Almost six years after the first post of this blog, today marks the 200th post. These milestones amaze me -- marking, for example, both the fifth anniversary and passing 10,000 views last year -- since I did not think about such things when I started. Never even considered it, but here it is. I'd like to take a look back at a few stories I covered in the previous 199 posts. It has been quite the spread of issues.
The name Richard Glossip may not ring a bell, but in 2015, his name was very much in the news. In that year, Richard Glossip was scheduled to be put to death. Eleven years earlier, he had been convicted of arranging the murder of Barry Van Tresse, Glossip's boss. (Glossip was a hotel manager and Van Treese was the hotel's owner.)
Glossup had received a stay of execution that had expired, but then, in the light of some executions going horribly wrong, Governor Mary Fallin halted all executions. The major dispute was the use of the drug Midazolam in executions causing unintended pain to the one being executed. Sister Mary Prejean, whose work with inmates was highlighted in the 1995 film 'Dead Man Walking', has been one of Glossup's loudest defenders, even with the banner of the page on her 'Ministry Against the Death Penalty' website dedicated to the Richard Glossup case reading, "Richard Glossup Is Innocent".
UPDATE: To this day, Richard Glossup remains on Oklahoma's death row. Read about Glossup's case here.
Sadly, we live in a world in which terrorism is a regular thing. Additionally, sarcasm, and its written and/or published grown-up cousin, satire, can be a dangerous venture, especially when using it to make a point. The two have clashed before, but in the first week of 2015, the clash took a deadly turn with the attack on the offices of France's satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. Radical Muslim activists take great exception to the depiction of their prophet Mohammad in any manner, satirical or not, and often threaten violence and death in response. Charlie Hebdo's offices had been firebombed in 2011, but on January 7, 2015, extremists stormed the offices and killed twelve. including two police officers, and wounding another eleven persons. The extremists shouted, "The Prophet is avenged" and "Allahu akbar" (Arabic for "God is great") during the attack. Massive protests against the attack arose in France, which gave rise to the saying "Je Suis Charlie" ("We are Charlie").
UPDATE: Charlie Hebdo magazine continues publishing, undaunted, now in its thirty-seventh year.
In June of 2014, I posted a much more personal story. The son of a friend of mine had gone missing. Anthony Howell was stationed at the Army National Guard base, 11 Bravo, in Albuquerque, New Mexico, after serving a nine-month tour near the Gaza Strip, when he went missing. He was also suffering from PTSD after his time serving abroad. He had been missing for three weeks when, just a week-and-a-half after my original post, he had been found. His mother told me privately that my blog posts were a huge help in finding him.
UPDATE: Anthony Howell lives in Tennessee with his wife, Alexandra, and their eighteen-month-old daughter, Maisey. He now works for disabled veterans as a Lead Mobility and Accessibility Technician, installing ramps, stair lifts and car lifts, as well as repairing wheelchairs and scooters. His life has clearly turned around and I am so happy for him.
Having worked in retail in the past, I know how trying it can be for those so employed. What I have noticed over several years is how much profits have become even more important, to the point of idolatry, to retailers, especially around the "holiday shopping season". Specifically, how many more hours retailers can open their stores, forcing their employees to work or else face losing their job.
Growing up, Black Friday (the Friday after Thanksgiving Day) was when Santa first showed up at shopping centers and was the first day of the holiday shopping season that employees worked, not Thanksgiving Day. In the only post title where I used not one, not two, but three phrases (Phrases of the Day: THANKSGIVING NEUTERED -- CHRISTMAS FORCED -- FAMILIES DEVALUED), I focused on how retailers are living out that idolatry of profits at the expense of its employees. Read my 2013 post here.
UPDATE: Sadly, the earlier and earlier hours continue and show no signs of stopping.
Pipelines for the transport of crude oil have been a focus here. Most notably, the Dakota Access Pipeline, where Native American tribes fought to stop to progress of building the pipeline across sacred lands and to avoid the possible tainting of the water supply, was in the news in 2016. (The whole debacle began two years earlier, but hit a peak in news coverage in 2016.) The pipeline was drawn to be built through North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, and Illinois. The stand taken up by Native American tribes at Standing Rock was covered by and joined by those who were not Native American, locals and celebrities alike. Protesters were met by law enforcement with water cannons (with frigid temperatures), rubber bullets, and tear gas.
UPDATE: Even after a 400,000-gallon leak last year, originally reported to be only half the size, the Dakota Access Pipeline continues to operate.
Earlier in 2016, another pipeline was causing similar concerns, with similar problems, south of the equator. The Northern Peruvian Pipeline has caused problems with various water supplies, including the Amazon River, and ecosystem imbalances. At the time I wrote about the pipeline (February 2016), there had been three oil spills in the course of just three months. Another oil spill in August of that year shut down the pipeline until the following year.
UPDATE: As of February of this year, eighteen organizations representing many of Peru's indigenous peoples whose water supplies and personal health had been severely affected by pipeline leaks started a protest. A workers' strike began on February 6, 2018, and was initially intended for seventy-two hours. However, it was made to be "indefinite" due to little governmental response. On February 9, river blockades along oil barge routes were put into place, including the capturing of a number of boats. A key piece of the impasse is the strikers' demand that the Council of Ministers president Mercedes Aráoz to be present at negotiations not being agreed to by current Peruvian government officials, and all bids for clean-up operations have been rejected.
While negative affects on water supplies are part and parcel to the above stories about pipelines, a water supply crisis of a different kind rose to the top of the news in the earlier part of 2016. The focus was on Flint, Michigan, a town of approximately 425,000 residents. My three-part series, titled 'Parts Per Billion', focused on how the whole crisis came about via poorly-made, intentional choices by several public officials that resulted in raising lead levels in the water to dangerous levels. Even though I wrote about it in 2016, the problem began two years earlier with the changing of from where the city's water would be drawn.
UPDATE: Last month, a free bottled water and water filters distribution program was ended by Governor Rick Snyder, who claimed the water in Flint was far better. Residents of Flint do not believe the water supply is better, many citing the water pipelines have not been replaced as a basis for their distrust.
Gun violence has become all too commonplace in this country, to our national shame. (Just yesterday, another school in Texas took place, with ten persons dead and ten injured.) The latest writings on that here have been about the youth from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, and the #NeverAgain movement. I have devoted nearly a dozen-and-a-half posts on the topic:
> a three-part series after the Aurora movie theater shooting,
> after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting,
> in response to a 2013 Washington Post report about nearly 100 children being killed by gunfire the year before,
> after the Charleston shooting at the Emmanuel AME Church,
> after the San Bernardino shooting,
> after the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando shooting,
> after the Las Vegas shooting,
> in the shadow of the Las Vegas shooting,
> my coining of the phrase "death-for-profit",
> my opinion piece on the distortion of the Second Amendment,
> my opinion piece on the idea: "They're coming for your guns",
> my opinion piece on the soul of this country and abuse of the Constitution,
> after the deadliest church shooting in U.S. history,
> my opinion piece on the idea of a "lone gunman",
> my opinion pieces on how the students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School were let down by the state's legislature and by law enforcement,
> an example of how the NRA also targets not just politicians but also judicial candidates,
> regarding the National School Walkout and the March for Our Lives, both this past March
UPDATE: Mass shootings are still legally allowed.
I have highlighted a number of films and videos on this blog, mostly documentaries. Some of the topics covered include:
> the global consolidation of power ('Thrive: What in the World Will It Take?'),
> Robert McNamara's far-too-late opening up about his part in the start of the Vietnam War ('The Fog of War'),
> a benefit blues concert that celebrated the 100th anniversary of the blues ('Lightning in a Bottle'),
> the events on and following 9/11 possibly being a deception ('The Anatomy of a Great Deception'),
> how global banking/finance and politics are relegating more and more people into poverty ('Four Horsemen'),
> the story behind the Pearl Harbor attack in 1941 ('Tora, Tora, Tora: The True Story of Pearl Harbor'),
> Robert Reich's short video on how to identify a tyrant ('7 Signs of a Tyrant'),
> the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, which tends to get overlooked because of 9/11, on the 25th anniversary back in February of this year ('Minute by Minute: 1993 World Trade Center Bombing').
Death is a part of life, and I have covered some famous deaths over the course of these posts. Those I have covered include singer/songwriter/actor David Bowie, comedian/director/actor/philanthropist Jerry Lewis, apartheid prisoner/South African President Nelson Mandela, legendary actor Peter O'Toole, actor/comedian Robin Williams, blues legend B.B. King, and the very high number of celebrity deaths in 2016.
Even with all of this, it feels as though I have only scratched the surface. And so, on this 200th post, I say much has been written and more will be.
Terry
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