This is a sad story. Hopefully the next Democratic POTUS will require all juristriction to report this data.
FBI reports hate crimes rose 8 percent in 2006 Annual count doesn't include all police agencies
Hate crime incidents in the United States rose last year by nearly 8 percent, the FBI reported Monday, as racial prejudice continued to account for more than half the reported instances.
Police across the nation reported 7,722 criminal incidents in 2006 targeting victims or property as a result of bias against a particular race, religion, sexual orientation, ethnic or national origin or physical or mental disability. That was up 7.8 percent from the 7,163 incidents reported in 2005.
CULTURE
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An American Griot: Gil Scott-Heron with Don Geesling
Since his debut in 1970, poet, novelist, pianist, composer, producer, and social activist Gil Scott-Heron has crisscrossed the cultural matrix. Like the works of fellow tunesmiths Woody Guthrie and Nina Simone, Scott-Heron’s songs provide aural snapshots of the struggles that shaped American life in the twentieth century. Born in Chicago in 1949, Scott-Heron imbibed the American experience via the disparate worlds of Jackson, Tennessee, New York City, and Washington D.C. He received his formal education at prestigious institutions such as the Ethical Culture Fieldston School, Lincoln University and Johns Hopkins University. This academic influence is revealed in many of Scott-Heron’s most memorable recordings, from Small Talk at 125th & Lenox to Spirits.
Dubbed the "Godfather of Rap," Scott-Heron has become a ubiquitous and practically de rigueur influence for everyone from hip hoppers and indie rockers to aging literati and dyed-in-the-wool academics. As the author of dozens of distinctive poems and songs including "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised," "Save the Children," "The Bottle," "Home Is Where the Hatred Is," "Johannesburg," "Angel Dust," and "Re-Ron," Scott-Heron has cultural cache to spare. And for good reason: his recordings gave voice to the progressive cultural and identity politics that shaped postwar America. From Watergate to Apartheid, the Bicentennial to Reaganomics, and the Gulf War to gang wars, Scott-Heron has framed the issues for fellow political activists around the world.
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INTERNATIONAL
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As Somali Crisis Swells, Experts See a Void in Aid
The worst humanitarian crisis in Africa may not be unfolding in Darfur, but here, along a 20-mile strip of busted-up asphalt, several top United Nations officials said.
A year ago, the road between the market town of Afgooye and the capital of Mogadishu was just another typical Somali byway, lined with overgrown cactuses and the occasional bullet-riddled building. Now it is a corridor teeming with misery, with 200,000 recently displaced people crammed into swelling camps that are rapidly running out of food.
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One of the hardest political and moral issues is how do you redress past discrimination?
London Journal: Behind Wheels of Black Cabs, Mostly White Faces
As many tourists know from personal experience, London taxi drivers like to point out that unlike other cabbies, they actually know where they are going. New York comes up a lot. "They are not 100 percent certain," said Derek O’Reilly, the training manager at the Knowledge Point taxi school, describing various unfortunate journeys in Manhattan courtesy of recently arrived cabdrivers. "Sometimes, I have had to direct them myself."
Taxi drivers here come by their knowledge by way of the Knowledge, a brutal test that requires them to memorize the best routes to some 25,000 streets in this complicated, non-grid-patterned city. It takes an average of three years of study, much of it spent driving around in unpleasant weather on a scooter, poring over rain-spattered street maps.
It is true that London taxi drivers are amazingly well prepared; it is also true that most are white men. According to the city, while a third of Londoners are from ethnic minorities and more than half are women, only 5 percent of the city’s 25,000 licensed taxi drivers are nonwhite, and only 1.6 percent are women.
In an effort to redress the imbalance, the mayor, Ken Livingstone, announced in October that the city would spend £2.3 million, or about $4.7 million, over three years, helping underrepresented groups pay the costs associated with the Knowledge: enrolling in classes, obtaining scooters and study materials, and, if needed, taking language and numerical literacy classes and hiring help with child care.
"This project will help address the barriers to employment that currently exist for women and people from black, Asian and ethnic minority communities to participate in this important part of our city’s life," the mayor said in a statement.
The program has not yet begun, said a spokeswoman for the London Development Agency, which is administering it. As a result, she said, there were no applicants available to be interviewed. But the mayor’s remarks did not go over well among the ranks of London’s taxi drivers.
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If you can't say anything good about a person, say nothing at all. Ian Smith "......."
Ian Smith, Defiant Symbol of White Rule in Africa, Is Dead at 88
Ian Smith, the former prime minister of Britain’s rebellious colony of Rhodesia, who once promised that white rule in Africa would endure for 1,000 years, died yesterday in South Africa. He was 88.
Mr. Smith’s resistance to black rule led to a unilateral declaration of independence from Britain in 1965 and, later, severe repression and a seven-year guerrilla war, costing about 30,000 lives, most of them black fighters and civilians.
Second only to the apartheid rulers of South Africa, Mr. Smith became a symbol, both to black Africans and many others, of iniquitous white rule.
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DIARIES OF NOTE ON DAILY KOS
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Forty Acres and a Gap in Wealth by diarist teacherken
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The election that changed Los Angeles Politics: 1961 Revisited by diarist SoCalLiberal
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Slate's Will Saletan is one of the dumbest men alive by diarist JedReport
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Paul Krugman Revisits Reagan, the GOP, and Race by diarist andgarden
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A Modest Proposal for Dealing with Hate Crimes in the U.S. from a Public Health Standpoint by diarist McCamy Taylor