Photo Courtesy of Phil Truesdell

Verika   by Diane Butler

You were a part of the Spirit of Venice, the Venice tribe; you were a part of us.  You touched the hearts of many people when you walked down the streets of Venice Beach.  Some loved to watch you dance in front of the storefronts in the morning when the sun was beginning to shine.  Some watched you splash in the ocean like a child, or rest under a palm tree in the afternoon.  Artists felt privileged when you would come to ask them for some paint so that you could daub it on your ever-changing stylish shoes, and maybe a corner of your dress.  Always colorful, always beautiful, you blessed us with your primal cries in another language – maybe Russian – expressing something that exists deep in all of us, that we wished we too could express.  You sounded like a Gypsy woman singing from the inner depths of your soul.  You were truly an artist and you expressed yourself for all to see.

You were a strong woman who lived outside on a couch for years. The people that loved you were going to replace the couch with a new one.  Instead, the day before, they found you dead – brutally murdered.  And though we hate to speak of how you died, people need to know that you had been bashed in the head after possibly having been raped.  The police had known where you slept for years.  They said you never harmed anyone and nobody should have done this to you.

Twelve years ago, Verika drove into Venice in her bright yellow Camaro with her boyfriend, whom she loved.  In those days, she spoke to all of us, always saying something of consequence, never indulging in the trivial.  But, one day her boyfriend drove off in her Camaro and left Verika to sleep all alone on the streets of Venice.  Her heart was broken.  She disappeared for a few years.  Speculation is that she spent them in a mental institution.  When she returned, something had changed.  She spoke to only a few people after that.

We have lost another sister, one sleeping under the stars, another one of us turned out to the streets of Venice.  We want to thank Yolanda for putting up a memorial for Verika at the junction of 19^th Avenue and Ocean Front Walk where she died at the hands of another on Sunday, February 12.  We also thank all of our people who cared about Verika and appreciated the very special person that she was.  We want to remember her dancing on the Boardwalk, rapping Gypsy songs in Russian, and splashing in the ocean at Venice Beach.

We have heard that her murderer – believed to be male – may have killed another “homeless” woman in Venice, but we haven't been able to confirm this.  A  person who cares deeply has offered a reward for information leading to the capture of the perpetrator.  We want prevent the killing of anyone else.  So let's keep our eyes and ears open and do what we can to help.                                           © Diane Butler

Silencing Musicians
By Robert Lederman  NYC A.R.T.I.S.T.

Don’t you know it, just as I’m getting ready to start playing guitar on the street while selling my art they start a crackdown on musicians....If only they could silence all those lying politicians bent on destroying every last vestige of liberty instead of silencing the artists. Time to rise up artists, and use your art to fight for freedom or soon therewill be none left to fight for. When I was in Chicago last year I was struck by how completely the Chicago BIDs had sterilized their downtown areas. No vendors, no news boxes, no political speakers, no artists just slick stores and gigantic sidewalk planters, some  twenty feet wide. Soon we can expect a new2006 vending law aimed at getting rid of us all to make room for the 4,000 Street Furniture sidewalk ad kiosks which will be installed this year. Are you hearing me folks? 

Noise restrictions in Chicago USA TODAY –

Street performers here such as bucket drummers,  saxophonists, bagpipers & singers are being ordered to pipe down, making Chicago the latest city to try to reduce urban noise. 

By Victor Calhoun Mobile Register

The City Council adopted the restrictions Wed to ban all performances on a busy four-block stretch of Michigan Avenue known as the Magnificent Mile. The regulations also lower acceptable decibel levels everywhere else in the city and require entertainers exceeding55 decibels - the level of loud talking - to pack up by 8 p.m. on wee knights. Permit fees will increase from $50 to $75. Mayor Richard Daley hasn’t said whether he supports the measure, which was approved by a wide margin. Alderman Burton Natarus, who proposed the changes, says Daley asked him to include restrictions during concerts at Millennium Park. The crackdown was prompted by complaints from businesses and residents such as Susan Mardell, who lives on the 29th floor of a Michigan Avenue building. She says outdoor music especially from groups whacking on plastic buckets, “echoes up through your apartment through closed windows and closed doors. It’s a repetitious, jarring kind of noise”

Supporters of the new restrictions say street cacophony is a quality-of-life issue — the same point New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has made in his effort to limit noise from car alarms, dogs and air conditioners in his city.  ”We’re just trying to find an environment that allows the performers to practice their craft and make a few bucks ...and respect every body else,” says Rick Roman, owner of Signature Room at the 95th, a downtown Chicago restaurant. John Maxson, president of the Greater North Michigan Avenue Association, a business group, says the noise “has a significant impact” on office workers’ productivity and annoys customers in stores. The same debate is playing out in other cities, but some communities encourage street performances:

• Honolulu is debating whether to limit street performances to six designated spots on four blocks in the Waikiki neighborhood from 7pm to 10pm Mayor Mufi Hannemann vetoed a measure last month that would have barred performers from the area during those hours. The city passed a ban in 2000 that was struck down after the American Civil Liberties Union argued it restricted free speech.

• Baltimore’s City Council holds a hearing today on a proposal to license street performers. The goals: bring in cash with permit fees costing $50-$75 and make the city more lively.

• Los Angeles City Council passed an ordinance creating a ”free speech and _expression zone” that protects street performers in Venice Beach. There are noise restrictions. The music must be inaudible 50 feet away and inside adjacent buildings — when doors and windows are closed. “Performers should be considered a treasure,” says Councilman Bill Rosendahl, the proposal’s sponsor.“That is what brings the tourists.”

Tim Nutt, who records street music across the USA and posts it on his web site, streetnote.org, says Chicago’s rich musical heritage makes it a surprising place to limit performances. “Cars without mufflers are much more of a nuisance. We should never consider street music to be a form of noise pollution,”  Nutt says Stephen Baird of Community Arts Advocates, a non-profit group in Boston that advises street performers on legal issues, says courts have consistently upheld musicians’ right to perform in public. ”The battle is often over noise and time, place and manner,” he says. Public performances are part of the nation’s history, he says, and ”when you ban street music, you ban your cultural heritage.”

The Truth Shall Set You Free by I.M.LOVE

The Calamity... What is the calamity? In the English language, according to Webster's Dictionary, the calamity means a state of deep distress or misery caused by major misfortune or loss or a great event marked by great loss and lasting distress and affliction. Such calamity is now prevailing in America. We do not have to ask anyone whether or not this is true. We see it with our own eyes and hear with our own ears. These calamities that are now striking American we see in division, disagreement, disunity and the murder of men, women and children. We see raping of girls and women, robbery and thieving going on every second of the day and night.

There are great storms and adverse conditions – earth tremors and hailstorms, their signs in the Heaven being displayed in the earth on the sea. Our children's behavior is unusual.  We are witnessing unusual love or dislike of children by mothers and fathers and the destruction of the process of childbirth. Also, starvation and introduction of poison drugs, which is practiced upon those who are free and those who are bound. What has been known as American is threatened today with total destruction. America is destroying herself an effort to destroy life on the planet. The water and air are being polluted by chemico-bacteriologists, American scientists of war conduct experiments on how best to kill human beings by the millions and wipe out the life of whole continents.  

Calamity!  Calamity! Calamity!  In this America, no secret can remain hidden.                                           © I M Love

A Word to the Wise
The modern banking system manufactures money out of nothing. The process is perhaps the most astonishing piece of slight of hand ever invented. Banking was conceived in iniquity, and born in sin. Bankers own the earth. Take it away from them, but leave them the power to create money, and with the flick of a pen, they will create enough money to buy it back again. Take this great power away from them, and all great fortunes like mine will disappear. And, they ought to disappear, for then this would be a better and happier world to live in. But if you want to continue to be the slaves of the bankers, and pay the cost of your own slavery, then let bankers continue to create money, and control credit.
Sir John Stamp (former governor of the Bank of England)

Jury Nullification by Anonymous

Given the increasing corruption in the US Court system, citizens might be interested in this information as one possible way to stem the tide of judicial intransigence. From time to time, we will  bring you other important and helpful information

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

Jury nullification is a jury's refusal to render a verdict according to the law, as instructed by the court, regardless of the weight of evidence presented. Instead, a jury bases its verdict on other grounds. Historically, examples include the unjustness of the law, injustice of its application, the race of a party, or the jury’s own common sense; jury nullification can only be used to acquit and not to convict.

Jury nullification is a de facto power of the jury, and is not ordinarily described as a right. The power of jury nullification derives from an inherent quality of most modern common law systems—a general unwillingness to inquire into jurors' motivations during or after deliberations. A jury's ability to nullify the law is further supported by two common law precedents : the prohibition on punishing jury members for their verdict, and the prohibition on retrying criminal defendants after an acquittal (see related topic Double jeopardy).

Jury nullification is the source of much debate. Some maintain that it is an important safeguard of last resort against wrongful imprisonment and government tyranny. Others view it as an abuse of the right to a trial by jury that undermines the law and violates the oath sworn to by jurors. Nevertheless, few doubt the ability of a jury to nullify the law. Today, there are two primary issues raised by jury nullification. First, whether juries can or should be instructed or informed of their power to nullify. Second, whether a judge may remove jurors "for cause" when they refuse to apply the law as instructed.

Nullification in the United States -  John Peter Zenger, a printer in the English colony of New York, was tried for seditious libel. The jury acquitted Zenger despite the judge's instructions; this is perhaps the most famous early instance of jury nullification in the colonies that became the United States.

The use of the jury to act as a protection of last resort was espoused by many influential people surrounding the framing of the U.S. Constitution. For example, John Adams said of jurors: "It is not only his right but his duty...to find the verdict according to his own best understanding, judgment, and conscience, though in direct opposition to the direction of the court."

Nullification in Practice -  Nullification has a mixed history in the United States. Jury nullification appeared in the pre-Civil War era when juries occasionally refused to convict for violations of the Fugitive Slave Act. However, during the Civil Rights era, all-white juries were known to refuse to convict white defendants for the murder of African-Americans. [1] During Prohibition, juries often nullified alcohol control laws [2], possibly as often as 60% of the time [3] .

In the 21st century, many discussions of jury nullification center around drug laws that some consider unjust either in principle or because they are seen to discriminate against African-Americans. A jury nullification advocacy group estimates that 3-4% of all jury trials involve nullification [4], and a recent rise in hung juries (from an average of 5% to nearly 20% in recent years) is considered additional evidence that juries have begun to consider the validity or fairness of the laws themselves [5].

Court Rulings - The 1895 decision of Sparf v. U.S. held that a trial judge has no responsibility to inform the jury of the right to nullify laws. This decision, often cited, has led to a common practice in United States courtrooms in which juries are instructed to find guilt or innocence according to the letter of the law.

In 2001, a California Supreme Court ruling led to a new jury instruction that requires jurors to inform the judge whenever a fellow panelist appears to be deciding a case based on his or her dislike of a law [6]. However, the ruling could not overturn the practice of jury nullification itself because of double jeopardy: a defendant who has been acquitted of a charge cannot be charged a second time with it, even if the court later learns jury nullification played a role in the verdict.

Advocacy Groups - Advocacy groups and websites such as the Fully Informed Jury Association, The Jury Rights Project, and The Jury Education Committee believe that jurors have the right to nullify bad laws. These and other organizations educate citizens directly and lobby for changes in the law regarding the instructions given to jurors.