In the first posting of this blog, I used the opening from my forthcoming book, Class, Race, Gender & Crime. I've been busy going through the page proofs, which are the last chance to correct errors. It's actually difficult to look carefully at each sentence at this point because I've been through it so many times with writing, editing and copyediting (dealing with the editors questions and approving or rejecting their suggestions). But it is email off to the publisher now and we're wrapping up eveything. After what seems like hundreds of emails (but is probably a few dozen), we... continue reading »
Back when I was in grad school at American University, I ended up working with Jeff Reiman on what would become the 4th edition of his book, The Rich Get Richer & the Poor Get Prison. That turned into work on the 5th, 6th, 7th and the 8th edition (which will be out later this month o in August). Obviously there's something to the book and the thesis. Being involved in the book has given me an appreciation for scams, especially by those who are powerful and wealthy. There are a few items I've collected recently on this topic. Not... continue reading »
Many thanks to those of you stopping by to check out the blog. I've been working out a few technical bugs and hope to start posting more frequently over the next few weeks.This week is a little lighter than last week's review of terrorism, but we still have violence in the Mid East to deal with. But first, sex, drugs and CEO pay & how they profited from Sept 11. Sex-Regina Lynn writes the Sex Drive column for Wired.com (yes, work safe): It has long been illegal in California to knowingly pass a communicable disease, venereal or otherwise, to another... continue reading »
File this under the general heading of speaking uncomfortable truths to power, or maybe 'what happens when the facts are biased.' The US govt, through the Interior Dept, collects royalties from mining and oil drilling on Indian reservations and is supposed to distribute the money to Native Americans. But they we doing a half-assed job what the court says was/is such a "hopelessly inept" job that Indians filed a class action to get them to do an audit and take an actual accounting of how much is owed to the native people. Almost ten years later, the case is still... continue reading »
A standard feature of many blog is a blogroll - that list that can be either long or endless. While I like checking out suggestions of my favorite bloggers, long blogrolls are overwhelming and not useful. So, I will be doing posts (hopefully one a week) that review a few highlights and point out some good material in blogs I recommend. They will all be filed under the 'linkfest/recommended' category. While you probably think this should start out with Ken Lay, that's a bit too US centric...Anniversary of London Bombings "Everything was all normal and then suddenly, it was not.... continue reading »
“Those who won our independence by revolution were not cowards,” wrote Supreme Court Justice Brandeis: “They did not exalt order at the cost of liberty” (Whitney v California, 274 US 357, 1927). The radicals who founded this country were not only brave enough to fight, but were not afraid to articulate their belief in the importance of freedom and argue it through to the logical conclusion of a government dependent on The People, who were free to change it. They wrote in the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,... continue reading »