Yesterday I read a diary about an illegitimate traffic harrassment which xxdr-zombiexx experienced recently, in Georgia. His story inspired a comment from me, and part of my comment inspired this diary. Here is that part of my comment:

I may be wrong, but I'm betting you're white. In my community, we are so used to being pulled over by the profilers in blue, we call it "guilty of DWB" [driving while black]. Even I would never have bothered to express shock about their treatment, had it happened to me. It is an everyday occurence for minority drivers.
I could write 10 diaries about similar and worse events, all based on personal experiences as a passenger, dating back to the '50s. On two occasions in the '60s, the cops explicitly made it clear that they pulled over white friends of mine because I was in the car.

This diary is about one of those occasions in the bolded text. I'm writing it because I've recently been wondering if this sort of thing ever really stopped happening, in certain pockets of our nation. It was all about cops sending a message, not to me but to my friends.

Eight days ago I sat in Severance Hall, listening to Judge Herbert E. Phipps, a black member of Georgia's Appeals Court, tell a class of brand new JDs what it used to be like, and why he'd come north to Cleveland to graduate from CWRU's law school in 1971. At a couple of places in his speech I had to wipe my eyes, because his words evoked painful personal memories of those times.

My nephew was one of those graduates, and both his and his wife's entire Cleveland-resident families were all there to watch him add a JD to his MD. As it turned out, my younger brother knew a second member of the class: He had taught her during one of his stints with the "Upward Bound" program. The program tutors gifted-but-financially-poor high school students who seek a college education.

It was, in all possible ways, a very special day for me. Yesterday was kind of a special day for me too, but not in a good way; I read something in support of the rap-promulgated injunction to stop snitchin'. I also read that at least one person here considers it racist to call the CBC "Uncle Toms" for their sanctioning of a debate on Fox. I started a comment which morphed into this diary.

Religious fundamentalism poisoned my childhood. The corrosive influence of Dominionist dogma still affects me in ugly ways, and crops up in unexpected eruptions, like a permanent pustule on my psyche. Yesterday, I allowed such an event to poison my day so badly that I dimmed the joy of the day for others. The blameless trigger of the episode was the original title of a diary by Troutfishing. It is a superb diary, containing valuable information about the religious right teaching false "history" in the US Army's JROTC program. I strongly urge readers to read the diary and spread its info around.

This is one of three diaries covering Ohio races. The other diaries cover OH-Sen and OH-01, OH-02, OH-06, OH-15. Here is a link back to the master diary. Every campaign may also be readily accessed from Tomtech's Campaign Locator. An overall live aggregate of all races may be followed at Jotter's Complete Results. An asterisk after the candidate name indicates an incumbent officeholder.

OH-Gov - 94% reporting
Ted Strickland (D)	2,166,757	60%
Ken Blackwell (R)	1,355,536	37%

OH-SoS - 87% reporting
Jennifer Brunner (D)	1,711,055	54%
Greg Hartmann (R)	1,319,735	41%

OH-04 - 100% reporting
Richard Siferd (D)	83,929	40%
Robert Jordan (R)	126,821	60%

This is a placeholder diary for the Election Results Live Blogging project.  This diary will be used to cover the results of the following elections: OH-1, OH-2, OH-6, OH-12, OH-13, OH-15, OH-18, OH-Gov.
An asterisk after the candidate name indicates the incumbent officeholder.

OH-Gov - 0% reporting
Ted Strickland (D)  0  0%
Ken Blackwell (R)   0  0%

OH-1 - 0% reporting
John Cranley  (D)    0  0%
Steve Chabot* (R)    0  0%

OH-2 - 0% reporting
Victoria Wulsin (D)  0  0%
Jean Schmidt* (R)    0  0%

OH-6 - 0% reporting
Charlie Wilson (D)   0  0%
Chuck Blasdel (R)    0  0%

OH-12 - 0% reporting
Bob Shamansky (D)    0  0%
Pat Tiberi* (R)      0  0%

OH-13 - 0% reporting
Betty Sutton (D)     0  0%
Craig Foltin (R)     0  0%

OH-15 - 0% reporting
Mary Jo Kilroy (D)   0  0%
Deborah Pryce* (R)   0  0%

OH-18 - 0% reporting
Zack Space (D)       0  0%
Joy Padgett (R)      0  0%

This is the kind of story that worries my doctors, because of what it does to my blood pressure. It is a clear example of the creeping fascism which has infested our entire public sector, in the last five and a half years.

ST. LOUIS - Jim Bensman thought his suggestion during a public hearing was harmless enough: Instead of building a channel so migratory fish could go around a dam on the Mississippi River, just get rid of the dam. Instead, the environmental activist found himself in hot water, drawing FBI scrutiny to see whether he had any terrorist intentions. {SNIP}
"They all know me, and I'm a thorn in their side," Bensman says of the Corps of Engineers. "I'm one of their biggest critics, and I'm sure I drive a lot of them crazy. But the First Amendment gives me a right to publicly speak out."

It is bad enough to be victimized by an incompetent and indifferent federal response to Hurricane Katrina. Bad enough to suffer the slings and arrows of global-warmed nature in the first place. In Mississippi, the victims of nature's fury and government indifference had to suffer the further outrage of being stabbed in the back by their own insurance companies.
And I feel very sorry for the whistleblowers in this case, who are suffering and will continue to suffer the real-world price of personal honor. Being able to

"...sleep a little better."

doesn't put food on the dinner table.

Hello everyone,
This is my first diary, so please overlook any dumb 20th centuryisms, or better yet please feel free to point them out. I'm very teachable; tho not [always] obedient, I'm correctable. I had planned to make my diary debut, about my friend, on 03/06 [a birthday remembrance], but this important local matter is something which I feel I ought to bring to the attention of kossaks, locally and globally.
One of my relatives called me, about a case of what I consider child abuse, committed by the Cleveland school system on 13 9th grade students. Today, he came to see me, and he gave me a copy of a letter he circulated to the affected students' parents, inviting their signatures as co-signers, in an effort to persuade the school district to demand that the state amend its rules on this issue. Here is his letter, complete and word for word (including emphases) as he wrote it, except for his name, which I have here redacted, for my anonymity on Daily Kos. He told me he is fully prepared to see his name and signature appear on the letter if it gets printed in a newspaper, even if it costs him his job.