Police are good except... (cartoons)

Pat Macpherson, Pfc. Sandoval, Ashley Wells, CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly; PasadenaWeekly.com; LA Times; JimmyDoreComedy.com; Stephanie McMillan; SCPR

"Don't worry, folks!" Police can do whatever they are allowed to get away with (McMillan)

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CHP outlines possible charges against officer in senseless freeway beating of helpless, elderly woman

Obey me, obey me, obey me...or else!

(Frank Stoltze/SCPR) The case, which has attracted national attention, sparked angry outrage from civil rights activists who called it a clear case of excessive use of force

Ex-L.A. sheriff's deputy arrested for child pornography
Robert J. Lopez (latimes.com, Aug. 21, 2014)
Former deputy Lorne Reed [who allegedly committed sexual crimes against children while working as an L.A. sheriff's deputy] was arrested. He is accused of using the Internet to distribute child pornography.
 

Maybe he was just shopping at Amer App?

A former sheriff's deputy was arrested on suspicion of circulating child pornography, authorities said Wednesday night.

Lorne Reed, 32, was taken into custody after authorities with a multiagency task force served a search warrant Wednesday at his Santa Fe Springs home, according to the LAPD. Reed's two children were home at the time [Daddy, why are your co-workers taking you away in handcuffs?] and were turned over to the county's Department of Children and Family Services. [Daddy, why are the bad men taking us away, too?!]

Hi, Officer Friendly! - Hey, kids, wanna be in movies?

LAPD officials said an investigation was launched in April after Reed was suspected of using the Internet to share child pornography. The task force includes local police and federal agents who investigate allegations against people who use the Internet to contact children or share child porn.
 
Officer Reed [was likely asked and agreed to resign] from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department in February 2013, an agency spokeswoman said. But she had no additional details [or at least none that she wanted to disclose] regarding the resignation. Reed was being held in lieu of $20,000 at the LAPD's Metro Jail Division. More

Riots in Ferguson as distrust of police grows
André Coleman (Breaking Points, Pasadena Weekly, 8/21/14); edited by Wisdom Quarterly

As "rioting" continued for a second week in Ferguson, Missouri, and a recent ACLU report released two weeks ago is making the militarization of police a national concern, the mother of an unarmed black teenager who was murdered by Pasadena police criticized the arms buildup. And she is calling for an end to the targeting of blacks and Latinos by law enforcement agencies.

In Ferguson, located about 12 miles northwest of St. Louis, demonstrations broke out on Aug. 10 after six-year veteran police Officer Darren Wilson shot unarmed Michael Brown, 18. According to a witness, Brown had his hands in the air when he was [executed] by Wilson.

Strange Fruit in Ferguson, Missouri (thenation.com)

(telesurtv.net/english) - For many politicians, Ferguson isn't happening (thenation.com)

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According to famed forensic pathologist Michael Baden, who was working for Brown family to try to get an objective autopsy [untainted by a police cover up, which he was kept from completing because he was DENIED clothing to analyze and tissue samples for independent forensic tests], the teenager was shot six times -- twice in the head and four times in the arm [possibly in a surrendering or self-defensive posture], with one of those shots entering the top his skull. The Justice Department is planning to conduct a third autopsy on the youth. More
 

South Pasadena shooting plot: Students "wanted to kill as many people as possible"

[But because they're white and affluent, we'll try to let them off on significantly lesser charges; the poor scamps have been through enough already!]

(SCPR/AP) Police said Tuesday that two teenage students, one 17 and one 16, “confirmed very cold-heartedly in the investigation” that they were planning a shooting at the school.

• Mike Brown: Clashes in Ferguson as Nat'l Guard arrives
• L.A. to pay $5M to family of man killed by police downtown
• U.S. police [claim to] come under gunfire, arrest 31 in Missouri racial unrest
• Reporter’s death galvanizes anger, little action

• Wildfire near Yosemite threatens 500 structures
• VIDEO: Man shot to death by police in St. Louis
• 8 homes destroyed, 1,500 threatened by wildfire

Soren "Wildfire Weenies." Only someone else can prevent forest fires (JenSorensen.com)

• PHOTOS: [Due to the mass killing of sharks -- 100 million a year -- for shark fin soup and other shortsighted endeavors] Blue jellyfish are washing up on beaches by the billions

A Voice From Within

Carl Kozlowski (Arts, Pasadena Weekly, 8/21/14)

(jimmydorecomedy.com)

Comedian, Pacifica Radio host, [our friend], and Pasadena-based author Jimmy Dore uses humor to inspire people to activism. (He came to tell jokes at Occupy L.A. and for U.S. soldiers abroad).

 

There are lots of things about this country that annoy comedian Jimmy Dore.

One is how fat cats always get richer and pay fewer taxes while leaving regular folks holding the bag. Another is how the government pleads poverty when the time comes to repair America’s infrastructure, yet can bail out Wall Street bankers to the tune of $2 billion a week.

But most of Dore’s contempt is for the media. While he is best known as a nationally headlining club comedian with two acclaimed Comedy Central specials, Dore has earned the right to criticize the media because he is now part of it.

As the host of “The Jimmy Dore Show” each week on KPFK 90.7 FM and Pacifica radio stations nationwide, and as a member of the highly popular Web-based political commentary series “The Young Turks,” Dore has shown that he has a freewheeling political instinct that owes loyalty to nothing but the truth.

He’s now collected his views into a bitingly funny book called Your Country Is Just Not That Into You, which the Pasadena resident will discuss and sign at 7:00 pm next Thursday at Vroman’s Bookstore in Pasadena. 

“The media used to be the watchdogs, but they’ve been bought by the people they’re supposed to be investigating,” says Dore.

“NBC didn’t give you the facts about Iraq because they’re owned by defense contractors. You’ll never get the truth, just false equivalency, saying there are two sides to every story like global warming [or Israel's oppression of the remaining civilian ghettos of "Palestine" painted as a fight between two roughly equal professional militaries]. I say there are not two sides to the truth. Don’t give us talking points. Give us the truth.” More

History's done. Time to repeat. (Fergistan)

Amber Larson, CC Liu, Dhr. Seven, Ashley Wells, Wisdom Quarterly EDITORIAL

Rebirth of the deva Venus, Nascita di Venere, by Boticelli (scentsciences)

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What life was like...rebirth comes again.

Isn't it strange how things repeat -- how they come around again almost exactly the same but just a little different? On the smallest, most intimate level, that of cittas and kalapas (ultimate mind and matter in Buddhist psychology and physics), what replaces the passing phase of a mind-moment or material-particle is ALMOST identical but not quite.

We would only ever know-and-see this with the light-of-wisdom, the nimitta-light, reviewing the mind door, as Theravada meditation master Pa Auk Sayadaw details. But we would have to build a firm foundation of concentration (jhana, meditative absorption) beneath a canopy of insight (vipassana) to ever come to know that directly. Review the mind-door by the heart and you, too, can see it after developing the requisite skill in meditation.

The seers of ancient pre-India (the Indus Valley Civilization) knew that time and events are cyclical, coming around again. The time that lapses between events, however, is measures in aeons (kalpas), akin to our geological-time of epochs and ages, Jurassic, Neolithic.. But within each grand cycle of time, each Great Aeon, there are smaller cycles looping around sooner.
 
Karma, or what we as Americans like to refer to as "What comes around goes around," can take a LONG time. Actions and their pleasant and unpleasant consequences can be separated by so much time that it becomes easy to believe that no results are ever coming. The results are always plural when they come, so to say "action with an equal and opposite reaction" is very misleading, as if those who use the Newtonian expression were foolishly trying to be all "scientifical."

Cycles upon senseless cycles

Buddhism is more immediate than science, more open to personal investigation and more convincing to those who know-and-see directly with no one as their authority above personal experience. The Buddha, the Dharma, and the Noble Sangha lead us to freedom from having to rely on any authority for what is true or not true. When one knows-and-sees, there is no question about it. Until we reach the state beyond-training, that of an asekha, we indeed need guides, and there are none better than these three precious gems.

"Hands up, don't shoot!" - Don't move! Let's see some ID, boy! (Josh P/pactenboy/twitter)

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Welcome to Fergistan

Just as it is on that rarefied level so, too, on our human plane: State-sponsored militant terrorist P.M. Bibi Netanyahu has re-ordered his army to attack and kill civilians in the Gaza Strip under the pretext of rooting out Hamas fighters defending Palestinians against an unbearable Israeli/U.S. oppression and a strangling, not to mention illegal -- blockade and occupation. And the same excuses are still used in the mainstream media, never having been put to the test in the Hague, where such things should be adjudicated.
 

Fresh clashes in Fergistan as Nat'l Guard arrives to put down the restive natives. Thirty-one people were arrested overnight in violent oppression by police on mainly peaceful protesters. The unrest has continued since the Aug. 9 murder of teen Michael Brown by Ferguson police. (Jeff Roberson/AP/NPR)

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And thanks to weather modification and the consequent climate chaos it has caused, there are fires burning all over California. Yosemite has just gone up in flames. Kern County is burning. The Angeles National Forest is ablaze in Tecolote and Shoemaker above Glendora...

Our original mind is like the sky, no center and no limit, infinitely vast, with happiness as our natural state. It has become obscured by clouds, and we identify with them rather than the deep blue boundless sky. These clouds are thoughts and emotions. In Buddhism, meditation is a means of unclouding the mind; it is the antidote to suffering (Natasha C.).

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Police have murdered another black young man in St. Louis, Missouri. There are more corpses piling up overnight at the hands of Los Angeles police. The "police state" is related to the atrocities being carried out in Israel/Palestine. Israel is staging ground, the weapons dealer, the practical side of how to exterminate an indigenous minority with legal rights to the land. How would we steal the land from indigenous people unless we first put them on reservations then killed them off from every direction? (That's our Western model of empire).

When all seems hopeless, there's hope.

Dead bodies here, fires there, the whole world seems to be going up in flames, so what's the connection? They are connected in a way that cannot be easily understood. The environment reacts and responds to us in a way that can hardly be understood. Seers (rishis), shamans (like shramanas before them), and mystics report that we are connected -- there is no separation -- and what we regard as objective and subjective is not actually accurate. Peace can be generated somewhere by well intentioned meditators sitting somewhere else. It is not a placebo effect because, as in some rigorous prayer studies, the targets do not know the meditation or prayer is going on.

A permanent solution to a temporary problem?

Likewise, the world at large knows when nonpeace is going on, and it reacts. The reactions compound, and we have "natural disasters." How can they be "natural" if we are involved and influencing them? It is because WE are part of nature, not something merely observing it or living in it. We are every bit a part of the environment as what we see "out" there. The objective is subjective as animists would say if they were using such terms, and the subjective is objective to anyone looking at us in our environment. Think peace, practice peace, be peace.

Or sit back and enjoy the show. Did you see that soccer player gently back kick the ball into the net? Not that show (distraction), this one: Once the CIA and other agencies from the White House to the military-industrial complex decided to murder a president. It wasn't the first time they plotted to depose a leader in a very expedient way, but this was a popular young president beloved by most citizens who thought him quite innocent and good. The plans were made, the "lone assassin" patsy selected, and cover up/conspiracy set in motion...

Doctor, my life if full of fear and anxiety...

(Epidemic/"Hands of Ruby") "All hiding behind their own blinds/ Rifle shot from killing arm/ Motorcade with Johnson is riding behind/ Suspect captured after struggle/ Taken into custody/ What the hell is wrong with some? Ignorawcity!/ Double blast, you agree/ Pointing eyes, you agree/ Massive chaos in the air/See the man lifeless there!/ Take the time to lead this nation out of fear..." More

MLK and JFK and the plan was well underway, RFK and Malcolm may just be the beginning

Scary LA: LIONS! Don't visit this summer

Xochitl, Ashley Wells, Crystal Quintero, Wisdom Quarterly; Ipagn28 (buzzfeed.com)

"I met some Los Angeles people once. I hated them." The Grumpy Guide to Life (Chronicle Books). See Grumpy Cat live, Monday, Aug. 4, 2014, 6:00 pm, at Kitson, Santa Monica Place, Ste. 120 and Aug. 5, 2014, 6:00 pm in Las Vegas, Nevada (shopkitson.com)

L.A. with its own Himalayan foothills (Nat'l Forest) just behind the megalopolis (buzzfeed)

Sightings of big cats in our "Central" (Griffith) Park have been confirmed near the Hollywood sign. They are peaceful but not safe for children or crouchers. (Burma Charwoodland/Firstfire53/flickr).

 

According to the last census, Los Angeles is the Most Densely Populated Urban Area in the US. At nearly 2,000 more people per square mile on average than New York, we can’t compare Manhattan to Culver City and call it a day.

 

"Entering a space of privilege and prejudice"

Where does anyone think the traffic comes from? It’s people, commuting from one place to another. It has already been pointed out that due to the lack of a center, people move from where they live to where they work or play. It is a great expanse to cover, and most of it is covered in concrete and asphalt, which facilitates travel. It is actually just much more evenly distributed in terms of density than east coast cities.
 

A dozen Southern California fires rage destroying Pendleton military base. Arson, sabotage, Pentagon incompetence, Santa Ana winds? Mother Nature avoiding violence? (scpr.org)

 

Post-Native Los Angeles, Old Mexico

What L.A. really is is BIG. It’s massive. It's not a metropolis but a megalopolis. It is widely spread out, spilling into neighboring cities and counties...

And there are A LOT of people there, too, distributed in hundreds of communities, living in any number of configurations, speaking hundreds of languages (the L.A. Almanac says 224). More

After the earthquakes and the toxic petroleum street spill, there were some fires.

• 10 Things to (Hate) Get Over and Learn in Los Angeles
• California is America's dog bite leader

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  Don't touch the wild cats! (SMM)

  Puma 35 (P 35) is a wild lion in Santa Monica
• My breasts are not your art project (or maybe they are)
• Is metal becoming less homophobic?
• Punk Henry Rollins: Totally gay
• What music do Frat Guys like?
• Recipe: Spork Food's Peanut-Ginger-Jackfruit Noodles
• Is Riff Raff a douche nozzle?
• PHOTOS: The mountain lions of L.A. are real!
• Compassion: don't use rodent poisons!
• Obligate carnivores? Cats can be vegan with care
• Are L.A. lions getting weak from inbreeding? 
• AUDIO: Killing our native cats with rat poison
• VIDEO: Real Grumpy Cats attacks dog to save boy

Traveling up Beachwood Canyon to the old Hollywood sign, circa 1932 (weirdca.com)

Hollywood sign with 8-ft. long nocturnal predator lurking in the dark (Maya Sugarman)

On ridge above the lights of Los Angeles, a male cougar labeled P-22 made his way from the Santa Monica Mountains to Hollywood's Griffith Park -- an island of habitat surrounded by homes and freeways (Steve Winter/National Geographic/scpr.org)

Preliminary DNA evidence shows that P-32, one of three cubs recently born in the Santa Monica Mountains of the City of Los Angeles, is inbred (National Park Service/SCPR.org)

Not fit for cat food -- massive LA fish die off over the weekend. Rat poison runoff? (LAT)

Know why L.A. has so much smog? So the God can't see what we're doing down here.

Climate chaos: Forest fire rages in Los Angeles

Ashley Wells, Pat Macpherson, Wisdom Quarterly (COMMENTARY)

The Colby Fire is raging in the deep foothill suburbs of Los Angeles and moving west due to wind gusts and the state's continuing drought.

Temperatures are in the eighties, humidity is at 10%, and the chemtrails -- which seem to be more about geoengineering and toxic weather modification attempts lately, more so than spreading heavy metals and aiding HAARP experiments. Right wing AM radio has been laughing heartily at the misnomer "global warming" due to the polar vortex and dropping temperatures across the country, even the very chilly nights in California. But climate change is general and punctuated not a simple linear increase in across the board measures. All temperatures do not rise everywhere to call it warming.

Such simpleton logic and climate-denier misinformation is alarming. Increases in rain and flooding in one place means drought and fire in another. Hurricanes and cyclones spinning out of control is not a harbinger of a new ice age. Our declining snowpack shows movement in the other direction.

• Glendora police have taken three people into custody in connection with a 1,700-acre brush fire that ignited in the Angeles National Forest north of Glendora early Thursday, [bur]ning homes and prompting mandatory evacuations. More

Glendora castle burns (sgvtribune.com)

And geoengineering (cloud seeding, aerosol chemical cloud/haze cover, squeezing more rain out of weather systems, redirecting hurricane paths with atmospheric agitators...) does not correct what human activity is disrupting. Their are natural cycles, and there are exacerbated cycles. Human doings are aggravating the problem. The result?

Monsoon patterns are changing; forest and freeze zones are retreating north; seas are acidifying; poles are melting (in general as seen over time); coral is dissolving; toxic fuels are leaving their mark; and corporations are raking in record profits. 

No one can successfully deny that the climate is generally worse -- hotter, colder, wetter, drier, and more chaotic. Look at the places it used to snow, used to rain predictably, used to cool, used to remain above water.

• PHOTOS: Firefighters try to protect the main house as a fire burns a section of Singer Mansion on Kregmont Drive in Glendora (Los Angeles Times/Irfan Khan)

The central question is, Why? Even if all the planets in the solar system are growing warmer, our human-created pollution, our annihilation of ecosystems, our monocropping, our allowing of endless military-industrial complex war and crushing poverty, all of which exhausts natural resources, is contributing. 

What FOX News, Rush Limbaugh, and similar ideologues are doing is unconscionable.

Why would rightwingers, such as Tea Party racists and Tea Party egalitarians (are there many?), help the Koch Brothers, ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council, the source of most actual conspiracies affecting the US and the world), Chevron, BP, and transnational corporations continue to ruin the planet while denying that something is terribly wrong? Sea levels are rising. Fukushima and nuclear sites on the East Coast of the US are contaminating. And Republicans, with plenty of help from their brothers the nominal Democrats, are colluding.

Meanwhile in nearby HOLLYWOOD-Land...

The West's version of Bollywood (the world's largest producer of movies, located in Mumbai/Bombay, India) does not stop even when the hills are on fire, the skies are choked with smoke, and a second coming of a post Ariel Sharon messiah is ready to launch (or be launched by the NSA, Mossad, and similar spying agencies around the world). Nominations were announced and it is looking very good for "12 Years a Slave," based on the true story of the American slave trade, and Amy Adams in "American Hustle," based on the true story of Abscam. "Gravity"? Bullocks. And better luck next time, Tom Hanks. See all the nominees: Oscar.go.com