Every fish sample from 70 different lakes and rivers tainted with dangerous toxin
Toxic levels in fish often exceed “safe” limit for women of childbearing age

Every lake, river and stream in Ohio is likely contaminated with dangerous mercury pollution, tainting popular fish species that people commonly catch and eat.

That is the finding of a new report based on recent federal and state Environmental Protection Agency tests of more than 1,000 fish caught in 70 different lakes, rivers and ponds across the state.

The test data is included in Reel Danger, a report authored by the Public Interest Research Group and released in Columbus by Ohio PIRG, the Darby Creek Association and the Ohio Environmental Council.

According to EPA test data:

The following is excerpted from Staughton Lynd’s forthcoming book, LUCASVILLE: THE UNTOLD STORY OF A PRISON UPRISING (Temple University Press).

One of the many ways that Attica lived on in the uprising at Lucasville had to do with race.

Tom Wicker’s memorable book on the Attica rebellion drew on the experience of a prisoner named Roger Champen.

“You’re always going to have a problem” with black-white relations, Champen believed. But in D-yard, “as days went by, food got scarce and the water began to be scarce, [blacks and whites] became more friendly. The issue about race became minimal. . . . Nothing means anything except the issue at hand.” When he made his first D-yard speech, Champ saw that “the whites had backed off and had a little, like, semi-circle off to the left.” He told them that the revolt was not a “racial thing,” that they had “one common enemy, the wall. The wall surrounds us all. So if you don’t like me, don’t like me, don’t like me after, but in the meantime, let’s work together.” That advice had prevailed . . ..

September 4th is the International Day of Solidarity with Palestinian Political Prisoners. Seven thousand prisoners are held by Israel. 4000 are on a hunger strike Since August 15th. Their health has deteriorated and already a mother of one of the prisoners fasting in solidarity died as a result of this. Human rights organizations are outraged but the US-tax funded Israeli government shrugs its shoulders. Israeli minister of “Justice” said it would be OK with him if they all died and he ordered even more repression at the prisons. Israeli minister of health said he is putting Israeli hospitals off limits to sick and dying Palestinian prisoners. “Moderate physical pressure” (a.k.a., torture) is still used by Israel and is taught to US servicemen to deal with resistance to occupation.

The “Army of God” (AOG) made a brief appearance in Columbus during June 26 Pride activities. Army of God “Anti-abortion Hero of the Faith” Chuck Spignola and AOG agitator and roving “photo journalist” Jonathan O’Toole accompanied by well-known local “sidewalk abortion counselor” Repent Man, a posse of (mostly) teenage boys wearing “Got AIDS Yet?” tees, and a crew of videographers, attempted to disrupt the annual Pride interfaith service, held in conjunction with Comfest, at the Goodale Park Gazebo. After about a 40 minute tete-a-tete with Columbus Police and Comfest representatives, the group was escorted off the premises. O’Toole and Spignola argued, often heatedly, that the police and Comfest were violating their First Amendment Rights. Police later allowed re-entry at another point, but the group made no attempt to interfere with the service still in progress.

The American Civil Liberties Union and voting rights groups won a key victory in Florida on August 27 when an administrative law judge in Tallahassee struck down a new state rule that banned manual recounts in counties that used touch screen voting machines. Since the two leading makers of touch screen voting don’t provide paper trails, their machines make it impossible to have a recount. Florida state officials claimed that since the e-voting machines lack the capacity to determine “the voter intent” in close races, there was no need to allow for recounts with the error-prone machines.