As Homeless Rates Escalate in America, Feeding the Homeless is Banned.

50 million Americans live in poverty, yet feeding the homeless is gradually being outlawed across the nation. 

The following are some of the major U.S. cities that have attempted to ban feeding the homeless:

Philadelphia

Mayor Nutter recently banned feeding homeless people in many parts of Philadelphia where homeless people are known to congregate....

Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter has announced a ban on the feeding of large numbers of homeless and hungry people at sites on and near the Benjamin Franklin Parkway.

Mayor Nutter is imposing the ban on all outdoor feedings of large numbers of people on city parkland, including Love Park and the Ben Franklin Parkway, where it is not uncommon for outreach groups to offer free food.

Nutter says the feedings lack both sanitary conditions and dignity.

Orlando

Last June, a group of activists down in Orlando, Florida were arrested by police for feeding the homeless in defiance of a city ordinance....

Over the past week, twelve members of food activist group Food Not Bombs have been arrested in Orlando for giving free food to groups of homeless people in a downtown park. They were acting in defiance of a controversial city ordinance that mandates permits for groups distributing food to large groups in parks within two miles of City Hall. Each group is allowed only two permits per park per year; Food Not Bombs has already exceeded their limit. They set up their meatless buffet in Lake Eola knowing that they would likely be arrested as a result.

Houston

Down in Houston, a group of Christians was recently banned from distributing food to the homeless, and they were told that they probably would not be granted a permit to do so in the future even if they applied for one....

Bobby and Amanda Herring spent more than a year providing food to homeless people in downtown Houston every day. They fed them, left behind no trash and doled out warm meals peacefully without a single crime being committed, Bobby Herring said.

That ended two weeks ago when the city shut down their "Feed a Friend" effort for lack of a permit. And city officials say the couple most likely will not be able to obtain one.

"We don't really know what they want, we just think that they don't want us down there feeding people," said Bobby Herring, a Christian rapper who goes by the stage name Tre9.

Dallas

Dallas has also adopted a law which greatly restricts the ability of individuals and ministries to feed the homeless....

A Dallas-area ministry is suing the city over a food ordinance that restricts the group from giving meals to the homeless.

Courts dismissed Dallas’ request for a summary judgment last week, saying the case, brought up by pastor Don Hart (in video above) may indeed be a violation of free exercise of religion, as protected by the Texas Religious Freedom Restoration Act, the blog Religion Clause reported.

In the court filing, the ministry leaders argue that their Christian faith requires them to share meals with the homeless (Jesus did!) and that the requirement that even churches and charities provide toilets, sinks, trained staff and consent of the city keeps them from doing so.

Las Vegas

A few years ago, Las Vegas became the first major U.S. city to specifically pass a law banning the feeding of homeless people....

Las Vegas, whose homeless population has doubled in the past decade to about 12,000 people in and around the city, joins several other cities across the country that have adopted or considered ordinances limiting the distribution of charitable meals in parks. Most have restricted the time and place of such handouts, hoping to discourage homeless people from congregating and, in the view of officials, ruining efforts to beautify downtowns and neighborhoods.

But the Las Vegas ordinance is believed to be the first to explicitly make it an offense to feed “the indigent.”

In New York, the Bloomberg administration is  blocking food donations to all government-run facilities that serve the city’s homeless. Why? Too much salt.

The Bloomberg administration is now taking the term “food police” to new depths, blocking food donations to all government-run facilities that serve the city’s homeless.

In conjunction with a mayoral task force and the Health Department, the Department of Homeless Services recently started enforcing new nutritional rules for food served at city shelters. Since DHS can’t assess the nutritional content of donated food, shelters have to turn away good Samaritans.

For over a decade, Glenn Richter and his wife, Lenore, have led a team of food-delivery volunteers from Ohab Zedek, the Upper West Side Orthodox congregation.

They’ve brought freshly cooked, nutrient-rich surplus foods from synagogue events to homeless facilities in the neighborhood. (Disclosure: I know the food is so tasty because I’ve eaten it — I’m an OZ member.) The practice of donating such surplus food to homeless shelters is common among houses of worship in the city.

DHS Commissioner Seth Diamond says the ban on food donations is consistent with Mayor Bloomberg’s emphasis on improving nutrition for all New Yorkers. A new interagency document controls what can be served at facilities — dictating serving sizes as well as salt, fat and calorie contents, plus fiber minimums and condiment recommendations.

The city also cites food-safety issues with donations, but it’s clear that the real driver behind the ban is the Bloomberg dietary diktats.

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9/11: Indifference to What's Real and the Murder of Reality.

I distinctly remember the weather on Tuesday morning, September 11, 2001: beautiful crystal clear skies as far as the eye could see. No one could've predicted what was to come...well, none of us regular people, anyway. However, things aren't always as they appear. In the background, on that beautiful morning, a category three Hurricane -Hurricane Erin- was headed toward New York City! At a whopping 500 miles in diameter, with more cyclonic energy than Hurricane Katrina! One would think the "hype every storm to the empth degree" mainstream media would've, at the very least, mentioned it. But, not a peep.

Now, as it happened, this huge hurricane spared Manhattan, by making a sharp right hand turn out toward sea. But did the national weather service know this would occur? No, not really. According to Dr. Judy Wood, author of "Where did the Towers Go", Erin was a high pressure system moving from the west, so, yes, it was predicted that it would turn; however, considering the system had already carved its path for four days without reversing position, it was clear that meteorologists didn't know when this would occur. And if the system did not turn exactly when it did, it would've "caused all sorts of storm surges" that would've undoubtedly caused flooding, as Manhattan is at sea level. Dr. Wood also said, "there were air craft carriers and other ships that were docked around Newark, and they took those out to sea because you don't want those docked when horrendous storms are hitting land."  

Here's the thing: the conditions inside the hurricane held constant for 24 hours. The air pressure, wind speed, and distance remained the same. This is an anomaly.  There are no hurricanes in recorded history that have held constant air conditions for 24 hours.

The disconnect between what really happened that day and what people believe to be true, is astonishing. In June, I blogged about the 1975 World Trade Center Fire that Burned for 3 Hours. One would think that the television talking heads who droned on and on, day after day about 9/11 would've mentioned this fire. Asked the question, why didn't the towers fall back then? After all, they are the very first skyscrapers that have disintegrated collapsed due to fire.

Questions:

Why were all the recordings of the building's demise so quiet?

It should've sounded like, as Dr. Wood said, "like it was raining dump trucks".

Where was the what should've been 210 stories of rubble?

Why did the Earth’s magnetic field dip at 8:46 a.m.?

From a set of magnetometers monitored by the University of Alaska, several instruments showed significant deviations from normal readings as the events of 9/11 were unfolding.
Where's the flood? Both towers are built into a "bathtub" on bedrock that plunges 70 feet below the water table.
Where was the seismic signal that would've reflected two 500,000 ton buildings crashing to the ground? The seismic signal was equivalent to the bottom 20 stories of Tower 1 and the bottom 16 stories of Tower 2.

Why did the ground shake for only 8 seconds once the north tower "fell", when dropping a bowling bowl from the top of one of the buildings would've shook the ground for 9.5 seconds?

Why were there no traces of toilets, filing cabinets, yet, office paper was flying everywhere? Hello? Uh..doesn't paper burn up before porcelin and steel?

What's with the bizarre toasting (totaled, not necessarily cooked) and flipping (it was the upside down cars that were in good shape, and the cars that were right side up were toasted) of 1,400 vehichles, often times in close proximity to trees, where not one leaf was disturbed? Windshields, engines, and door handles completely disappeared, leaving the shell of the car in tact.

Why do we have falling debris hitting other buildings only up to the eighteenth floor, when there were 110 stories?

Why was there instant rusting of nearby steel? That is evidence of molecular disassociation and transmutation.

Why, when the dust fell, was it coarse, and then, once, it landed, began breaking down further, becoming so fine that it started wafting up?

What caused the presence of uranium, tritium, and the presence of deuterium in the air that Dr. Thomas Cahill found after monitoring the air for 5 months after 911 at the WTC - which began after Oct. 5?
Where was the heat?  From most reports, the dust clouds were cool. No one claimed they were hot or that they were burned. Yes, things glowed, but not everything that glows is hot.
We finally saw the demise of WTC #7, but what happened to WTC buildings #3 and #6? Building #3 nano-particalized, while in WTC #6, half the building nano-particalized from the inside out!

Finally, what can transform two quarter mile tall buildings into nano-particles(invisible and permanently suspended in the atmosphere)?

Former Governor Jesse Ventura used the example of microwaving chicken on a paper plate. The chicken cooks, while the paper plate doesn't. That's the effect seen all around the WTC towers on 9/11.

Thermite?

Thermite is powdered aluminum and powdered iron rust. The buildings were steel (composed of over 98% iron) structures with aluminum cladding. If the buildings were reduced to nano particles (molecular dissociation), obviously, one would find particles of iron rust, and aluminum. Thermite cannot transform buildings into dust. So, where is the proof of thermite?

The so-called "truth" movement does not address any of these issues, yet, Dr. Wood is the only person who has conducted a thorough forensic investigation...the only one!

Mel Fabregas, the host of Veritas, quoted Vicent Bugliosi, regarding the division between what's real and what we perceive:

"We're talking about people who see what they expect to see, what they want to see, what they've been told to see, what conventional wisdom tells them to see, not what is right in front of them in its pristine condition."

This quote sums it up. This disconnect is not a matter of intelligence. Not at all. Some of the most intelligent people in the world disregard the facts in order to maintain the comfortable illusion that substitutes for reality. The vanishing point of reality (horizon) is vanishing altogether, as the silhouettes on the walls of the cave that Plato referred to in his allegory of the cave are increasingly being forced down our throats...24/7. When everything is bestowed upon us to see, what is left to be seen?

Source: Veritas with Mel Fabregas interview with Dr. Judy Wood



Link to everything you want to know about Dr. Judy Wood's Qui Tam cases JUDY WOOD on behalf of the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff/Relator, vs. Defendants.

DC Docket Number: (07-cv-3314)
Docket Number: (08-3799-cv)
Supreme Court Docket Number: (09-548)

APPLIED RESEARCH ASSOCIATES, INC. (ARA),
SCIENCE APPLICATIONS INTERNATIONAL CORP.(SAIC),
UNDERWRITERS LABORATORIES, INC.,
WISS, JANNEY, ELSTNER ASSOCIATES, INC. (WJE),
ROLF JENSEN & ASSOCIATES, INC.(RJA),
COMPUTER AIDED ENGINEERING ASSOCIATES, INC.,
SIMPSON GUMPERTZ & HEGER, INC. (SGH),
SKIDMORE, OWINGS & MERRILL, LLP (SOM),
GILSANZ MURRAY STEFICEK LLP (GMS),
HUGHES ASSOCIATES, INC. (HA),
ROSENWASSER/GROSSMAN CONSULTING ENGINEERS, P.C.,
S. K. GHOSH ASSOCIATES, INC. (GA),
TENG & ASSOCIATES, INC. (TA),
AJMAL ABBASI,
EDUARDO KAUSEL,
DAVID PARKS,
DAVID SHARP,
JOSEF VAN DYCK,
KASPAR WILLIAM,
DANIELE VENEZANO,
DATASOURCE, INC.,
GEOSTAATS, INC.,
NuSTATS,

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The 1975 World Trade Center Fire that Burned for 3 Hours

Click to Enlarge

On February 13, 1975, the 110-story steel-framed North Tower endured intense fire - failed to activate the smoke detectors, for whatever reason -  for three hours.  It started at approximately 11:45 P.M. in a furnished office on the 11th floor and spread horizontally to about half the offices on that floor, in addition to spreading  vertically, between the floors, after igniting the insulation of telephone cables in a cable shaft that runs vertically between floors. Moreover, flames could be seen pouring out of the 11th floor east side windows, indicating that the fire was very hot.

Because the twin towers were owned and operated by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, they were not subject to local safety codes; therefore, did not have an installed sprinkler system, nor did they have fire-stopper materials in gaps around the telephone cables within the cable shaft that would've stopped the blaze from spreading to other floors

"It was like fighting a blow torch" - Captain Harold Kull of Engine Co.

The fire department arrived to find a very intense fire that had spread from the 9th to the 19th floor. The only occupants of the building at the time were cleaning and service personnel.  Fortunately, they were all evacuated without any serious injury or fatalities. However,  of the 125 firemen  fighting this fire, 28 sustained injuries from the intense heat and smoke. The cause of the fire was and is, to this day, unknown.

The loss was estimated at over $2,000,000.

Click to enlarge

So, let me get this straight.  This intense fire that burned for more than three hours caused no serious structural damage at all.  They didn't even have to replace the trusses!

Yet, the twin towers, after burning for a little more than an hour, practically vaporized, while collapsing at free-fall speed, through what should have been the path of greatest resistance – thousands of tons of steel. It was as if the steel structure from the ground up to the floor where the fire was burning,  didn't exist.

Granted, jet fuel may burn a little hotter; however, the jet fuel probably burned off in the first 10 minutes after the planes crashed in the towers, not to mention, these buildings didn't just collapse, they were reduced to pulverized concrete powder.

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The Melting Pot: Corporations and Exploitable Immigrants

Above the Yard: Park Ave and 107th Ave circa 1900

Former President John F. Kennedy argued that “every American who ever lived, with the exception of one group, [Native Americans] was either an immigrant himself or a descendant of immigrants”.
Generation after generation, immigrants have and continue to work the hardest, for the longest hours, for the lowest pay, in jobs that already established Americans do not want. Yet, we are to this day, most inhospitable to our newest arrivals. Anti-immigrant sentiment flourishes as it did at the end of the 19th century.

In 1896, New York City, on the cusp of a new century, was the most highly urbanized and industrialized part of the US. However, despite this fact,  especially on New York's  Lower East Side,  immigrants and low paid factory workers lived in  mostly pre-industrial conditions.

With a population of 3.5 million, and as many as 100,000 people in each precinct, the poorest city dwellers lived in tenements (pictured above)  where at least 5-6 people were crammed into each room.  Most tenements had common spigot outside; their only source of running water. A few more modern buildings provided a filthy sink in the middle of a hallway that was shared by scores of people. Outdoor latrines were still common. Access to air and sunlight was very limited.

On August 4, 1896, a 10-day heat wave scorched these over-crowded buildings converting them into brick ovens, where temperatures reached as high as 120 degrees inside. Nearly 1,500 people died as a result.

At the time, there was no electric refrigeration, so ice became a precious lifesaving commodity during heat waves in the city.  Poor people could not afford the tin and zinc-lined boxes required to store food and ice, therefore, the price of ice could determine life or death.

By 1896, ice magnet, Charles "the Ice King" Morse (left: man pictured in the center), traveled to NYC from Maine where he consolidated three-quarters of the independent ice companies into an ice trust. Long before the summer, word got out, and poor city dwellers were worried he was going to jack up the price of ice, making it a luxury they could not afford, and that's exactly what happened.

Theodore Roosevelt was the only person to intervene on behalf of the overheating poor. He championed the idea of giving away free ice to the poorest people and personally supervised the distribution of ice.   Afterwards, he even toured the back alleys of the worst sections of the Lower East Side to observe how the ice was used.

While it's true that immigration is a very complex issue, not easily solved, there are some things that are very solvable because we know some things such as: Corporations almost always choose profit over life.  Corporations almost always exploit immigrants and the poor. Politicians love to use the issue of immigration as a wedge issue because Americans fear and many times loathe immigrants despite the friendly image as the world's "melting pot".  

Source: Hot Time in the Old Town: The Great Heat Wave of 1896 and the Making of Theodore Roosevelt by Edward P. Kohn

Link:
Patchwork Nation

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Are Prisons Gradually Turning into Concentration Camps?

It appears penitentiaries are acting as both a prison to protect us from the violent and at the same time warehousing the poor and/or misfits among us.

Why not sweep all the marginalized "misfits" under one roof? Isn't that what Rudy Giuliani did? And now, the rest of America is blindly following suit without regard ?

According to Adam Liptak, national legal correspondent for The New York Times, the USA - only 5% of the global population - leads the world in producing prisoners. America jails 2.3 million people, accounting for one-quarter of all individuals imprisoned in the world. One in every one-hundred people in the United States is behind bars.

China, 20% of the global population, jails 1.6 million prisoners. Of course, China executes far more people than we do which may account for part of the discrepancy in number, however, China would have had to execute well over eight million people in order to justify that explanation alone. No matter what the reason, any lucid man would choose to live in America over any other country in the world, especially China. That's not the point. The United States is exceptional, remember? Therefore, we, the people can't afford the luxury of disregarding the weakest link and continue to live this out-of-sight, out-of mind existence burying our proverbial heads in the sand.

It wasn't always that way. At the end of the 18th century reform in American prisons took place. In 1786, the Quakers succeeded in abolishing punishment by death and the barbarous laws established by early colonists by the Legislature of Pennsylvania. By the middle to the late 19th century our penitentiaries were considered exemplary. Prison reformers successfully transformed prisons from purely punitive to rehabilitative, advocating segregation of criminals; rewarding good behaviour; indeterminate sentencing; vocational training; and parole. It wasn't until approximately 1980 that this trend of excessive incarceration started. The rate of arrest, the extent of incarceration given for each crime committed, and the number of things defined as criminal all factor into America's over crowded prisons.

The harsher drug laws and the "tough on crime" stance our nation took at this time have much to do with this gradual transformation. In 1980, 40,000 people were incarcerated for drug "crimes". Today, half a million people are imprisoned due to some type of affiliation with drugs.

Obviously, imprisoning people drives the crime rate lower. People behind bars have a much harder time committing future crimes and people are more likely to think twice about committing a crime if the results could in jail time. In addition, some argue the availability and size of the social safety net, demographics, economic conditions, policing strategies currently in place play a much bigger role in determining the crime rate.

"We arrest more people, keep them in prison longer and we define more things as crimes." Adam Liptak

The United States is the only country in the world that elects our Judges to office, with the exception of a few places in Japan and Switzerland. This puts an elected judge’s career at the mercy of the prevalent and accepted attitude and feeling - get tough on crime - of his constituency toward crime. Popular opinion is now factored into his decision and more than likely he will come down harder than the law requires. A judge’s light sentence could backfire on him if once that person he “let off” with minimal time is released from jail, commits another crime, maybe even more heinous than what he was on trial, therefore giving his opponent in the next election plenty of fuel to burn him.

New York stands out as a shining example of the “Broken Windows Theory of Law Enforcement”.

"if the first broken window in a building is not repaired, then people who like breaking windows will assume that no one cares about the building and more windows will be broken. Soon the building will have no windows...."

Basically, the theory suggests a zero tolerance approach to petty crime.Rudy Guiliani ordered his police to enforce the lowest level "crimes" including jaywalking, vagrancy and public intoxication and supposedly reduced the crime rate so much that New York City is a different place today.

But, what about San Francisco? They adopted less strident law enforcement policies that reduced arrests, prosecutions and incarceration rates and ended up registering reductions in crime that exceed or equal comparable cities and jurisdictions - including New York. How many people know about San Francisco? I know I didn't.

Considering how expensive it is to live in New York City today, isn't it possible that New York City is a different place, not because it was a crime panacea, but simply a result of gentrification, Rudy style? In other words, Rudy Giuliani aggressively forced out all the poor people, thus making New York City appear clean and fresh. Wealthy people and white collar criminals are much neater and cleaner when they commit crimes and their victims much less obvious to the naked eye.

Not that the "Broken Windows" theory doesn't have its merit. Cracking down on petty crime and arresting the perpetrators will cut the crime rate, however, putting those same people away for 15 years for possessing drugs and/or jay-walking serves no purpose except possibly to transform them from harmless individuals to hardened criminals.

The crime rate has dropped 25 percent since the 1980s, yet the incarceration rate continues to climb. Are prisons becoming warehouses for the poor and undesirables in society? Or a vast reserve of exploitable labor? Incarcerating people is the most expensive form of punishment. Why not use less costly methods such as community service, fines, and/or drug treatment?

To find the answer...follow the money trail or the path that leads to the rich white man profiting from the misfortune of others. President Eisenhower warned us about the Military Industrial Complex, what about the possibility of a Prison Industrial Complex? Inmates composed of the poor, illiterate (70% of all inmates), the homeless, the mentally ill; drug dealers, drug addicts, alcoholics fuel this industry and at the same time provides a way to blame the victims who fell through the cracks of the "broken windows".

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Not For Tourists

Not For Tourists is an excellent resource for people who commute or reside in major cities. The city guides have color maps perfect for printing, index of websites for each city and a huge searchable database. Not For Tourists provides,

"highly graphical neighborhood maps, tons of listings, and commentary on everything from restaurants, nightlife, and shopping to parks, public transit, sports stadiums, museums, art galleries, and even hardware stores. And best of all, we’ve squeezed all this info into a portable, attractive format designed to be an essential tool for residents, commuters, and visitors alike. As residents of New York, desperate for such a handy guide to the city we love, we felt it was our duty to make this all inclusive book and bring it to everyone else who shares the same passion for their city as we do."

See for yourself. Its city guides include:

Atlanta

Boston

Chicago

Los Angeles

New York

Philadelphia

San Francisco

Seattle

Washington, DC

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Remembering "9/11" Past and Present Here and Around the World

Six years have passed since the most devastating terrorist attack in the history of the United States of America. Personally, I can't think of anything else that has impacted me more than that day, when it appeared the world had stopped revolving.

On a personal level, there is no doubt that my world stopped for a second as it did for most Americans, but the further we get from that day, the easier it is to gain perspective, while at the same time celebrating the lives of those that were taken from us on that brutal day. 3,000 deaths over the course of a couple hours is an event of enormous scale in US history, but of infinitesimal scale in world history and at present.

Just as we mourn one death amongst our family and/or friends profoundly, we mourn the victims of 9/11 in much the same way. But as the intensity of our grief starts to dissipate we must also reflect on the people around the world that are currently experiencing pain and suffering on the scale of 9/11 every day, especially those who we may be partially responsible for, whether through our outright support or complete ignorance of the situation causing so much death and destruction around the world.

Having said that, I still believe the good America does globally far outweigh any evil we may happen to contribute.

Some 9/11 Memorial sites:

September 11th Web Archive

September 11th Television Archive

September 11th Digital Archive

NPR Special Coverage of 9/11

9/11 Calls: Audio and Transcripts

Sonic Memorial

Special Collections (Federal Resources for Educational Excellence)

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