March on City Hall Protesting Fatal Shooting, Newburgh NY

Two hours after Michael Lembhard's funeral, hundreds of people took to the streets and marched on city hall protesting the circumstances of his death. The 22 year-old father of two was shot dead by police in his sister's living room, following a reported domestic dispute and brief pursuit into the residence. Police say he was suicidal and lunged at them with a knife, before he was shot 9 times. Lembhard was also wanted on seven outstanding charges. Some were only minor violations but among the unanswered charges were also allegations of domestic violence and menacing with a knife. Friends and family challenge the version of events given by police, and one protester suggested that police should have tased the suspect rather than shoot him. Excessive force, or just another tragedy in the ghetto?

Considering that he died under circumstances quite similar to what had been charged in at least one previous event, it's quite possible that the police version of events is relatively accurate. Sadly, poor folk are desperate folk, especially when they have children to feed. Trying to survive in poverty, the pressures of life in the ghetto, these are things that most people would not care to understand. Those pressures often lead to unpredictable outbursts, domestic infighting, and rash decisions. But is a police officer to blame for the ills of society? Sadly, they do often contribute to the injustices perpetuated against the poor, but nonetheless, any officer has the right to defend themselves or others if need be. So in that reasoning, I would estimate that the shooting may have indeed been justified. A violent, seemingly unreasonable man lunges at you with a knife, would you not defend yourself? I know I would. Indeed, if I was armed, I would shoot the would-be attacker.

But there is another point to be considered here as well. An option that we civilians are barred from. The taser. Even in communities where you can go about armed with a firearm, civilians are not generally allowed to carry a taser. Police, on the other hand, use such devices gratuitously. They often justify seemingly unprovoked applications with "well, we could have killed him instead" sort of responses. Pretending that tasers are only applied under circumstances for which they were originally intended to be deployed. As a less-than-lethal alternative to the firearm, when a shooting would otherwise be justified. This case seems to make clear that the Newburgh police do not use tasers to incapacitate a potentially violent suspect who is armed with a deadly weapon. This of course then begs the question, what are they actually using their tasers for? Why did they kill Michael Lembhard, rather than tase him?




Chaos Erupts Following Police Shooting Of Father Of 2 In Newburgh

Angry protesters in Newburgh take to streets after shooting victim's funeral

Angry Newburgh residents march on city hall

The Other Pink Meat

Now before we get started here, let me be clear, I am not bashing the carnivores out there. There is nothing wrong with having a good steak or even a nice venison stew. The truth is that meat or no meat, so much of what we eat today has been over-processed to the point of being detrimental to our health. You can read more on that subject in this article...

"Let Them Eat Cake" or the Tale of American Nutricide

Now we get to the meat of the topic though, lol. Have you seen this pic yet...?

That, my friends, is something you have all eaten at some point. A sludge commonly reformed and pressed in nugget form to be dipped in a variety of your favorite flavored sauces. Or sometimes pressed into patties to be ingested in a sandwich style. It may show up in other foods too. Anytime you read "mechanically separated chicken" this is what they are talking about, and what you are eating.

Not particularly appetizing. But then again, we chew bubble gum, so as disturbing as the hot pink color might be, that might not be quite enough to turn your stomach. So let's understand the process of creating mechanically separated chicken, and how it comes to wind up as a delicious little crispy nugget.

First, every bit of the chicken is used. Literally, eyeballs and assholes, bones and whatever the chicken last ate. Basically, a whole chicken is smashed through a sieve. Of course, we all have heard the stories about hot dogs, and knowing that we have still indulged at a picnic or ball-park on one occasion or many. We know that any sort of sausage is usually made from scraps or leftovers. Personally, I find it sort of honorable in fact, to not waste any bit of the animal that gave it's life so that I could eat. I might not want to think about it too much when scarfing a dog from a vendor cart in Manhattan, but I am thankful just the same. On the other hand, eating the animal's shit and puke goes a little over the line for me. Moving on now though.

While a good sausage may be made up of scrap meat, it is still meat. Not a bacteria filled sludge that might as well have been pulled from a local cesspool. It is one thing to grind up some tendons or other trimmings in a sausage, it is quite another to pulverize a chicken whole, without cleaning it. So because this sludge is rancid and filled with bacteria such as E Coli and so forth, it must be processed further, and treated with ammonia. That's right, they take this pink sludge and soak it in ammonia to kill the germs and bacteria it is filled with. Which to me is less appetizing than drinking a big glass of hot chicken piss.

Or worse. The sludge at that point would taste absolutely awful and the pink color is far too disturbing for the average consumer to accept as "chicken" so now the gunk must be processed even further. It is re-flavored with artificial chemicals that will stimulate your brain to say "chicken" when you taste it. It is also processed with artificial chemicals to wash out that hideous pink color, and give you the color of what your mind thinks looks like chicken.

Once that is done it can be shipped off to be processed into shapes and given coatings which make the vomit more marketable. Certain companies such as McDonald's have denied that they use this sort of chicken in their McNuggets, though they admit they used to. Now pardon me for not trusting one of the very corporations that brought us this sort of garbage food to begin with, but whatever "proprietary" process they are using can't be much better. And even if they did suddenly have a genuine change of heart and decided to feed people actual food, this gunk and this process are still widely used. Not just for chicken, but all sort of other meats and "foods." Everything from frozen hamburger patties to your kid's school lunch...

Pink slime -- that ammonia-treated meat in a bright Pepto-bismol shade -- may have been rejected by fast food joints like McDonald's, Taco Bell and Burger King, but is being brought in by the tons for the nation's school lunch program.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture is purchasing 7 million pounds of the "slime" for school lunches, The Daily reports. Officially termed "Lean Beef Trimmings," the product is a ground-up combination of beef scraps, cow connective tissues and other beef trimmings that are treated with ammonium hydroxide to kill pathogens like salmonella and E. coli. It's then blended into traditional meat products like ground beef and hamburger patties.

"We originally called it soylent pink," microbiologist Carl Custer, who worked at the Food Safety Inspection Service for 35 years, told The Daily. "We looked at the product and we objected to it because it used connective tissues instead of muscle. It was simply not nutritionally equivalent [to ground beef]. My main objection was that it was not meat."

Read the rest of that article here:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/05/pink-slime-for-school-lun_n_1322325.html

"I Think We're Alone Now" (A Stalker Documentary)

I.Think.We.Are.Alone.Now. from shan on Vimeo.

I do have to admit, that video reminds me of the smell of hairspray, acid etched jeans and teen sex.