It’s terrorism

Call it what you will, but the shooting at the African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, was an act of terrorism. A shooter — Dylann Roof, 21, of South Carolina — has been taken into custody. The shooter shot the pastor and eight members of the Mother Emanuel AME Church during Wednesday night’s …

Once more with feeling: Violence didn’t start with Freddie Gray’s funeral

It started with Freddie Gray’s death while in the custody of the Baltimore police department. A meditation by Rebecca Traister, at The New Republic, which includes this: Violence broke out and erupted not when students threw stones at police, but when Freddie Gray suffered a spinal cord injury while in police custody, and, eventually, died. But somehow …

Can Connecticut force a 17-year old to get chemo?

Connecticut says yes. Seventeen-year old Cassandra C. (pictured on the right) has a form of Hodgkin’s lymphoma that has an 80 to 85% survival rate if she submits to chemotherapy, which she has refused to do. So the state stepped in, got custody, and is forcing her to have chemo. Cassandra is not motivated by …

Pussy Riot (the band) explained

If you haven’t been keeping up with the Moscow court case of the punk band, Pussy Riot, this should bring you up to speed. This is not just a bunch of punk rockers, says Leonid Bershidsky at Bloomberg. He writes: …their show trial is threatening to become a turning point in Russian history. If the …