Kiera Wilmot Story. Why has Mass Media neglected it?

The story of Kiera Wilmot seems to have taken the Internet by storm. However, mainstream media and I include NPR in this, have ignored this pressing issue. The pressing issue is racial and also has a lot to do with common sense and fear. It is racial because Kiera Wilmot, a 16 year black honor student of Bartow Florida, was taken in by Bartow Police and may very well be charged with a felony for doing something that most aspiring scientists do: she blew something up. Well, actually in the scheme of things it looked more like something George Lucas or Steven Spielberg might do for one of their special effects segments. Kiera could produce the next great Sci-fi epic for all we know. Mixing drain cleaner and aluminum Bucky balls in a plastic bottle is going to produce nothing more than a smallish pop and some smoke. Is this story going to go up in a puff of smoke? At present, Kiera's future as a scientist or great film director is in doubt. There's no reason, given her stated intent, to expel her from school or worse, charge her with a felony. This was hardly a terroristic act and I do wish 9/11 and now the Boston Bombings wouldn't be used as an excuse to violate the rights of innocent citizens. That only cheapens the lives that have been lost tragically in those events. What is more a wonderment is why mainstream media has yet to cover this story. It has all the drama of an Afterschool Special combined with the societal issues surrounding race, gender, age and the problems with the education system in the United States. Yes, the local Florida papers have covered it, but they would. A petition from Change.org has, at the last time I checked, garnered more than 150,000 signatures since Wednesday when I signed it. http://www.change.org/petitions/state-attorney-jerry-hill-drop-charges-against-kiera-wilmot NPR, of all the media outlets, I would presume to be interested in this story. Its storied "Liberal" image would make at a natural venue for this very human story. Why have they ignored it? Shame on them!

Everything Or Less and it's mostly less service in Retail

Everything Or Less, originally uploaded by ⓅⒶⓎⓅⒶⓊⓁ.

Retail is funny because on one hand the Customer must be served. On the other hand, production goals, whatever those may be, preclude the customer from getting the best of service. Employees of retail and any customer service related business are forced to meet ever changing "Performance Metrics". To meet these and keep their jobs many employees are forced to cut corners and do low quality work. Management tends to look the other way because production goals will then be met.
If you don't cut corners and try to do a good job both for the store and for the customer, you are deemed "slow" and may not retain that retail job for very long. So instead, you do things on the quick-quick, not taking the time to do the job right, cut off the customer on the phone or in the aisle and hope to see another day and another tiny paycheck.
True, there isn't much profit in retail. Markup on most items for the store is about 5 percent. There is a lot of competition for that small piece of the pie. Managers get a bonus at the end of the year for meeting production goals. This is an incentive to sharp practice. Not all retail is Wal-Mart, where in some stores managers force workers to work off the clock so they can meet those production goals. There have been about 10 lawsuits on that matter in the past 10 years. Nonetheless it's mostly less that the customer gets. It's less service, less information and less quality products. Am I being too unreasonable to want everything and more?

Via Flickr:
Everything Is Less Than Zero.
Hey! Hey, hey!

Blasting Away At Madness: This Shopping Cart Is In The Dumps

Blasting Away At Madness: This Shopping Cart Is In The Dumps

This Shopping Cart Is In The Dumps

This Shopping Cart Is In The Dumps, originally uploaded by ⓅⒶⓎⓅⒶⓊⓁ.

The NYPD have nothing better to do than harass a photographer taking photographs of this trashed shopping cart. It's been sitting on this grassy patch on East 12th Street in Brooklyn for the past 4 days. It's filled with materials probably discarded by one of the disreputable and fly by night building contractors that work in my neighborhood. Office Sukhu was attempting to intimidate me today, implying that I was responsible for dumping this cart here. What right have the cops to ask me questions as to why I'm photographing anything that is on a public street? They have no right to harass me, ask for ID or make other assumptions about my character. Office Sukhu even questioned whether I belonged here in New York City. "You don't sound like you live here in New York" he said. I told him I was doing my art and he used that statement to imply that I was the one who dumped these materials. He and FOUR other officers from the 61st Precinct surrounded me and threatened me with a summons. The kind of cavalier attitude and leading conversation I suffered under their scrutiny has reinforced my negative opinion of the NYPD. There is no "Courtesy, Professionalism and Respect" coming from the NYPD anymore. I doubt there ever has been any but now even more so since Bloomberg declared the NYPD to be his "Army".

Google represses Flickr Images!

The Very First Slinky, originally uploaded by ⓅⒶⓎⓅⒶⓊⓁ.

Google has relegated images from Flickr to the bottom pages if they are to be seen at all from a Flickr image search. If a search is done for "popular toys of the 1940s" on Bing the image above will be shown. Not so for a Google image search where the image does not show up at all. See the differences here:

The Bing Image Search:

http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=popular+toys+of+the+1940s#x0y5814

The google image search:

http://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&hl=en&source=hp&biw=1156&bih=716&q=popular+toys+of+the+1940s&gbv=2&oq=popular+toys+of+the+1940s&aq=f&aqi=g-S1&aql=&gs_sm=s&gs_upl=3029l3029l0l4592l1l1l0l0l0l0l193l193l0.1l1l0

I thought I was mistaken the first time but this has happened more than once. Time to send Google a message loud and clear. Stop manipulating web search searches for your own profit. Google doesn't like Yahoo!, which owns flickr, so they will use their misbegotten power over the Internet to wield undue influence on the websites we go to.



Via Flickr:
The toy was invented and developed by naval engineer Richard James in the early 1940s and demonstrated at Gimbels department store in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in November 1945

Slinky Jingle:

What walks down stairs, alone or in pairs, and makes a slinkity sound?
A spring, a spring, a marvelous thing!
Everyone knows it's Slinky.
It's Slinky, it's Slinky, it's fun, it's a wonderful toy.
It's Slinky, it's Slinky, it's fun, it's a wonderful toy.
It's fun for a girl or a boy.

Where Were You On September 11?

Where Were You On September 11?, originally uploaded by ⓅⒶⓎⓅⒶⓊⓁ.

Where Were You On September 11? So Osama Bin Laden is dead. Long awaited relief is there for some but others may only be glad that the Royal Wedding and Lindsay Lohan's legal foibles are off the front page. Yet this story has filled the entire newscast of NPRs morning edition to the loss of anything else. The alien invaders from the Antares Nebula could invade the Earth and I doubt anyone would notice.

Via Flickr:
Where were you on September 11th?

05/1/11 is May day, a day to celebrate. Osama Bin Laden is dead! Can the victims rest a little easier tonight? I doubt it. They still have loved ones to mourn. Yet a great source of evil has finally been brought to justice by the US Navy Seals.

General Electric: Greedy Enough?

General Electric: Greedy Enough?, originally uploaded by ⓅⒶⓎⓅⒶⓊⓁ.

Tax Day has been postponed for the rest of us until April 18th, 2011 but for General Electric, with its offshore accounts and numerous tax loopholes it has been postponed forever. Shouldn't even the members of the Tea Party be clamoring for them to pay their fair share? According to the NY Times G.E. claimed a tax benefit of $3.2 billion.

www.nytimes.com/2011/03/25/business/economy/25tax.html

General could do a great service to millions of Americans suffering from unemployment, underemployment and threat of death due to inadequate healthcare. They could put BILLIONS into the coffers of the US treasury to provide much needed relief. Some say they shouldn't be obligated to provide anything for their fellow Americans. Should we rely upon their generosity when Corporations such as GE have proven otherwise? The blood of Millions of Americans is on their hands. It's time for a speedy trial of these tax evading Corporations.

Michael Moore and MoveOn certainly know this needs to be done.

www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-moore/tax-day-events_b_849...