How many years are we away from a national apology over slavery?

Wait, scratch that word, “apology.” Too late, not possible. The scope of the wrong was too great. Make that a national atonement — an owning up to the crime, a pause in the collective heartbeat, eye contact, prayer, remorse. And the question: What can we do to right matters?

Perhaps the time is no longer to be measured in generations.

Let’s begin with the names of the insured: Aaron, Abby, Abraham … Chloe, Congo, Courtney … all the sundry Jacks and Jims and Williams … Winney, Woodley, Woodson, Zach. Human beings with single names, like pets. Commodities, severed — for legal purposes — from their souls. No ties to a past, no depth of existence. _Here, boy._ They came when you whistled. They had a function. And they were worth money to their owners.

We have to understand what we have done. That’s the only way to make sure we’re not still doing it.

Nearly 10 percent of Americans – more than 30 million people- now live in mobile homes. Recently, my wife and I became two of them.

We had been living in a $1,000 per month (rent plus utilities) Wilmington, NC site-built house whose owner, following five years of our tenancy, chose to re-occupy. We had to go. With little savings, two dogs and three cats our options were limited. Other rental houses were too expensive and apartments that would accept our menagerie were non-existent.

Luckily, we found a 1968 40’x12’ fixer-upper with an 8’x16’screen porch for four grand ($2500 purchase price and $1500 renovations). Now we’re on Lot 16 in a tree-packed RV park in Holden Beach, midway between the Myrtles and Wilmington, - ground zero of Trailer-land.

Holden is a quasi-resort town which still has anti-Obama billboards mixed in with the Repent signs on the main drag nearly a year past the election. It has its share of million dollar homes on the waterfront but two miles inland, where we are, the stock is mostly working-class.

ACORN 8 and Federally Employed Women-Legal Education Fund (FEW/LEF) will co-host this year's Whistleblower Summit for Civil & Human Rights on July 29-31, 2013. The Government Accountability Project and the Pacifica Foundation will continue their support of whistleblowers and this event. Over the last seven years members from the Make it Safe Coalition (MISC) have arranged an assembly of whistleblowers in Washington, DC each year for an annual conference originally known as Washington Whistleblower's Week.

We are proud to announce that Congressional Black Caucus Chair Marcia Fudge (D-OH), Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) and Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) will be honored with a Pillar Human Rights Award for International Person's of Conscience. We will also recognize journalists with Pillar Awards this year; Rob Kall will be recognized for OpEd News (New Media) and a posthumous award goes to Ambrose Lane (Journalist) and Host of "We Ourselves" on WPFW.

The Pillar is awarded to notable civil and human rights champions; p revious recipients include Senator Daniel Akaka (D-HI), Senator Charles "Chuck" Grassley (R-IA) and Senator Claire McCaskill (D-MO).

The FreshWater Accountability Project Ohio (FWAPOH) today released a report on the presence and dangers of radiation present throughout the horizontal hydraulic fracturing (fracking) industry that is extracting minerals in Ohio. The report, authored by Dr. Marvin Resnikoff, a longtime expert on radioactive waste management and since 1992, on radiation hazards from oil and gas drilling, details the serious problem associated with bringing up long-buried radium and other naturally-occurring hazards from thousands of feet underground. The radiation is associated directly with the "hottest" areas of gas and oil productivity in deep shale layers and is an inevitable and burgeoning waste problem.

“You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.” Inigo Montoya in The Princess Bride.
It seems trite to invoke the words of the late Eric Blair these last two months. Today would have him rolling over in his grave enough to win a break dancing competition. Congress is set to vote later today on an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act of 2014. This bipartisan proposal, called Amash-Coyners Amendment, would prohibit NSA funding from being used to collect data on persons who are not suspects in actual terrorism investigations. The proposal is receiving broad support from the twitter-verse, and a Washington Post poll today said that 74% of Americans believe that the NSA's programs infringe on some American's privacy rights. The same poll shows that nearly half of respondents believed their privacy rights are being personally violated.

The White House has responded by going into damage control overdrive. General Alexander held an emergency four hour briefing with members of the committee who are set to vote on the amendment. The briefing was classified and held behind closed doors.