Tag: NAACP

Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

The day before the horrific attack on the office of satirical magazine “Charlie Hebdo,” an “improvised explosive device” detonated on Tuesday at the headquarters of the Colorado Springs, Colorado NAACP. Fortunately, no one was killed or injured. Whoever placed the device next to a full can of gasoline, that failed to ignite, wasn’t very successful since there was only minimal damage to the building itself.

The FBI statement adds that a “potential person of interest in this investigation is a Caucasian male, approximately 40 years of age, and balding. He may be driving a 2000 or older model dirty, white pick-up truck with paneling, a dark colored bed liner, open tailgate, and a missing or covered license plate.”

Although the apparent bomber’s motives are not yet known, bombings were a common terrorist tactic during the Jim Crow era. The city of Birmingham, Alabama became known as “Bombingham” due to a rash of bombings targeting black homes and churches, including a 1963 church bombing that killed four girls. The aftermath of that bombing is depicted in the picture at the top of this post.

Nothing like stating the obvious, unless this guy was after a girlfriend or an employee of the beauty salon that also occupied the building. Coincidentally, the bombing occurred just days before the premier of the civil rights movie “Selma” in Colorado Springs. According to Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center, Colorado Springs has a long history of radical right ideology and the state is home to no less than 17 active hate groups

“Think Progress” asks where is the 24 hour media coverage?

A ThinkProgress search of television databases suggests CNN gave one cursory report on the incident at 6:34 a.m., while MSNBC and Fox News appear to have not mentioned the incident on air since it happened. Other networks, including Headline News, (HDLN) mentioned the incident in the morning news.

ThinkProgress searched the database TVEyes and Critical Mention from Tuesday evening through Wednesday afternoon, using the terms, “NAACP,” “colored people,” and “bomb” along with “Colorado.” It found only one mention on CNN, at 6:34 a.m., in the course of what appeared to be a scheduled interview on community-police relations. The incident was mentioned when the interviewer asked former NYPD officer and Secret Service agent Dan Bongino whether he thought the bomb in Colorado could be “seen as retaliatory” and Bongino said it was possible. Representatives from CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News did not respond to ThinkProgress inquiries on their coverage of the bombing.

Outside of broadcast, CNN and other outlets did provide substantive coverage of the incident, although mostly not front-page treatment. CNN sent a breaking news tweet last night and posted a story on its website. Local and regional outlets, NBC News, and the wire services have posted stories about it. And on Rachel Maddow’s website, a morning roundup by Steve Benen included the item.

It wasn’t until Wednesday evening on MSNBC’s “The Ed Show” and “All In with Chris Hayes” that the bombing was given any significant attention. In a statement today, the FBI is considering that the bombing may have been an act of domestic terrorism and looking at a “person of interest.”

The FBI says the potential person of interest in this investigation is a white male, approximately 40 years of age and balding.

He may be driving a 2000 or older model dirty, white pick-up truck with paneling, a dark colored bed liner, open tailgate, and a missing or covered license plate.

Anyone with information is asked to call the FBI Denver tip line at 303-435-7787.

Meanwhile, the right wingers are out in force pushing the need to continue spying on everyone to prevent terrorism that it so far has failed to prevent, because Al Qaeda and ISIS.

copyright © 2012 Betsy L. Angert.  Empathy And Education; BeThink or  BeThink.org

A few organizations have attempted to answer The Good School Question.  Each asks, “What epitomizes a great learning center?”  “How might we, as a society, give birth to quality institutions?” The solutions are many.   All of  the associations speak of guiding principles. A few also strongly favor Principal or Teacher Leadership.  The various alliances advance the premise; our first and foremost priority must be our children.  In prose, beautifully composed, mission statements submit, adult wants cannot come before the needs of our offspring. Yet, after careful examination it is difficult to discern this truth.  Many aspirations. Many a mirage.  How might we know which is which? Once reviewed, every one of us will decide what works well in education and how might we execute a plan. Will principles, Principals, or pedagogy lead learners to salvation.

In my past diaries on Yes on Proposition 19,    Control and Tax Cannabis, aka marijuana decriminalization in California, I’ve shown that right wing conservatives funded by their usual business interests, are behind the continued attempt to let the Federal government waste money on continued harassment of pot users.  I agree with the former San Jose Police Chief Joseph McNamara, who says that:

most bad things about marijuana – especially the violence made inevitable by an obscenely profitable black market – are caused by the prohibition, not by the plant.

An “obscenely profitable”  black market cannot exist with out high level cynicism and corruption in our Federal, state, and even sometimes, county governments.  The state of CA has been severely cutting back maintenance, employees, hours, access to public parks and recreational areas and facilities for outdoor sports and recreational users under their self inflicted “budget austerity,” and the Federal government has been socking us with increased, draconian “user fees,” for groups,  yet they continue to have plenty of loot to fight against personal growing of a weedy herb, which would deflate the market for it.  Priorities are misplaced.  The war on pot has been an expensive failure.

I went to the One Nation rally today–walked around as much as I could took photos and so on. The day was beautiful–this is the best time of year in the Washington area.

The focus of the rally was really on organized labor and the multi-cultural community and it very much reminded me Jesse Jackson’s old rainbow coalition. It was a pleasant outing with some a lot of speeches, Marian Wright Edelman speech struck me as important–the rest, with the exception of Harry Belafonte’s (rightly warning us about the spreading authoritarianism) speech weren’t much to write home about.

I liked the fact that labor unions were so well represented. It always makes me sad to see unions try to organize and represent people–it’s such an uphill battle for them and all the cards are stacked against them and they know it.

The rally wasn’t that large, it was, as the papers say, in the tens of thousands–for once they got the crowd size reasonably right.  

Sioux City businessman and Republican gubernatorial candidate Bob Vander Plaats got a surprising endorsement on Monday from Keith Ratliff, pastor of the Maple Street Missionary Baptist Church in Des Moines and president of the Iowa-Nebraska chapter of the NAACP.

Vander Plaats was the front-runner in the Republican field until former Governor Terry Branstad entered the race. Ratliff said Vander Plaats’ position on same-sex marriage rights was “an important factor” in his endorsement.