road trip
Image via Nebojsa Markovic/Shutterstock
A 28-year-old black woman driving from Naperville, Ill., to Prairie View, Texas, for a job interview ended up dead in jail, ABC7 reports.
Sandra Bland was pulled over in Waller County, Texas, for failing to signal while changing lanes. Video footage from the scene of the arrest shows two police officers restraining her on the ground, then taking her into custody. Three days later she was found dead in her jail cell. Police say her death appears to be self-inflicted.
According to ABC7:
In a press release from the sheriff's department, authorities say they applied CPR, but Bland was pronounced dead shortly after she was found.
"I do not have any information that would make me think it was anything other than just a suicide," says Waller County District Attorney Elton Mathis.
Bland's friends disagree.
...Longtime friend LaNitra Dean tells the I-Team that Bland "was a warm, affectionate, outspoken woman" who spoke out about police brutality often on her Facebook page and was critical of injustice against African Americans.
..."The Waller County Jail is trying to rule her death a suicide and Sandy would not have taken her own life," Dean said. "Sandy was strong. Strong mentally and spiritually."
Texas State Rangers are now handling the investigation. Read the full story here.
Photos of the "happy fools": Grant, her husband, David, and brother-in-law, Brian (with the guitar). Via of the author
Car Trouble in Indiana
By Jennifer Grant
We’re happy fools, penniless as the corn
And just as content to watch the trucks barrel by.
The fan belt is jet black and frayed.
It’s chewed licorice.
And we might have to wait here all day.
My little brother's got the two things he needs:
A pack of Black Jack chewing gum
And his guitar.
He points at a billboard ‘cross the highway
And says if we had a dollar twenty-nine
And we were two miles up, we'd be knee-deep in hamburgers....
R.E.M. has ceased to be. The band announced its break up late Wednesday. And fortysomethings worldwide mourn the official end of our collective youth.
About two years ago, Minhee and I made one of the hardest decisions we've made thus far in our marriage and in our calling as parents.
In our hope to honor a conviction of the Holy Spirit to give up a year's salary, we had begun the two-year process of saving, selling, and simplifying in 2007. Our goal was to come up with our then year's wages of $68,000 -- in order to launch One Day's Wages. With only a few months left to come up with the total sum, we were a bit short and decided to sublet our home for couple months and asked some friends if we could stay with them on their couches or their guest room.
Needless to say, it was a very humbling time.
Our instruction for ourselves and our children were very simple: Each person gets one carry-on bag for their belongings.
"My father was born by a river bed and left to die. My mother grew up in extreme poverty. They made it. I am their story, they inspire me!" These are the words of my new friend Rudo, an amazing young woman from Zimbabwe who has come through so much and has now been chosen to be one of a thousand ambassadors of the Make Poverty History Road Trip who next week are acting to make history.