Missouri was the first state in the country to pass a constitutional ban on gay marriage 10 years ago, and it's now the latest to see its ban come under fire amid rapidly changing public opinion.
The challenge came as officials in St. Louis, the state's most prominent city, issued marriage licenses to four same-sex couples Wednesday evening, just hours after federal judges struck down similar same-sex marriage bans in Utah and Indiana as unconstitutional.

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You probably don't know me, but like you I am one of those .01%ers, a proud and unapologetic capitalist. I have founded, co-founded and funded more than 30 companies across a range of industries--from itsy-bitsy ones like the night club I started in my 20s to giant ones like Amazon.com, for which I was the first nonfamily investor.

But let's speak frankly to each other. I'm not the smartest guy you've ever met, or the hardest-working. I was a mediocre student. I'm not technical at all--I can't write a word of code. What sets me apart, I think, is a tolerance for risk and an intuition about what will happen in the future. Seeing where things are headed is the essence of entrepreneurship. And what do I see in our future now?
I see pitchforks.

Here's what I say to you: You're living in a dream world. What everyone wants to believe is that when things reach a tipping point and go from being merely crappy for the masses to dangerous and socially destabilizing, that we're somehow going to know about that shift ahead of time. Any student of history knows that's not the way it happens. Revolutions, like bankruptcies, come gradually, and then suddenly. One day, somebody sets himself on fire, then thousands of people are in the streets, and before you know it, the country is burning. And then there's no time for us to get to the airport and jump on our Gulfstream Vs and fly to New Zealand. That's the way it always happens. If inequality keeps rising as it has been, eventually it will happen. We will not be able to predict when, and it will be terrible--for everybody. But especially for us.

Back in October 1999, Hawaii Child Welfare Services (CWS) officials forcibly intervened to protect an abused 14-year-old male who resided in military housing at Pearl Harbor, by taking him into protective custody at Radford High School without first notifying the base command.

In that particular case, a physical education instructor had inquired of the boy after class about the multiple deep bruises and black eyes he had been suffering of late. When he reluctantly confided that they were the result of repeated beatings at the hands of his own father, a U.S. Navy officer, the P.E. teacher immediately reported it to school administrators per state law, who in turn notified CWS. Upon further examination by local civilian physicians, the boy was also found to be suffering from multiple fractured ribs, a fractured vertebrae and a lacerated spleen.

Federal Judge Susan Oki Mollway subsequently rejected the motion filed by both the Navy and the boy's father that he be returned to the family on grounds of improper custodial interference, in which they had argued that the State of Hawaii enjoyed no jurisdictional authority over events occurring on military property.

She ruled that because the boy was a student in a Hawaii public school, and by evidence of his obviously serious injuries, CWS officials in fact had a compelling reason to move swiftly and judiciously to take the child into protective custody on state property, without first notifying the military chain of command at Pearl Harbor and seeking its permission before acting in what they perceived to be in the child's best interest.

Opining that the timely intervention of both that Radford HS P.E. teacher and CWS might well have saved the boy's life, Judge Mollway further mandated that since the U.S. military had proved itself ill-suited to dealing with such issues by instead siding with the boy's alleged abuser, Dept. of Defense officials now had an obligation to report all allegations or suspicions of child abuse by military personnel occurring anywhere in the Hawaiian Islands to the State Dept. of Human Services, of which CWS is part. Her order was later formalized to that effect per a 2000 written agreement between the Pentagon and the State of Hawaii.

Forward to today. By all accounts, 5-year-old Talia Williams suffered a most unhappy and brutal short life, having endured repeated instances of physical abuse at the hands of her stepmother Delilah Williams and her father, Army Spec. Naeem Williams, before finally being beaten to death in a most horrific manner by Spec. Williams in July 2005 at the Wheeler Army Airfield apartment complex in central Oahu, where the family resided.

Further, officials with the U.S. Army's Family Advocacy Program had known of Talia's abuse for nearly a year, yet had conspicuously failed to do anything about it themselves. But more importantly, they had further failed to notify Hawaii Child Welfare Services of their suspicions and / or findings, in violation of Judge Mollway's aforementioned order and the 2000 agreement that they would do so. Talia's young life did not have to end this way.

The Williamses were subsequently arrested by federal law enforcement and then charged with murder in Talia's death. Delilah Williams pleaded guilty and turned state's evidence against her husband in exchange for a 20-year sentence, after she alleged that she too had suffered physical abuse and had further been forced to participate in her late stepdaughter's abuse.

After multiple delays over the last few years in bringing Spec. Williams' case to trial, a Honolulu federal jury last April finally found him guilty of capital murder in the beating death of his young daughter. But because federal prosecutors had sought the death penalty for Williams in this case, the trial's second sentencing phase commenced in May.

And yesterday, the same Honolulu federal jury which had earlier convicted Williams of capital murder rejected the prosecution's argument that the defendant should be executed, and Federal Judge J. Michael Seabright is now obliged to sentence Williams to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

While U.S. penal law provides for the death penalty in capital crimes in federal court (where Williams was tried), Hawaii had actually abolished capital punishment back in 1948, and poll after poll out here over the ensuing years has shown that a decided majority of island residents are opposed to its reinstatement.

U.S. v. Naeem Williams marks the very first time that a Hawaii jury has been compelled to deliberate the matter of capital punishment since statehood was achieved in 1959. Why federal prosecutors would therefore even believe that they'd somehow be able to empanel a Hawaii jury that was unanimously predisposed to impose the ultimate punishment upon a defendant, I'll never know. Nevertheless, this jury saw to it that justice for Talia Williams was done here and her killer punished, without being overtly punitive nine years after the fact.

So, rather than complain publicly that the Honolulu jury was too lenient on Spec. Williams, federal and military officials would instead be very well-advised to now take seriously the agreement about reporting allegations and suspicions of child abuse on military bases to state authorities, who have the experience, training and resources to do something about it.

Because if the U.S. military doesn't do so of its own volition, Talia's mother Tarshia Williams -- a South Carolina resident -- has received the green light from Honolulu Federal Judge Alan Kay to proceed with a wrongful death lawsuit against the U.S. Army in the case of her late daughter.

If it goes to trial, Tarshia Williams v. U.S. Dept. of Defense shows rich promise to shed some long overdue light on the unseemly and shameful manner in which Pentagon repeatedly fails to meet its obligations to protect military dependents from abuse and harm at the hands of its own personnel.

Abused military dependents whose families are stationed in the islands are repeatedly suffering the adverse consequences of these constant rear guard actions being waged against Hawaii Child Welfare Services by those U.S. DOD officials who've heretofore been much more interested in defending their own command discretions, than in protecting young children who cannot defend themselves against abuse from their elders.

As the haunting and not-soon-forgotten story of Talia Williams shows us, it really shouldn't be this way, nor should it be allowed to continue any longer.

I don't want to think about having to consider surgery again, and I'm not even sure I'd risk it, since it didn't bring my foot and lower leg back the first time. Who the eff knows. But the feeling of my disk exploding, phuck me, I really didn't want to experience that again. Sigh.

So it's painkillers and physical therapy for a few more weeks, blah. Only good thing is I've been through this so many times I don't need to get in the car and drive to physical therapy, I can do it all at home. Heat, stretch, electro-stim, stretch again, ice a bit. Repeat.

A right-wing state and corporate push to cut off water is economic shock therapy at its most ruthless and racist, but resistance is growing

It was six in the morning when city contractors showed up unannounced at Charity Hicks' house.

Since spring, up to 3000 Detroit households per week have been getting their water shut-off - for owing as little as $150 or two months in bills. Now it was the turn of Charity's block - and the contractor wouldn't stand to wait an hour for her pregnant neighbour to fill up some jugs.

"Where's your water termination notice?" Charity demanded, after staggering to the contractor's truck. A widely-respected African-American community leader, she has been at the forefront of campaigns to ensure Detroiters' right to public, accessible water.

The contractor's answer was to drive away, knocking Charity over and injuring her leg. Two white policemen soon arrived - not to take her report, but to arrest her. Mocking Charity for questioning the water shut-offs, they brought her to jail, where she spent two days before being released without charge.

Welcome to Detroit's water war - in which upward of 150,000 customers, late on bills that have increased 119 percent in the last decade, are now threatened with shut-offs. Local activists estimate this could impact nearly half of Detroit's mostly poor and black population - between 200,000 and 300,000 people.

The killing of the royal couple set off a hair-triggered chain reaction in Europe among the intertwined alliances, and five weeks later, Germany and Austria-Hungary were at war with Serbia, Montenegro, the Russian Empire, France, Belgium and the British Empire. Eventually, almost all the major powers across the globe were sucked into the vortex of what's now known as the First World War.

And when the guns finally fell silent and the smoke cleared in November 1918, about 18 million people were dead, another 20 million had been wounded or were missing, and four major powers -- Imperial Germany, Austria-Hungary, Imperial Russia and the Ottoman Empire -- ceased to exist.

According to the findings by an independent panel of doctors, Pistorius did not suffer from a mental defect or mental illness at the "time of the commission of the offense that would have rendered him criminally not responsible of the offenses charged."

The report added that "Mr Pistorius was capable of appreciating the wrongfulness of his act."