Is it too soon to write a trend-spotting story about these examples of kettling?
Hang fire, we'll send the link to this column to the tip desk at the Columbia Journalism Review and if subsequently, they do a story on Kettling, well then, we can brag about the fact we gave them the "heads-up" on the story. If they ignore the suggestion, then the folks who are firmly convinced that this columnist does moonlighting work at the Amalgamated Conspiracy Theory Factory will have some more evidence to explain their firm conviction.
Speaking of firm convictions, how are the cases against the Occupy Movement protesters going? Can an effort to use some exemptions to proper procedures be fast-tracked to the Supreme Court to speed up these cases? Aren't there some privatized prisons with empty cells?
Recently James Richard Armstrong II, a homeless writer in Berkeley CA, has been writing a series of columns for the Smirking Chimp website alleging that various Bay area cities are using some members of a brigade of street sweepers to spearhead an effort to "get rid of" the homeless in the downtown area. If it weren't for the fact that Darwin BondGraham corroborated Armstrong's facts in a story that appeared on Page 8 of the January 25 -- 31, 2012, print edition of the East Bay Express (and it also appeared online); it would be easy enough for patriotic critics of Armstrong to dismiss his work as another example of a product from the Amalgamated Conspiracy Theory Factory.
Wouldn't it be embarrassing for Armstrong's critics if he appeared on David Letterman's Show and made his assertions that "things aren't what they seem" to a nation wide audience?
Some hypersensitive writers for the alternative press media contend that since Columbia University receives research grants from the Government, the politicians in Washington will use that money as a bargaining chip in an effort to convince the college types that "there's nothing to see here -- move along!" is the principle (school pun alert?) that should be use to make any decisions about the trend-spotting journalism value of such material originating in the digital era version of the underground press.
We could dig out some digital files from the event last summer and some from last weekend, and add images to this posting, but lately our inclination is to just add photos to the end of the week wrap-up columns.
[We've got a question for the folks who enjoy the esoteric and sometimes enigmatic information that is liberally scattered about in our columns: "If the name of the
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