Monthly Archives: June 2022

I have to remind (you) that drug abuse is a victimless crime

"To conduct rehabilitation, of course there is a condition (issued by) the integrated assessment team. There are seven ministries and institutions that collectively determine whether (a case) is (goes as proceedings) as per criminal justice system process or (offer) rehabilitation (instead)," the head of the National Narcotics Agency, Petrus Reinhard Golose, said in a statement at the agency's office in North Jakarta on Thursday.

The seven ministries and institutions involved in the integrated assessment team are the National Narcotics Agency, the Law and Human Rights Ministry, the Health Ministry, the Social Affairs Ministry, the Attorney General's Office, police force, and the Supreme Court.

Golose stated that rehabilitation for narcotics users must include proper supervision, because drug abuse was a victimless crime, as it leaves no victim other than the user.

"I have to remind (you) that drug abuse is a victimless crime. (The user) is a victim, (the user) is also the perpetrator. For (the drug lords) and dealers, there is no tolerance," he remarked.

Golose also said that the Government and the agency shared the same concerns regarding the revision of the Law on Narcotics, that was to reduce the number of inmates which have exceeded the capacity of correctional institutions.

Should all criminals be gathered in one place --be it petty crimes, corruption, terrorism, and more-- they would all still be outnumbered by the amount of perpetrators of drug-related crimes, he pointed out.

"Currently, In correctional facilities, (they make up) more than 70 percent in large areas, urban areas. (In case of) small areas, 50 percent of (incarcerated were made up of) perpetrators of narcotics crimes," he said.

Related news: BNN, Customs bust drug smuggling rackets in Medan, DenpasarRelated news: Yogyakarta BNN expands community-based intervention team formationRelated news: Central Java BNN thwarts shipping of 50 kilograms of marijuana

The rest is here:

Integrated assessment team to be involved in Narcotics Law revision - ANTARA English

Black manhood is envisioned as a delicate garden full of blossoms and wilts in Donja R. Loves compelling new play Soft, receiving its world premiere at MCC Theater in Manhattan.

Adam Riggs classroom set, encircled by vibrant flowers and audience members, lulls you into a sense of tranquillity before the clang of prison bars announces the start of the play, which takes place in a youth correctional facilitys English class. Despite the distress at the heart of these young mens circumstances, Love convincingly offers a sense of hope, showing how outside encouragement and a commitment to self-improvement are crucial to their liberation.

A phenomenally grounded Biko Eisen-Martin as Mr. Isaiah, the facilitys English teacher, helps the Whitney White-directed production skirt the trope of the saintly educator who brings out the best in his pupils. With sparse sentimentality but firm understanding, his performance creates space for Loves larger themes of redemption in a system set up to keep young Black men locked away.

As the play begins, Isaiah, conveying hes not much older than his late teen students through daps and earnest hype-manning, is impressed by their recent essays on Othello, particularly Kevins (Shakur Tolliver) observation that the abuse and isolation felt by Shakespeares tragic moor are not so different from the circumstances that landed them inside here.

Some, like hotheaded Bashir (Travis Raeburn) and the extravagantly queer Dee (Essence Lotus), maintain that their crimes were victimless borne out of a necessity to survive. Others, like the easygoing crack dealer Jamal (a fantastic Dario Vazquez), have no such illusions. Eddie (Ed Ventura, in the productions most physical role), meanwhile, is simply happy to be away from his abusive home.

Isaiahs own past includes a brush with the law, as he is somewhat threateningly reminded by his boss, Mr. Cartwright (Leon Addison Brown): Were all where we are because of somebodys good graces. If the students must turn to Isaiah for approval and mercy, the teacher himself is resigned to Cartwrights godlike status within the facility, his voice periodically issuing commandments through speakers.

Caught in the double bind of toxic masculinity and a racist revolving-door carceral system, where does the buck stop? When one student escapes through suicide, his close friend (or was he more?) Antoine, played by a simmering Dharon Jones, opts out of the bind by refusing to speak. Heavy with guilt, Isaiah tries to have his students verbalize their discontent, resulting in (sometimes contrived) arguments, and physical fights incredibly choreographed by UnkleDaves Fight-House.

Instructed by Loves script to feature no onstage crying, the production finds instead catharsis through Whites direction, attentive to the characters physicality and complex relationships to one another. Qween Jeans costumes cleverly locate a chic aesthetic somewhere between orange jumpsuits and athleisure. (How the flamboyant Dee cuts up and alters his outfits is a charming nod to queer creativity).

All is in service to Loves belief that hope springs eternal, if not here, then in our next lives, as graciously evoked by Riggs simple, almost schoolyard-like set and Mauricio Escamillas harp-heavy original music during an ethereal coda. In earlier plays like Sugar in Our Wounds and one in two, Love has demonstrated an admirable commitment to thoughtfully depict Black queerness in all its forms. The new work broadens the canvas, reminding us (in the words of Tennessee Williams) that we are all children in a vast kindergarten, trying to spell Gods name with the wrong alphabet blocks.

Love doesnt lean on such grandiose statements here, but he powerfully conveys a paradoxical modern malaise a sense of unsupervised supervision, where it feels were both left to our own devices and under someones watchful eye. His Soft is a lovely encouragement to let our guards down, and leave the hardness to our hardships themselves.

SoftThrough June 26 at MCC Theater, Manhattan; mcctheater.org. Running time: 1 hour 40 minutes.

Go here to read the rest:

Soft Review: Young Black Men, Gently Pointed Toward Liberation - The New York Times

Don't you hate it when someone steals your pot?

My friend is a very good person. She's devoted her entire life to saving premature babies. She'sone of the most experienced and highly-trained nurses that one of our large hospitals has to offer. I can't tell you exactly where she works, but let's just say that if your family has had a baby that required a little extra time in the hospital, there's a pretty good chance she's helped take care of it. The point I'm trying to make is, whomever stole from this woman stole from a saint.

It actually took her a minute to notice the theft because she works such long hours. Yes, she also has security cameras, but they were set up to prevent package thefts and not the type of theft she experienced.

She had two planters at the top of her driveway going into her garage and someone stole one of them.

Yes, someone took her pot.

This is not unlike the theft of four catalytic converters from the South Plains Food Bank or 94.5 FMX's very own station truck. It just seems like there should be some places and some people who are off-limits when it comes to thievery.

Think about it: this woman was literally helping babies to not die and theSouth Plains Food Bank was helping people to eat when someone stole from them.

I'm breaking a couple of rules on this one. Ordinarily I don't like rats, but that's for victimless crimes -- like a person having their own stash of the other kind of pot. The food bank and this lady deserve some justice. If you have any idea at all who stole the catalytic converters from the Food Bank, contact theCrime Line of Lubbock and file a tip online or call them at:806-741-1000.

If you know who stole a pot matching the one pictured below, please let me know so that I can, uh, 'teach them a lesson.'

Six Dirty Little Secrets About Lubbock, Texas

There's a lot going on here.

Read the original:

Lubbock Woman Has Her Pot Stolen And Refuses To Call Police - KFMX-FM

5 teens arrested, suspected in string of San Francisco retail thefts

Five teenagers were arrested by SFPD in a string of retail thefts involving Walgreens and GameStop. Some say they hope the arrests send a strong message to teens at this crucial stage in their young lives.

SAN FRANCISCO - Five teenagers have been arrested by San Francisco police in a monthlong spree of retail thefts across the city.

Four teenage boys - the youngest just 14 - and a 16-year-old girl, were taken into custody.

"It is always shocking to see young people be involved in this kind of activity," said San Francisco Supervisor Ahsha Safai, who has made a crackdown on retail theft a priority.

Safai said intervention is possible.

"It's important that we're getting people at a young age, because this is the time when you can turn their life around," Safai said.

The teens targeted retail stores on at least 10 different occasions in March and April.

Some were hit more than once. The Walgreens on Columbus Avenue in North Beach was hit three times in less than two weeks.

Other Walgreens were targeted, including one at Divisadero and Lombard in Cow Hollow and another on Geneva Avenue near Paris Street in the Excelsior District.

The GameStop store near 22nd and Mission was hit at least twice.

The Foot Locker at Stonestown Galleria was also robbed. In a separate incident, two victims at the mall were robbed, but an officer and off-duty recruit broke up the attack.

San Francisco businesses can't tolerate this," said Rodney Fong, president and CEO of the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce. "We are taking risks on our own, doing business in San Francisco."

He said these arrests should send a message.

"It's a misconception that these crimes are not victimless," Fong said. "Whether they're employees, people who witness these horrible events and the consumer confidence of San Francisco is really the biggest thing."

Safai agreed, saying, "Businesses are closing, people are living in fear of seeing this type of sometimes violent activity."

Read more from the original source:

Teens held in spree of SF smash-and-grab thefts - KTVU FOX 2 San Francisco

Some things stay constant in this business no matter what happens, and the decline in standards of behaviour remains one of the still points in a changing world, an ever-reliable topic for columnists everywhere.

And in every time: hundreds of years ago embattled pamphleteers, struggling in Elizabethan London for a topic that would generate a few ducats, would snap their fingers as they realised it was time to rewarm a screed on the decline of standards.

Even then it was well-established. Half a millennium ago those lads could reach back for inspiration to the man who said of the younger generation in his own time: The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Socrates, speaking around 440 BC.

Fascinating, you say, but how does that affect the Leeside flaneur or flaneuse?

Easy: because standards have now declined so far that they may bottomed out. Im not talking specifically about the kids, easy targets though they provide, but Socrates was definitely onto something when he mentioned chatter in the place of exercise. Or in the place of silence.

Paradise lost

Scene one: on the boardwalk along the riverside, near one of Corks many excellent cafes a week or so ago. Just after eight in the morning, the optimum part of the day for the first hit of caffeine as one gathers oneself for the challenges of the day. Mornings are for coffee and contemplation, according to Hopper from Stranger Things.

Contemplation is nowhere to be found, however, when one of the coffee shop customers decides he wants to listen to Morning Ireland with his breakfast. I know he wants to listen to Morning Ireland because this man wishes to keep his ears free of devices, instead preferring to perch his smartphone on the table with the volume loud enough for him to hear.

Loud enough for everyone within a 20-yard radius to hear, in fact.

Full volume

Scene two, set in one of the several Cork branches of a famous international chain of coffee shops, though not the same day as scene one. The precise time is not as germane in this case, which relates to a three-way FaceTime call.

This call was conducted at full-throated, resonant volume on behalf of the gentleman present in person in the coffee shop, and at tinny, piercing resonant volume by the other participants on the call.

If I got less value from this intervention it was because I was unfamiliar with the language the call was conducted in, though not because I couldnt hear everything that was said, and a good deal of the background sighs and inhalations, such was the quality of the connection.

Sun, sea, and shouting

Scene three, set on one of Corks magnificent beaches west of the city over the weekend.

The time? Time to learn all about one womans travails with building her house. Foundations, scaffolding, window installation, all aspects of construction outlined in minute detail for anyone in earshot, if earshot can be said to consist of about 1,600 square metres.

I wont go into details about specific tradesmen who were in for a land on Tuesday morning when they were back on site after the bank holiday weekend, but not for fear of a libel action.

If the wind was blowing from the right direction on Sunday, then the complaints carried to them on the breeze even if they were living in Castletownbere

This ladys ability to project her voice was the exact opposite of what the late lamented Tommy OBrien used to refer to as microphone tenors*.

(Dont feel bad if you dont get the reference.) As a metric showing the erosion of manners, inflicting noise on people in a public setting is as good as any. The attritional conflict between cyclists and motorists is sometimes instanced as the archetypal modern confrontation, but playing your music/holding a lengthy meeting/braying your house-extension requirements at a high volume is a better example. It shows the ultimate flex of the solipsist: everyone must accommodate me rather than the other way around.

In other words, I dont adjust my behaviour for the greater good, the greater good suffers because of me. I am not what I appear to be

To the undiscerning eye, I may appear to be a fully grown adult functioning in society. In reality, however, I am a six-month-old Red Setter who happens to be wearing a lifelike human-being costume: how else can my need for instant gratification at all costs be explained?

These are not victimless crimes, even if youre not a person whose teeth are set on edge by the tinny frequencies relayed by phones or computers (though I believe there are more of us sorry, thosethan we realise).

Emotional consquences

Some years ago the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences published a paper identifying the emotional effect on people of environmental sounds such as human actions, animal calls, machinery, or natural phenomena.

The Australian media outlet ABC reported that Intrusive music whether it is being played directly through someone's digital device, or so loudly through headphones it can be heard by those nearby can have an array of emotional consequences for listeners, including increased aggression, irritability and an inability to concentrate.

Help is at hand. If youre in Japan at some stage soon make sure to pick up a noisejammer, a small electronic device that looks like a police radar gun. If youre on a train or in a room with someone, or some electronic device, destroying your concentration, then you point your noise jammer in that direction.

The device records the irritating voices or music of those individuals and then plays it back to them almost immediately in a rush of gibberish, overriding their own contributions with a flood of their own words

Theres a delicious symmetry to this which has an immediate appeal how often do you literally get to stuff someones words down their own throat, or ears? but it only obscures the real question temporarily.

Why is this even necessary? When and how did people begin to believe that they didnt owe any consideration to those around them? Where is the mechanism for dealing with these beasts (steady oned), because if there isnt a mechanism mere anarchy will be let loose upon the world.

This is not idle talk. Back in 2017 there was a fracas on board a London train between London Bridge and Peckham Rye. A passenger was angry that another passenger was speaking too loudly on his mobile phone, words were exchanged, and the passenger angered by the noise bit another passengers ear a friend of the one using the phone.

This is the kind of incidental colour someone like Carl Hiaasen would relish, but the most persuasive detail came in an aside from witnesses about the biter: When he eventually stopped biting the man, he casually returned to his seat and sat down.

If you cant identify with the feeling of satisfaction which accompanied that return to the seat, maybe youre part of the problem.

See the rest here:

Michael Moynihan: Why is it that noisy people show no consideration for others? - Irish Examiner