Adventures of a Gonzo Journalist
Posted in Journalism, and MintPress News
Despite years of awareness campaigns by animal rights activists, hundreds of dogs still die each year after being left in parked cars on hot summer days. Working dogs are not exempt, and heat exhaustion has claimed the lives of at least 12 police dogs so far this year.
A representative for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals told MintPress News that temperatures in a car can climb faster than many people realize:
Posted in Journalism, and MintPress News
While the mainstream media showers attention on any crime with even the slightest hint of a connection to ISIS or other Muslim extremists, less attention is being paid to a growing number of threats against everyday Muslims in the United States despite the FBI raising the alarm.
The FBI issued an intelligence bulletin in May, warning that “militia extremists” are increasing their violent rhetoric against Muslims and even potentially making concrete plans to target them for violence. “The FBI makes these assessments with high confidence on the basis of a large body of source reporting generated mainly since 2013,” noted the bulletin. This marks a change from the militia’s usual targets, the agency notes, which typically include the government and any group perceived as a threat to Second Amendment rights.
Few mainstream media journalists seem to have reported on this bulletin or the concrete threats that it outlines, but some members of the independent media have analyzed its contents. Writing for the Electronic Intifada, Rania Khalek, a journalist whose work focuses on the underclass and oppressed populations, highlighted one incident:
Posted in Austin, Journalism, and MintPress News
Two years ago, Austin Police Det. Charles Kleinert shot and killed Larry Jackson, Jr., an unarmed black man, under a bridge near one of the city’s many greenbelt trails. His death was the savage culmination of a wild chase through the city that ultimately led to Kleinert’s early retirement and indictment for manslaughter.
When Austin’s black community gathered on Aug. 24 for a forum on race and policing, it was Larry Jackson’s name on everyone’s lips. Although far from being the only source of tension between residents and police, Jackson’s death has united a diverse community of activists seeking police reform.
Adam Loewy, an Austin lawyer retained by the victim’s family, who sat on the panel at the forum, claims Jackson was “hunted down and beaten” before being murdered.
Posted in Journalism, and MintPress News
Many have suspected through the years that extreme stress and trauma leave their mark not just on their victims, but on their descendants as well. Now science is catching up to these beliefs through the developing field of epigenetics.
Epigenetics is the study of how environmental factors can change the expression of a person’s DNA, often in ways which are inheritable by the next generation. This science looks at not just which genes are in a person’s DNA — the genetic “instruction manual” — but also how cells choose to read and interpret that instruction manual throughout a lifetime of development.
Earlier this month, Biological Psychiatry published a new study called “Holocaust exposure induced intergenerational effects on FKBP5 methylation,” in which the authors studied 32 Holocaust survivors and their adult children. All of the older generation of subjects had either been interned in concentration camps or otherwise intimately witnessed the torture and horror of Nazi genocide.
Posted in Journalism, and MintPress News
Monsanto spends millions of its billions of dollars in annual revenue on lobbying and hiring some of Washington’s most notorious firms to ensure that laws continue to favor the agribusiness giant’s profits.
OpenSecrets.org, a project of the Center For Responsive Politics, reported that, as of July 21, Monsanto had already spent over $2.5 million dollars on lobbying this year. The corporation is on track to meet or beat last year’s 2014 spending total, which reached $4,120,000. Yet it doesn’t appear to be on pace to break the record the company set for itself in 2008, when it spent $9 million on lobbying.
At the federal level, Monsanto’s millions are spent to ensure Congress passes laws that work in the company’s favor. The corporation lobbied heavily for the Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Act of 2015, better known to food safety activists as the “DARK Act,” which would overrule hundreds of local laws regulating the labelling of foods containing genetically-modified ingredients with a still undeveloped USDA program.
Posted in Journalism, and MintPress News
The financial collapse of 2008 and the absence of true economic recovery in the years since has left millions more children in poverty than before the recession. About 22 percent of American children live in poverty, and even that figure may not fully account for all those who are struggling.
According to the annual Kids Count Data Report, which ranks states based on the well-being of children living there, about 3 million more children were impoverished in 2013 than in 2008, an increase of 3 percent that brings the total number of children in poverty to 16,087,000. Following the report’s release, Al-Jazeera America and The Associated Press noted:
