Judi Lynn
Judi Lynn's JournalInfographic: How Private Prison Companies Rake In Profits From Our Criminal Legal System
Infographic: How Private Prison Companies Rake In Profits From Our Criminal Legal System
Saturday, 30 January 2016 00:00
By Donald Cohen, Truthout | News Analysis
A new look at the prison industry shows that private companies profit from nearly every function of the United States' criminal legal system. The industry's scope is vast: Companies perform functions like prison operation and immigrant detention, and even GPS ankle monitoring and residential re-entry.
While the usual suspects - Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) and GEO Group - operate prisons, numerous companies with similar track records provide services like health care, food provision and prisoner transport. Companies like Corizon, Aramark, JPay and GTL have histories of providing low-quality services, harming not only prisoners, but communities and taxpayers as well.
We already know that the industry routinely cuts corners to make more profit, resulting in prison violence, lawsuits, accidental releases and high staff turnover. One only has to look at recent news to see the unforgiving intersection between for-profit companies and the criminal legal system. An executive with GEO Group, the second-largest private prison operator in the United States, recently boasted that the country would continue to "attract" crime because, among other issues, we have a "bad education system." The United States' largest for-profit prison health-care provider, Corizon, ended its contract with the state of Florida in November after two years of endless controversy. Alameda County in California is currently dealing with Corizon's mess after a prisoner died in the company's care there; the prisoner required surgery but was denied it for seven months despite three court orders.
No one should profit off of putting or keeping people behind bars. And now it's clear how much of our system is influenced by private companies, which are driven by profit to keep or even expand existing services.
More:
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/34578-how-private-prison-companies-rake-in-profits-from-our-criminal-legal-system
In pictures: Bolivia's colourful Oruro carnival
In pictures: Bolivia's colourful Oruro carnival
29 January 2016
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The Oruro carnival is famous for its elaborate costumes and masks
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People in the Bolivian city of Oruro are gearing up for carnival.
This year's celebrations start on 30 January, but the main days will be on 5, 6 and 7 of February when thousands of people will congregate in Oruro.
The carnival dates back more than two centuries and is one of Latin America's most colourful.
Photojournalist Fellipe Abreu and reporter Luiz Felipe Silva recorded some of its highlights in 2015.
More:
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-35400563
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Tinkus, dance originary of Bolivian
Fraternidad Tinkus Cochabamba
TINKUS MIX - TINKUS HUAJCHAS; HUAJCHITA; PARA QUÉ LA VIDA (LLAJTAYMANTA); NO TE DEJES CORAZÓN (BONANZA); MI SUEÑO MEJOR; T'UNA PAPITA (KJARKAS)
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("I got the fever, I got it real bad, the only thing that can help me is more TINKUS!"
Mexico Recognizes Indigenous 'Identity' with Birth Certificates
Mexico Recognizes Indigenous 'Identity' with Birth Certificates
Published 28 January 2016 (9 hours 20 minutes ago)
As many as 12 million people in Mexico lack a birth certificate, limiting their ability to travel and obtain social services.
Mexico delivered birth certificates to over 7,000 indigenous people on Wednesday as part of a campaign to increase access to official documents in underserved areas.
Secretary of the Interior Miguel Angel Osorio Chong said that when he signed the law enshrining the right of indigenous peoples to a Mexican birth certificate, he “gave them their identities,” which would “change their lives” because “they will know who they are, that they exist, that they have rights, obligations and above all, that they feel Mexican — Mexican as we are all, proudly.”
Between 4 million and 12 million Mexicans are currently unregistered with the state, most from small, poor communities that have few public services, where people cannot afford the fee that some states charge for the document.
Without an identity card, people can be denied the right to education, healthcare, legal protection, a vote and even a job, as well as the ability to legally travel abroad. They are also more vulnerable to organized crime, and many end up migrating, becoming “doubly-undocumented” immigrants abroad.
More:
http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Mexico-Recognizes-Indigenous-Identity-with-Birth-Certificates-20160128-0003.html
How an American preacher came to help the Colombian rebels who abducted him
How an American preacher came to help the Colombian rebels who abducted him
Russell Martin Stendal was abducted by the Farc five times – and now is helping them negotiate an end to their country’s 51-year civil war
Sibylla Brodzinsky in Havana
Tuesday 26 January 2016 07.00 EST
As an American citizen traveling through remote corners of Colombia at the height of the nation’s civil war, Russell Martin Stendal offered an enticing prospect for left-wing rebels who often kidnapped foreigners for ransom.
So tempting, in fact, that Stendal was abducted five times by different units of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or Farc.
“I would be moving through the countryside and they would see this gringo and –pah! They would grab me,” he recalls.
The first time, in 1983, Stendal was held for five months with his hands tied to a tree with nylon. Eventually his captor – an indigenous rebel commander – recognized him as the son of a man whose lifelong work had focussed on helping indigenous groups in the country. That was enough for the guerrillas to release him – but not to prevent them from seizing him again.
More:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/26/russell-martin-stendal-farc-rebels-colombia-kidnapping-civil-war-peace-negotiation
Who Did the Aztecs Sacrifice?
Who Did the Aztecs Sacrifice?
Monday, January 25, 2016
Mexico City Aztec Sacrifice
(INAH)
MEXICO CITY, MEXICO—Scholars have long assumed that the people the Aztecs sacrificed at the Great Temple of Tenochtitlán were prisoners of war who were killed soon after being captured. But EFE reports that a new strontium isotope analysis of remains belonging to several sacrificed individuals who lived between 1469 and 1521 is challenging that view. The study, led by National Institute of Anthropology and History archaeologist Allan Barrera, shows that some of the victims were foreigners who lived in the Valley of Mexico among the Aztecs for at least six years. It's possible the remains belong not to captured warriors, but prisoners of high rank who served the Aztec elite for some time before eventually being sacrificed. To read more about Aztec archaeology, go to “Under Mexico City.”
http://www.archaeology.org/news/4096-160125-aztecs-tenochtitlan-human-sacrifices
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Here's the linked article, very interesting:
Under Mexico City
Beneath the capital's busy streets, archaeologists are discovering the buried world of the Aztecs
By ROGER ATWOOD
Monday, June 09, 2014
http://www.archaeology.org/issues/138-1407/features/2173-mexico-city-aztec-buried-world
In A City That Welcomes Hyenas, An Anthropologist Makes Friends
In A City That Welcomes Hyenas, An Anthropologist Makes Friends
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Willi is the young male hyena who treated Marcus Baynes-Rock like a friend. (Marcus Baynes-Rock)
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Imagine running with a pack of wild hyenas down the dark alleyways of an ancient city at night. That’s exactly what one Australian anthropologist did in Harar, Ethiopia – one of the few places on earth where the human residents invite wild hyenas to enter their habitat.
Marcus Baynes-Rock traveled to Harar and made friends with one young hyena. In his new book “Among the Bone Eaters,” he writes about the culture and his own transformation, from an academic into someone who, as they say in Harar, has “the blood of the hyena.”
http://hereandnow.wbur.org/2016/01/18/hyenas-baynes-rock
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Finding Friendship In The City Of Hyenas
December 30, 2015
In a place that welcomes hyenas after dark, an anthropologist ends up bonding with one of the fiercest predators on earth.
By Vicki Croke
Hyenas aren’t the most popular animals. In Western literature, they are depicted as giggling, cowardly, and dangerous. In almost all of Africa, where the formidable predators are known to bite people’s faces off, kill children, crunch bone like it’s popcorn, and disembowel antelope, they are downright loathed.
But there’s at least one place on the continent where hyenas are not only tolerated they are welcomed. It’s Harar, Ethiopia. Here, long ago, the inhabitants carved doorways into the 500-year-old stone wall that surrounds the old section of the city, to invite a nightly migration of wild hyenas that continues to this day.
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A crowded and holy place, Harar, Ethiopia, has developed a culture that is pro-hyena.
Video still courtesy of Marcus Baynes-Rock.
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Padding in under cover of darkness, when most locals are asleep, spotted hyenas in groups, pairs, or on their own, enter through the waraba nudul or “hyena holes,” trotting across cobblestones, and gliding down sidewalks. To the people here, it’s part of life. A good part. One in which both humans and hyenas benefit, and one in which both species tend to play by an unwritten rule of etiquette—look but don’t touch.
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A “waraba nudul” or “hyena hole” in the town wall welcomes hyenas after dark.
Photo: Marcus Baynes-Rock.
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The hyenas come in for handouts of meat scraps, which can draw paying tourists to the men who feed them. They pick through garbage at the dump, which helps keep the city tidy. And, it is said, these nocturnal creatures provide another, more spectral cleaning service—they are believed to devour the malingering bad spirits of dead people.
More:
http://thewildlife.wbur.org/2015/12/30/finding-friendship-in-the-city-of-hyenas/
Bullies of Burns: the Backstory on the Hammonds
January 22, 2016
Bullies of Burns: the Backstory on the Hammonds
by George Wuerthner
Dwight Hammond and his son Steve, the ranchers who sparked the recent Harney County protests, were characterized as “responsible ranchers” by Congressman Greg Walden (R-OR) in a speech before Congress.
Walden sought to minimize the crimes the Hammonds have committed by suggesting they merely burned a bit more than a hundred acres, something that he tried to compare to normal everyday range management by federal agencies. So what’s the problem? The problem is that Walden is ignoring decades of violations and other crimes committed by the Hammonds.
Despite their bad behavior, it has been revealed that the Hammonds are negotiating with the BLM to get their grazing permit reinstated after the BLM revoked it for their numerous violations and crimes.
The Bundy gang that is holding the Malheur Refuge and Harney County residents as hostages, characterized the Hammonds as victims of government “overreach” and are demanding that the Hammonds get their permit reinstated as one of the conditions they required to leave Harney County.
. . .
Dwight Hammond and his son Steve, the ranchers who sparked the recent Harney County protests, were characterized as “responsible ranchers” by Congressman Greg Walden (R-OR) in a speech before Congress.
Walden sought to minimize the crimes the Hammonds have committed by suggesting they merely burned a bit more than a hundred acres, something that he tried to compare to normal everyday range management by federal agencies. So what’s the problem? The problem is that Walden is ignoring decades of violations and other crimes committed by the Hammonds.
Despite their bad behavior, it has been revealed that the Hammonds are negotiating with the BLM to get their grazing permit reinstated after the BLM revoked it for their numerous violations and crimes.
The Bundy gang that is holding the Malheur Refuge and Harney County residents as hostages, characterized the Hammonds as victims of government “overreach” and are demanding that the Hammonds get their permit reinstated as one of the conditions they required to leave Harney County.
More:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/01/22/bullies-of-burns-the-backstory-on-the-hammonds/
Mexico town fights to protect pure water supply
Mexico town fights to protect pure water supply
Ahuisculco residents urge officials to designate mountain spring area as off limits to development.
16 Jan 2016 15:03 GMT |
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Sourced from mountain springs, the quality of Ahuisculco's tap water is far better than other parts of Mexico [Al Jazeera]
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Natasha Ghoneim
Ahuisculco, Mexico - Imagine being able to turn on your faucet and enjoy pure mountain spring water. That is exactly what people in the Mexican town of Ahuisculco, little more than an hour's drive from Guadalajara, have been able to do for generations.
The mountain spring water is a source of pride among its several thousand residents.
As Sergio Santana told me, "It's life, it's health, it's happiness".
The water here is warm, feels soft on the skin and smells well - like nature.
That is a marked difference from the tap water in many of the Mexican cities I've been in. In nearby Guerrero State, the water came out of the shower smelling like sewage.
In the warmer months, people in Ahuisculco flock to the mountain spring nestled in a valley below a mountain and swim. The mountain spring is not so much of an anomaly when you consider that it's near La Primavera Biosphere Reserve.
UNESCO describes the forest area as follows: "It is crucial for maintaining biodiversity and genetic heritage, and promoting the continuity of the evolutionary processes and it constitutes a living laboratory for scientific research and environmental education."
More:
http://www.aljazeera.com/blogs/americas/2016/01/mexico-town-fights-protect-pure-water-supply-160116143854074.html
Cancun's mangrove swamp destroyed for building complex
Cancun's mangrove swamp destroyed for building complex
Fri, 22/01/2016 - 00:00
Crocodiles were buried alive, along with numerous others animal species which inhabit Cancun's mangrove swamp, after excavators destroyed it last Saturday. Grassroots organisation Save The Mangrove, which had set up camp inside in other to protect the flora and fauna of the area, explained that 200 riot police guarded this operation.
Machinery working round the clock destroyed 90% of Cancun's last wild nature enclave in just one day. The Federal government authorised this action, which was carried out together with the Mexican National Fund for Fomenting Tourism (Fonatur). The 57 hectares of mangrove swamp, which are now just rubble, will be destined to become a residential area, a commercial centre and a catholic church, amongst other plans, in the area known as Malecon Tajamar.
Neighbours, activists, grassroots organisations and NGOs such as Greenpeace Mexico have all signed a petition on the platform Change.org, asking the local government of Quintana Roo to stop this ecocide and cease activity. You can sign the petition here.
Grassroots organisation Save Tajamar Mangrove managed to suspend works on Wednesday after a court hearing dictated the provisional suspension of activities until a home is found for all the animals that are left to die. Activists explained that during the week mysterious looking men had been coming to the area and taking live crocodiles away in black plastic bags.
More:
https://corporatewatch.org/news/2016/jan/22/cancuns-mangrove-swamp-destroyed-building-complex
Star of dolphin-hunting film ordered deported from Japan
Source: Associated Press
Star of dolphin-hunting film ordered deported from Japan
Yuri Kageyama, Associated Press
Updated 1:45 am, Friday, January 22, 2016
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In this Sept. 16, 2015 photo released by DolphinProject.com, Ric O'Barry poses at a cove in Taiji, Wakayama prefecture, western Japan. Japan has ordered the deportation of the star of the Oscar-winning documentary "The Cove," about a dolphin-killing village in Japan. O'Barry was detained upon arrival Monday, Jan. 18, 2016 at Tokyo's Narita international airport. Japanese authorities decided Friday, Jan. 22 to turn down his appeal to get into the country, according to his son. (DolphinProject.com via AP)
Photo: AP
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TOKYO (AP) — Japan has ordered the deportation of Ric O'Barry, the star of the Oscar-winning documentary "The Cove," about a Japanese village that hunts dolphins. But he has refused to leave, insisting he came as a tourist to look at dolphins.
O'Barry, the former dolphin trainer for the "Flipper" TV series, was detained upon arrival Monday at Tokyo's Narita international airport.
Japanese authorities decided Friday to turn down his appeal to enter the country, according to his son, Lincoln O'Barry. His son and lawyer say immigration officials accuse O'Barry of lying during questioning and of having ties to anti-whaling group Sea Shepherd, both of which O'Barry denies.
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O'Barry heads the Dolphin Project, which aims to protect dolphins worldwide. He regularly visits Taiji, the fishing village portrayed in "The Cove," which won the 2009 Academy Award for best documentary. In the film, dolphins get herded into a cove and speared to death, turning the waters red with blood.
Read more: http://www.chron.com/news/world/article/Star-of-dolphin-killing-film-ordered-deported-6776195.php
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