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Book Review: This Non-Violent Stuff’ll Get You Killed: How Guns Made The Civil Rights Movement Possible

By Charles E. Cobb, Jr.

he American-backed genocidal war on Yemen is in its fifth month, making it one of the hotter issues in the 2016 Presidential campaign, right? Wrong. 

Have you seen the dash-cam video of Sandra Bland’s arrest? Beyond the unknown role that racism may have played in the incident, it displays the dangers that arise when a cop abuses his authority.

  After basically tricking Bland into breaking the law—she clearly changed lanes without signaling because she saw a squad car racing up behind her and was anxious to get out of its way—the patrolman then goaded her until her temper boiled over. Bland should have gotten away with a ticket or even a warning, but instead she was threatened with a Taser, thrown to the ground and tossed into a jail cell from which she never emerged alive.

  Why do some cops treat their badge as a license to abuse? It almost becomes a chicken-or-egg question. Do professions such as policing attract people with a penchant for abuse, or do they take ordinary people and turn them into abusers?

  That’s a key question that arises in The Stanford Prison Experiment. Though it doesn’t deal specifically with policing, it does focus on the ways a position of authority can be a corrupting influence.

“Bajrangi Bhaijaan,” showing at AMC Village 18 in Dublin, is still sold out even after a week of its release. This speaks volumes about two things. The first is the power that Salman Khan, the lead male actor, still holds – even after his conviction in the trial courts of India for drinking and driving and killing one person and injuring three others. The second one is its unique message – humanity above all.  
  The film is a story of a mute Pakistani girl played by Harshaali Malhotra. Shaahida, or Munni as she is fondly called by the other characters in the film, gets left behind while visiting a famous religious place in India. She is helped by Pawan Chaturvedi, aka Bajrangi Bhaijaan, played by Salman Khan. The story revolves around the efforts taken by Bhaijaan to reunite Munni safely back with her parents in Pakistan. The various hardships that Bhaijaan faces while taking Munni back to Pakistan and how he finally manages to do it is the film’s plot.

Hi
  I am recently married. (50 days). My husband showed little interest in sexual intimacy right from day one of our brief courtship. He never once tried to kiss me. When I asked him if everything was okay he sad yes.
  However after marriage I was desperate. He showed no interest in undressing me/ caressing me or being remotely physical. I asked if he was gay/ disliked me/ health issues and he denied all of these.
  He now claims to be not interested in sex though he did manage to have sex only once and technically the marriage is consummated. I am going mad trying to figure out what is the problem. We visited a counselor/sex therapist and he advised me to have patience.
  I think that sex is really not on my husband's mind (anytime) What is your advice?

  From your brief description it appears that he was not dishonest with you about who you married.
  He didn't kiss you, didn't try to have sex with you and wasn't touchy/feely. This tells me this person is not interested in being physically intimate.

When Kix Roxx takes the Jazz Meets Origami Festival stage with his band, Razor Dragon Assault, he’ll be doing so for the final time.
  “I’m tired of being the only purveyor of eardrum destroying thrash that plays the Jazz Meets Origami Festival, and I feel that another finger-tapping wizard of shred should have the opportunity to rock the brains out of people drinking lemon shake-ups in the park,” Roxx said by phone during a break from recording RDA’s latest album, tentatively titled “Space Demon Wizards of the Night.” “We’ve been doing this for seven years now, and half the audience has plainly memorized most of our dive-bombing pinch harmonics and floating arpeggios – we can see them walking away as soon as we begin our first song! It’s time to usher in new acts like Flaming Sword of God to scorch the souls of those waiting in line to fold paper into amusing shapes.”

Imagine waking from your own funky dream world right into another's--or, exactly how nice is it is to wake up with a Jimi Hendrix song playing in your head?
  Very nice, indeed.

  Especially when it's a relative obscurity from the magnificently surrealistic epic Electric Ladyland, which I've spent quite a bit of time rediscovering this summer as part of my parole.

  Ah, I know what you're thinking, stupid hippie: Obscure Electric Ladyland song? Ain't no such thing, m-a-n. I've tripped 457 times to Electric Ladyland and there are no obscure songs. Dude, duke up your puts, I mean, put up your dukes. Ain't no obscure songs on Ladyland!

  Calm down, Comfest crud. You and I are on the same side. But if you'll gimme a minute, I'll explain.

When I sing in the shower, or the car or am the weird dude rapping to himself, you might  catch me randomly yelling Kevin Gates lyrics like  “I’m f*cking with the plug daughter.” It’s probably because I lack the verbal dexterity to say, “Six years ago I purchased a car. Most likely something you can’t afford.”
  To be honest I lack the ability to go word for word with Gates, Wu-Tang Clan, Nas or most rap.
  I listen to rap. I tried to email the Louisiana rapper’s publicist prior to his concert Saturday. I wanted Gates’ opinion on the shootings in Lafayette, gun control, what his six jobs are, and insight on some of his more humorous interview subjects.
  But Gates either viewed the gun control/Lafayette question as problematic or just didn’t really need to talk to me because he is famous and transitioning from being someone who tours the club circuit to being a full-fledged rap star.
  He sold the Newport out.
  The line was crazy. It was mixture of how a club rap line looks--i.e. people dressed tough and fabulous, mixed with college and just regular people of all sorts.

Walrus has distinguished itself as the first restaurant in Columbus to entice diners to the delicious and delightful, compassionate and ethically consistent, as well as healthy and sustainable delicacy of a char-grilled cauliflower steak drizzled in richly decadent balsamic “glaze” paired with sweet potatoes garnished with edible flowers. Thank you for breaking the Midwest cultural barrier on this ecologically and economically resilient plant-based alternative to disease promoting and chemical/radiation and pathogen cocktail infusion dominantly contributed to by conventional daily exposure to consuming animal-based products. In 1983 the NYT publicized the FDA’s knowledge that America’s animal products contained 500-600 toxic contaminants not listed on the labels, so one has to wonder; why have these atrocities remained a staple on menus for so long? Any critical thinker should be led to question; what part facts like this play in the health and financial crisis our nation is presently collapsing under?

As the FBI continues to scrutinize the relationship between Mayor Michael Coleman and Chinese business woman Jianhua Li, their investigation has exposed a tiny window into how local power brokers are wooing foreign nationals to ship their foreign-manufactured goods into Columbus’ booming and secretive Foreign Trade Zone hub at Rickenbacker airport. Where the corporate taxes are low and a significant number of workers are temporaries who “pick pack” the imported goods and paid $9-an-hour while being treated like second-class citizens, say local labor activists.
  The Free Press earlier this year wrote about Rickenbacker’s “Free Trade Zone #138,” an FTZ that by all accounts is growing into a juggernaut. In 2013 over $6.3 billion worth of merchandise was imported into Rickenbacker, ranking it in the top-ten for the nation’s 177 FTZs.