Joe Paterno, Head Coach of the Penn State football team, and
Graham Spanier, Penn State President, have been
fired by the Penn State Board of Trustees amid allegations that they did little to address the (alleged) sexual molestation of children at the hands of
Jerry Sandusky, the ex-defensive coach of the team. And as day follows night,
Penn State students rioted,
overturning a
news van, shattering car windows, and tearing down street signs.
Previously
posted by sutt
on Nov 10, 2011 -
819 comments
Atari Teenage Riot is the
sound of punk, breakbeat and glitchy electronics, with a message behind the noise, something of the modern version of
a riot set to music. The German group was
briefly associated with the Phonogram record label back in 1993, but only long enough
get a record deal with an unrecoupable advance, piss off the label, cut those ties and form their own new label:
Digital Hardcore Recordings. From there, the group made three albums and about a dozen singles and EPs, toured the world, then went quiet in 2000. That is, until last year when
the group reformed to tour, and the revised cast of characters recorded a new album, which is
streaming online. Step inside for more history and noise.
[more inside]
posted by filthy light thief
on May 25, 2011 -
45 comments
"By this point there was devastation everywhere. All junctions were blocked by overturned glass bottle dumpsters and makeshift neighbourhood roadblocks blocks."
Last night, a
huge clash between protestors and the police kicked off in the colourful Stokes Croft area of Bristol. The cause? A recently-opened
Tesco Express supermarket.
posted by hnnrs
on Apr 22, 2011 -
56 comments
In 1972, with two outs in the bottom of the 9th inning in the last game the Washington Senators played before moving to Texas,
the crowd flooded onto the field, ruining a thrilling late-game comeback over the Yankees. In 1974, the Cleveland Indians tripled attendance by offering Ten Cent Beer Night, but ended up
wielding bats against their own fans to protect the visiting Rangers. In 1979, the plan to blow up disco records on the field between the two games of a double-header in Chicago
led to riots and fires. And
Rusty Torres was on the field all three times.
posted by Plutor
on Feb 9, 2011 -
19 comments
Flash Mobs Take Violent Turn in Philadelphia [H]undreds of teenagers have been converging downtown for a ritual that is part bullying, part running of the bulls: sprinting down the block, the teenagers sometimes pause to brawl with one another, assault pedestrians or vandalize property. . . .
The flash mobs have raised questions about race and class.
Most of the teenagers who have taken part in them are black and from poor neighborhoods. Most of the areas hit have been predominantly white business districts.
In the flash mob on Saturday, groups of teenagers were chanting “black boys” and “burn the city,” bystanders said.
Bill Wasik is not proud.
posted by grobstein
on Mar 25, 2010 -
70 comments
On February 19, Armenia hosted a presidential election. The winner with 52% of the vote was (as expected), current Prime Minister and BFF to the current president,
Serge Sargsyan. The runner-up with 21.5% of the vote was former president (taken out by the current president in 1997),
Levon Ter-Petrossian. The elections were flawed, lots of people protested over the past week, the protests have gotten violent, LTP is under house arrest and the government has issued a 20 day state of emergency. At least 3 (including a police officer) have been killed.
[more inside]
posted by k8t
on Mar 1, 2008 -
20 comments
Three days of rioting and protest across Denmark, fueled by an
influx of supporters from outside the country, was the result of the
Danish police's sudden eviction of long-standing squat
Ungdomshuset (
"Youth House"). It was the last such social centre in Denmark, whose self-governed municipality of
Christiana also began as a
squat (though its future remains
in question).
Squatting, the act of taking over abandoned property (sometimes surreptitiously as a way to secure housing for the homeless, sometimes
publically as a way to exert political pressure) has a long history, and often meets with intense repression, though has sometimes been instrumental in city-building. In New York City's early days,
homesteading was how many neighbourhoods began, and the
squat movement which birthed the now-legal
ABC No Rio community centre is linked to the city's
community gardens, as well as its independent arts culture through publications such as
World War 3. (WW3's co-founder Seth Tobocman receives
continued attention for his graphic novel
War In The Neighbourhood.)
Demolition of
Ungdomshuset has already begun.
posted by poweredbybeard
on Mar 5, 2007 -
54 comments
The Riot of Spring. Théâtre
Champs-Elysées, Paris, May 29, 1913. Pablo Picasso, Jean Cocteau, Marcel Proust, Maurice Ravel and Claude Debussy are among those present at the premiere of
The Rite of Spring (the score is
here), written by
Igor Stravinsky and choreographed by the great Russian dancer
Vaslav Nijinsky.
The music and the choreography shocked the audience with its daring modernism, ripping up the rulebook of classical ballet with its heavy, savage movements. Many in the audience promptly booed, then yelled, insulting the performers and each other. Then fistfights broke out. The police was summoned, but was unable to stop an
all-out riot.
Now
the BBC has made a TV movie about that night. More inside.
posted by matteo
on Mar 11, 2006 -
27 comments
"Oh, Detroit! Detroit, how hast thou fallen! No power in noonday to defend the helpless women and children from outlaws, till they have fully glutted their hellish appetites on the weak and defenseless." This full-text version of
A Thrilling Narrative From the Lips of the Sufferers of the Late Detroit Riot, March 6, 1863, with the Hair Breadth Escapes of Men, Women and Children, and Destruction of Colored Men's Property, Not Less Than $15,000 contains firsthand testimonies from African American victims of this forgotten race/draft riot, which was overshadowed by a much larger one in
New York City. [more inside]
posted by goatdog
on Jan 19, 2006 -
8 comments
25 years ago a Chicago radio disc jockey had an idea for a promotional event.
Steve Dahl invited his listeners to bring a disco record to a double-header White Sox game. Between games he was going to blow them up. What happened was a
full scale riot that caused the White Sox to forfeit and disco to die.
posted by Bonzai
on Jul 14, 2004 -
117 comments
"It wasn't pleasant, but it wasn't World War III" Watch the Browns/Jaguars game? Maybe it was a bad call, but throwing plastic bottles
full of beer? Anybody who knows me knows I speak out loudly and firmly against the ridiculous sports culture we have in this country. This incident makes me ashamed to be a Clevelander, even a transplanted one. What is it that gets people this riled up and stupid?
posted by starvingartist
on Dec 17, 2001 -
120 comments
I live in Bradford. This summer we had a series of
riots which tarnished the image of a city which, whilst I might love the place, didn't exactly have a sparkling reputation in the first place. A major
reason cited for the riots was the devisiveness in the local community of schools that cater only to one community, typically of course the community in which any given school happens to reside.
The UK government today announced that it would be basing
the future of British schools on the successes of the Bradford model. The future is single faith schools.
When I was 13 and choosing which lessons I was to take from that point up until I was 16 I made all the wrong choices, had others imposed upon me, and screwed up pretty badly ending up leaving at 15 with no qualifications at all (this is why I write '15' instead of 'fifteen' BTW). The future is also, apparantly, specialisation.
Discuss.
posted by vbfg
on Sep 5, 2001 -
21 comments
Go to a football match. Police arrive with tear gas and start a riot. 130 people die. I wonder if the police get some kind of bonus for killing innocent civilians...
posted by timbooker
on May 10, 2001 -
16 comments
Riots in Cincinnati. Cincinnati city police have this odd habit of killing unarmed young black males. In November, two men were killed. One was shot, another was crushed or suffocated while already in police custody and, according to witnesses, not resisting. Several weeks later a policeman shot and killed a twelve year old out joy-riding. Saturday night an officer chased down and shot a nineteen year old he 'thought he recognized' as someone with outstanding traffic warrants. Every time someone is killed Cincinnati city council promises to look into the matter but does nothing. Today someone decided to take action, even if it was in a destructive and politically impotent form of action.
posted by krakedhalo
on Apr 10, 2001 -
21 comments
Mardi Gras riots are a disturbing trend as almost every celebration these days turns bad. What's different that these things happen? My personal experience in Seattle inside (because it's a self-link)
posted by john
on Feb 28, 2001 -
17 comments
There have been minor scuffles over the past year at UCLA that balloon into 'riots,' which then get covered in the local news. I work at UCLA and I can tell you that the local/UC police have overreacted before. This past June, students got together to drink champagne by one of the big fountains. It's an tradition going back at least 15 years, but for some reason last year, there were about 20 police in riot gear standing near the fountain at night, and at least one officer stationed there 24hrs. a day for the entire finals week. A couple students were arrested for protesting the police presence, but everyone else there was just plain perplexed as to why they showed up in the first place. Yesterday's event at UCLA looks to be the same thing again. Local residents complaining about an old tradition, in which the police overreact. The sad thing is this is happening everywhere.
posted by mathowie
on Dec 16, 1999 -
0 comments
Y2K Spoof Flick Goes Awry "This FBI agent called," said Zieper. "He said, 'There are a lot of people planning to vacation in New York this year, a lot of them are coming to your site and they're getting scared. I want to talk to you about how we can stop people from coming to this site.'" ... see the flick
here. The FBI is full of a bunch of weirdos.
posted by greyscale
on Nov 25, 1999 -
0 comments
