Talking Rights

This is an excerpt from an interview with Army Specialist Brandon Neely by the University of California at Davis Center for the Study of Human Rights in the Americas. Often overlooked in the torture debate is the effect of torture on the perpetrators.
There is a wonderful Danish documentary about this called “Your Neighbor’s Son: The [...]

Here is a sickening defense of torture — and it is from a coward.  Someone with cojones would have actually used the words:  “I support torture.” But John Yoo is not only wrong and a criminal — he is sin cojones…
I’ve included refutations of his argument in parentheses.
Obama Made a Rash Decision on Gitmo
by John [...]

In another first, legislators in New York just voted to require anyone showing a plastination exhibit to show where exactly the bodies came from. Senator Jim Alesi (R-Perinton) sponsored the bill, which mirrors similar efforts in California, Pennsylvania, Washington and Hawaii.
North Carolina may see similar legislation introduced next year.
Alesi told WROC-TV, “It’s human dignity [...]

Well, not quite — but the network of people who have opposed the for-profit use of unclaimed and “un-donated” bodies in plastination exhibits scored several impressive victories recently.
After an extensive investigation of the origin of the bodies, the New York State Attorney General announced on May 29 that Premier had agreed to a settlement [...]

Spurred by a growing network of activists and ABC’s 20/20 expose, the “Bodies”-style plastination exhibits are under increasing scrutiny nationwide. In Pennsylvania, for example, where the Premier show is housed at Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Science Center, state Rep. Michael E. Fleck is preparing a bill that will ban the commercial exhibition of human cadavers without written [...]

A message board for investors in Premier Exhibitions reveals mounting panic prior to ABC’s 20/20 piece, to be aired tonight.
Here’s one fascinating message. The “woman in Durham” is our very own Sarah, a dynamo who is largely responsible for bringing together people all over the country to voice their objections to the plastination shows.
Knobs,
…I do [...]

At 10 pm EST on Friday, February 15, the ABC show 20/20 will be airing an investigation of how plastination companies obtain their bodies. Reported by Brian Ross, the piece is based on a three-month investigation that went “from a body processing factory on the German-Polish border, to Internet sites that offer the plasticized bodies [...]

California Assemblywoman Fiona Ma has introduced a bill in Sacramento that would require companies with touring plastination exhibits to prove that the corpses were obtained through consent. Ma wrote the bill after touring “Body Worlds 2,” the Gunther von Hagens show currently at the San Jose Tech Museum of Innovation.
A San Jose Mercury News [...]

Great cartoon from Rob Rogers at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (thanks to Sarah at NoBodies4profit):

The letters forum in Sunday’s (Raleigh) News and Observer featured comments on last week’s story “An activist awakens,” about anti-”Bodies” activist Sarah Redpath.
What article critics don’t address is that the for-profit company behind the exhibit cannot provide any proof that the individuals whose bodies are on display gave their consent. As I wrote in response [...]