This performance has it all -- a spicy mix of artists from NOLA, sharing the mic and working off the theme of Water. An evening performance out on the streets, 2008. New Orleans has always been close to my heart, and this is 10 minutes of full, relevant Louisiana soul. Power to the people, y'all.

Jim Wilson/The New York Times
Sharhanda Thomas took his protest to the turnstiles at the Fruitvale BART station after a funeral for Oscar Grant III, a 22-year-old man killed at the station.

OAKLAND, Calif. — Protesters angry over a deadly shooting of a young unarmed black man on New Year’s Day stampeded through city streets on Wednesday night, burning cars and smashing storefronts and leading to pleas from city officials on Thursday for patience and calm.

About 120 people were arrested during the violent outburst on Wednesday, which came after a day of demonstrations over the shooting of Oscar Grant III, a 22-year-old butcher’s apprentice who was shot in the back by a transit system police officer while he lay on the platform at the Fruitvale Station of the Bay Area Rapid Transit system.

“My message is, cool it out there, folks,” Mayor Ron V. Dellums said. “This is not a game.”
On Wednesday night, police officers in riot gear responded with tear gas and nightsticks, and arrested protesters on charges of vandalism, unlawful assembly, rioting and assault on a police officer. Two people were arrested in possession of handguns. Dozens others were cited and released, said Wayne Tucker, the city’s chief of police.

The police chief for BART, Gary Gee, said that transit police detectives were still compiling clues in the shooting, which occurred after Mr. Grant and a group of friends were removed from an eastbound train in the wake of a fight among two groups leaving a New Year’s Eve celebration in San Francisco.

At least four cell phone cameras held by passengers on the train idling next to the platform captured images of Mr. Grant lying face down when Transit Officer Johannes Mehserle, 27, pulls his gun and fires a single shot. Mr. Mehserle looks up at another officer, and then handcuffs Mr. Grant. The images have been repeatedly broadcast on local television and streamed online.

Christopher Miller, a lawyer for Officer Mehserle, said in a brief statement on Wednesday that the officer’s resignation, which took place on Wednesday, would allow BART to “get back to the business of managing regional transportation,” adding that the officer had the full support of his union, the BART Police Officers Association. But it made no reference to the circumstances of the shooting.

Mr. Mehserle has not been charged with a crime. Investigators said their efforts to interview him about the circumstances of the shooting had been rebuffed by his lawyers, something that has fed complaints that the transit agency and the Alameda County district attorney, Tom Orloff, have each been sluggish in their investigations.

“If you can’t file charges in a case like this,” said John Burris, a lawyer for Mr. Grant’s mother and his live-in girlfriend. “I don’t know what kind of case you can file in.”

At an occasionally unruly press conference at Oakland City Hall on Thursday, just down the block from where a small clutch of protesters set trash cans and cars afire on Wednesday night, Mr. Dellums said that the Oakland Police Department would start a third investigation of the shooting event, which he referred to as a homicide.

Mr. Orloff was more measured in his statements, saying only that such investigations take time and that he hoped to be finished in two weeks.

“I think it’s important that when we move forward we will move forward with a case that is court-ready,” said Mr. Orloff, who was interrupted by demonstrators several times as he tried to speak.

But the district attorney’s timetable seemed unlikely to please residents of Oakland, an ethnically mixed city of 400,000 across the bay from San Francisco. At a public meeting of the transit system’s board, Desley Brooks, an Oakland City Council member, said, “The community does not have confidence in BART investigating itself.”

But a BART spokesman, Linton Johnson, said Thursday that “the worst thing that we could do, the thing that would cause absolute chaos, is if we screwed up this investigation.”

The shooting is just the latest incident in a historically tense relationship between Oakland’s black community and law enforcement, including a corruption case known as the Riders case in which a group of Oakland police officers were accused of abusing and falsely accusing suspects. Three of the officers were acquitted but the incident nevertheless damaged the department’s reputation.

On Thursday morning, several downtown merchants were shoveling shards of glass outside their damaged storefronts and juggling mixed emotions. Thuyen Tran, 24, whose family runs a small nail salon whose front window had been shattered, said he was upset that his family’s business had been damaged but also understood the anger of the protesters.

“It doesn’t make sense, using brutal force,” said Mr. Tran, who is of Vietnamese descent. “It doesn’t feel good, because No. 1, I’m a minority, and No. 2, I’m a young kid.”

Several civic leaders said on Thursday that the violence reflected anger among young people — and particularly young black men — who feel that they are unfair targets of the police.

“The murder of Oscar Grant III was a tragedy and not the first tragedy suffered on the streets of Oakland,” said Jakada Imani, executive director of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, who called the protests a tipping point “for a community that has been struggling and suffering for decades.”

On Wednesday, several protesters lay prone in front of police, hands behind their backs, saying, “I am Oscar Grant.” Mr. Grant’s name has already begun to be graffitied along highways.

On Thursday, Mr. Grant’s family and friends spoke publicly to condemn the violence.
“I am begging the citizens not to use violent tactics, not to be angry,” said Wanda Johnson, Mr. Grant’s mother. “You’re hurting people that have nothing to do with the situation. Please stop it, just please stop.”

Malia Wollan contributed reporting from Oakland, and Liz Robbins from New York.

— By Taylor Wiles | Fri February 13, 2009 9:55 AM PST

If you think it was hard to push out the $787 billion stimulus package, try birthing a child without health care or living with HPV. Though the package bodes well for environmentalists, in order to lure Republicans—none of whom have signed on yet—Obama stripped it of a handful of important provisions on women, STD prevention, and children's services.

Specifically, Obama cut $25 million to the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Forces and $150 million to the Violence Against Women Act at the suggestion of Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) and Ben Nelson (D-NE). Also stripped from the stimulus package was a section that would allow states to cover family planning services—without first obtaining a government waiver, as is the current practice—for low-income women who are ineligible for Medicaid. A Congressional Budget Office report estimates that this bill would have saved the country $200 million over five years and $700 million over the next ten.

STDs were apparently another sore spot for Republicans, so Obama ended up taking out $335 million for STD prevention. According to the CDC, STDs cost the health care system $15.3 billion per year, and we're expected to spend $12.3 billion on HIV/AIDS-related care in 2009. You do the math.


Update: Three Republican Senators—Olympia J. Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine, and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania—supported the bill.

I took the 43 Things Personality Quiz and found out I'm a

Self-Knowing Money Managing Builder

Not sure if i believe it, though. And why did I end up homeless at one point if i'm so good with building money?

Fine print first: I'm a single mom with no family nearby except my ex husband, and our son has special needs. Thus I am always going to be quick to say, "It can be much harder than you imagine to raise a child." I hoped for two, had one that was challenging, then separated and said, "Wow, this is really all i can handle if I wish to do justice to this child that I CHOSE to bring to Earth." So he's an Only.

Meanwhile back at the ranch, some folks think about "having babies" and their right to do so -- without ever considering they are actually "raising children towards adulthood" and taking on huge responsibilities. Thirteen-year old girls in record numbers want to have a baby -- some are even MORE short-sighted and say they want a "baby bump" like Jamie Lynn Spears. They never say they want to "bring another human onto the Earth" or "raise a child for 18 years to become a great world citizen." I have heard people say they plan to have 4 or 5 "because i can." WTF kinda attitude is that?!

One of my biggest complaints about mainstream American culture and ideology is that we are taught to scream for our "rights" -- while ignoring the responsibilities that logically are married to those rights. "My right to freedom of speech" to many Americans means they can spout off mindlessly or insult anyone. What about their responsibility to use their voice for the good of humanity in ways small and large? To speak truth? To spread kindness and honesty with that voice? Is that what motivates our most vocal "free speech advocates" like Larry Flynt or "Mancow"?

Similarly the debates about things like family planning seem to focus on EITHER rights OR responsibilities. And of course that very American concept of "It's none of your business!" If someone wishes to collect dozens of Care Bears I say go nuts. You don't need to justify that, as the Bears are not dependent upon you to provide their human needs and protect their human rights. Seeing as they are not human...

However, having a baby on THIS planet means you don't just GET something. You become the primary agent through which the child's rights must be protected and needs must be met. And simply by being born, those little humans HAVE RIGHTS. So if you cannot protect those rights, including meeting basic human needs, in my opinion you do NOT have the right to bring them here as dependents of yours.

Call me a communist, but why should such a big decision that involves adding citizens to our human community become suddenly a completely private matter? Why SHOULDN'T people counsel and critique this decision? It is, in fact, OUR planet that has just gotten a tiny bit heavier. And hungrier.