IN 24 HOURS, OBAMA COULD FINALLY MOVE TO CLOSE GUANTANAMO

afghandoll:

Posted: 22 May 2013

In 24 hours, President Obama could finally move to close Guantanamo — the most notorious prison camp on earth. 

With inmates on a 100-day hunger strike and massive calls for Obama to act, our president has been pushed to respond with a major speech about the prison. If enough of us demand a plan — he could free the prisoners already cleared for release, and appoint a White House official with one mission: close Guantanamo down! 

We’re at a tipping point. Sign up to demand Obama close this shameful gulag down, and share the shocking facts below so others join this urgent call. 

The facts speak for themselves: 

• Detainees in Guantanamo now: 166
• Detainees facing active charges: 6
• Detainees cleared for immediate release, but stuck in the camp: 86
• Guantanamo inmates on hunger strike: 103
• Hunger strikers strapped down and force fed: 30
• Prisoners who have died in custody: 9
• Children the US has held at Guantanamo: 21
• Detainees tried in civilian court: 1
• “Unreleasable” detainees who can’t be tried for lack of evidence or torture:50
• Prisoners released by the Bush administration: 500+
• Prisoners released by the Obama administration: 72
• Current annual cost to US taxpayers: $150 million
• Days since Obama first pledged to close Gitmo: 1579
• Time since first prisoners arrived at Guantanamo:

11 years, 4 months, 11 days … 

I have just recieved this email. Please sign this and reblog so others can too. Who knows this just might be the reason this prison finally closes. IT’S A VERY SIMPLE PROCESS AND ONLY TAKES LIKE 2 SECONDS TO SIGN. We’ve all heard and read about the inhumane acts that occur there on a daily basis… this needs to end. This NEEDS TO END.

(via thepeacefulterrorist)

Mississippi Could Soon Jail Women for Stillbirths, Miscarriages

motherjones:

The state’s manslaughter laws weren’t supposed to apply to women who lose pregnancies. Prosecutors don’t seem to care.

This again.

(via queenamongkings)

Ancient African coins lead experts to question who discovered (Australia) islands

nisuru:

thefemaletyrant:

According to the records, Australia was first discovered by Dutch explorers in the early 17th century. So how did 1,000-year-old copper coins from a former African sultanate end up on a remote Australian beach?

An Australian anthropologist, Ian McIntosh, is determined to get to the bottom of the mystery, which began when five coins were found buried in sand by a soldier patrolling the Wessel Islands off the continent’s north coast in 1944, two years after Darwin was bombed by the Japanese.

Maurie Isenberg, who was manning a radar station on the uninhabited but strategically important islands, stored the coins in a tin, and on coming across them again in 1979, sent them to a museum.

They were identified as originating in the former sultanate of Kilwa, near present-day Tanzania, and dated to as far back as the 900s.

So far, so mysterious, for according to the history books the first outsider to set foot on Australian soil was a Dutchman, Willem Janszoon, who landed in present-day north Queensland in 1606 – more than 160 years before Captain James Cook arrived and claimed the continent for the British throne.

Dr McIntosh believes that the coins, which have apparently been gathering dust in the museum, could rewrite Australian history, indicating that the country was visited long before Europeans arrived.

[…]

Now a World Heritage ruin, Kilwa was once a flourishing trade port and in the 13th to 16th centuries had links to India. Its trade – in gold, silver, pearls, perfumes, Arabian stoneware, Persian ceramics and Chinese porcelain – made it one of the most influential towns in East Africa.

To those of us who are well familiar with African history, this comes as no surprise.

Yes this is news (this is my first time hearing about these coins) but considering how far and wide Africans travelled at the time Europeans were still in the backwaters, it is not strange that they (at least their coins) reached Australia.

What I detest is this insistence on “discovery”, the indigenous people of Australia have been there for a while, neither Africans or Europeans (or people from the Middle East who have played roles in East African history) “discovered” Australia.

Emphasis mine.

(via fuzzylocs)

Breaking News: Chicago School Board closes 49 schools, largest closing in US history

breakingnews:

Chicago Tribune: After hearing from aldermen, angry parents and community members in a meeting interrupted several times by protesters, the Chicago Board of Education approved a plan to close 49 elementary schools and one high school program.

The board voted 4-2 to close Von Humboldt Elementary, then unanimously approved the rest of the closings in a single vote. 

Before that, the board voted 6-0 to approve a last-minute recommendation by the district to spare four elementary schools. 

After more than two hours of public comments, Chicago Public Schools CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett and board members defended the plan to close the highest number of schools the city has ever shut down in a single year.

The district says it needs to close schools to address a looming $1 billion deficit and declining enrollment. 

More from the Tribune here.

What in the fuck…

(via fuzzylocs)

"I’ve always had a theory that some of us are born with nerve endings longer than our bodies"

� Excerpt from Bird by Joy Harjo (via lostinthesounds)

"i believe that if you do not answer the noise and urgency of your gifts, they will turn on you. or drag you down with their immense sadness at being abandoned."

� joy harjo, native warrior poet (via thegentlemanjigger)

"I still struggle, or rather I should say, I am aware that these forces of thinking are still very present—there’s an investment in this country and perhaps all of the Western hemisphere to disappear indigenous peoples. It’s not necessarily a calculated plan. The disappearance happened when physical, mental, and spiritual violence was used to take over lands, when indigenous peoples and cultures were pronounced inferior or even demonic. To accept that there are still indigenous peoples with major cultural and social accomplishments means that the story, or the wound, will have to be reopened and examined. I just have to keep moving and honor the indigenous presence within myself. That’s not necessarily an easy thing to do in this American social structure."

� The Rumpus Interview With Joy Harjo (via therumpus)

(via therumpus)