the whole thing with the can tabs is because they look like a piece of dialysis equipment that i guess has to be replaced after each use.
but the mumia thing to me is incredibly idiotic because they guy confessed to it in the emergency room, yelling out "I shot the mutherfucker! I hope he dies!" or something to that effect. then suddenly, he's some political prisoner who gets streets named after him in europe and faulkner has a street named for him, but his widow gets attacked.
meanwhile, you have a guy in nj who just had his sentence commuted by governor christie and who is fighting the conviction entirely because of a trumped up "concealed weapons" charge. the guy was moving things from his mother's house to his house in nj. his mother became concerned when she had not heard from him for a few days and asked nj state police (aka stormtroopers) to do a check on him. they instead searched his car, which he had not unpacked, found his guns and arrested him for carrying concealed weapons, despite nj law exempting guns being carried in transport to, say, a new house, a shooting range or to go hunting (they just knocked out the "gun free school zone crap, btw, because, technically, we lived in one, which meant if we had guns, we could not take them outside and that people transporting guns had to get permission from schools to pass through). when he went to trial, an activist judge refused to allow this exemption or to allow the jury to consider it after repeated requests on the wording of the law. the guy was found guilty, his gun rights now denied him and was sent to jail. or the guy in another state who painted a sign protesting a city's eminent domain policy after it confiscated several properties run by his nonprofit housing charity to turn over to private development. he painted a sign on one building but the city told him he either had to get a permit for a sign or take it down. they refused to give him a permit when he applied. fortunately, in that case, the 8th circuit not only told the city that they were suppressing free speech against a political policy, but struck down their sign ordinance-apparently they had sketchy details on the difference between a "sign" and a "mural".
but where are the celebrities with these obviously politically motivated injustices? apparently, they will only get involved if the person writes a book or pretty poetry about being in jail.