Saturday, September 14, 2024
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East Side and Chicano Sould History: Lowrider photo exhibt and more

[Author]Compiled by the

El Reportero’s staff[/Author]

 

In conjunction with the Lowriding season MCCLA is thrilled to present featured artists: Yolanda López, Art Meza, Adolfo Arias, and Fern Balladares whose art work represent lowrider culture past and present. Join us at the opening reception to meet the artists, hear excerpts of Meza’s Lowriting book, view screening of Why I Ride, a documentary on 80s lowrider car scene in San Francisco, walk along the display of lowrider cars parked in front of the center, and listen to oldies by DJ Soulera. Be a part of reclaiming public space. Don’t miss out.

Exhibit runs through Sept. 12, at the Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts, 2868 Mission Street, San Francisco.

 

My Music is Who I Am – lecture series featuring John Santos

My Music is Who I Am: Identity & Resistance in Cuban and Puerto Rican Music with John Santos in partnership with SFJazz and Yerba Buena Gardens Festival. The six-week lecture series is part of the museum’s offsite summer programming called MoAD in the Neighborhood, and will be held at the W Hotel at 3rd and Howard Streets in San Francisco. Only the Aug. 27 program will be held at the California Historical Society, 678 Mission Street in San Francisco. MoAD will be closed for renovation and reinvention through September.

The lecture series is hosted by The MoAD Vanguard held on Wednesdays from 7-9 p.m. at the W Hotel. On Wednesdays through to Sept. 10. Member admission just $15 per program. For more info and to purchase tickets:

http://www.sfjazz.org/events/sessions/2014/education/discover-jazz-moad

 

Redwood City’s Annual Salsa Festival

This is an early heads-up to get it on your calendar, and it’s also your call for entries for the fabulous salsa tasting competition! Think your salsa has what it takes to beat the competition?

Contestants must bring all equipment necessary for making their salsa. Teams can enter the salsa challenge as an individuals, or businesses. Choose between the categories of Mild and Hot. The festival goers will be able to purchase a tasting kit in order to cast their vote for the “People’s Choice Award.” Salsa will be judged by a qualified panel of judges based on aroma, consistency, color, appropriate heat level, taste and after-taste. This panel will also judge each team booth for Best Decorated.

Public tasting runs from 12 p.m.-5p.m. Teams make a minimum of 8 gallons of salsa, while the 5 p.m. end time is our best estimate and is dependent on how much the public tastes!

Deadline to sign up is Aug. 31st. For more information please contact Lucas Wilder 650.780.7340 lwilder@redwoodcity.org Find the form in this link and mail it along with check made out to: http://www.redwoodcity.org/events/salsafest_entries.html

Olga Tañón joins and sign to reality music competition

[Author]by the El Reportero’s news services[/Author]

 

Singing star Olga Tañon has signed on as school director and judge for Telemundo’s new reality music competition, “Yo Soy El Artista” (I’m The Artist), the network said.

The Puerto Rican singer-songwriter told Efe she is “happy and very proud” to be part of the show, which premieres next month.

Contestants will be evaluated on their singing, dancing and “star quality” over the course of 13 weeks.

“To be director of a school is a great responsibility,” Tañon said, adding that she is ready to be tough with the contestants to help them reach their potential.

Besides running the school where the contestants will live together, the multiple Grammy winner will be part of the four-person jury that ultimately selects “el artista.”

 

Cuba celebrates Shakespeare with first visit of The Globe Theater Group

Havana joined in the celebration of the 450th anniversary of William Shakespeare’s birth with the first visit of the famed London theater group The Globe and its performance of “Hamlet.”

The Globe twice presented Hamlet on Thursday at the downtown Mella Theater as part of the world tour that began last April in London to mark the 450 years since Shakespeare (1564-1616) was born.

Cuba is the first Spanish-speaking country chosen for a performance by the company, which in Thursday’s Hamlet helped the audience understand the actors with subtitles shown on a screen.

Cuban playwright and critic Norge Espinosa noted that The Globe is Shakespeare’s ambassador to the world – it uses actors of all ages and ethnicities and shows how the English continue to “maintain a dialogue” with the author.

Cuban theater’s chief tribute to the English author will be staged at the 24th International Ballet Festival of Havana in October, which will present a dance version of “Romeo and Juliet” produced by one-time ballerina and current director of the company, Alicia Alonso.

Before arriving in Cuba from the Bahamas, the English company had appeared in Norway, Russia, Finland, Ukraine, Croatia and the United States.

From Cuba it will continue on to the Yucatan in Mexico, followed by such Caribbean nations as Haiti, Jamaica and the Dominican Republic, as well as countries of Central America.

The original Globe Theatre where Shakespeare’s plays were first performed was built in 1599 on the banks of the River Thames.

 

Producers of “La Voz” say contestants will receive more support

The fourth edition of the reality singing competition “La Voz…Mexico” (The Voice…Mexico) will be all about giving more support to the contestants, the producer of the hit show said.

The contestants who really stand out will be given support from the beginning of the program, rather than waiting until one of them wins a contest before beginning to think about his or her career, Miguel Fox told a press conference here.

“In order to discover big stars, we have to back them from the beginning,” he said, acknowledging that previous winners have failed to achieve the expected success.

Fox presented this Thursday the fourth edition of the Mexican adaptation of the wildly successful Dutch show “The Voice,” introducing the “coaches” for the new season: Ricky Martin, Laura Pausini, Yuri and Julion Alvarez.

In “La Voz”, the coaches sit with their backs to whomever is singing and if they like the voice, they press a button to turn their seat around to choose the contestant for their team.

But as a novelty this year, the auditions will be even more blindfolded, since after pressing the button, the artists won’t see the contestants, since they will be covered by a curtain until they confirm their identities to the coaches in question.

Police union commissar: if you resist, you should expect to die

[Author]Submit with proper docility to the commands issued by the slave patrol

by William Norman Grigg

lewrockwell.com
[/Author]
 

“We’ve heard a lot in the last number of weeks about what police officers can’t do, and what police officers shouldn’t do,” groused Patrick Lynch, designated spokesliar for the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, New York’s largest police union. “No one’s telling us what we are able to do, and what we should do, when we’re faced with a situation where the person being placed under arrest says, `I’m not going. I’m not being placed under arrest.’”

“What is it we should do?” continued Lynch, his voice colored by theatrical incredulity. “Walk away?”

If the would-be arrestee isn’t involved in an actual crime – that is, an act of aggression against another person – the only morally suitable answer is: Yes. The cop should shut up, go away, and refrain from molesting one of his betters. The experience might encourage him to find honest work.

“We don’t have that option,” Lynch insisted. “Nor would the public that called and complained about these crimes want us to. If they called, it’s important to them.”

In this fashion Lynch attempted to shift the blame for the killing of Eric Garner on merchants in the Staten Island neighborhood where the harmless man was killed through an act of criminal homicide by NYPD officers enforcing a demented “zero tolerance” policy regarding the sale of untaxed cigarettes. Lynch, who has spent his entire adult life as a member of the coercive caste, tried to depict Garner – a micro-entrepreneur – as a menace to the public, and a threat to commerce. Lynch appears to believe that the spectacle of police killing a harmless and unarmed man is less damaging to the local economy than allowing that man to sell loose cigarettes to willing customers.

Lynch resurrected the unproven claim that plainclothes officers had seen Garner commit an act of unsanctioned petty commerce, and that he resisted their efforts to abduct him on behalf of the state’s tax-consuming class. He carefully avoided mention of the fact that Garner, according to eyewitnesses, had broken up a fight while the officers, ever vigilant for economic “crimes,” refused to intervene.

“There is an attitude on our streets today that it is acceptable to resist arrest,” lamented Lynch. “That attitude is a direct result of a lack of respect for law enforcement.”

While it is the moral duty of every decent person to cultivate disrespect for law enforcement, that attitude is not to blame (if that’s the appropriate word) for the growing resistance to officially sanctioned abduction. That inclination is a direct reaction to the impudence, arrogance, and aggressiveness of police officers, their palpable contempt for the public they supposedly serve, their sense of tribal solidarity with officers who commit crimes against innocent people, and the institutional immunity they enjoy.

“The charge of resisting arrest is a very serious and dangerous one,” insisted Lynch. “The charge exists to encourage those being arrested to comply with the lawful orders of police officers so that those officers do not have to use necessary force to make that arrest.”

In other words: If you submit with proper docility to the commands issued by the slave patrol, they won’t have to beat or kill you.

Like most exponents of that view, Lynch assumes that any gust of verbal halitosis that escapes the wet hole at the bottom of a police officer’s face is a “lawful order.” For this reason he insists that resisting arrest “is a serious crime, and must be treated that way by all.”

In fact, resisting unlawful arrest – while considered an actual crime, and prosecuted as such – is an ancient, venerable, and indispensable right of free people. Under the still-valid Supreme Court precedent John Black Elk v. U.S. (1900), a citizen has a legally recognized right to use lethal force to prevent the consummation of an unlawful arrest.

Perhaps, somewhere in the reptilian recesses of what passes for Lynch’s mind, there is an awareness of that fact, and a rapidly coalescing fear of the prospect that the public will come to understand it, as well. This may be why he admonished PBA members to use “all the resources of the NYPD” when they are dealing with a member of the productive class who isn’t willing to endure the indignity and injury of a state-licensed abduction. In other words: Use any means necessary – including lethal force – to insure that resistance is futile. Babies on psychiatric drugs: crime with no punishment

 

In an unrelated commentary:

 

Babies on psychiatric drugs: crime with no punishment

 

by Jon Rappoport

http://www.nomorefakenews.com

 

Here is typical, circumspect, utter bullshit reporting from the mainstream:

“For the most vulnerable foster children, those less than 1 year old, foster children were nearly twice as likely to be prescribed a psychiatric drug compared to non-foster children.” (ABC News, November 30, 2011)

“Experts are also beginning to question the accuracy of diagnoses such as bipolar disorder and other mental illnesses in children, especially in foster children who may not always have access to comprehensive mental health services.” (ABC News, November 30, 2011)

The truth is, one baby, one child on psychiatric drugs is a crime.

There are no defining diagnostic tests for any of the 300 so-called mental disorders. Psychiatry isn’t science. It’s fraud, from beginning to end.

And then…babies on highly toxic psychiatric drugs…

…prescribed by doctors…

…who actually make eyeball diagnoses of clinical depression, bipolar, ADHD…

…in babies 0 to 1 years old…

The magnitude of this could only be gauged, to a partial degree, by locking up the doctors for the rest of their lives.

 

I and others have cited the massive toxic effects of the drugs. All the drugs. If you’re new to the subject, start by reading Dr. Peter Breggin’s breakthrough book, Toxic Psychiatry.

Babies. Poisoning the brains and nervous systems of babies. Claiming to know babies have a mental disorder. Babies. 0-1 years old.

Reporter Kelly O’Meara, who for years has investigated psychiatry, cites statistics in her article at Children In Shadow. In the US, babies 0-1 years old are ingesting psychiatric drugs at these rates (for the year 2013):

Anti-anxiety drugs (e.g., Xanax, Klonopin, Ativan)—249,669 babies.

Antidepressants (e.g., Prozac, Zoloft, Paxil)—26,406 babies.

ADHD drugs (e.g., Ritalin, Adderall, Concerta)—1,422 babies.

Anti-psychotic drugs (e.g., Risperdal, Seroquel, Zyprexa)—654 babies.

Meanwhile, major media outlets waffle and wobble about the crime, experts in journals debate the crime, no one in the mainstream calls it a crime, the Department of Justice does nothing, and the pharmaceutical companies make billions.

(Jon Rappoport Is the author of three explosive collections, The Matrix Revealed, Exit From The Matrix, and Power Outside The Matrix).

How the excessive militarization of the police is turning cops into counterinsurgents

[Author]FROM THE EDITOR:

Dear readers,
[/Author]
I don’t need to repeat the horror stories that have been plaguing the mainstream media or corporate media, as it is now called, about the increasing police executions of people in the “line of duty.” We hear the same excuses: the suspect had a gun (without shooting a shot); he didn’t obey police command to stop but kept running; he didn’t show his hands; I called the police to help me restrain my daughter who was acting crazy, etc. They all got killed. The following article, written by Matthew Harwood, brings us inside of the how the police are becoming more violent, and how the killings go unpunished.

 

by Matthew Harwood

TomDispatch

 

To terrify and occupy

 

Jason Westcott was afraid.

One night last fall, he discovered via Facebook that a friend of a friend was planning with some co-conspirators to break in to his home. They were intent on stealing Wescott’s handgun and a couple of TV sets. According to the Facebook message, the suspect was planning on “burning” Westcott, who promptly called the Tampa Bay police and reported the plot.

According to the Tampa Bay Times, the investigating officers responding to Westcott’s call had a simple message for him: “If anyone breaks into this house, grab your gun and shoot to kill.”

Around 7:30 pm on May 27th, the intruders arrived. Westcott followed the officers’ advice, grabbed his gun to defend his home, and died pointing it at the intruders. They used a semiautomatic shotgun and handgun to shoot down the 29-year-old motorcycle mechanic. He was hit three times, once in the arm and twice in his side, and pronounced dead upon arrival at the hospital.

The intruders, however, weren’t small-time crooks looking to make a small score. Rather they were members of the Tampa Bay Police Department’s SWAT team, which was executing a search warrant on suspicion that Westcott and his partner were marijuana dealers. They had been tipped off by a confidential informant, whom they drove to Westcott’s home four times between February and May to purchase small amounts of marijuana, at $20-$60 a pop. The informer notified police that he saw two handguns in the home, which was why the Tampa Bay police deployed a SWAT team to execute the search warrant.

In the end, the same police department that told Westcott to protect his home with defensive force killed him when he did. After searching his small rental, the cops indeed found weed, two dollars’ worth, and one legal handgun — the one he was clutching when the bullets ripped into him.

Welcome to a new era of American policing, where cops increasingly see themselves as soldiers occupying enemy territory, often with the help of Uncle Sam’s armory, and where even nonviolent crimes are met with overwhelming force and brutality.

The War on Your Doorstep

The cancer of militarized policing has long been metastasizing in the body politic. It has been growing ever stronger since the first Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) teams were born in the 1960s in response to that decade’s turbulent mix of riots, disturbances, and senseless violence like Charles Whitman’s infamous clock-tower rampage in Austin, Texas.

While SWAT isn’t the only indicator that the militarization of American policing is increasing, it is the most recognizable. The proliferation of SWAT teams across the country and their paramilitary tactics have spread a violent form of policing designed for the extraordinary but in these years made ordinary. When the concept of SWAT arose out of the Philadelphia and Los Angeles Police Departments, it was quickly picked up by big city police officials nationwide. Initially, however, it was an elite force reserved for uniquely dangerous incidents, such as active shooters, hostage situations, or large-scale disturbances.

Nearly a half-century later, that’s no longer true.

In 1984, according to Radley Balko’s Rise of the Warrior Cop, about 26% of towns with populations between 25,000 and 50,000 had SWAT teams. By 2005, that number had soared to 80% and it’s still rising, though SWAT statistics are notoriously hard to come by.

As the number of SWAT teams has grown nationwide, so have the raids. Every year now, there are approximately 50,000 SWAT raids in the United States, according to Professor Pete Kraska of Eastern Kentucky University’s School of Justice Studies. In other words, roughly 137 times a day a SWAT team assaults a home and plunges its inhabitants and the surrounding community into terror.

Upping the Racial Profiling Ante

In a recently released report, “War Comes Home,” the American Civil Liberties Union (my employer) discovered that nearly 80% of all SWAT raids it reviewed between 2011 and 2012 were deployed to execute a search warrant.

Pause here a moment and consider that these violent home invasions are routinely used against people who are only suspected of a crime. Up-armored paramilitary teams now regularly bash down doors in search of evidence of a possible crime. In other words, police departments increasingly choose a tactic that often results in injury and property damage as its first option, not the one of last resort. In more than 60% of the raids the ACLU investigated, SWAT members rammed down doors in search of possible drugs, not to save a hostage, respond to a barricade situation, or neutralize an active shooter.

On the other side of that broken-down door, more often than not, are blacks and Latinos. When the ACLU could identify the race of the person or people whose home was being broken into, 68% of the SWAT raids against minorities were for the purpose of executing a warrant in search of drugs. When it came to whites, that figure dropped to 38%, despite the well-known fact that blacks, whites, and Latinos all use drugs at roughly the same rates. SWAT teams, it seems, have a disturbing record of disproportionately applying their specialized skill set within communities of color.

Think of this as racial profiling on steroids in which the humiliation of stop and frisk is raised to a terrifying new level.

Organic food’s immense potential to heal the sick

[Author]by S. D. Wells[/Author]

 

Let’s face it, many Americans eat like pigs. They pull up to drive-through windows and they sit down at pancake houses, and they order up a completely GMO meal, full of gluten, refined sugar, MSG, animal fat and sometimes even artificial sweeteners. They wash it all down and repeat the cycle within hours, sometimes three times in one day. Why? Don’t they know? Maybe they don’t care, but they will, later.

Time stands still when you’re sick. The world seems to stop spinning when you’re laid out in a hospital bed, with an I.V. stuck in your arm, waiting for a “diagnosis.”

Time just seems to stop, when you can’t work, you can’t enjoy anything and you’re miserable from some illness, disease or disorder that America seems to feed rather than try to prevent. So who’s feeding who? Are the corporations feeding the humans toxic food, or are the humans using their hands on their own free will to shove sickness into their mouths?

Believe it or not, organic food is a $15,000,000,000 industry yearly now. That’s 15 billion, not million, by the way. Are all THOSE people feeding themselves “life” — a healthy life that’s a choice to make, every meal, every snack, every drink and every personal care product? Of course it is. That’s what brings us to healing the sick with organic food, since your cells are all brand new about every three months. You could make that CHANGE in one season, my friend.

Inflammation Nation

The root cause of most pain, illness, headaches and other chronic sicknesses is simply inflammation. Hundreds of millions of people suffer from inflammation daily, because they do many of the following: Ingest fluoridated tap water, take pharmaceutical medications, take OTC (over the counter) medications, eat genetically modified foods (GMO), eat gluten, get flu shots, drink sodas and diet sodas, chew gum or candy laced with artificial sweeteners, apply topical lotions loaded with chemicals, eat bleached-white foods, eat conventional hormone-laden meat and drink conventional hormone-laden milk. This is just the tip of the iceberg, and the damage becomes exponential, as cells mutate and turn and attack living healthy tissue. That’s cancer.

Even the lack of clean whole food and clean spring water inflames the entire body, the tissues, the muscles and the brain. The heart is overworked and under-delivers the goods (nutrients), because there are none. They’ve been wiped out by pesticides, insecticides, fungicides, algaecides and toxic fertilizers used to grow toxic food for toxic humans in need of… wait for it… Obamacare!

Your cells are in a constant battle. They battle for oxygen and nutrition. Those are your good cells. Your bad cells are in a constant search — for sugar and carcinogens. Which cells will you feed with your next meal, and the one after that, and after that? Which cells will you feed with your next drink or snack, the healthy cells or the cancer cells?

Will you “feed the beast” that will destroy you once it has all the power, or will you feed the organic being that you were born to be, the machine with a heart and a brain?

Inside your body is a universe of enzymes, flora and healthy organisms that fuel the fire of thinking, doing and evolving. Will you put that fire out with processed junk science? Cancer cells can not live when your cells have plenty of oxygen. Win the daily battle. Win the long-term war. You are on the battlefield right now, and your hands and brain are your weapons. Use them. Do not pick up another piece of food that contains toxins. Heal your body and your mind, starting right now.

Hundreds of unducumented C.A. children to start school while await deportation

[Author]by the El Reportero’s wire services

[/Author]

Representatives of the Yaqui Indian tribe demanded a halt to the operation of an aqueduct in the northwestern Mexican state of Sonora, saying here in a meeting with senators that it will leave their communities without water.

“Yaqui elders, men, women, youth and children have come to this city to make ourselves heard because we’re sure that what’s happening on our land is a violation of our rights,” Yaqui spokesman Tomas Rojo said, according to a statement by Mexican civil society organization Serapaz.

Rojo also accused Sonora Gov. Guillermo Padres of continuing “with his crassness of taking our water away with projects like the Independence Aqueduct.”

More than 100 Yaqui Indians, who arrived Friday via caravan in Mexico City to meet with legislators and federal authorities, explained to the senators their position in a long-running dispute with the Sonora government that has included road-blocking protests by the indigenous group.

The 152-kilometer (95-mile) Independence Aqueduct was built at a cost of 4 billion pesos (some $300 million) to transport some 75 million cubic meters of water annually from the Yaqui River to the manufacturing hub of Hermosillo, Sonora’s capital, which has experienced frequent droughts in recent years.

In a ruling last year, Mexico’s Supreme Court said Sonora’s government must halt the aqueduct, which begin operating in April 2013, if studies show it would cause “irreparable harm” to the Yaqui community.

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights on Wednesday asked Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto’s administration for a report on measures to ensure the aqueduct does not violate the Yaqui people’s rights.

It also said a Supreme Court ruling requiring that that community be consulted about infrastructure works affecting their resources had not been heeded and demanded an explanation.

The senators, for their part, said they understood the Yaqui Indians’ interest in defending their water rights and proposed to draft a measure urging the relevant authorities to hold the public consultation without further delay.

Son of Mexican politician indicted for ties to cartel

A Mexican court on Friday formally charged the son of the former governor of the western state of Michoacán with obstruction for his refusal to answer questions about his videotaped meeting with a drug kingpin.

Rodrigo Vallejo Mora, who has been behind bars since last weekend, was ordered held, even though defendants charged with obstruction are usually granted pre-trial release.

His father, Fausto Vallejo, resigned as Michoacán’s governor in June – ostensibly for health reasons – amid a storm of criticism after the federal government deployed soldiers and police in the state to end a wave of drug-related violence.

Fausto Vallejo had also faced criticism after the appearance of an earlier video showing his son in the company of Servando Gómez, leader of the Caballeros Templarios, the drug cartel that has been terrorizing Michoacán for the last few years.

Last week’s release of the second video of Vallejo Mora with Gomez prompted the Attorney General’s Office to summon the politician’s son for questioning.

When Vallejo Mora refused to talk, the AG’s office hauled him before a federal judge.

So far, Vallejo Mora has said only that he met with Gómez amid death threats against him and his brother and that he was taken to the meeting by gunmen.

Vallejo Mora is seen in the video drinking beer and speaking with Gomez in a relaxed manner.

‘Future is rich’ for City College of SF., says

[Author]by Peter Schurmann

New America Media
[/Author]
 

This week marks the start of the fall semester at City College of San Francisco, which celebrates its 80th anniversary next year. Even as the fight to retain its accreditation continues, school administrators say they are working to ensure CCSF’s survival for another eighty years.

“City College is not too big to fail, it’s too important to fail,” said CCSF Chancellor Art Tyler at a press briefing last week. The comment was in response to a recent New York Times op-ed slamming the school for its perceived fiscal and educational shortcomings.

Pointing to changes made as part of efforts to meet accreditation standards, Tyler stressed the “future of the institution is rich. It will be the iconic place it once was.”

Some of those changes include simplifying the enrollment process for new students, as well as identifying students who have accrued sufficient credits to begin planning for graduation or transfer. “By spring, we will be able to identify those students and help them get across the stage,” said Tyler.

He also discussed plans to enhance the school’s aging computer systems, and beef up services at its eight satellite campuses around the city. For supporters of the school that last point is critical, as many feared the sites would be closed as part of cost-saving measures aimed at retaining the school’s accreditation.

“Historically, [the centers] have not been destinations, but portals,” said Tyler, noting many of the campuses have been used primarily for non-credit courses. “We didn’t focus on the academic process. We are changing that.” Plans include increasing the number of counselors on staff at any one center as well as increasing the number of for-credit course offerings.

The August 14 press briefing, organized by New America Media and Chinese for Affirmative Action, was held at CCSF’s Chinatown campus. Tyler noted the “thousands of small businesses” in the Chinatown area, saying he wanted the site to “help them grow” by improving on-campus services – including vocational and language training – available to them.

Sounding a note of optimism, Tyler added he envisioned “one hundred thousand students looking to get their first start” at CCSF, one of the nation’s largest community colleges.

Reaching that number will be a challenge, however. Enrollment has continued to decline since the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges (ACCJC), the agency tasked with accrediting California’s 112 community colleges, first placed CCSF on its most severe “show cause” sanction in 2012. With funding tied to attendance, the drop in students has meant a critical loss of funding for the school.

July was the original deadline set by the ACCJC for City College to comply with its recommendations or lose accreditation. But with a lawsuit from the San Francisco City Attorney’s office still in play (a hearing is set for October) and with growing pressure from state and national lawmakers, the 19-member commission in June revised its policy. Offering what it called “restoration status,” the commission gave the school two more years to fix its problems.

Earlier this month, Tyler accepted the commission’s offer. At the briefing he told the audience it would likely be a two and a half year process.

CCSF Board Trustee Rafael Mandelman and Jonathan Lightman, executive director of the Faculty Association of California Community Colleges, also spoke at the event.

Mandelman, who was elected to the CCSF board in 2012, one year before it was replaced by a special trustee with extraordinary powers over the school, acknowledged the “great work” that has been done to address some of the school’s outstanding problems. But he also pointed to questions revolving around the accrediting agency’s handling of CCSF.

“The accreditation process should make colleges stronger, better,” he said. “Regrettably, in the case of CCSF, the process has not worked in this way.” Mandelman, who currently holds no formal role with the college, added that at “each step in the process, the ACCJC has not acted as a partner, but in a punitive way.”

It was a message echoed by Lightman, who said the chief complaint of community college faculty around the state revolved around the fact that the accreditation process “is focused on sanction, and not problem solving.”

Citing a state-sanctioned audit (pdf) that came out in June, Lightman noted the ACCJC had taken 269 actions between 2009 and 2013, and handed out some 143 sanctions to schools in that time – a 53 percent sanction rate. The other six regional accrediting agencies had a sanction rate of 12 percent.

“Does the accreditation process magnify failure or promote success?” Lightman asked.

Pointing to the $1.5 billion in cuts to community colleges following the recent recession, he also questioned the wisdom of cash-strapped schools pouring resources into “producing data for the commission” at the “expense of faculty and a quality education.”

Both Mandelman and Lightman agreed the accreditation process itself needs reform, with the goal of ensuring, among other things, greater transparency, a basic level of fiscal and academic functioning at schools, and a return to local governance.

Asked what the local community can do to support CCSF, the panelists spoke with one voice in urging residents to enroll. “We are enrolling now,” said Tyler, who pointed to a new online service called “Ask CCSF,” which allows prospective students to get answers to basic questions about the school.

As to the future, Tyler stressed the challenges CCSF faces are “all fixable issues,” and that while the school would need time to do so, in that process it would “remain loyal to the legacy begun 80 years ago.”

Turning the U.S. into a War Zone, where “We the People’ are the enemy

[Author]We live in a state of undeclared martial law

 

by John Whitehead

Tenth Amendment Center
[/Author]
“If you don’t want to get shot, tased, pepper-sprayed, struck with a baton or thrown to the ground, just do what I tell you. Don’t argue with me, don’t call me names, don’t tell me that I can’t stop you, don’t say I’m a racist pig, don’t threaten that you’ll sue me and take away my badge. Don’t scream at me that you pay my salary, and don’t even think of aggressively walking towards me. Most field stops are complete in minutes. How difficult is it to cooperate for that long?”—Sunil Dutta, an officer with the Los Angeles Police Department for 17 years

Life in the American police state is an endless series of don’ts delivered at the end of a loaded gun: don’t talk back to police officers, don’t even think about defending yourself against a SWAT team raid (of which there are 80,000 every year), don’t run when a cop is nearby lest you be mistaken for a fleeing criminal, don’t carry a cane lest it be mistaken for a gun, don’t expect privacy in public, don’t let your kids walk to the playground alone, don’t engage in nonviolent protest near where a government official might pass, don’t try to grow vegetables in your front yard, don’t play music for tips in a metro station, don’t feed whales, and on and on.

For those who resist, who dare to act independently, think for themselves, march to the beat of a different drummer, the consequences are invariably a one-way trip to the local jail or death.

What Americans must understand, what we have chosen to ignore, what we have fearfully turned a blind eye to lest the reality prove too jarring is the fact that we no longer live in the “city on the hill,” a beacon of freedom for all the world.

Far from being a shining example of democracy at work, we have become a lesson for the world in how quickly freedom turns to tyranny, how slippery the slope by which a once-freedom-loving people can be branded, shackled and fooled into believing that their prisons walls are, in fact, for their own protection.

Having spent more than half a century exporting war to foreign lands, profiting from war, and creating a national economy seemingly dependent on the spoils of war, we failed to protest when the war hawks turned their profit-driven appetites on us, bringing home the spoils of war—the military tanks, grenade launchers, Kevlar helmets, assault rifles, gas masks, ammunition, battering rams, night vision binoculars, etc.—to be distributed for free to local police agencies and used to secure the homeland against “we the people.”

It’s not just the Defense Department that is passing out free military equipment to local police. Since the early 1990s, the Justice Department has worked with the Pentagon to fund military technology for police departments. And then there are the billions of dollars’ worth of federal grants distributed by the Department of Homeland Security, enabling police departments to go on a veritable buying spree for highly questionable military-grade supplies better suited to the battlefield.

Is it any wonder that we now find ourselves in the midst of a war zone?

We live in a state of undeclared martial law. We have become the enemy.

In a war zone, there are no police—only soldiers. Thus, there is no more Posse Comitatus prohibiting the government from using the military in a law enforcement capacity. Not when the local police have, for all intents and purposes, already become the military.

In a war zone, the soldiers shoot to kill, as American police have now been trained to do. Whether the perceived “threat” is armed or unarmed no longer matters when police are authorized to shoot first and ask questions later.

In a war zone, even the youngest members of the community learn at an early age to accept and fear the soldier in their midst. Thanks to funding from the Obama administration, more schools are hiring armed police officers—some equipped with semi-automatic AR-15 rifles—to “secure” their campuses.

In a war zone, you have no rights. When you are staring down the end of a police rifle, there can be no free speech. When you’re being held at bay by a militarized, weaponized mine-resistant tank, there can be no freedom of assembly. When you’re being surveilled with thermal imaging devices, facial recognition software and full-body scanners and the like, there can be no privacy. When you’re charged with disorderly conduct simply for daring to question or photograph or document the injustices you see, with the blessing of the courts no less, there can be no freedom to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

And when you’re a prisoner in your own town, unable to move freely, kept off the streets, issued a curfew at night, there can be no mistaking the prison walls closing in.

This is not just happening in Ferguson, Missouri. As I show in my book A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State, it’s happening and will happen anywhere and everywhere else in this country where law enforcement officials are given carte blanche to do what they like, when they like, how they like, with immunity from their superiors, the legislatures, and the courts.

You see, what Americans have failed to comprehend, living as they do in a TV-induced, drug-like haze of fabricated realities, narcissistic denial, and partisan politics, is that we’ve not only brought the military equipment used in Iraq and Afghanistan home to be used against the American people. We’ve also brought the very spirit of the war home.

This is what it feels like to be a conquered people. This is what it feels like to be an occupied nation. This is what it feels like to live in fear of armed men crashing through your door in the middle of the night, or to be accused of doing something you never even knew was a crime, or to be watched all the time, your movements tracked, your motives questioned.

This is what it’s like to be a citizen of the American police state. This is what it’s like to be an enemy combatant in your own country.

So if you don’t want to get shot, tased, pepper-sprayed, struck with a baton or thrown to the ground, by all means, stand down. Cower in the face of the police, turn your eyes away from injustice, find any excuse to suggest that the so-called victims of the police state deserved what they got.

But remember, when that rifle finally gets pointed in your direction—and it will—when there’s no one left to stand up for you or speak up for you, remember that you were warned.

It works the same in every age. Martin Niemoller understood this. A German pastor who openly opposed Hitler and spent the last seven years of Nazi rule in a concentration camp, Niemoller warned:

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—Because I was not a Socialist. Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—Because I was not a Trade Unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—Because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

Music therapy for Alzheimer’s patients

[Author]Compiled by the

El Reportero’s staff[/Author]

 

The City of Redwood City, in collaboration with the Fox Theatre and SNS FiReFilms, invites the community to a special screening of the award-winning film, Alive Inside.

This film reveals a remarkable, music-based breakthrough in the care of Alzheimer’s and dementia patients, which has already transformed lives. Fostered by non-profit Music & Memory, the initiative is led by social worker Dan Cohen and is captured on camera over the course of three years by filmmaker Michael Rossato-Bennett. The film documents how songs from Alzheimer’s and dementia patients’ past can awaken memories and emotions that have been asleep for years, sometimes decades.

This film screening is open to the entire community as a way to raise awareness of this methodology for enriching the lives of the senior population, and celebrate the at 6:30 p.m.

 

East Side Story And Chicano Soul: Lowrider photo exhibit and more

In conjunction with the Lowriding season MCCLA is thrilled to present featured artists: Yolanda López, Art Meza, Adolfo Arias, and Fern Balladares whose art work represent lowrider culture past and present. Join us at the opening reception to meet the artists, hear excerpts of Meza’s Lowriting book, view screening of Why I Ride a documentary on 80s lowrider car scene in San Francisco, walk along the display of lowrider cars parked in front of the center, and listen to oldies by DJ Soulera. Be a part of reclaiming public space. Don’t miss out.

Exhibit runs through Sept. 12, at the Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts, 2868 Mission Street, San Francisco.

 

My Music is Who I Am – lecture series featuring John Santos

My Music is Who I Am: Identity & Resistance in Cuban and Puerto Rican Music with John Santos in partnership with SFJazz and Yerba Buena Gardens Festival. The six-week lecture series is part of the museum’s offsite summer programming called MoAD in the Neighborhood, and will be held at the W Hotel at 3rd and Howard Streets in San Francisco. Only the Aug. 27 program will be held at the California Historical Society, 678 Mission Street in San Francisco. MoAD will be closed for renovation and reinvention through September.

The lecture series is hosted by The MoAD Vanguard held on Wednesdays from 7-9 p.m. at the W Hotel. On Wednesdays through to Sept. 10. Member admission just $15 per program. For more info and to purchase tickets:

http://www.sfjazz.org/events/sessions/2014/education/discover-jazz-moad

Finally, the life of Cantinflas comes to the big screen

[Author]by Joanna Hidalgo[/Author]

 

 

The legend of one of the most endearing and beloved figures of mexican cinema is revived in Cantinflas, the Movie. One of the most ambitious productions recently completed in Mexico.

After obtaining the biographical rights of Fortino Mario Alfonso Moreno Reyes, the Producers Adolfo Franco and Vidal Kantu of Kenio Films narrate the personal and artistic life of Mario Moreno from his beginnings until he reached the theater and establish itself as one of the most recognized comedians of the time.

Óscar Jaenada plays a dual role of re-incarnating the two contrasting personalities of Mario Moreno: the comedian and the entrepreneur. Goya Awarded Jaenada, as best actor for “Shrimp Island” in 2005, has raised controversy in the leading role of the film. Movie fans expected a Mexican actor in charge of reviving an iconic character of Mexico like Cantinflas.

The fact is Jaenada has a physical resemblance of Cantinflas, the gestures, style, voice and famous “cantinfleos”. Jaenada efforts on preparing and getting into the character took almost six months for him to be able to develop the scenes of dance, improvisation and grace similar to Cantinflas.

In an interview with El Reportero, Jaenada said that his contact with Cantinflas was as a child when his parents saw the films of Cantinflas. “The first memory I have of Cantinflas is seeing my parents laughing while watching his movies. Sundays in Spain, Cantinflas films were always present. Later, when I was around 10,12, or 15 years old, I used to watch some of short highlights of his best films on my own.”

The preparation of Jaenada implied to replace the Spanish accent with the “Cantinflas” Moreno Mario style and prevent from appearing phony and contrived in the performance. “My preparation was twofold not only did I have to play the character that everyone knows, which is Cantinflas, but also I needed to give life to Mario Moreno, the man, the husband, the leader, the politician, which are very different and unfamiliar faces that most of the people are not familiar with”, says Jaenada. “Cantinflas represents the people and the people identify with it. For (us) Spanish, Cantinflas is Mexico.”

The ambitious production of three million and more than 1,500 extras, includes in its broad range of distinguished Mexican figures as Ilse Salas, Bárbara Mori, Joaquín Cosío, Otto Sirgo, Adal Ramones, Luis Gerardo Méndez, Gabriela de la Garza, Ana Layevska, Mario Iván Martínez y Rafael Amaya, to name a few.

The film has the direction of Sebastian del Amo, who had been away from the media after participating in the cinematography of “Sex, Shame and Tears” (1999), “Green Stones “(2001), and Sin Sentido (2002).

Cantinflas, the Movie hopes to connect with the American public and more than 50 million Spanish speakers living in the United States, which was created in a bilingual way. The film will be released first in the United States and will be in theaters starting Aug. 29, then two weeks later presented in Mexico.

Mario Moreno Cantinflas was a comic actor writer, and producer. He gave life to different characters. From a shoeshiner, a priest, a teacher, or a dancer. His international fame did not bury their humble origins that were always present both in its multifaceted character and his interest in helping the disadvantaged classes, either directly or from the union trenches supporting their fellow acting guild.

He managed to shoot about 50 films and build a successful career that earned him recognition in Hollywood. Charlie Chaplin once said he was the best comedian alive, and Moreno has been referred to as the “Charlie Chaplin of Mexico”.

The public in the United States remembers him as ‘Passepartout’ in the spectacular production film “Around the World in 80 Days” (novel by Jules Verne), work that marked the debut of “Cantinflas” in the English-speaking market in Hollywood, and for which he was awarded in the same year with the Golden Globe for Best Actor in a musical or Comedy. Also, the film won the Oscar for Best Picture. Variety magazine said at the time that the similar Chaplin style and gimmicks of Mario Moreno contributed to the success of the film, which grossed $ 42 million at the box office. As a result of this production, “Cantinflas” became the highest-paid comedian in the world.

Each of the stories in which he participated in reflected a significant moment of the idiosyncrasies of the Mexican people. As part of the National Actors Association (ANDA), Moreno replaced Jorge Negrete as the actor’s union leader. As the new leader of the ANDA, he founded the House of Actors. In 1952, true to its principles, campaigned in favor of the poor to build a social habitat.

Mario Moreno ‘Cantinflas’ was born in Aug. 12, 1911, and died of lung cancer on April 20, 1993, in Mexico City.

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