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Just Say No ... to the War on Drugs

Every day, more Americans agree the War on Drugs has failed and must change. The Smarter Sentencing Act will save billions of dollars and ease dangerous overcrowding in prisons by reducing sentences for non-violent drug offenders. It will also help strengthen communities and reduce racial injustice. Ask your members of Congress to pass the Smarter Sentencing Act. It's a vital first step. A Eugene Jarecki Digital Short. Featuring the Turf Feinz/YAK Films.
 

Pterosaurs: Flight in the Age of Dinosaurs

They flew with their fingers. They walked on their wings. Some were gigantic, while others could fit in the palm of a hand. Millions of years ago, the skies were ruled by pterosaurs, the first animals with backbones to fly under their own power. In the new exhibition Pterosaurs: Flight in the Age of Dinosaurs, rare fossils, life-size models, and hands-on interactives bring these ancient animals to life.
 

John Lennon: Instant Karma

Instant Karma's gonna get you, 
Gonna knock you right on the head, 
You better get yourself together, 
Pretty soon you're gonna be dead, 
What in the world you thinking of, 
Laughing in the face of love, 
What on earth you tryin' to do, 
It's up to you, yeah you. 
 
Instant Karma's gonna get you, 
Gonna look you right in the face, 
Better get yourself together darlin', 
Join the human race, 
How in the world you gonna see, 
Laughin' at fools like me, 
Who on earth d'you think you are, 
A super star, 
Well, right you are. 
 
Well we all shine on, 
Like the moon and the stars and the sun, 
Well we all shine on, 
Ev'ryone come on. 
 
Instant Karma's gonna get you, 
Gonna knock you off your feet, 
Better recognize your brothers, 
Ev'ryone you meet, 
Why in the world are we here, 
Surely not to live in pain and fear, 
Why on earth are you there, 
When you're ev'rywhere, 
Come and get your share. 
 
Well we all shine on, 
Like the moon and the stars and the sun, 
Yeah we all shine on, 
Come on and on and on on on, 
Yeah yeah, alright, uh huh, ah-. 
 
Well we all shine on, 
Like the moon and the stars and the sun, 
Yeah we all shine on, 
On and on and on on and on. 
 
Well we all shine on, 
Like the moon and the stars and the sun. 
Well we all shine on, 
Like the moon and the stars and the sun. 
Well we all shine on, 
Like the moon and the stars and the sun. 
Yeah we all shine on, 
Like the moon and the stars and the sun
 

Friday Nite Videos -- May 23, 2014

Portside
Sen. Elizabeth Warren's keynote at the New Populism Conference. John Lennon: Instant Karma. Pterosaurs: Flight in the Age of Dinosaurs. Just Say No ... to the War on Drugs. Drug Tests Must Now Include Females.

Workers at N.Y.U.’s Abu Dhabi Site Faced Harsh Conditions

ARIEL KAMINER and SEAN O’DRISCOLL The New York Times
Inside squalid quarters, bedrooms are so crowded that men must sleep three to a stack — one on the upper bunk, one on the lower bunk and one below the lower bunk, separated from the floor by only a thin pad for a mattress. In the space between the beds, the men pile cauliflower, onions and sacks of Basmati rice to cook after working all day and washing the construction dirt from their clothes. Exposed wiring hangs from the ceiling, and cockroaches climb the walls.

Tidbits - May 22, 2014

Portside
Reader Comments - Boko Haram; Portside articles on the Ukraine; Brown v. Board-what still needs to be done; Redistributing Income; NRA, Second Amendment; John Oliver; Jon Favreau - a correction; Whiteness of Liberal Media; Was the American Revolution Really Just A Counter-Revolution; THE REAL WORLD - a graduation address never given; Announcements - DIE LINKE, SYRIZA, Future of the European Left - New York - May 28; New Book -- Torture is still an urgent moral issue

Cecily's Pre-sentencing Statement to the Judge

Cecily McMillan Justice for Cecily
And though I am still young, and still searching for answers, I have started down a path where dignity is derived from the law of love, and though it has been said that this trial is personal and not political, I maintain that the personal cannot be divorced from the political.Whereas nonviolent civil disobedience is the manifestation of my ideology, it is rooted in a love ethic that is central to my identity.

What Cesar Chavez Movie Missed

David Bacon In These Times
The new film, Cesar Chavez: History is Made One Step at a Time, doesn't capture the diversity of the farmworkers' movement. "When I was a farmworker, before the strike, we lived in different worlds - the Latino world, the Filipino world, the African-American world and the Caucasian world," Eliseo Medina as interviewed by David Bacon for In These Times.

A Mighty Oak Has Fallen - Dr. Vincent Gordon Harding (July 25, 1931 - May 19, 2014)

D.L. Chandler; Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove; Rose Marie Berger
Dr. Vincent G. Harding, Civil Rights pioneer, colleague, advisor and speechwriter for Dr. Martin Luther King, died this week at age 82. He drafted King's anti-Vietnam War speech, "Breaking the Silence". As people like King and Rosa Parks became icons, Harding insisted that America could not celebrate their lives without continuing to devote ourselves to the work they and many others had done.