Alaska is beautiful. I only got a glimpse of it when I passed through there on the way to Okinawa, but I was blown away by that little bit...
g123curious <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:Justice at a snail's pace. The state should be ashamed of itself. Notice how silent the state's 2 U.S. senators and governor have been on this. No way this guy acted alone or in a vacuum. This story is far from over. I tend to agree with Schwerner's widow. BTW, I'm back from my 2-week vacation in Risa... er, Alaska. It was awesome!! My wife and I went with 6 friends on a cruisetour on Princess Cruises. We picked Princess vs. Celebrity since Princess has their own wilderness lodges throughout central Canada. Our cruisetour included a 4-night land tour from Fairbanks to Denali National Park to Mt. McKinley to Anchorage; and then a 7-night cruise from there southbound to Vancouver. Alaskan scenery is spectacular beyond description. The coolest shore tour was the Helicopter ride at Juneau over several ice fields and glaciers and then landing on one where we actually walked around on a glacier. At times it felt like I was walking on the moon. The landscape was so barren and different. It had it's own ecosystem too, with pools, streams, and plenty of crevasses. Words cannot describe! When I post a cruise review and pictures online, I'll share the link with you. If you have never visited Alaska, I strongly encourage you to go soon. It is the trip of a lifetime. George Captain The USS Ronald E. McNair http:// home.earthlink.net/~ekistics10/mcnair/ --- In scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com, "Keith Johnson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Justice deferred is still justice, isn't it? Still, it bothers me in a deep way that this old fart has lived the best years of his life free and clear. Oh well... > > Ex-KKK Member Convicted in 1964 Killings Ex-KKK Member Convicted in 1964 Killings > > By EMILY WAGSTER PETTUS, Associated Press Writer 11 minutes ago > > PHILADELPHIA, Miss. - Forty-one years to the day after three civil > rights workers were beaten and shot to death, an 80-year-old former Ku Klux Klansman was found guilty of manslaughter Tuesday in a trial that marked Mississippi's latest attempt to atone for its bloodstained, racist past. The jury of nine whites and three blacks took less than six hours to clear Edgar Ray Killen of murder but convict him of the lesser charges in the 1964 killings that galvanized the struggle for equality and helped bring about passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Killen, a bald figure with owlish bifocals, sat impassively in his wheelchair, an oxygen tube up his nose, as he listened to the verdict. > > "Forty-one years after the tragic murders ... justice finally arrives in Philadelphia, Miss," said Rep. Bennie Thompson ( > <http://us.rd.yahoo.com/DailyNews/politics/news/ap/ap_on_re_us/civil_ rights_killings/15548513/*http://news.search.yahoo.com/search/news? fr=news-storylinks&p=%22Rep.%20Bennie%20Thompson% 22&c=&n=20&yn=c&c=news&cs=nw>news, > <http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/capadv/bio/ap/ap_on_re_us/civil_rig hts_killings/15548513/SIG=117r5askq/*http://yahoo.capwiz.com/y/bio/? id=344>bio, > <http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/capadv/vote/ap/ap_on_re_us/civil_ri ghts_killings/15548513/SIG=11g2c5h8t/*http://yahoo.capwiz.com/y/bio/k eyvotes/?id=344> voting record), Mississippi's only black congressman. "Yet, the state of Mississippi must see to it that the wrongs of yesterday do not become the albatrosses of today." > > The murder charge carried up to life in prison. But Killen could still spend the rest of his life behind bars; each of the three manslaughter charges is punishable by up to 20 years. Judge Marcus Gordon scheduled sentencing for Thursday. Civil rights volunteers Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner - two white New Yorkers - and James Chaney, a black Mississippian, were intercepted by Klansmen in their station wagon on June 21, 1964. Their bodies were found 44 days later buried in an earthen dam, in a case that was dramatized in the 1988 movie "Mississippi Burning." Prosecutors said Killen - a part-time preacher and sawmill operator - organized the carloads of Klansmen who hunted down and killed the three young men. On Tuesday, cheers could be heard outside the two-story, red brick courthouse in this small town after Killen was convicted. Passers-by patted Chaney's brother, Ben, on the back, and a woman slowed her vehicle and yelled, "Hey, Mr. Chaney, all right!" > > Ben Chaney thanked prosecutors and "the white people who walked up to me and said things are changing. I think there's hope." Schwerner's widow, Rita Schwerner Bender, hugged District Attorney Mark Duncan and called it "a day of great importance to all of us." But she said others also should be held responsible for the slayings. "Preacher Killen didn't act in a vacuum," she said. "The state of Mississippi was complicit in these crimes and all the crimes that occurred, and that has to be opened up." > > Killen's wife, Betty Jo, went to her husband with tears in her eyes and hugged him. Killen, who was in a wheelchair because of a logging accident in which he broke his legs, was surrounded by more than a dozen armed officers as he was wheeled from the courthouse and taken off to jail. He slapped two television microphones and a TV camera on the way out. Juror Warren Paprocki said the jury initially was split. > > "On the one hand, this guy needs to be convicted. And on the other hand, the state needed to present better evidence," said Paprocki, 54, of Philadelphia. > > Prosecutors had asked the jury to send a message to the rest of the > world that times have changed in Mississippi and that the state is > committed to bringing to justice those who committed violence to > preserve segregation in the 1950s and '60s. Killen's lawyers conceded he was in the KKK but said that did not make him guilty. They pointed out that prosecutors offered no witnesses or evidence that put Killen at the scene of the crime. Killen did not take the stand, but has long claimed he was at a wake at a funeral home when the victims were killed. Defense attorney James McIntyre said he will appeal on the grounds that the jury should not have been allowed to consider the manslaughter charges. With a murder charge, prosecutors had to prove intent to kill. With a manslaughter charge, they had to prove only that a victim died while another crime was being committed. > > "It's not the perfect ending in this case. I believe we proved murder and I believe he was guilty of murder," the district attorney said. But he added: "The bottom line is they have held Edgar Ray Killen accountable for his actions." Goodman's 89-year-old mother, Carolyn, said from her home in New York on Tuesday that the real heroes were those who stood up to the hate groups. > > "I know a lot of people in Mississippi who have risked their lives," Carolyn Goodman said. "I would say those are the most important people in my life. All the people who have stood up and the victims of the Klan. > > "I think most of the people are wonderful down there," said Goodman, who was in Philadelphia last week to testify about her son. "There are a few rotten apples in every barrel." > > Killen was only person ever brought up on murder charges in the case by the state of Mississippi. Killen was tried in 1967 on federal charges of violating the victims' civil rights. But the all- white jury deadlocked, with one juror saying she could not convict a preacher. Seven others were convicted, but none served more than six years. > > At the time of their deaths, Chaney, Schwerner and Goodman were in Neshoba County to look into the torching of a black church and help register black voters during what was called Freedom Summer. The three were stopped for speeding, jailed briefly, and then released, after which they were followed out of town by a gang of Klansmen and killed. The trial moved along swiftly, with testimony over only four days. Many of the witnesses from the 1967 trial are now dead; this time, their testimony was read aloud to the jury from the transcripts. Witnesses - primarily Klansmen - testified that Killen was a local Klan organizer who led meetings where members discussed the "elimination" of "Goatee," as Schwerner was known because of his beard. > > Witnesses said Killen rounded up carloads of Klansmen to intercept the three men. According to testimony, Killen also told some Klansmen to get plastic gloves and helped arrange for a bulldozer to bury the bodies. Killen's case marked the latest attempt in the Deep South to deal with unfinished business from the civil rights era. > > In 1994, Mississippi won the conviction of Byron de la Beckwith for the 1963 sniper killing of state NAACP leader Medgar Evers. In Alabama, Bobby Frank Cherry was convicted in 2002 of killing four black girls in the bombing of a Birmingham church in 1963 - the deadliest attack of the civil rights era. In 2001, Thomas Blanton was convicted in the bombing. > > State prosecutors also have reopened an investigation into the 1955 > slaying of Chicago teenager Emmett Till in the Mississippi Delta. Till was kidnapped from his uncle's home after being accused of whistling at a white woman. Three days later, the 14-year-old's mutilated body was found in a river. Earlier this month, his remains were exhumed and autopsied. Paprocki, the juror, said he hopes the conviction will change the way people look at Mississippi. He said the jury of blacks and whites worked well together. > > "I saw no racial polarization in (deliberations)," he said. "This is 2005 in Mississippi, not 1964. We are not barefoot and illiterate down here." > > Stanley Dearman, editor of the Neshoba Democrat from 1966 to 2000, noted that the verdict came on the anniversary of the slayings. > > "There's some sort of cosmic justice working somewhere," said Dearman, who had long pushed for the case to be reopened. > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] --------------------------------- Yahoo! Groups Links To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/scifinoir2/ To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service. --------------------------------- Yahoo! Sports Rekindle the Rivalries. Sign up for Fantasy Football [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/scifinoir2/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! 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