Author: andrewemett

Blood and Bananas: Chiquita’s Deadly History of Drugs, Corruption, and Cover-ups

Originally published on February 10, 2014, at WeAreChange.org

On May 3, 1998, the Cincinnati Enquirer published an expose titled “Chiquita Secrets Revealed” by Mike Gallagher and Cameron McWhirter. The articles detailed Chiquita’s complicity in international drug trafficking, bribing foreign government officials, suppressing the unionization of workers and poisoning employees with hazardous pesticides.

The investigation included a wide range a sources including over 2,000 copies of voicemail messages between Chiquita executives admitting to their crimes. Mike Gallagher, the lead investigative reporter on the story, claimed he had acquired the voicemails from a former legal counsel for Chiquita who wished to remain anonymous.

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Why Are Starfish Literally Tearing Themselves Apart?

Originally published on February 4, 2014, at TravelersToday.com

Millions of starfish are mysteriously mutilating themselves along the Pacific Coast. Dubbed sea star wasting syndrome, this idiopathic disorder causes the arms of a starfish to writhe and contort until finally ripping themselves apart from their body spilling their innards. Although starfish can usually regenerate lost limbs, infected starfish are too sick to grow their arms back.

From Anchorage to San Diego, starfish carcasses litter the ocean floor in an unprecedented epidemic. Scientists from Cornell, the University of Washington and UC Santa Cruz are researching possible origins of the syndrome that has spread across at least 12 species of starfish.

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Off the Beaten Path: The Darker Side of Italy

Originally published on February 4, 2014, at TravelersToday.com

Sick of the same old tourist traps? Tempted to indulge in guilty pleasures and morbid curiosities?

In Rome on the Via Veneto, the church of Santa Maria della Concezione dei Cappuccini sits atop Capuchin Crypt. Although the Capuchin friars maintain a quaint cathedral above, the stairs lead down to macabre constructions of human femurs and jawbones nailed to the ceiling in elaborate patterns.

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Does Medical Marijuana Reduce Suicide?

Originally published on February 4, 2014, at TravelersToday.com

According to a recent report in the American Journal of Public Health, marijuana does reduce suicide.

3 university professors reached the conclusion that the suicide rate of men aged 20-39 years old dropped in states that had legalized medical marijuana versus states that criminalized pot.

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We Shall Overcome: Revisiting the Final Moments of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Originally published on January 20, 2014, at WeAreChange.org

On April 4, 1968, on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, an assassin’s bullet stole the life of civil rights leader, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Before arriving in Memphis, Tennessee, Dr. King was organizing the Poor People’s Campaign. The Campaign sought economic and civil rights while demanding anti-poverty legislation. Thousands of people would eventually camp out on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., in an effort that would later inspire movements like Occupy Wall Street.

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L.A. Sheriff Retires as His Deputies Face Charges of Abusing Inmates and Threatening FBI Agent

Originally published on January 8, 2014, at WeAreChange.org

In an effort to expose police corruption, 18 Los Angeles Sheriff’s Deputies have been charged with various reports of inmate abuse, assaulting visitors, obstructing an FBI investigation, and threatening an FBI agent.

While investigating claims of Sheriff’s Deputies using excessive force on inmates and smuggling contraband into jail in exchange for bribes, an FBI informant allegedly paid Deputy Gilbert Michel to smuggle a cell phone into the jail.

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CIA Exposed Part 3: Fugitives, Conspirators, and Whistleblowers

Originally published on December 13, 2013, at WeAreChange.org

Continued from CIA Exposed Part 2: Convicts, Assassins, and Defectors

13. Kermit Roosevelt, Jr.

Grandson of President Theodore Roosevelt and distant cousin of FDR, Kermit Roosevelt, Jr. entered the Office of Strategic Service during World War II. After the dissolution of the OSS, Roosevelt became a political action officer of the CIA’s Directorate of Plans. In 1953, he orchestrated the coup d’etat against Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh, codenamed TP-AJAX. After returning to the US, Roosevelt worked in Washington as a lobbyist for foreign governments, including Iran.

“We were all smiles now… Warmth and friendship filled the room.”

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CIA Exposed Part 2: Convicts, Assassins, and Defectors

Originally published on December 5, 2013 at WeAreChange.org

Continued from Part 1: CIA Exposed: Traitors, Patriots, and Madmen

8. E. Howard Hunt

After receiving a medical discharge from the Navy, E. Howard Hunt began working under “Wild” Bill Donovan within the newly formed Office of Strategic Services. As the OSS dissolved and reformed into the Central Intelligence Agency, Hunt joined as a CIA officer. In 1954, he planned the coup d’etat against Guatemala’s democratically elected president, Jacobo Arbenz. His failure during the Bay of Pigs fiasco in 1961 effectively ruined Hunt’s career at the CIA.

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CIA Exposed: Traitors, Patriots, and Madmen

Originally published on December 3, 2013 at WeAreChange.org

From the ashes of the dissolved Office of Strategic Services, in 1947 the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was born. Shrouded in secrecy, the agency has operated within the shadows for 66 years. Only a few CIA officers, such as Richard Helms, William Colby, and John Brennan, have risen to the coveted position of Director of Central Intelligence.

But this isn’t their story. These are the crimes and confessions of the analysts, contractors, interrogators, and officers of the CIA. From political assassinations to state-sponsored torture, this is the CIA’s story in their own words.

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Revisiting Why the US Government Launched Drones to Kill a 16-yr-old American Citizen

Originally published on November 25, 2013 at WeAreChange.org

Mourning the recent death of his father, Abdulrahman decided to return home after the roads had cleared. Encouraged by his cousins to join an outdoor barbeque on the evening of October 14, 2011, Abdulrahman suddenly heard drones piercing the sky moments before the Unmanned Aerial Vehicles executed him. Methodical in application, the UAVs indiscriminately butchered everyone within his vicinity.

Abdulrahman al-Aulaqi was born in Denver, Colorado. Before his government sanctioned death, he loved hip-hop music and talking with his friends on Facebook. He had been living with his grandparents in Yemen when he ran off in search of his estranged father, Anwar al-Aulaqi, commonly misspelled as “al-Awlaki”.

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