Baton

New York Observer posted this disturbing youtube of a senior NYPD officer going bats with his bat.

Poetry

Love Song


I lie here thinking of you:—

the stain of love
is upon the world!
Yellow, yellow, yellow
it eats into the leaves,
smears with saffron
the horned branches that lean
heavily
against a smooth purple sky!
There is no light
only a honey-thick stain
that drips from leaf to leaf
and limb to limb
spoiling the colors
of the whole world—

you far off there under
the wine-red selvage of the west!


William Carlos Williams
1883-1963


Courtesy of The Poetry Foundation

 

Courtesy of University of Michigan

Self-Portrait

Artist:  William Carlos Williams

Motorist

Motorist films police running onto the Brooklyn Bridge with demonstrators chanting overhead.



Major networks report 700 people arrested yesterday, including attorneys and journalists.  NYPD is  accused of having demonstrators walk into traffic in order to arrest them.

In the video, the crowd overhead shouts down to the police that they, too, are part of the 99%.  "They're screwing you too," one of them says.  "No violence guys," from another. Then they chant:  "The whole world is watching!  The whole world is watching!" as the police run onto the bridge (to pen in the demonstrators and make massive arrests), and:  "Re-vo-lu-tion!  Re-vo-lu-tion!"

I think many people across the nation are hoping this is it.

Courtesy of Huffpost

Photographer: M.Sledge

courtesy of davids camera craft

Universal Language

Algerian folk singer Souad Massi shows why music is a universal language.

Saturday In Savannah

Courtesy of The Church Lady Blogs
Troy Davis' Funeral - New Life Apostolic Temple

If Troy Davis was laid in his grave today in Savannah Georgia, so too, the death penalty.  In a rousing funeral attended by thousands, punctuated by long and winding lines of attendees, determined chanting demonstrators, and international human rights spokespersons, the movement to change this outdated form of "justice" was appropriately enough born again in the South - where the horrific practice of lynching - seems now revealed to millions of global observers in Mr. Davis' case - as never truly abolished - only transformed into a legally sanctioned and "sanitized" version - with disproportionate numbers of African American men, now faced with overcoming impossible barriers within a deaf judicial system  - and going to their end - to the Kafkaesque extent that, even in a case with enormous factual issues and doubt, a man still unerringly heads on, as surely as a piece of machinery on an assembly line.  No human beings left in the process - whether defendant or decision-makers themselves.  Whatever enormity of facts or plea is placed before the authorities, still, the decision makers feel compelled to continue, unquestioningly.

Franz Kafka in 1906

Hey, didn't I read this guy in high school?

At the funeral, Church Lady described a slide show of Mr. Davis' life and family, and speakers who included Davis’ nephew, Antone’ De’Juan Davis-Correia - who visited Mr. Davis every week in prison - and impressed millions of live stream viewers with his dignity and mature-beyond-years composure during press interviews with Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman the grueling night of Mr. Davis' scheduled execution.  Other highlighted speakers at the funeral included N.A.A.C.P. Director Benjamin Jealous, Amnesty International U.S.A. Director Larry Cox, the Rev. Raphael Warnock of Atlanta, a spiritual adviser to Mr. Davis on death row, and civil rights activist, writer, and comedian, Dick Gregory. 

True to form, Mr. Gregory peppered his speech with long appreciated spicy satire and humor - for example, bringing laughter from the audience when he stated that he "stayed in debt" because he "wanted to stay in step - with the rest of America."  Mr. Gregory went on to describe a conversation with bill collectors phoning to tell him they expected payment.  "You can always expect payment," he told them.  "You can expect payment from me every day."  When the collector asked if he was Dick Gregory, he told him that he was Troy Davis.  "He said I'm sorry I made a mistake.  I won't be calling you no more."

Mr. Gregory made a 365 day call for a fast to end Capital Punishment.

"Troy," Benjamin Jealous stated poignantly, "..told us to keep on fighting until his name is finally cleared and Georgia admits what Georgia has done.. Troy's last words were to keep on fighting until the death penalty is abolished and this can never be done to anyone else."

Troy Davis

1968-2011

"You can kill a man, but you can't kill an idea."

- Medgar Evers

Live Stream

Globalrevolution is live streaming Occupy Wall Street protests from New York City where police penned in hundreds of people on the Brooklyn Bridge, bringing in buses, according to Huffpost, for massive arrests. 




Earlier broadcasts, gone web viral, showed what seemed to be massive, unified waves of demonstrators moving through the streets, chanting forcefullly, "We are the 99%!"  "Our money!  Our Street!"  and "This is what democracy looks like!"  among other statements.

At the time of this posting, with protestors still kept on the bridge by police, hundreds shouted, "Let Us Go! Let Us Go!"

Watch live streaming video from globalrevolution at livestream.com

Strange Fruit

Monsieur Baudelaire brings us a live performance of the late great Billie Holiday, in one of the first open, anti-racism songs decrying southern lynching.