Action: police brutality, and Peruvian farm workers.

Randy Owens, of Deatsville, AL, has started a petition on Change.org which helps you pressure the Alabama State Board of Investigations to release video footage of Melissa Boarts's death-by-police-shooting. Ms. Boarts, of Auburn, was shot to death by Auburn city police on April 3; she was having a crisis likely brought on by bipolar disorder, and Ms. Boarts's mother communicated these facts to the officers who arrived at the scene -- but they shot her dead anyway, using the fact that Ms. Boarts was (likely) carrying a pocket knife as an excuse. Of course, this is the 21st century, so body and dashboard cameras recorded the whole incident -- but the state apparently doesn't want to release it, citing the fact that the investigation is ongoing. I'm scratching my head wondering what that would have to do with anything -- the footage is what it is, and surely the state of Alabama is capable of making copies of the relevant recordings, so their refusal to release them only makes the police look more guilty. Of course, we would prefer knowing their innocence to speculating on their guilt.

Meanwhile, despite our efforts, the Peruvian produce corporation Tal S.A. still hasn't fixed the problems they've caused by firing nine union workers, filing charges against them, and laying off thousands of workers. Actually, they've made them worse with their plan to pack the union's leadership with cronies. Gosh, an American corporation would at least be cleverer about something like this. Hence the International Labor Rights Forum still helps you tell American produce corporations to pressure Tal S.A. into changing its ways. I guess they're not going to listen to us, because who are we, after all, but honest, hardworking people who contain multitudes? But they might listen to the corporations that buy Peruvian produce for sale in the United States, since there'd be money involved. I feel compelled to point out that, if Congress rams through the Trans-Pacific "Partnership" in the lame-duck session, we'll find it much harder to exert this kind of pressure -- and then corporations like Tal S.A. will be able to sue us in "investor-state tribunals" and extract tribute from us! So, it's use it or lose it, then.