This must be the kind of thing city people do that drives the rest of the world nuts. Twitter pal @electricrider sends this clip from last year’s Brompton folding bicycle world championship.
I’m about to hop on mine and head into work. The next championships take place Sept. 28, in the U.K. So really, I’m not commuting. I’m training. See?
-- Filed by Laura Conaway
Taser gun/Star Tribune/AP/File
A former police officer in Louisiana has been indicted on charges of manslaughter in connection with the Taser death of a man he was arresting. The Christian Science Monitor had a full account of the case earlier this week:
After Winnfield Parish police took Mr. Pikes, who is black, into custody one January morning, a white police officer fired a Taser, jolting Pikes nine times in the span of 14 minutes. Pikes never woke up.
Police said the 21-year-old Pikes was on drugs and uncooperative, but coroner Randolph Williams took a different view. In a report last month, he said he found no signs of a physical struggle, of drugs, or of any medical condition that could have exacerbated the jolts’ effect.
According to Amnesty International, taser guns have played a role in close to 300 deaths in the US and Canada since their introduction in 1998. But so far, no US jury has ever convicted a police officer in connection with a death related to use of the weapon.
Stun guns got some negative press last year when a University of Florida student was tasered and arrested at a John Kerry event, and lately more people seem to be turning against them — seven states have banned their use. Yet for many law enforcement officers, they remain a vital tool for keeping dangerous situations under control.
The future of electic shock weapons is unclear, making this case one to watch.
-- Filed by Caitlin Kenney
All Points West at Liberty State Park/ckenney
I apologize in advance for the lateness of this post, but it has honestly taken me a few days to recover from the exhaustion of this three day music festival. Overall, I really enjoyed APW — the music and the scenery were amazing, but as Jacob mentioned in his post there were definitely some issues.
Friday
We got to Liberty State Park around 4:30 PM, after what felt like an unbearably long walk from the Light Rail to the concert site in the middle of the park. There were modest crowds at the gate, and we headed in to find some friends over at the Blue Comet Stage where the New Pornographers were performing. We caught the end of their set including a sweet cover of “Don’t Bring Me Down” originally by Electric Light Orchestra. After that we headed over to Girl Talk, aka Gregg Gillis, who I never would have heard of if it wasn’t for the great assisted listen we did on the BPP.
-- Filed by Caitlin Kenney
88BoaDrum at sunset: drumming and standing
The big New York-area musical event of the weekend – the inaugural All Points West festival – went off with more than a few hitches, if you go by reports of those who attended. If you leapfrogged Manhattan on Friday night around the time Radiohead was taking the stage at Liberty State Park, there was another show that was drawing a fair bit of attention. It was the 88BoaDrum concert on the waterfront in Williamsburg, organized by the Japanese band Boredoms, hosted by the Brooklyn band Gang Gang Dance, sponsored by a shoe company (a major one), and featuring the talents of 88 drummers arranged in a spiral. And even though 88BoaDrum was heavy on gimmick (it took place on 8/8/08, started at 8:08pm, featured 88 drummers and lasted 88 minutes), it had plenty of genuine disappointment of its own to offer.
-- Filed by Jacob Ganz
Pfc. LaVena Johnson, of Missouri, died in Iraq in 2005.
Are y’all following this story? The case of Pfc. LaVena Johnson came up in a Bryant Park Project story meeting, but for whatever reason we didn’t follow it up.
In short, Johnson died outside Balad, Iraq, back in July 2005. The military told her family that she had killed herself. Her father, a doctor, became skeptical of that conclusion after seeing her body. An autopsy report led Dr. John Johnson to believe his daughter had been beaten and sexually assaulted, then burned with chemicals to destroy the evidence.
The U.S. military has closed the case. Meanwhile, a group called Color of Change is circulating a new petition asking Congress to take another look.
This is not a story I know a whole lot about yet. Anyone got a good primer? Here’s one story, from the St. Louis American: Documents and photos suggest foul play in death of Private Johnson
-- Filed by Laura Conaway
She was found as a feral child. (From the St. Petersburg Times)
It’s one of those stories, you know? The St. Petersburg Times follows the case of a girl found in squalor in a Plant City, Fla., home. Not quite seven years old, she weighed 46 pounds. A neighbor finally called the police, the paper reports:
First he saw the girl’s eyes: dark and wide, unfocused, unblinking. She wasn’t looking at him so much as through him.
She lay on a torn, moldy mattress on the floor. She was curled on her side, long legs tucked into her emaciated chest. Her ribs and collarbone jutted out; one skinny arm was slung over her face; her black hair was matted, crawling with lice. Insect bites, rashes and sores pocked her skin. Though she looked old enough to be in school, she was naked — except for a swollen diaper.
“The pile of dirty diapers in that room must have been 4 feet high,” the detective said. “The glass in the window had been broken, and that child was just lying there, surrounded by her own excrement and bugs.”
Now the girl has been adopted by a local family. They’re working to bring the girl back from her “environmental autism.” Cue the Pulitzer, please.
Bonus: Poynter goes behind the scenes.
-- Filed by Laura Conaway
For all you faithful members of the BPP Book Club who said you would follow where I went, and for those who are joining us for the first time, the moment has come for the announcement of the first Radio Galaxy Book Club selection.
And it is…Like You’d Understand, Anyway, by Jim Shepard. I can’t tell you all how excited I am to be able to share it with you.
In this superb collection of short stories, Shepard inhabits the lives of an executioner during the French Revolution, a Roman soldier on patrol, a Soviet cosmonaut about to go into space, and an American boy at summer camp, among others. Each story is utterly engrossing and utterly different. Read this book and you’ll see why it was a finalist for the National Book Award and why it won the prestigious Story Prize.
Not only is he incredibly talented and prolific (he’s written six novels and two other collections of stories), Shepard is also a really nice guy. So he has agreed to do an interview with us, in the style of the old BPP Book Club, in which he’ll respond to some of the questions that come up in our discussion.
Then we’ll get you that interview, most likely in podcast form. Stick with us, we’re working on the details.
The paperback comes out August 12. We’ll give you at least a month to read it. I’ll be blogging about the book periodically here.
If you’d like to receive Radio Galaxy Book Club alerts, send me an e-mail here.
-- Filed by Sarah Goodyear
This one, I’m just feeling. It’s the Gorillaz’ “Every Planet We Reach Is Dead.”
-- Filed by Laura Conaway