Hundreds Naked

Lichtenstein Sculptures At Fairchild Garden In Miami

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Giulia Rozzi:

Does Being Ethical Pay?

Is the Anti-Female Genial Mutilation Campaign Offensive?

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Gina Telaroli:

A Global Look At Media On Pangea Day

Everything Cinema: Brody Takes On the Working Life of Jean-Luc Godard

California’s Gay Marriage Ban was banned today by the California Supreme court! In the 4-3 decision, the court ruled that Proposition 22, a ban on gay marriage, is unconstitutional. This is great news for people who, you know, like, care about equal rights or whatever! Here’s why the court deemed it unconstitutional to tell people who they can and can’t marry:

In contrast to earlier times, our state now recognizes that an individual’s capacity to establish a loving and long-term committed relationship with another person and responsibly to care for and raise children does not depend upon the individual’s sexual orientation, and, more generally, that an individual’s sexual orientation like a person’s race or gender does not constitute a legitimate basis upon which to deny or withhold legal rights. We therefore conclude that in view of the substance and significance of the fundamental constitutional right to form a family relationship, the California Constitution properly must be interpreted to guarantee this basic civil right to all Californians, whether gay or heterosexual, and to same-sex couples as well as to opposite-sex couples.

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Errol Morris has said that:

Memory is an elastic affair. We remember selectively, just as we perceive selectively. We have to go back over perceived and remembered events, in order to figure out what happened, what really happened. My re-enactments focus our attention on some specific detail or object that helps us look beyond the surface of images to something hidden, something deeper” something that better captures what really happened. [New York Times]

This is the thought that stuck with me through most of his latest film Standard Operating Procedure. Not just in relation to his reenactments or “illustrations” but in regards to the photographs in general.

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Bill Maher has always been outspoken but when he decided to speak out about his feelings concerning the Catholic Church, many people were not pleased. Maher made comments in reference to the latest child abuse scandels connected with the church:

Maher said: “If you have a few hundred followers and you let some of them molest children, they call you a cult leader. If you have a billion, they call you ‘pope.’ “

After the backlash, Maher offered an apology on his April 18 show:

“So, on that score, you know what, my Catholic friends, I will never make the “pope is a Nazi” joke again. Because, you’re technically right, OK, and also because it distracts from the main point. And the main point I was making was that if the pope, instead of a religious figure, was the CEO of a chain of nationwide day care centers who had thousands of employees who had been caught molesting children and then covering it up, he would have been in jail. ” [Newsday]

I’ve always been a fan of Maher and in watching the clip (click to see it below the fold) I feel that folks might be overreacting

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The TakePart Top 10 Weekly Roundup is a compilation of the week’s most notable stories from our entertainment-meets-social-action blogging network. Want to learn our top eco-kinky tips for ‘greening up’ your sex life? How about the top 10 ways to take action against AIDS?  Check out some of our most popular stories of the week, as well as a few TakePart blogger favorites!

Katie:

Annie Lennox & Top 10 Ways to Take Action Against AIDS

Somewhere Over the Rainbow: American Idol & Yip Harburg

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Nicole:

Top 10 Ways to ‘Green Up’ Your Sex Life

Top 10 Global Warming Myths Debunked

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Giulia:

Mortified Makes Movies

What a Bunch of Boobs

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Gina:

Top 10 Immigration Films

Boarding Gate’s Empty Adventure of Capitalism

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Say Hello to Our Guest Bloggers!

Jon Popham wrote:

Young At Heart Hits the Silver Screen

Death and the River

Andy Kondrat wrote:

Top 5 Things You’ll Love About Planet Green

Leonardo DiCaprio Does Everything For the Environment, Ever