Category: Community

Homeless activists delay L.A. City Council meeting

by David Zahniser

L.A. Times

September 29, 2009

Activists and the homeless disrupt a council meeting Tuesday while marking the third anniversary of Police Chief William J. Bratton’s Safer City Initiative, which they say has brought overly aggressive policing to skid row. The protest began when the council deferred public comments to continue a discussion on the city’s budget deficit.

I keep seeing you coming here, over and over again.

I cannot tell you what that means. The names I know, over and over.

I cannot know how to talk about this, other than to say; “I notice, I notice!”

I sit in my half-assed chair, and I write and I watch and I listen to the best songs.

And I watch your names as they appear and I say “Hey!”

There are the people, we are not invisible.

And of course we do not need to be overriding here. But it’s so hard to be invisible so thank you!

for helping us not be invisible here!

Thank you for your coming over

and getting your shoes on and being the friends

of the peoples

who are kind of vague and weary at times

and at other times sort of confused

but always really, really wanting

to be the peoples

all together now

all together now.

thanks.

miep

Prisoners’ Rights

NYT editorial

September 23, 2009

In 1996, Congress passed a law that made it much harder for inmates to challenge abusive treatment. It has contributed significantly to the bad conditions – including the desperate overcrowding – that prevail today. The law must be fixed.

In the name of clamping down on frivolous lawsuits, the Prison Reform Litigation Act barred prisoners from suing prisons and jails unless they could show that they had suffered a physical injury. Prison officials have used this requirement to block lawsuits challenging all sorts of horrific conditions, including sexual abuse.

Youtubes from people who might be your neighbors. Hell, might be your friends.

This guy isn’t a half bad musician. I like the giant playing cards on the walls.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Marianne Faithful! Sunny Goodge Street! Turn down volume a bit! Scratchy! Great background instrumental music! Awesome!

This is really nice. It’s not what you think. Keep listening.

This is part I. I’m still working on this.

I gather we can do a couple a day here?

mro

Respite in the Redwoods: Homeless vets find help in the redwoods of Boulder Creek

by Bruce Newman

San Jose Mercury News

September 20, 2009

In times of war, frontline troops occasionally are ordered to retreat to a place of relative safety — known in military jargon as a “stand down” — where soldiers can rest and receive medical attention before returning to combat.

But for nearly 200 homeless veterans bivouacked among the redwoods at Boulder Creek this weekend, the South Bay Stand Down provided a welcome respite from the daily combat they face on the streets.

In the past 24 hours there have been four recommended essays on this blog devoted to the governance and/or publication policies of another, larger group blog dedicated to electing more and better Democrats. I wrote a fifth essay last night about the topic and then deleted it.  I deleted it because it wasn’t quite right.  I wasn’t sure why, and I couldn’t fix it, so I deleted it.

What I wanted to say then, and am saying now, is this:

My Brother and Sister Bloguer@s:

Like many of you, I have written for Naranja for many years.  And I still post there.  Like many of you, I have lived through all of the pie fights, the flame wars, and the bannings, always hoping that blog would continue to morph and change and grow ultimately into a progressive group blog.

Needless to say, it hasn’t.  And I doubt it ever will.  I think it has slowly but surely become part of the main stream and that the level of control there has become unacceptable at the same time that nastiness of commenters has run amok.  I am not going to take the time to chronicle the many events that led to its present senescence.  I will still post there occasionally because, as Robyn pointed out yesterday, that’s where the people are who need to be taught.  And I have some things I would like to tell them.  But I don’t see that blog being or becoming a progressive blog.  Ever.  No matter what.  That has never been its collective intent.

Which brings me here, to docuDharma.  This lovely blog, which I have considered a home for a full f*cking two years now, is so much freer, so much more wide ranging, so much more progressive, so much more interesting, that I don’t want to spend time looking ruefully at disappointing Naranja in my rear view mirror. I want to look out the front windshield at blogging the future, and I want to point out to you, brothers and sisters, what lies ahead for us in the future of progressive blogging.

I have no proprietary or financial interest in this blog.  I know that those who own it and run it and make it continue to operate have allowed all kinds of ideas freely to be expressed here. Including topics that can get you banned elsewhere. So it seems to me that if we really want a progressive, leftwing (am I being redundant?) group blog, and I think we all do, what we need now is to build docuDharma and help it grow.  Then we will have what we want.

How do we do that?  We can build it in two simple ways: first, we put up lots of writing that is as excellent as it can be, and second, we let others know how excellent this blog is.  In other words, building docuDharma, if you’re like me and have no responsibilities at all for the behind the scenes part of the blog or its governance or its technology or its finances, is easy.  All you have to do is write well and let others know that there’s good, progressive reading here.  If you build it here at docuDharma, they will come.

I think Naranja has jumped the shark.  I’m disappointed but not surprised by that. But the best answer to its obsolescence, to its impending irrelevance, is right here.  It’s to build a larger, more excellent docuDharma with your creativity and love.

Hasta la victoria siempre, davidseth