Jail and Prison Population at an All-Time High -- Three Decades of Unbroken Increases 6/4/04

For the thirty-first straight year, the number of people America throws behind bars has increased, leaving the nation with an all-time high of nearly 2.1 million people incarcerated at the end of June 2003, according to an annual report released last week by the Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics.

The number of people behind bars increased by 57,600, a 2.9% rate of increase, the largest in four years. Growth was fastest in the federal prison system, which swelled by 5.4% to more than 170,000 prisoners, well over half of them drug offenders, compared to a much lesser 2.6% rate of increase in state prison populations. The drug war drives the increase in the federal system, with drug offenders accounting for nearly half (48%) of the increase.

Southern Correctional Institution, Troy, NC

Another Bureau of Justice Statistics report found more than 246,000 people doing time in state prisons at the end of 2002, as well as more than 78,000 doing federal time for drug crime. Drug offenders accounted for 15% of the overall growth in prison populations.

Incarceration rates continue to increase as well. At midyear 2003, 718 out of every 100,000 Americans were behind bars, up from 701 the previous year.  (Russia's rate is 584 per 100,000, England’s is 143, Canada's is 116, Germany's is 96 and Japan's is 54.)

Tiananmen Square
June 4, 1989

Thursday, June 3rd, 2004

Boston Protester Faces Felony Charges For Protesting Abu Ghraib Abuse

A 21-year-old college student could spend years in jail on bomb threat charges after he stood silently outside a military recruitment office dressed like an Iraqi prisoner: in a black cape, hooded, wearing stereo wires hanging from his fingers. The police charged Joseph Previtera with making a bomb threat since the stereo wires resembled wires to a bomb.

"Previtera was a dead ringer for one of Abu Ghraib's Iraqi prisoners - specifically, the faceless man who'd allegedly been forced to balance on a cardboard box lest he be electrocuted."

Prvitera stood outside the recruitment center for over an hour. And then the police arrived. Within hours he was facing charges more serious than any US soldier is facing for their role in the actual prison abuse in Iraq. Previtera was charged with three crimes: disturbing the peace, possession of a hoax device and making a false bomb threat. If convicted he could face years in prison.

Bush Knew About Leak of CIA Operative's Name
By Staff and Wire Reports
Jun 3, 2004, 05:28

Witnesses told a federal grand jury President George W. Bush knew about, and took no action to stop, the release of a covert CIA operative's name to a journalist in an attempt to discredit her husband, a critic of administration policy in Iraq.

Sources say grand jury witnesses have implicated the President and his top advisor, Karl Rove.

White House press secretary Scott McClellan confirmed that Bush had contacted Washington attorney Jim Sharp. "In the event the president needs his advice," McClellan said.

Bush has been an outspoken critics of leaks.

**********************************************************

CNN Breaking: James Pavitt, CIA Deputy Director of Operations, Resigns

Friday, June 4, 2004

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- James Pavitt -- the CIA's deputy director of operations who oversees all covert operations -- plans to announce his resignation Friday, U.S. sources told CNN Thursday.

The sources said Pavitt's resignation is "entirely unrelated" to Tenet's.

Pavitt, who has spent 30 years in the intelligence business, including the last five years as the CIA's deputy director of operations, testified before the 9/11 commission in mid-April. It marked the first time in the agency's history that someone of his position testified publicly.

New York police are searching for the owner of a severed human hand that dropped from the sky on to the deck of a boat.

The incident happened near the Lawrence Village Marina, on Long Island, where parties were taking place on a number of craft.

Police said the human hand mysteriously dropped out of the sky and hit the deck of one of the boats.

"At this point, we don't have a clue where it came from."

+----------------- Bizarre Urban Legends ------------------+  

[Courtesy of netscape.com]  
  
Many years ago a farmer stomped a rattlesnake to death with  
his boot. A couple of days later, the farmer died. The man's  
son then wore the boots, and he also died. The farmer's  
grandson was then given the boots; when he too grew into  
them, he also died. Finally, the grandson's mother found a  
fang of the rattler in the sole of one of the boots.  

To be initiated into a gang in California during the  
Christmas season, potential members must abduct someone and  
wrap them from head to toe in wrapping paper. Then they are  
required to lock the victim in the trunk of their own car.  

An MIT student spent his summer going to the Harvard foot-  
ball field wearing a striped shirt, whereupon he blew a  
whistle and threw birdseed. When it came time for the first  
football game, the referee walked onto the field, blew the  
whistle - and was descended upon by a flock of birds. The  
game had to be delayed for half an hour.  

A sheriff was passing a farm one day when he saw a man  
standing on the side of the road yelling, "Pig! Pig! Pig!"  
The cop became angry and began to yell back, "Redneck! Red-  
neck! Redneck!" Seconds later, the cop ran right into the  
redneck's prize pig.  

When a couple arrived at their hotel room, they noticed a  
gruesome stench. They called the front desk, and house-  
keeping came up to clean the room. Later that night, the  
couple woke up because the smell had come back. The man  
thought it was coming from the bed, so he pulled the sheets  
off - and found a dead body that had been stuffed in the  
mattress.  

A man from a small town in Kentucky had refused to cut his  
hair for over 30 years. One day he finally decided to get it  
cut. After the barber started to cut his hair, the man  
screamed and ran off. His wife later found him dead at home.  
The coroner found that when the barber had tried to cut his  
hair, he had hit a nest of red-backed spiders that began to  
bite the man, eventually killing him.  

61 YEARS AGO TODAY

Jun 3 1943

Three days after a sailor had been badly injured in a brawl with a group of Hispanics, a mob of servicemen leaves the Los Angeles Naval Reserve Armory and bludgeons anybody wearing a zoot suit. Thus begins a weeklong race riot.

Initially an African American youth fashion, closely connected to jazz culture, the zoot suit was co-opted by a generation of Mexican American kids, who made it their own.

The oversized suit was both an outrageous style and a statement of defiance. Zoot suiters asserted themselves, at a time when fabric was being rationed for the war effort, and in the face of widespread discrimination.

Drunken military men on their way back to base after a night of carousing were often "rolled" by civilian minority youth hoping to teach them proper respect. With equal animosity the sailors would often insult Mexican Americans as they traveled through their neighborhood. In the barrios, rumors spread about sailors searching out Mexican American girls. On the military bases, stories circulated about the violent reprisals suffered by sailors who dared to date Mexican American females. Sailors complained bitterly about their wives or girlfriends being subjected to the sexual taunts of young Mexican Americans. The tension continued to escalate

On the evening of Monday, May 30, 1943 about a dozen sailors and soldiers were walking on a downtown street. After spotting a group of young Mexican American women on the opposite side of the street, the sailors and soldiers changed direction and headed their way. Between the military men and the young women stood a group of young men in zoot suits. As the two groups passed each other, Sailor Joe Dacy Coleman, fearing he was about to be attacked, grabbed the arm of one of the zoot-suited young men. Coleman's move proved to be a big mistake. Coleman was almost immediately struck on the head from behind and fell to the ground, unconscious. Other young civilians pounced on the sailors with rocks, bottles and fists. After the ferocious attack, the sailors managed to escape and carry Coleman to the safety of the Naval Armory. 

  It wasn't long before sailors organized a retaliatory strike against zoot-suiters.

About fifty sailors left the Armory on the night of Thursday, June 3, armed with makeshift weapons. They proceeded toward downtown and stopped at the Carmen Theater. After turning on the house lights, the sailors roamed the aisles looking for zoot-suiters. The first victims of the zoot suit riots -- 12 and 13-year-old boys -- were guilty of little more than being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Ignoring the protests of the patrons, the sailors tore the suits off their bodies and beat and clubbed the boys. The remains of their suits were then set ablaze.

As the second night of rioting began, the sailors decided to take the fight into the Mexican American neighborhoods.

 One policeman was quoted after the riots as saying: "You can say that the cops had a 'hands-off' policy during the riots. Well, we represented public opinion. "

The violence continued during subsequent nights, enveloping even those who had no connection to jazz or the zoot suit. Military commander Clarence Flogg reported that there were "hundreds of servicemen prowling downtown Los Angeles mostly on foot -- disorderly -- apparently on the prowl for Mexicans." The Navy reported that "Groups vary in size from 10 - 150 men and scatter immediately when Shore Patrol approaches. Men found carrying hammock cues [clubs], belts, knives and tire irons..."

Although groups of armed servicemen roamed the streets attacking civilians, the military seemed more concerned with regaining control over their men than with the violence they were committing.

The worst violence occurred on Monday, June 7. One Los Angeles paper printed a guide on how to "de-zoot" a zoot suiter: "Grab a zooter. Take off his pants and frock coat and tear them up or burn them." That night a crowd of 5,000 civilians gathered downtown. Soldiers, Marines, and sailors from other installations as far away as Las Vegas eagerly joined in the assaults. Part of the mob headed south for the predominately African American section of Watts and another group headed east for Mexican American East Los Angeles.

The police were arresting dozens of young Mexican Americans. "Why am I being arrested?" one of them asked. The response was a savage clubbing with a nightstick. Although the boy fell to the sidewalk unconscious, he was kicked in the face by police.

By Tuesday morning, senior military officials declared Los Angeles off limits to all sailors, soldiers and Marines. The following day the city council adopted a resolution that banned the wearing of zoot suits on Los Angeles streets, punishable by a thirty-day jail term.

 http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/zoot/eng_peopleevents/e_riots.html

Paris bans protests ahead of Bush's visit

By Robert Graham in Paris

Published: June 2 2004

Demonstrations have been banned in central Paris throughout this week to ensure no hostile protests are in evidence to disturb President George W. Bush's brief presence in the French capital on Saturday, where he will be dining with President Jacques Chirac.

Paris is well aware that the US president is embroiled in a tough re-election campaign and that Mr Bush needs to wring domestic political capital from his D-Day appearance on the beaches of Normandy.

However, French officials hope he will not seek to link too openly the liberation of Europe from Nazi Germany with the US's removal of the dictatorship in Baghdad and Mr Bush's broader war against terrorism.