First aired on The Final Straw.

Have you heard about the new law passed in Pennsylvania? Super-fascist Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett recently signed a law that potentially eliminates prisoner public speech. This comes on the heals of Mumia Abu-Jamal giving a commencement address at a college he attended.
On the one day of the year that the U.S. didn’t start a new war, Mumia became a news story and Maureen Faulkner heard about Mumia’s commencememt address on the radio. Faulkner is the widow of the Philadelphia cop who shot Mumia in the chest and then forgot how to duck. She claims that hearing about Mumia is just TOO PAINFUL and she needs Pennsylvania to pass a law and shut up Mumia so she won’t have to hear about him.
Yeah. No kidding. And so far, no one in Pennsylvania is smart enough to realize it’s cheaper to hire someone to teach Frootloop Faulkner to change the channel on her radio. Instead they pass a law to silence Mumia and even call it “The Mumia Law.” Well, unless that’s TOO PAINFUL for Faulkner. She may have to get another law passed to prevent Pennsylvania lawmakers from calling this The Mumia Law and make them refer to him as “The M-word,” not to be confused with the “N-word,” which the judge used several times in Mumia’s trial. Continue reading →

Transcription of audio essay that originally appeared on The Final Straw.

For anyone who hasn’t heard of the case of Mumia Abu Jamal, he was convicted in the early 1980‘s of killing a cop in Philadelphia and not too long ago his death sentence was reduced to life. Mumia has maintained all along that he did not shoot that cop; and there is plenty evidence to support his claims, but you know what? If I am going to be completely honest, part of me kinda hopes Mumia did shoot him.

I’ve always had a different take on this case than most people. Remember Mumia was found at the scene shot in the chest. He almost died. We can presume the cop shot Mumia before he died, which means he was not shot yet, which means he shot Mumia before getting shot. It’s safe to assume the cop fired first, whoever it is that shot him in response.

And so what if Mumia shot him. What? Are we gonna run out of cops?

Look, we live in a capitalist society. It’s governed by capitalist values.One of the central principals of capitalism is the law of supply and demand.The more plentiful a product, the lower it’s value; the more rare a product, the higher it’s value. That’s why coal is cheaper than diamonds. Continue reading →