Saturday, June 28, 2008

Who is sicking the police?

Safely secluded in the New Mexico desert, a Vietnam War-era draft resister named Zeke lives a life of contented self-exile with his wife and teenage daughter. But when his long-unacknowledged younger brother arrives bearing a bequest for Zeke's daughter, the uncontrolled collision of past and present triggered by that bequest threatens to tear Zeke's world apart.
Directed by Dr. Brian Haimbach, Stephen Kilduff's The Uncurled Hand is the winner of our 2007 New Play Festival, a year-long, nation-wide search for new works for the American stage. The festival receives hundreds of scripts throughout the year submitted by playwrights from around the country and abroad. Centre Stage is one of only two professional theaters in South Carolina that mount full productions of new play festival winners and the only theater in the Upstate to do so.

The above is the opening to Leah Thomas' "Past and present collide in world-premiere production of The Uncurled Hand at Centre Stage" (South Carolina's Greenville News). The play runs from July 10th through 19th and CentreStage.org will provide more information (such as ticket prices, purchasing tickets, times and directions). Meanwhile Joseph G. Cote's "Marine is arrested, turned over" (Nashua Telegraph) is much more interesting than some of the briefs popping up about it which generally just note that that Lance Cpl. Jose Flores was arrested and that he was AWOL from the marines. Take the AP's nonsense brief which claims he "has been picked up in Hudson, New Hampshire, after being stopped on a traffic warrant." Hmm. Sounds like Flores was picked up after being stopped while driving, doesn't it?

But that's not what Cotes reports (AP credits Cotes' paper, if not the reporter himself). Cotes does mention a traffic warrant. But that was outstanding. The article notes ("according to [police] Capt. Donald Breault"), "A Marine representative had contacted Hudson police and asked them to arrest Flores because he was deemed a deserter" and so the police did that. He wasn't stopped in traffic. More importantly, this yet again demonstrates that the US military has consistently LIED about "All we do is put their names in a computer. We don't have the time or energy to track them down." They go out of their way to do that. Whether it's tipping off Alameda police that Kyle Snyder is in the area of sending police to search parents' homes, they actively are pursuing people who self-check out. Cotes reports it, cites a police captain explaining how they got involved: contacted by the marines. Whether this is true or not (it's from a flack for the marines), this is how the process is described after the arrest "the Marines dispatch a Marine Corps Absentee Collection Center team to extradite him or her and return the Marine to his or her assigned unit."

Since yesterday morning, the following community websites have updated:

Rebecca's Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude;
Cedric's Cedric's Big Mix;
Kat's Kat's Korner;
Betty's Thomas Friedman is a Great Man;
Mike's Mikey Likes It!;
Elaine's Like Maria Said Paz;
Wally's The Daily Jot;
Trina's Trina's Kitchen;
Ruth's Ruth's Report;
and Marcia's SICKOFITRADLZ

The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.

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