Arizona Private Prison Riot Raises Some Big Questions

Donald Cohen Capital and Main
The recent riots at the for-profit Kingman Prison in Arizona are focusing renewed attention on that state legislature’s long, cozy relationship with the private prison industry. Prisoner unrest the July 4th weekend left 15 wounded and forced the transfer of 1,000 inmates to other facilities. The same facility, run by Management Training Corporation, suffered a major riot in 2010. The repeated failings of for-profit prisons have led Arizonans to ask some big questions.

Urban Renewal, Public Space, and the Growing Social Divide

Michael Kimmelman The New York Times
Eric Garner died after being put in a chokehold by the police on the sidewalk outside a shop a year ago this Friday. The battle over his death isn’t only about policing, but about public space. It’s about real estate and urban renewal, lines that should not be crossed, and places that are off limits to certain people. And it’s about public places where African-Americans and others are supposed to be invisible, without access to their infrastructure and amenities.

Thirty-Two in a Different Country; Invented Mothers

Zeina Hashem Beck Heart Journal Online
A Lebanese poet from Dubai, Zeina Hashem Beck offers two poems, Thirty-Two and in a Different Country and The Invented Mothers, both touching the deep trauma of warfare on civilians.

Calm Down: SCOTUS's 'Friedrichs' Case Won't Mean the End of the American Labor Movement

David Moberg In These Times
Unions have discovered that there are other ways to deal with workers who are not on their membership rolls. For example, for the first half of last year, AFSCME set out to organize as full members 50,000 of the fair share payers or other non-members in workplaces where they had contracts. They organized 90,000.

FBI Joins Investigation Into 'Unfathomable' Death of Sandra Bland

Nadia Prupis Common Dreams
Sandra Bland died in police custody in a Texas jail after a traffic stop. In a video shot by a passer-by, Bland protests that her head is being slammed to the ground during her arrest. Local authorities are calling her death a suicide, but friends and family do not believe that explanation. Twitter users have launched the hashtag #IfIDieInPoliceCustody to counter the narratives that often follow the deaths of unarmed black men and women in police custody.

"Our Selma!" March for Voting Rights

As North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory goes to trial for the suppression of Voting Rights in the North Carolina, thousands turn out for the Forward Together Movement’s Mass Moral March for Voting Rights in Winston-Salem.

Film: Do I Sound Gay?

Is there such a thing as a "gay voice"? Why do some people "sound gay" but not others? Why are gay voices a mainstay of pop culture but also a trigger for bullying and harassment? Do I Sound Gay? explores these questions and more with revealing interviews with Margaret Cho, Tim Gunn, Don Lemon, Dan Savage, David Sedaris and George Takei. In theaters and cable on-demand now.

Elizabeth Warren Keynotes Netroots Nation

Elizabeth Warren calls for a comprehensive progressive agenda and challenges all presidential candidates to support legislation that would curb the revolving door between Wall Street and government.

War / No More Trouble (Playing for Change)

Another stunning collaboration by Playing for Change, a movement created to inspire and connect the world through music, featuring musicians in Israel, Congo, South Africa, Ghana, the United States, India, Ireland (and Bono).

Ninth Rock From the Sun

Stephen Colbert and Neil deGrasse Tyson riff, with scientific rigor and lots of humor, about the New Horizons findings, Pluto weirdness, and the demotion (or elevation?) of Pluto from planet to king of the Kuiper Belt.