Champaign

Friday, September 3
Twin Cities Indymedia

Minneapolis, Minn.--"I wanted to join the Jimmy Union because I made better wages when I was 16," said one worker at the picket line outside the Block E Jimmy John's Thursday evening.  "I worked at a turkey farm in the middle of nowhere, Minnesota.  And I made better wages then."

Wearing shirts that read "Wages So Low You'll Freak"--a play on the profitable fast food chain's slogan--a couple dozen members of the newly formed Jimmy John's Workers Union organized through the Twin Cities Industrial Workers of the World walked the line with supporters in downtown Minneapolis, hours after simultaneously coming out at nine Minneapolis area stores owned by Mike and Rob Mulligan of Miklin Enterprises.

Before the picket began, members of the new union went in the store to seek a meeting with management. A worker knocked on the boss' door: "Hello, Jimmy John's Workers Union."  But there was no answer, and outside a fold-up "neogtiating table" sat empty until the picketers went home for the night.

The News-Gazette strikes again in its efforts to portray anything the police do as no worse than regrettable. In today's (Aug. 26, 2010) edition, a front page story by Patrick Wade continues the baffling stupidity of insisting that Officer Daniel Norbits didn't shoot Kiwane Carrington, his gun did!????

Interestingly, they are now able to admit it was a "police shooting" that killed the 15-year old in the first paragraph, but then return to their pattern of acting as if Norbits just happened to be there when it "discharged," killing Kiwane. With that sort of logic, since Chief RT Finney also was there when the trigger pulled itself, then why wasn't he also disciplined, since maybe he should also be failed with supervising Norbitts's gun? The newspaper can't bring itself to admit that it was Norbitts who pulled the trigger.

Small egg farms across the U.S. report selling out as recall grows

by JoNel Aleccia

Jackie Dearing of Bloomington, Ill., sold all of her 50 dozen eggs at the local farmers market on Saturday, including carton after carton to new customers worried about a large and growing salmonella scare linked to millions of grocery store eggs.

"Almost everybody who came to our booth mentioned it," said Dearing, whose family runs Dearing Country Farms, a small-scale meat and poultry business. "Anytime something like this happens, people think a lot more about where their food comes from."

As a recall of more than 550 million eggs tied to two industrial manufacturers widens , small egg farmers across the United States are echoing Dearing's experience. Sales of eggs at farmers markets, co-operatives and roadside stands reportedly spiked over the weekend as news of the outbreak linked to at least 1,300 illnesses reached shoppers.

Media connection sparks interest, not introspection

by Janine Jackson

The Letters Tour "presents an evening of communism, theology, and
water color painting". There will be copies of this anti-authoritarian
communist journal available when this tour stops in C-U on August
19th, 7 pm, at the Independent Media Center (202 S. Broadway).

For more information, see: http://www.lettersjournal.org/blog/

Since this is extremely unlikely to appear in the N-G...

“Only the most delusional people think you can solve this without raising taxes..."

by Michael Powell

CHICAGO — Even by the standards of this deficit-ridden state, Illinois’s comptroller, Daniel W. Hynes, faces an ugly balance sheet. Precisely how ugly becomes clear when he beckons you into his office to examine his daily briefing memo.

He picks the papers off his desk and points to a figure in red: $5.01 billion.

“This is what the state owes right now to schools, rehabilitation centers, child care, the state university — and it’s getting worse every single day,” he says in his downtown office.

Mr. Hynes shakes his head. “This is not some esoteric budget issue; we are not paying bills for absolutely essential services,” he says. “That is obscene.”

On Monday night, June 14, 2010, longtime community activist Terry Townsend delivered a list of demands for construction of the new school to replace the Booker T. Washington School in Champaign. The new school is to fulfill the requirements of the consent decree to provide an additional 200 seats in the historically black community of the North End. The Unit 4 School Board is currently reviewing bids for the $13 million school. The old school has already been torn down and its replacement will be roughly double the size. Townsend says that this will significantly impact the neighborhood, bringing increased traffic and paving the way for gentrification.

Illinois is one of only 3 states in the US where it is ILLEGAL to record the actions of PUBLIC EMPLOYEES acting under the color of law at taxpayer expense.

Summed up at the gizmodo website:

a new trend in law enforcement is gaining popularity. In at least three states, it is now illegal to record any on-duty police officer.

Even if the encounter involves you and may be necessary to your defense, and even if the recording is on a public street where no expectation of privacy exists.

The legal justification for arresting the "shooter" rests on existing wiretapping or eavesdropping laws, with statutes against obstructing law enforcement sometimes cited. Illinois, Massachusetts, and Maryland are among the 12 states in which all parties must consent for a recording to be legal unless, as with TV news crews, it is obvious to all that recording is underway. Since the police do not consent, the camera-wielder can be arrested. Most all-party-consent states also include an exception for recording in public places where "no expectation of privacy exists" (Illinois does not) but in practice this exception is not being recognized."