Tag Archives: Mother Jones

Lead and crime

selling toxins with cute kids

We used to market toxins to little kids with ads like the above.  Seems appropriate to connect up with the new studies that suggest that lead toxicity is a lot more destructive than we thought.

Put all this together and you have an astonishing body of evidence. We now have studies at the international level, the national level, the state level, the city level, and even the individual level. Groups of children have been followed from the womb to adulthood, and higher childhood blood lead levels are consistently associated with higher adult arrest rates for violent crimes. All of these studies tell the same story: Gasoline lead is responsible for a good share of the rise and fall of violent crime over the past half century.

via America’s Real Criminal Element: Lead | Mother Jones.

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Filed under capitalism, health, learning

Earl Warren and Japanese internment

Thanks to Mother Jones for the image of George Takei.

In the Mother Jones interview with George Takei he gives a fascinating insight into the role of future-Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren in Japanese Internment and the strategic historical silencing of the internments.

GT: Yes, for America it’s a shameful experience—embarrassing—and for some non-Japanese Americans, it’s something they don’t like to talk about. For example the attorney general of California at that time was very ambitious, he wanted to become governor. He saw that the single most popular issue was “getting rid of the Japs,” and he used this to get elected. After two terms he went on to become Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court. His name was Earl Warren—a so-called liberal justice. He was prodded and challenged by Japanese Americans throughout his career. He only spoke about it when he was near the end of his life. That’s one reason why our history books are rather mute.

via George Takei, the Best Driver in the Galaxy | Mother Jones.

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Filed under human rights, learning, propaganda, race, representation