Last fall in Jena, Louisiana, the day after two black high school students sat beneath the "white tree" on their campus, nooses were hung from the tree. When the superintendent dismissed the nooses as a "prank," more black students sat under the tree in protest. The District Attorney then came to the school accompanied by the town's police and demanded that the students end their protest, telling them, "I can be your best friend or your worst enemy... I can take away your lives with a stroke of my pen."

A series of white-on-black incidents of violence followed, and the DA did nothing. But when a white student was beaten up in a schoolyard fight, the DA responded by charging six black students with attempted murder and conspiracy to commit murder.

Six black Jena High students were expelled from school, arrested and charged with second-degree attempted murder. The first trial ended last month, and one boy, who has been in prison since December, was convicted of aggravated battery and conspiracy to commit aggravated battery (both felonies) by an all-white jury in a trial where his public defender called no witnesses. During his trial, the boy's parents were ordered not to speak to the media and the court prohibited protests from taking place near the courtroom or where the judge could see them. The boy is scheduled to be sentenced on July 31st, and could go to jail for 22 years.

Join me in demanding that Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco get involved to make sure that justice is served, and that DA Reed Walters drop the charges against the 5 boys who have not yet gone to trial.

[link]

Please note:

By consensus achieved in Bureaucracy, we have reopened and repurposed the Book Club thread for discussion of the most recent and final Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. It will remain open until such discussion has run its course.

Spoilers for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows will now appear in the Book Club thread.

Please adjust your subscriptions accordingly and use Read New with caution if you wish to avoid them.

Voting results:

Do you want Supernatural to have its own thread?

68 YES

16 NO

8 NO PREFERENCE

A total of 92 votes were cast.

The Supernatural thread is up: "Supernatural 1: Saving People, Hunting Things - the Family Business" Jul 22, 2007 6:12:23 am PDT

Drollerie Press is celebrating our grand opening with a little party in our chat room, starting at 9PM EDT, 6PM board time. If you have a little time to spare, come visit! [link]

Massive food recall

WASHINGTON, July 21, 2007 - Castleberry’s Food Company, an Augusta, Ga., establishment owned by Bumble Bee Foods, LLC, is voluntarily expanding its July 19 recall of canned meat products that may contain Clostridium botulinum, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service announced today.

The recall is being expanded after information gathered by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and FSIS indicated that processing malfunctions at the establishment have existed longer than initially estimated. For that reason, Castelberry’s has agreed to recall all of the following products that may still be in commerce, regardless of the “best buy” date stamped on the bottom of the can. Consumers who have any of the products listed are urged not to eat them, but rather return or dispose of them.

Lightbulbs opens with a proposal from Connie Neil:

I formally propose a Broadcast Drama bucket thread, to include shows like House and Bones and CSI and Greys Anatomy etc.

ita "Voting Discussion: We're Screwing In Light Bulbs AIFG!" Jul 24, 2007 10:13:32 pm PDT

My book will be reviewed in this Friday's Entertanment Weekly.

Can I get some Good Review-ma?

Seriously.

We're gonna be famous!

After discussions in LJ and Natter, I have organized a photographic scavenger hunt starting tomorrow at 10:00. I am going to post a list of items, and people will have a week to find and photograph as many of the items as possible, and then share them with the rest of us. I set up an LJ community for it (and any others we do, if people like the idea enough), but I set it up so that non-Ljers can participate.

Some shameless begging from me.

Consider a visit to my husband's well-written and enjoyable site, whih I have pimped here before: [link] If anyone with time on their hands could go there in the next two days and click around, that will bring his numbers up and allow him to break the magic 300,00 hits per month mark and make his bosses love him and pay him more money, which would rock.

Also, it's a darn good blog and fun to read!