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The Pickford Word

Dear Reader:  Some of our blogs may contain offensive language-- unlike so many blogs, wherein it is the quality of writing which offends the sensibilities.

THE MAMBO

1/29/2020

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by Meg Langford


I am not a sports fan.  I grew up an arts nerd, and I never learned the nuances--or even the basics--of any of the games, so I never got into them.  Don’t blame my parents, though. They were diehard Redskins fans, through the legendary ups and downs of that team, up until the sunset of their lives, when they donated their season tickets to a charity auction.
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But me, not so much.

And as for basketball, even though my life was personally and irrevocably carnaged by the way some people involved with college ball handle their shit, still, even after that, the game that started with Naismith’s peach basket engenders in me no feelings.  I don’t care about the game. Hate me for it, be bored by me because of it. . . but I do admire someone who knows there is more to life than just “the game”. 
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None of this explains why I was profoundly saddened by hearing of Kobe Bryant’s death on that overcast Sunday.  (Where I lived, it was already raining. The angels had started their sobbing. Although we do know that Kobe is up there hanging out with John Wooden, trading tips.)  I had spent from 1992 to 2009 living in Los Angeles; perhaps that explained how much his death rocked my world. You can’t live in that town without being exposed constantly to the whole Kobe Kool Vibe, those few dark moments in his personal history aside.  (And my general indifference to basketball notwithstanding, I do remember watching TV with a crowd at a gym in L.A., back in 2000--the Lakers were playing the Portland Trail Blazers, with Portland leading by 15 in the fourth quarter. This was going to be humiliating for Los Angeles.  My reaction in the moment was that it would make traffic dangerous going home, because this kind of thing always sets off road rage. By the end of the game, though, after me sitting in unbridled awe at a young upstart named Bryant, who made two lovely free throws, I had been schooled.  In how great this game was, and in how much I had missed. With a little magic from Shaq and Shaw, the newish team member #8, helped helm the team to a surprise victory. Quipped a Blazers fan, at Bryant’s 2016 retirement, “Man, I’m going to miss hating you.”)

But I think there is another explanation here.  A deeper meaning. Being a storyteller by nature, I believe that all athletes have a story.  And when their story is bigger than their game, that’s when I get interested.
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It is an eerily predictable kick in the gut for people whose sport is research: Always or often launching from Wikipedia . . . and then that blood-chilling moment when the first sentence of the entry changes from “is”  to “was”. One little verb tense change, to mark the difference between life and death, mortality and immortality--or, God help us all, oblivion.   

“Kobe Bryant was. . .”
“Robin Williams was. . .”
“Heath Ledger was. . .”
“Paul Walker was. . .”
“Cory Monteith was. . .”
“Philip Seymour Hoffman was. . .”
“Amy Winehouse was. . .”
“River Phoenix was. . .”
“Freddie Mercury was. . .”
“Prince was. . .”
“Tupac was. . .”
“Aaliyah was. . .”
“Selena was. . .”
“Whitney Houston was. . .”
“Brandon Lee was. . .”
“Christopher Reeves was. . .”
“John Belushi was. . .”
“Diana, Princess of Wales, was. . .”

Again.  A kick to the gut.  From one little verb change. 

As opposed to the oblivion I mentioned:

“Mark Salling was. . .”
“Jan Michael Vincent was. . .”
“Bob Crane was. . .”
“Carl Swtizer was. . .”
“Peg Entwistle was. . .”
“Roscoe Arbuckle was. . .”

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I find it fascinating that Kobe’s death sent me into a downward spiral precisely because of my indifference to basketball.  So I thought I would do some soul searching, and some research, to see exactly why that might be.  After all, that fans are devastated about his death is no surprise. But when someone who doesn’t even care about the game goes into mourning--I thought finding the answer to that might tell me something more about Kobe.  I didn’t need to learn more about myself. Hell, I am filled with self-knowledge, about what I should do and what I should be, and I routinely ignore almost all of it. I am weak. But Kobe Bryant?

The answer was surprisingly easy to find.  Even before any memorial or funeral--for I am writing this the Tuesday after the Sunday he passed--I noticed a pattern in the condolences and commentary that poured out of his friends and colleagues.  Everybody was talking about Kobe, the man. Kobe, the person. Kobe, the human being.  It was astonishing how few people dwelled at all on what a great athlete he was.  And to a soul, this seemed to be not just because that part of Kobe’s legacy was already so obvious, but because that was not the part of him that was the most memorable.  It was as though his friends, and those people who had been touched by Kobe even only in passing, knew that Kobe would want to be remembered for other things.  For so much more than his stats and his awards.  


​And truth to tell, this is not always the case with an athlete dying young. (I have written about this before, my personal experience with an athlete dying young, but will not hyperlink it here.  I am not writing about Kobe’s death to get people to read more of what I have written. But I think we can all agree that there is something uniquely tragic about an athlete dying young. Perhaps because more than any other profession, they represent the apex of living as an actual physical, human entity.)  But, as I was saying: not everybody gets the post mortem response that Kobe did. 


When Ken Caminiti died, it was all about what a great player he was and how he well he played, in spite of the torn rotator cuff, but wasn’t is sad that this MVP finally succumbed to his demons?  Steve Howe ruined a promising career as a pitcher through his substance abuse, and when he rolled his pickup and died, an autopsy found meth in his system. George Best was considered one of the most brilliant soccer players of all time, but he drank himself to death, and that was most of what was talked about after he died.  Sean Taylor, beloved Redskins player, shot by burglars during a home invasion at the young of 24, already had a career tainted with charges related to drunk driving, as well as being charged with simple battery and aggravated assault. And Aaron Hernandez? Hell, his story is now one of those streaming mini-series on Netflix, and not because of all the great things he did in his short life.  And even in the cases of less controversial athletes, the emphasis is often more on how they played the sport than how they lived their lives.

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But with Kobe, listen to the first dozen commentaries you can find.  Examples:

Former Los Angeles Lakers player and current Sparks coach Derek Fisher had this moving comment to make about Kobe’s legacy: "With all humans, there are different versions of us as we grow and evolve.  To be with Kobe from his rookie year in 1996, to the Kobe in 2004, to the Kobe in 2010--his evolution as a husband and as a father and as a man that wanted to impact the community of basketball, to think about what he has committed himself to in terms of young girls and women in the sport of basketball--that's what I want people to remember.  I want us to continue to push for what he was most recently striving for in terms of equity and opportunity for young girls. For girls like his daughters that are still with us, for girls like my daughters, for women to come. He didn't just talk about those things, he lived it, very similar to what he did on the court. He didn't just talk about being great, he worked at it every day.   And that's what I want people to remember about his life off the court as well.” 

Caron Butler, a former Laker who played alongside with Kobe, was one of many who could not get through an interview with Chris Cuomo without crying:   “He was...he was. . . he was everything, man.   Honestly, I take numbers and accolades aside, you know, he was just an unbelievable human being and I think a lot of that gets lost in the storytelling, when you’re talking about Kobe. He was an unbelievable husband, he was an unbelievable father, he was an unbelievable confidant,  know, someone you could just rely on. He was a guy that elevated the people around him, add believed in the people around him. He was a visionary, you know, he saw things before they happened. I’ll never forget our conversation that we had in Sacramento during his farewell tour, where he was talking about all the things that have come into fruition.  Writing books and being a bestseller, one day holding up an Oscar trophy he accomplished those things. And creating content. And giving a platform for his beautiful daughter. And creating the Mamba Academy and inspiring lives. And his work will continue.”

Bryant’s sometimes rival, Clippers head coach Doc Rivers, could not get through his public comment without tears:  “This is a great loss to the league.  I thought he had so much more left to do, you know, and he was starting to do it.  Never seen him happier, you know.” 

And an old friend of Kobe’s, who has kept in touch with him since the early days, Jimmy Kimmel, had this to say in lieu of his show’s usual quippy opening monologue:  “. . .Kobe went on to become a legend.  Five MBA titles, two Olympic gold medals, eighteen All-Star appearances.  One of the most brilliant and most respected players in NBA history. And when we’d run into each other over the years, we’d laugh about that night we first met.  And we’d laugh at all the good things that had happened since. And we’d laugh at how much fun it was to raise kids. And at all the stupid mistakes we made learning how to be good dads.  And Kobe had four daughters and I had two daughters, and today he and one of those girls are gone. I think I knew Kobe enough to know that he rose to any challenge by digging deeper, and getting back to work.  So let's honor Kobe, Gianna and the other lives that were lost yesterday by following his example. Love your family, love your teammates, and outwork everyone else in the gym. Vanessa and all those affected by this tragedy, we love you, and will always be there for all of you.  And Kobe, when we meet again, we're going out on a beer run. . .”
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But perhaps the hardest to watch was a shaken Jerry West, the man who discovered Kobe, made the trade happen, and even had his son drive Kobe around, because Kobe was only seventeen, who was too young to sign a contract on his own and had never even been on the 405:  “It’s like losing my son. . .I think about his family. I think about his daughter who was lost, and to watch him with his daughters and his family, to watch the time and effort he put into his academy, was something that most athletes never consider. And to see his career change the way it did, including Bryant winning an Oscar for his animated short, “Dear Basketball” in March 2010, it’s just amazing. He was going to make a legendary career outside of basketball, and it was taken away so quickly. . .It’s just indescribable to me.”  And in a later interview, West would say:   “The thing that brought me great joy was to watch him with his wife and kids,” West said. “It was truly inspiring to see this. He lived in a world of testosterone, as all athletes do. For him to be able to separate the athletic accomplishments with his personal accomplishments, this was a brilliant kid. . .  It’s going to take me a long time to get over this one.”

Profound words, from all these shaken souls.  Not the words you would necessarily expect from someone singing the praises of a celebrity athlete; they are more the words we say about social crusaders and sages--and the saintly, if not outright saints. 
And notice.  To a person, none of them mention his ability to sink the ball.  They talk about Kobe’s character, his soul, his role as friend, and family member, and teammate.   Kobe’s excellence in athletics is a virtual afterthought.

That says something to me.

Look, for example, to his very last tweet--My God, how ironic, yet fitting that this was the last tweet we will ever hear from Kobe--it was a gracious high five to LeBron James for beating Kobe’s scoring record.  “Continuing to move the game forward @KingJames. Much respect my brother 💪🏾 #33644,”   

Hmmm… Grace to someone who has bested you?  Perhaps Kobe should have been elected President of the United States.


                   
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They have just moved up the infamous Doomsday Clock.   And I have to say, for the last couple of years, I always envision along side of that, this giant tally, (flip page or digital numbers, you choose) of Good People and Evil People in the world.  The numbers are neck and neck. And every time we lose someone like Kobe, who--and this is the important thing--not only does good works, but serves as his own Mamba “Force Multiplier” by inspiring so many others to excel, the tally on that Doomsday Good/Evil counter loses one of its angels. 

And here is the part that really annoys me.  Ever since Sunday, when we heard the news of that horrific chopper crash, everybody, including me, has piled on.  News bites, talking heads, tweets of sympathy, instagrams of remembered moments. Breaking news: Kobe’s dead. More breaking news:  We all feel bad about it. 

Seriously, people?   That’s the best you can do?  This is a man who spent the lion’s share of his retirement involved in philanthropy, charity, volunteering his time, his expertise, and his very being to the causes he had come to love.  Can’t you do better by the man’s memory than that? Offering one measly tweet that will swirl into the tidal suck of sadness and be gone to the depths? To the depths of wherever tweets and other such snippets go when we’ve all moved on to the next soul-crushing tragedy. 

Here’s what I dare you to do:  you love him so much, take the cost of ONE Staples Center beer and donate it to his foundation for at-risk youth.   Let me break it down for you, before you click away from my shame-demand, to instead watch a Youtube of Kobe career highlights. (Close your eyes, picture Kobe mocking you and grabbing his crotch and saying “Hey, highlight THIS!”).  And work with me: If only one out of every one hundred Americans was moved by the death of Kobe Bryant, that would be a little over three million people. Three million people kneecapped by this untimely death, who then decide to donate to a cause that was Koby’s life.  Multiply that by the price of a Staples Center beer, $9.50. Meaning you apparently have the scratch for that, for the noble cause of you having a beer during the game, so you can damn well find the equivalent cash to donate to Kobe’s foundation. That adds up to over THIRTY MILLION DOLLARS in charitable giving--as a real, meaningful, put-your-money-where-mouth-is way to honor Kobe’s legacy.  And hey, add a Staples Center hot dog at $6.50, the Mambo’s foundation just got 52 million bucks for the kids.  

Again, that’s FIFTY TWO MILLION DOLLARS FOR THE KIDS.

So stop reading already, and go do it.

Or, OK, finish reading:

The part of Kobe that I personally will miss the most is, obviously, Kobe the storyteller.  It floors me to know that one of the major goals for what should have been the remaining decades of his life was to become a storyteller, using sports alchemized with fantasy to tell empowering tales to children.  Being Kobe, these stories would not just live in the pages of books, but on the big screen. After all, he already had won one Academy Award. . .I guess--no, I believe that the best way to honor this part of Kobe’s unlived future life would be for us to make sure that our own personal stories are the most inspiring ones that we have the power to create.  And then to share those stories. As Kobe used to say, “If you don’t believe in yourself, nobody else can do it for you.”  
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I said I would put no links to my own writing in this tribute, but I do want to throw in this one link.  It is to a song that I grew up with. It was timely then. And it is, eerily enough, still timely now. Too timely. 
This one's for kobe. . .
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KOBE

1/29/2020

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ERIC GARNER: And a wave from 'Danny Pants'

8/2/2019

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“I CAN’T BREATHE”
JUST THE FACTS

Firstly, let’s lay out the facts in the case of the death of Eric Garner:
On July 17, 2014, Eric Garner, age forty-three, died in Staten Island, New York City, after a police officer put him in a chokehold for fifteen seconds. The New York City Medical Examiner's Office concluded that Garner died, partly as a result of the chokehold.  New York City Police Department (NYPD) policy prohibits the use of chokeholds.
THE INCIDENT:  Officers of the New York City Police Department approached Garner because they suspected him of selling "loosies" (single cigarettes) from packs without tax stamps.  Garner told the police that he was not selling cigarettes, and that he was tired of them harassing him.  The police decided to arrest Garner. When Officer Daniel Pantaleo took Garner's wrist behind his back, Garner swatted his arms away.   Pantaleo then put his arm around Garner's neck from behind pulled him down onto the sidewalk. Pantaleo then pushed Garner’s face to the concrete while four officers physically restrained Garner.  All during this time, Garner was repeating, over and over again, “I can’t breathe.”  Clearly in distress, Garner said this eleven times before he lost consciousness.  Officers turned him onto his side to ease his breathing, but it is worth noting, and beyond dispute, that the officers never offered Garner CPR, in spite of the fact that they were trained to do so, and in spite of the fact that it was their obligation, as instructed in their training, to give Garner CPR.  Garner remained lying on the sidewalk for seven minutes while the officers waited for an ambulance to arrive. The EMTs also did not perform CPR on Garner at the scene.
Eric Garner was pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital approximately one hour later. 
Medical examiners concluded that Garner was killed by "compression of neck (choke hold), compression of chest and prone positioning during physical restraint by police." The medical examiner ruled Garner's death a homicide. According to the medical examiner's definition, a homicide is a death caused by the intentional actions of another person or persons. This does not automatically mean that a crime has been committed.  (The definition will serve as a motif throughout the book. That fact is not meant to be freighted with any meaning or partisan opinion. It merely means that once the killing is declared a homicide, the burden is on those who serve justice to determine if the person who committed the homicide should be charged and tried.)
On December 3, 2014, a grand jury decided not to indict Pantaleo.   The event stirred public protests and rallies  with charges of police brutality. As of December 28, 2014, at least fifty demonstrations had been held nationwide specifically for Garner while hundreds of demonstrations against general police brutality counted Garner as a focal point.  The Justice Department announced an independent federal investigation. 

WHAT’S THE DEAL WITH THE CHOKEHOLD?
The media has expended a lot of cyber ink on this one, but, as is often the case in a world of bloggers who seem to favor speed of publication and quantity of output over the actual quality of their writing, most of them are just saying the same thing, and dwelling on the superficial.  
The nitty gritty of chokeholds is a far trickier matter.  
In layperson’s terms:  there are chokeholds which cut off the blood supply to the brain by applying pressure to arteries for a short time; this causes the suspect to go unconscious and is generally harmless.  This means applying pressure to the arteries on the sides of the neck.   
In the other kind of chokehold, pressure is applied to the trachea, also known as the windpipe, directly in the center of the neck—this cuts off oxygen, and as we saw in the case of Eric Garner, can kill a person.  
Here is the Barney Fife truth of it: when Goober and Gomer are deputized, and are practicing these different kinds of chokeholds in the driveway of the filling station, the distinctions are all very fine and good and theoretically workable.  But in a real life situation, where the primal panic of the suspect/victim comes in to play, what begins as a legal chokehold to the arteries can quickly become a blocking of the trachea.  
This, my friends (if you don’t trust my opinion,) is specifically why the NYPD has wisely banned ALL kinds of chokeholds—to avert to ensuing confusion and, of course, tragedy.
Bit of course, Officer Danny Pantaleo doesn’t give a shit about the law.  The code. Rules and regulations.   
    
WHY THE HELL DIDN’T THEY HELP?
Hey, I get it.  Eric Garner had a criminal record. He had been arrested thirty times.  He had been warned about selling cigarettes in that location. And he resisted arrest.  This wouldn’t be a fair look at the story if this chapter didn’t include those facts. But nothing can mitigate the fact that Officer Pantaleo violated police procedure by using a chokehold and, perhaps even more unforgivably, nothing can explain or forgive the decision on the part of the NYPD to NOT administer CPR.  
Even more shocking is the fact that the EMTS who arrived on the scene also did not administer CPR or administer oxygen to Eric Garner.  They just spent the first couple of minutes doing basically nothing.  They did not even feel for his pulse at the correct location on this neck.  But don’t listen to me, ask the experts—specifically, Dr. Alexander Kuehl, who led the Emergency Medical Services in New York City during the 1980’s.  Kuehl said the of the female paramedic who was the first medical assistant on scene, and who, inexplicably, did nearly nothing: “It was like she either didn’t want to be there, which is hard to understand, or police basically told her to just let him alone.  She certainly didn’t do her job.”
And Israel Miranda, the president of the Uniformed EMT’S, Paramedics, and Fire Inspectors FDNY Local 2507, when asked for his analysis, was unwavering and unafraid to be critical of his own:  “There was a lack of initial intervention,” Miranda said.  “They were not aggressive.  If they’re not breathing, assist with their ventilation.  This is something that is ingrained in your training.” This willingness to tell the truth, in spite of his job description, is important, gratifying, and precedent-setting.  He is to be applauded.
Police and EMTS don’t get to pick and choose whose life they are supposed to try and save, once crisis has set in.  But Pantaleo and his cronies did choose. They decided not to attempt to save a man’s life—merely because this was not the first time they had warned him about selling cigarettes. 

WHO IS OFFICER DANIEL PANTALEO?
Office Daniel “Danny Pants” Pantaleo is basically a guy who, from all indications, frequently violates the civil rights of black men.  (The “Danny Pants” is my own nickname, since I can’t really see him as anything but a squirt, a small-time mobster, given his behavior.)  Consider the cases brought against him—cases which were apparently damning enough against Pantaleo that the NYPD decided to settle, rather than fight, the cases.  Danny Pants ends up being a very expensive cop to have around, when it comes to lawsuit settlements paid out to victims of civil rights violations.
1. Darren Collins and Tommy Rice:  Collins and Rice sued Pants and other police officers in 2012.  They allege that Pantaleo and three other cops pulled them over one morning, saying they saw a hand-to-hand drug transaction, according to court documents.  The cops then allegedly strip searched the men and touched their genitals, right out in public, saying they were searching for drugs. Pantaleo even slapped the genitals around, his victims sated.  Collins and Rice didn't have any drugs on them. Criminal charges against Collins and Rice were dismissed, and they settled the lawsuit for a payout of $15,000 each.
2. Rylawn Walker:  Walker sued Pants in February of 2014.  Pantaleo falsely arrested him in 2012, even though he wasn't doing anything wrong or behaving suspiciously.  Walker was charged with marijuana offenses, but the charges were eventually dismissed and the case sealed by the court.  The lawsuit against Danny Pants is still pending. 
3. Kenneth Collins:  Collins sued Danny Pants and other officers in November of 2014; this lawsuit stemmed from his claim of false arrest stemming from a marijuana offense in 2012.   According to court papers, Pantaleo "subjected [him] to a degrading search of his private parts and genitals." The suit alleges that the officers charged Collins because they wanted to get overtime pay to process legal paperwork.  The charges against Collins were dismissed and sealed by the court. The fact that the charges against Collins were dismissed make these disgusting charges against Pantaleo all too believable.
Consider this:  all these lawsuits have transpired within a two year period.  Any other reasonably run business probably would have fired Pantaleo for being too great a liability.  Not the NYPD. And isn’t it interesting, that Danny Pants seems to take an inordinate and excessive interest in fondling the genitals of other men.
 
IN SUMMATION:   I have tried to take a balanced point of view in the judgment of Pantaleo.   I listened carefully to those few voices who asked the reasonable questions “Where is the absolute proof that Pantaleo did these things” and “How many arrestees sue the department every year?” implying that these specious arrests and searches may just be phantom accusations on the part of thugs.
But the evidence had stacked up too fast and too high against Pantaleo.  And what Pantaleo cannot change is the fact that in the case of the Garner arrest, there is a video.  Three things are clear, crystalline, and very, very damning:
  1. Pantaleo uses a chokehold against Eric Garner, and chokeholds are illegal.  It is a violation of police procedure.
  2. Pantaleo, nor any of his fellow officers, offered Garner CPR.  Even if a Grand Jury did not indict Pantaleo for the chokehold—in order to indict, they would need to prove that Pantaleo intended to kill Garner with the chokehold—they could have indicted him for failing to offer CPR, and for withholding medical attention, causing the death of a human being. 
Lastly, Danny Pants seems to show no remorse over what he has done to this human being.  Watch the video: once Garner is down on the ground, and in physical distress, and fighting for his life, Danny Pants steps into the background and just watches it all, sometimes with a visible smirk on his face.  Later, he smiles and waves at the camera, as a human being is dying at his feet.

OH, THOSE EUPHAMISMS
Are police across the country learning the lessons from the tragedy caused by one incompetent and corrupt precinct?  Just a few short weeks after New York police placed Eric Garner in a chokehold, causing Garner to gasp “I can’t breathe”, and causing the judgment of homicide to be determined by the medical examiner, a new training program was initiated among Sheriff’s Deputies in King County, Washington:  the “Lateral Vascular Neck Restraint”. “A person’s neck is placed in a V between the officer’s forearm and upper arm, while pressure is applied to the carotid arteries on the sides of the neck.”
We can only reiterate what we have said before.  The difference between temporary vascular restriction of the blood to the brain, causing temporary unconsciousness, and restricting the breathing by applying pressure to the trachea, can be the difference between life and death.  The two forms of takedown are not the same thing. The looming problem arises with the panic of the moment, and the improperly trained officers. Police and Sheriff’s Departments all over the country bemoan a lack of proper funding, (and rightfully so), and yet they are one hundred percent sure of the training of their officers in this nuanced life-and-death technique.
“Lateral vascular neck restraint.”  Seriously?
That’s a great one.  

And now, from the Orwellian Newspeak that brought you that one, here are a few more euphemisms from the special language of law enforcement:
CREATIVE REPORT WRITING:  Doing whatever you have to do with a report to keep your numbers up, to get overtime, or to make a suspect look guilty.
AMBULANCE MONKEY:  Derogatory term for Medic, used because they interfere with a cop’s business.
HOSE MONKEY:  Derogatory term for Firefighter, used because they interfere with a cop’s business.
PEDSPREAD:  The end result of a pedestrian vs. vehicle accident, especially one occurring at a high rate of speed.
KEISTER BUNNY:  A suspect who hides contraband in their rectum.
LAWN ORNAMENT:  (I actually like this one; in the name of fairness, it is worth pointing out that they are not all offensive.)  A drunk person passed out on their, or somebody else’s, lawn.
ORGAN DONOR:  Motorcyclist without a helmet.
HAM SANDWICH:  Unregistered firearm kept in a plastic bag to plant on suspects.
UNREPORTED STOLEN:  A creative term for pulling a car over with thin probable cause.  A more “Politically Correct” explanation than “the car was pulled over because the people inside just looked out of place, or somehow wrong, or up to something, or fit a certain type. 
GUTTER TAG:  Writing a citation after you have allowed the suspect to leave, and placing their copy in the gutter, while submitting the complaint to court.  Usually results in a warrant for “Failing to Appear”. Nice, and so professional.
ALUMINUM SHAMPOO, FLASHLIGHT THERAPY, FLASHLIGHT SHAMPOO, DURACELL SHAMPOO:  To beat a suspect with a flashlight
KIWI SHAMPOO:  Named after most cops’ favorite shoe polish, KIWI, a KIWI SHAMPOO means to kick a suspect in the head repeatedly. 
BUTT HUTT:  Jail
HOT LEAD INJECTION; LEAD POISONING:  Shooting someone
“A DOG RAN IN FRONT OF MY CAR:  When you have a total Asshole prisoner in the back of your patrol car, and you hit the brakes suddenly, causing the prisoner to smack his face on the cage/ screen.  He accuses you of brutality and you reply, "A dog ran in front of my car. (“WAFFLE FACE” is also a term for a prisoner who you’ve pulled this stunt on.)
FRISBEE CAT:  A cat that has been run over and is flat and hard and can be thrown like Frisbee
EYE SOCKET STABILIZATION: Gouging the eyeballs
EDISON MEDICINE:  Tasing someone. 
ELECTRIC SLIDE:  When a suspect stops running and slides cross the ground, due to being Tased.
LIQUID JESUS:  Pepper Spray
FLOPPY CRAPPY:  Term used to describe the actions of a person being Tased while they are on the ground.
TAKING A HOT SQUAT:  Dying in the Electric Chair 
The English Language is a mystical thing.

STOP AND FRISK:
The Hunted and the Hated

The tragedy of Eric Garner is the reflection of a much great anger boiling up in New York’s minority community, and it all started with a nasty little NYPD policy called “Stop and Frisk”.  The idea behind “Stop and Frisk” was not inherently terrible. It was about crime prevention: you stop and frisk people who look suspicious, who look like they’re up to no good. The problem, obviously, comes in how we define “suspicious” and “no good”.  Stay tuned for a creepy discussion of how the NYPD has chosen to interpret those terms. A look at who they choose to pick on. Which includes, by the way, just about every young man who is black.
SPOILER ALERT:  You can be stopped, grilled, and body searched for offenses as minor—and as ambiguous—as “furtive movements”.  Furtive movements have included, and frequently include, actions such as looking over your shoulder and/or crossing the street, and/or changing direction while walking to move in a direction away from the police, and these actions are all reasons for the police to stop a “suspect”.  Continuing to walk towards the police and making direct eye contact with an officer is also reason to stop a “suspect.” Then again, avoiding eye contact is also an often invoked reason to stop a “suspect”. (Two words: Freddie Gray.) And as if that isn’t Gestapo enough, it turns out that “Furtive Movements” were used as the reason for the stop over sixty percent of the time.   So basically, the cops have you, either way. If you avoid eye contact, or cross the street, or turn to go the other way, you are avoiding them, and you have something to hide: Bam, Stop and Frisk. But if you look them in the eye, and keep approaching in their direction, you are behaving confrontationally: Bam, Stop and Frisk.
Another diabolical trick:  marijuana has been de-criminalized in New York, as long as you don’t publicly display it.  So people are stopped, frisked, their pockets emptied—and then, when the doobie rolls out, it’s on display, isn’t it?  BAM! You’re busted!

BOOZE--AN INEXCUSABLE DOUBLE STANDARD

By the way:  NYPD cops enjoy quite the double standard when it comes to their abuse of a drug called alcohol.  For pretty much the entire history of the NYPD, a cop has been able to drive drunk, secure in the knowledge that if stopped by a pal—or by another officer he doesn’t know, for that matter--he is legally allowed to refuse a sobriety test.  Seriously?
Sometimes the incidents come in waves, like Sasquatch or UFO sightings:  In April of 2011, in the Big Apple, there were officer-related drunk driving accidents two nights in a row.  First, Officer Christine Mazarakes was driving drunk and smashed her car at the corner on 81st Street and West End Avenue.  The following night, a drunk Detective Thomas Handley flipped his car while driving on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway near midnight.  (Sorry, no pictures of the accident released to the public.) And only a few weeks before that, on March 15, Officer Sergio Gonzalez was arrested for driving under the influence, after crashing his car into the back of a cab, injuring the driver.  It didn’t stop there, though. Gonzalez then sped away from the scene of the accident, and then smashed into a police car further down the street. It didn’t stop there, though. The force of hitting the cruiser caused his car to spin round, and hit yet a third car.   Officers in the cruiser that was hit were treated for head, neck, and back injuries.  The cabbie had a deep gash to the forehead, requiring stitches. Two hypodermic needles were found in Gonzalez’s car, and a witness reported him trying to get rid of a small white plastic bag. But Gonzales turned down the request that he take a Breathalyzer.  Not interested, apparently.
And then there is the tragedy caused by yet another officer sworn “to protect and serve”, that of NYPD Officer Andrew Kelley who got drunk, drove, and killed a preacher’s daughter, striking her with his car.  When he left the bar, witnesses said he had been drinking all night, and even the officer himself admitted to drinking all night. When officers arrived at the scene to find Vionique Valnord dead, they also found Kelley slurring and glassy-eyed, and reeking of booze. Because Kelley, being a cop, could legally refuse a sobriety test, it took seven hours and twenty minutes to get a judge to rule that he must take one.  But by then, he blew 0.0. He got just 90 days in jail. After all, the defense argued, how do we know he was drunk? Prove it. I guess his admission that he had been drinking wasn’t enough.   

When NYPD Officer Kevin Spellmen, obviously drunk at the end of his shift (yes, he was working as he got drunk), and was allowed by his colleagues to drive home, he killed a grandmother while she was crossing the street.  When other police arrived on the scene, twice he refused a Breathalyzer, refusal being a legal act for that cop. It took other officers five hours to get a judge to issue a court order, and to make the Breathalyzer happen, at which point, even though five hours had passed, Kevin Spellman blew 2.1, over twice the legal limit.  Happily for justice, he eventually got sentence to 3-9 years, but unhappily for justice, that took four years.  But the biggest injustice of the Spellman story is that any fool could have seen this murder by drunk driving coming a mile away, no pun intended.  
But this wasn’t the first time Officer Kevin Spellman was drinking and driving.   A few years previous to killing the grandmother, in 2004, Spellman had been caught driving the wrong way down a one way street while on the job, and yet kept his job.  Bizarrely, two other officers were in the car with the very drunk cop when this happened, and they just let him keep driving. The wrong way, down a one way street. He was only stopped because he stopped his car and got out to stagger into a bodega for more alcohol.  Citizens noticed him staggering and reeking of booze. Spellman was not arrested. 
But this wasn’t the first time Officer Ken Spellman was drinking and driving.  Wait, didn’t I just write that? Yes, in still another incident in 1997, Spellman hit a family of three with his car while he was drunk.  The shaken and furious father insisted that a Breathalyzer be administered to Spellman, but Spellman refused, and was within his rights to do so. And still, no stop right there, I want you to put yourself in the shoes of that enraged father.  This pathetic excuse for a human being, after driving drunk and crashing into a family’s car, has the arrogance to refuse to face the consequences of his actions.  And still, he kept his job as a cop. As a policeman sworn to “Serve and Protect”. As an officer empowered to “Stop and Frisk”, and bust kids carrying weed.
Only in 2013 did the courts finally make it mandatory for cops to take Breathalyzers, just like everyone else suspected of driving drunk…
NYPD Officer Joseph DeMarcos is a piece of work.  In 2007, cops found him leaning over his girlfriend’s car with bloody hands (yes, she was fine), but he had slashed all her tires and smashed all her windows.  When he saw cops approaching in their cruiser, he jumped into his own car and sped away. When he finally stopped, he flailed and kicked and bit when they tried to extract him from his vehicle.  He was wildly inebriated. And he is still working as an Officer of the NYPD. 
Why this brief epistle on cops and drinking?  Not only to show the hypocrisy of “Stop and Frisk”, but perhaps more importantly, to explain to those legions of people who still just don’t get it why blacks, other minorities, and a hell of a lot of white people are so damned angry.  There is a double standard, and there is no justice in that.
Think about all these drunk cops, destroying property and running down innocent victims, leaving death and destruction in their wake—some of them then being allowed to return to the force.  And then think of Eric Garner, killed for selling loosies. And of Sandra Bland—threatened with a Taser for refusing to put out her cigarette, and then slammed to the ground and beaten, even after pleading that she was epileptic.  And Officer Brian Encinia’s response to her claim of epilepsy? “Good”.

BACK TO THE STOP AND FRISK. . .

To put it bluntly, young men who are a members of a minority, young men of color, live every day on the streets of New York in fear and with a growing rage—I believe rightfully so.  And what are they being stopped for? Here is a list of reasons, of “probable cause” that legally allow a cop to stop you, search you, and, in many cases, brutalize you (with our interpretation of what that actually means to the NYPD, according to the public history of their Stops, Frisks, and Arrests):
–“CASING A LOCATION”.  (Or, looking around at a place for more than a few seconds.  It could be a restaurant whose menu posted in the window you are perusing.  A movie theatre whose marquee you stop to read. A building whose address you’re squinting to read.  A store window whose display you are admiring. Need I go on?)
--“ACTING AS A LOOKOUT.”  (Or, looking for a friend, a bus, a taxi—a cop who wants to harass you for no reason.
--“ACTIONS OF A DRUG TRANSACTION.” (Notice it doesn’t say anything about “witnessing” a drug transaction, but merely “actions of”, which means that shaking hands, handing somebody something, or exchanging money—hey, it could be for Nicks tickets—all are “Stop and Frisk” offenses.)
--“CARRYING A SUSPICIOUS OBJECT.”  (As you will see below in one of the most famous: “Stop and Frisk” busts, a backpack can be considered a suspicious object.
--“FITS A RELEVANT DESCRIPTION.”  (Hey, look. He’s black!)
--“CLOTHES COMMONLY USED IN A CRIME.”  (A hoodie! Just like Trayvon! Let’s shoot him too!)
--“SUSPICIOUS BULGE.”  (I’m saying nothing.)
And the bald truth of it is this:  in the great majority of cases, “suspects” aren’t just questioned and patted down.  They are screamed at, sworn at, called names, ridiculed, slammed into walls and against cruisers, and often arrested on bogus charges.   Are innocent people getting caught in the NYPD’s ever-widening crime fighting net? Court data suggests a strong possibility.  In 2008, city courts handled 382,000 misdemeanor criminal summonses, such as disorderly conduct and loitering. Out of those, over 193,000 were tossed out by the courts.  51 percent of all summonses dismissed.
Even if the charges are thrown out in court, the cop has done his job—to meet the secret NYPD quota which, although being unlawful, has by now been well documented.   More and more police are finding ways to make the truth known, offering the public specific details, but keeping their identities anonymous: they are afraid of the repercussions, and rightfully so.  Officer Adhyl Polanco is an exception, though. He became a cop because he wanted to be one of the good guys, but when he saw too much corruption, he went public and called them out:
    “Our primary job is not to help anybody.  Our primary job is to get those numbers. And come back with them.  You have to meet the quota.” --NYPD Officer Adhyl Polanco, to an ABC News Reporter, in 2010.   (abc7y.com)
    Also secretly recorded by Adhyl Polanco are daily orders from his superior:  
“Things are not going to get any better. It’s going to get a lot worse.    And if you think 1 and 20 is breaking your balls, guess what you’re going to be doing?  You’re going to be doing a lot more, a lot more than what you think.”
    “Next week, you could be 25 and 1, you could be 35 and 1.  And guess what? Until you decide to quit this job and become a Pizza Hut delivery man, this is what you are going to be doing until then.  Do we understand each other?”
And the cops aren’t content to just harass black men and black teenagers.  Tweens, kids on their way to school, are often stopped and harassed. And police aren’t around to suffer the consequences or embarrassment of the child having to explain why he was missed first and second period.
WNYC News, a radio station out of New York, carried this story on its website:
Anthony Henry, also an eighth grader from P.S./I.S. 323, was walking to school before 8 a.m. last month when a big jeep pulled up alongside him. Five cops jumped out, he said.  “And they were all like, ‘Put your hands up’ and stuff,” said Anthony. “They checked me, checked my book bag. They threw all my books on the floor.”  The police started questioning him about drugs and gang members. He said he didn’t know anyone in a gang. They took him home, and his mom started yelling at the cops, telling them they had the wrong guy. At that point, Anthony said one officer just patted him on the head, and said, “My bad.” By the time his mom drove him back to school, Anthony had already missed first and second period.   “It made me feel, I dunno, retarded,” said Anthony. “Like a gangbanger. Because only gangbangers get stopped for nothing, just for walking.”

And this covert confession, from and officer who wished to remain anonymous:

    INTERVIEWER:  You’re telling me that they’re just stopping people without a reason, is that what you’re saying?
    OFFICER:  We’re stopping kids walking from school.  We’re stopping kids walking upstairs to their house.  We’re stopping kids from going to the store. Kids. Young  Adults. In order to keep that quota.   
(NBC News, August 7th, 2013)


ALVIN IS NOT A MUTT.  ALVIN IS NOT A CHIPMUNK.

Alvin Cruz wanted to be a police officer, probably because he deeply admired his father, who was an officer in the NYPD.   But then he became a victim of “Stop and Frisk” over, and over, and over again. This last incident was the last straw. But this time, Alvin was ready, he recorded the entire incident that transpired when two cops pulled him aside and went into full bullying mode.
OFFICER: (grabbing Alvin)  Our job is to look for suspicious behavior.  When you keep looking at us like that, looking back--
ALVIN:  ‘Cause you’re always—I just got stopped like two blocks away.
OFFICER:  Listen to me.  When you’re walkin’ the block, with your hood up, and you keep looking back at us like that--
ALVIN:  I just got stopped, like, two blocks away.
OFFICER:  Do you wanna go to jail?
ALVIN:  What for?  For what?
OFFICER:  Shut your fuckin’ mouth, kid.
ALVIN:  What am I getting arrested for ?
OFFICER:  Shut your mouth!
ALVIN:  What am I getting arrested for?
OFFICER:  For being a fuckin’ mutt.
ALVIN:  That’s a law?   Being a mutt?
(scuffling can be heard)
ALVIN:  Why you push me like that for?
OFFICER:  Shut your fucking mouth before I slap you.
ALVIN:  Why you push me like that for?
OFFICER: TAKE A FUCKIN’ WALK!
ALVIN:  Why you push me like that?
OFFICER:  You fucking hear me, you fucking piece of shit?
ALVIN:  Why you touch me like that?

Scenes like this play out every day on the streets of New York City.
And then—and then—the police carp and complain that the people they arrest don’t show them enough respect.
If these particular heart wrenching stories don’t convince you, perhaps the statistics will:    
Even though Blacks and Hispanics are a minority here—Blacks 23%, Hispanic 29%--a majority of  people stopped, around 84%, are young men of color …The reason given for most stops is either a high crime neighborhood or a suspect engaged in furtive movements.”   
---ABC Nightline, Terry Moran.
And here’s the pay-off:
• The likelihood that a stop of an African American New Yorker yielded a weapon was half that of white New Yorkers stopped. The NYPD uncovered a weapon in one out every 49 stops of white New Yorkers. By contrast, it took the Department 71 stops of Latinos and 93 stops of African Americans to find a weapon.
• The likelihood that a stop of an African American New Yorker yielded contraband was one-third less than that of white New Yorkers stopped. The NYPD uncovered contraband in one out every 43 stops of white New Yorkers. By contrast, it took the Department 57 stops of Latinos and 61 stops of African Americans to find contraband.
    Look, just in case I need to remind people, I am white.  I take no joy in those statistics. What I do take joy in, however, are facts.  Accuracy. And them’s the facts.


ADRIAN SCHOOLCRAFT:  A GOOD COP

Now, the good news is that the situation has greatly improved.  Incidents of “Stop and Frisk” are way down in New York. But the price was high.  Not only did it require massive protests and marching in the streets—anathema to so many law and order fanatics--but the cause had its martyrs as well.  
And few martyrs in the “Stop and Frisk” imbroglio are as well-known as a former cop named Adrian Schoolcraft.  Adrian Schoolcraft is a name known to many in the realm of people fighting against draconian “Stop and Frisk” policies.  (Adrian is white, if it matters.) Clearly, Adrian is one of the good guys. He was born in Texas, he’s a Republican, and he grew up admiring his dad, who proudly wore the blue uniform.  Adrian went into the Navy, and when he left the Navy a few years later, it was with a slew of medals and commendations. He moved to New York in 2002 to become a cop for two reasons: firstly, he wanted to be there to help the city.  He had watched in horror on that infamous day on September 2001, as 911 unfolded, but Adrian felt helpless, living so far away in Texas. And becoming a member of the NYPD seemed as good a way as any to try to do his part in taking care of the city.  In healing the city. And the second reason for his move to the Big Apple: his mother was dying of cancer, and he wanted to be there for her. In fact, he drove her to every one of her chemotherapy sessions, until the day she died.
Now—as is so often the case in this book—one can write an entire book about the Schoolcraft saga.  At the very least, it would make a hell of a great movie. Very “Serpico”, but with some even more horrific twists and turns.  Here is his story told in broad strokes, and see if you aren’t filled with equal parts of outrage and stark disbelief:
As an officer who took his oath seriously, Adrian Schoolcraft was sick of all the sub rosa arrest quotas and threats from superiors—you could be fired, harassed, denied promotions, all for failing to get the supposedly non-existent quotas.  So he took the recorder that he had originally carried around to document assorted street incidents (with the intent of protecting himself from bogus accusations—something that will prove wickedly ironic, given hindsight), and Adrian started to use it to record the illegal directives and sickening “pep talks’ he was getting about quotas.  He documented all the different ways that cops could go after certain ethnic types who had made the mistake of showing their faces in public. Schoolcraft recorded no less than 117 roll calls over a 17 month period, from July 1st, 2008, to October 31st, 2009. The material he gathered was far more than enough to establish a pattern.  
Some recordings are of roll call supervisors advising officers not to take certain robbery reports, in order to manipulate crime statistics.  There are also references to superior officers placing calls directly to crime victims, in which they try to intimidate the victims out of making complaints.  (We are setting aside the disturbing and childish issues that also frequently arose, such as the need for officers--the officers—to stop painting graffiti all over the inside and outside of the station, as well as a request that they stop drawing penises in each other’s notebooks, which are official instruments of the state, and possibly to be used in the court. 
But there is more, so much more.
One of the darkest villains in this story is Precinct Commander Steven Mauriello, who spewed vitriol like this, captured by Schoolcraft’s recorder.  But he had his evil minions as well. Months later, when the story exploded, the Village Voice would publish an explosive, multi-article story about the entire imbroglio.  Here is a direct transcript from Part Two of the Village Voice story, and it will give you a damned good idea about why a good cop like Adrian Schoolcraft was so angry:

EXCERPTED FROM THE VILLAGE VOICE:
Mauriello would often roam the precinct in his car. When he saw groups on particular corners, he would call in officers to arrest the people on low-level charges. These collars came to be called "Mauriello Specials."  
[From later in the Village Voice article:  One problem with the "Mauriello Specials" was that the officers were at times being ordered to make arrests for misconduct that they hadn't actually witnessed—legally, a questionable practice.  In an October 14, 2009, roll call, a police union delegate warns officers about this: "Make sure you don't sign anything that says you witnessed the arrest if you didn't," he says. "There's been a lot of cases overturned, and officers now being brought up on perjury charges."  In another roll call from October 31, 2009, an officer warns other officers: "The D.A.'s Office is watching supporting depositions. They have one cop up on, like, eight counts of forging.”

--On June 12, 2008, a sergeant tells the precinct's officers to make the arrests even if they have to cancel the charges at the end of their shift. "Guy's on the corner? You gotta leave. Bounce. Get lost," he says. "You'll void it later on in the night so you'll all go home on time."

--On July 1, 2008, a sergeant tells his cops: "Be an asshole. They’re gonna do something, shine a light in their face. Inconvenience them. It saves trouble later on. Some of you with good activity are going to be moving up."

--The following day, a precinct supervisor orders cops to make an arrest, when in the past, a dispute might have been talked out.  “The days of mediating between a perp and a store owner are over," a sergeant says on July 2, 2008. "If the guy is in the back with five sticks of deodorant, you gotta collar him," the sergeant says. "There's no more mediating."

--By that July, Mauriello was a fixture in the roll calls at the start of the evening tour. "They wise off, they fucking push you, I expect them handcuffed, all right?" he says in a July 15, 2008, roll call, adding later, "Anybody gets stopped and it's a summonsable offense, I want them handcuffed and brought into the precinct. . . . zero tolerance."

--Mauriello tells them that day that he wants block parties shut down after 8:30 p.m. "After 8:30, it's all on me and my officers, and we're undermanned," he says. "The good people go inside. The others stay outside."

--Mauriello also targeted certain troubled buildings, such as 120 Chauncey Street, which he repeatedly said he wanted "blown up."

--"I'm getting rocked today," Mauriello says on another day. "Since the midnight [shift], I've got five fucking robberies already and burglary assaults. So the game plan tonight is Operation Zero Tolerance. If they fuckin' break the law on the corner, I'm scooping them all up, putting them in the cells."

--In the roll call on Halloween night 2008, Mauriello ordered the troops to pay special attention to 120 Chauncey. "Everybody goes. I don't care. You're on 120 Chauncey and they're popping champagne? Yoke 'em. Put them through the system. They got bandanas on, arrest them. Everybody goes tonight. They're underage? Fuck it."

--He added: "You're on a foot post, fuck it. Take the first guy you got and lock them all up from 120 Chauncey. Boom. Bring 'em in. Lodge them. You're going to go back out and process it later on."  Later in the roll call, a lieutenant adds, "Jump out, ground-and-pound, 'cuff 'em up, and hand 'em off to somebody."

As the campaign went on into the winter of 2008, Mauriello seemed to be aware that there was some resentment in the community, but he justified the campaign by saying the "good people" were supportive.  "Fuck 'em, I don't give a shit," he says on November 8, 2008. "They are going to come to a community council meeting, yell at me, whatever, I know the good people over there are happy we have officers there."

A lieutenant follows up, telling the cops to be more aggressive. "If they don't move, they are going to get out of control and think that they own the block. They don't own the block. We own the block. They might live there, but we own the block. We own the streets here."

A similar order was given by a sergeant on November 23, 2008: "If they're on a corner, make 'em move. If they don't want to move, lock 'em up.  Done deal. You can always articulate [a charge] later."

On December 9, 2008, Mauriello orders the officers to focus on a pizzeria. "No one hangs out there. Nobody. I want a ghost town. I want to hear the echo from one end of the street to the other. . . . That's your mission."

On March 13, 2009, a sergeant says, "Make 'em move. If they won't move, call me up, and lock them up, discon [disorderly conduct], no big deal. Leave them out there all night and come get them. The less people on the street, the easier our job will be."

On April 27, 2009, Mauriello tells officers to make the arrest, drop suspects at the precinct, go back out, and then come back later to process the arrests. "You bring 'em in here, leave 'em in the cells for a little while, go back out, do your job, and come back and release them outta there," he says. "If they're acting like assholes on the street, why should I rush them out of here?"

On July 21, 2009, Mauriello once again talks about destroying a troubled building: "I'm gonna burn that motherfucking place down. . . . Listen, let them shoot each other and we'll go clean up." 

I cannot stress enough that Adrian Schoolcraft’s story not only could be a riveting movie, but it really ought to be the next “Serpico”.  Just read this climactic ending to his fight for justice. (As documented in depositions, trials, the New York Times, the Village Voice, and, most damningly for the villains of our story, by Adrian Schoolcraft’s own audio recordings.) The story began moving towards its climactic finish with a meeting that seemed, at first glance, innocent enough.  It was the 7th of October, 2009, and Schoolcraft found himself sitting in a meeting, the purpose of which was to discuss his observations, particularly the “Stop and Frisk” policies, quotas, and the downgrading of felonies. It was a three hour meeting, and it seemed as though everybody had shown up to see what Schoolcraft had to say: there was a lieutenant, an inspector, and three sergeants with the Quality Assistance Division--the NYPD unit responsible for “policing” the integrity of all incident reports.   They told him they would launch a major investigation. 
And apparently they did.  Into him, and the big, dangerous, ugly stink that Schoolcraft could make for the New York Police Department, if he so chose. 
CUT TO:  A couple of weeks pass.  It is, aptly enough, October 31st.  Schoolcraft’s memo book is confiscated again, removed by a Lieutenant Timothy Caughey, who spirits it away to a private office and begins copying frantically, for hours.  Then he returns the book. Caughey then calls Schoolcraft’s supervisor, Sergeant Rasheena Huffman into his office. And when she re-emerges, she is furious. Schoolcraft is sick at the thought that they have copied all of his voluminous notes; he tells Huffman he feels sick, fills out the paperwork, and she gives him formal permission to leave. 
Adrian goes home, and at about 4:30, swills a little Nyquil and crawls into bed.   At 6:00, the phone rings. It’s his father, telling him that there are police lights flashing in the street just outside his apartment.  When Adrian checks his messages, he listens to one from Sergeant Huffman claiming she DENIED his request to go home early on sick leave, and that he needs to report back right away.  Adrian makes the decision to keep his father on the phone; this goes on for hours. At 9:00 p.m., the nightmare explodes: boots stomping up the stairs. A key jiggles in his lock. Later, Adrian will learn that police got a copy of his key because they told his landlord that he was suicidal, and had “barricaded himself in his apartment.”
But Adrian has a plan.  Per his father’s advice, he pretends to be asleep when they enter his apartment, and he can clearly hear the sound of them going through everything he owns.  Not trying to help Adrian, because he is supposedly “suicidal.” But instead going through all of his property, obviously looking for the bounty of evidence Adrian has amassed that could incriminate the police department.  Adrian sees that one officer is recording everything with a video camera.  
Then, the invasion becomes even more personal.  Our villains, Precinct Commander Mauriello and Deputy Chief Michael Marino, come into Adrian’s bedroom, where he is lying in shorts and t-shirt on his bed, and they accuse him of stomping out of the precinct without permission.  They order that he return immediately. Adrian, of course, explains that his early departure was approved by his supervisor. By now, the paramedics have arrived, and they start checking Adrian’s vitals. Adrian tries to explain that he left the station because of a simple onset of the flu, stomach pains, a bug … and that these twelve supervisors —there are now about a dozen cops of rank in his small apartment—are trying to make it into some major mental malady, which it clearly is not.  Virtually everyone who heard and saw the documented evidence of this ‘home invasion” later agreed that Schoolcraft behaved in a perfectly rational and relatively calm manner for the entire incident. But in Schoolcraft’s tiny apartment, Marino is the boss, and he is determined to bully and threaten Schoolcraft until the poor man breaks. Here is a direct transcript of the conversation, which Adrian Schoolcraft entrusted to The Village Voice:
"Listen to me, I'm a chief in the New York City Police Department. So this is what's going to happen, my friend. You've disobeyed an order. And the way you're acting is not right." riffed Marino.
"Chief, if you were woken up in your house . . ." Schoolcraft replies.
"Stop right there!" Marino says.
". . . how would you behave?" Schoolcraft asks.
"Stop right there, son. I'm doin' the talkin' right now. Not you," Marino thunders.
"In my apartment," Schoolcraft says. "What is this, Russia?"
"You are going to be suspended," Marino says.
It is at this point that the paramedic chimes in, saying that Schoolcraft's blood pressure is very high.  Adrian agrees to go to a hospital, thinking they are taking him to his hospital in Queens. He walks downstairs with the paramedics, but then, he's told he's being taken to Jamaica Hospital.  That is when Schoolcraft literally stops in is tracks. That is where cops took psych emergencies: people damaged by drugs, homeless in the throes of an episode, 72 hour holds for “evaluation”.   That’s when Schoolcraft realizes that he is not being taken to a hospital to have his vitals checked, he is being taken to the local asylum for mental cases. Adrian announces, “I’m RMA.” (“Refusing Medical Attention,”) and then he walks back up the stairs and gets back in bed.  Again, the Village Voice brings it to life:
“It was then that Chief Marino lost his temper, according to the tape.  "Listen to me, they are going to treat you like an EDP [emotionally disturbed person]," he says. "Now, you have a choice. You get up like a man and put your shoes on and walk into that bus, or they're going to treat you as an EDP and that means handcuffs."
Schoolcraft tells the chief that he is the one pushing the confrontation.
Marino then orders Schoolcraft placed in handcuffs. "All right, just take him," he says. "I can't fucking stand him anymore."
At that point, various officers grab him.
"So they pulled me off the bed, stomping on me," Schoolcraft says. "They had me all twisted up, hands all over me. Someone grabbed my hair. . . . Marino stepped on my face with his boot. That's when he said it didn't have to be like this. They basically beat the shit out of me."
                                                                                           --DIRECT TRANSCRIPT, VILLAGE VOICE

Finally, Adrian was handcuffed and watched helplessly as the cops finished ransacking his apartment.   The goon squad finally found the recorder that he had hidden, to record the entire encounter, per his father’s advice.
But what they didn’t find is the second tape recorder that he had also hidden, as a back-up.
          
                    ******

So basically, Schoolcraft risks everything to obtain recorded evidence of the worst kind of police corruption, and the response of the people who are supposed to protect us is to rough him up and have him hauled off to an asylum for the mentally ill.  And then give Schoolcraft the bill for over seven thousand dollars. 
And here is one of the crucial lessons to take away from the Schoolcraft saga:  many whites, and many people who hold the reins of power, are quick to wonder why blacks and their white sympathizers must sometimes go to such radical lengths to get the media’s attention.  The public’s attention. Perhaps that is because reasonable lengths all too often go unnoticed. Or even worse, get punished--punished in the most evil of ways.


THANKS TO STOP AND FRISK—CRIME IS DOWN!!!

And for those of you who believe the Mayor and the Police Chief when they crow about violent crimes going down, just google NYPD POLICE DOWNGRADE FELONIES.  This new phenomenon is directly linked to the problem of “Stop and Frisk”, which is directly linked to Eric Garner’s fed up disgust with being hassled on the streets.  You see, police officials justify an aggressive, ruthless “Stop and Frisk” policy by presenting statistics to the world which “prove” beyond a shadow of a doubt that as a result of “Stop and Frisk”, crime is going down.   
But herein lies the paradox:  officers of the NYPD must tell outrageous lies and manipulate the facts of the case—of hundreds of cases--in order to achieve those statistics.  Every day, mountainous stacks of felony cases stare them in the face. But with one swift move of the pen (always mightier than the sword), the felony becomes a mere misdemeanor. 
For example, back in 2010, according to a study by an official external monitoring group, the Crime Reporting Review Committee, grand larcenies (crimes in which persons had more than $1000 dollars taken from them), are downgraded to misdemeanors.   Specifically, 417 felony robberies—you know, someone sticks a gun in your face or breaks into your home, and demands that you hand over every valuable thing you own—were downgraded to misdemeanors. 1033 burglaries were downgraded from felonies to misdemeanors.   Think about this for a moment: Someone breaks into your home, your private home, steals all those things you hold most dear, all those valuable things you have worked so hard to attain, and that thug has committed “a misdemeanor”. Perhaps most frighteningly, though, 782 felony assaults on persons were downgraded to misdemeanors.  The same as swearing loud at a Pee Wee football game. Seriously. 
And the accounts are legion.  Lou Ellen Davis is 75, and looks for treasures discarded on the streets of New York that she sells on eBay.  When a young woman grabbed her and slammed her to the ground, she was taken to the hospital and treated for a concussion.  According to New York law—which also takes into account the fact of a young person attacking someone over 65, with the intent to cause grievous bodily harm—it was clearly a felony attack.  Police knew who the assailant was, but refused to press charges. When they finally did succumb to the pressure, they charged the assailant with a misdemeanor. How would you feel if it was your mother, or your grandmother?  
When John Jewett was attacked by a crazed man in a public tavern who threw a table at him and threatened him with a knife, the victim was taken away in an ambulance.  Police were on scene, but wouldn’t file a report. Doctors treated Jewett for broken ribs, broken teeth, as well as numerous cuts and bruises. Again police refused to take any action at all.  Jewett made numerous trips to the police station, trying to get the man charged with a crime. The police ignored Jewett until his attacker committed a new slew of crimes, and they couldn’t ignore him any longer: that same attacker was arrested a year later in Connecticut, for threatening people with knives, stealing a car, and leading the cops on a high speed chase.  
But the cops will do whatever they must to prove that “crime has gone down”, pointing to the success of the bigoted and draconian policy of “Stop and Frisk”.  
For example, sexual assault on a stranger becomes a mere misdemeanor.   The idea that a sexual assault would be downgraded to make the numbers look good is appalling, almost inconceivable.  But in the case of one particular sexual assault, NYPD’s attempt to downgrade it to a misdemeanor did not work. Why? Because the sexual assailant—and the scumbag cops who downgraded the crime—had chosen to wrangle with a female journalist.  Fifty-nine year old Debbie Nathan feared for her life when a stranger grabbed her in a public park, dragged her into the bushes, and told her that he intended to rape her. When the police finally did arrive at the scene of the assault (it took them over two hours to respond to her three 911 calls; obviously they were out conducting urgent “Stop and Frisks”), they listened to her story about being dragged into the woods while a creep held her down and masturbated on her.  And then they said that it was merely a misdemeanor. “Forcible Touching”, it’s called. But our heroine would have none of it. She pursued it to the highest channels, and it ended up in the hands of the local state assemblyman, Adriano Espaillat.  The story has a rare, gratifying ending: The commander of the 34th Precinct, Deputy Inspector Andrew Capul, was forced to apologize publicly to Nathan in a community hearing. 
And in a review conducted just last year, in July of 2015, nineteen officers of the NYPD’s 40th Precinct were found to have downgraded 55 felonies and seriously minimized the crimes.  Those charged include a lieutenant, eight sergeants, nine police officers and a detective.  Is it any surprise that none of them have been placed on modified duty or suspended without pay?  It is all business as usual. Their big boss, Deputy Inspector Lorenzo Johnson, has been temporarily assigned to a non-patrol services command pending further review.  But he’s still raking in the chubby bucks. And this is just one review of 19 police officers, out of a total of 35,000 in the NYPD. 35,000 officers, under pressure from their superiors to turn violent, ugly assaults, home invasions, robberies, and rapes, into the merest of misdemeanors.

***

So—it would appear, at first glance, that we have meandered away from the sad story of Eric Garner, but the ugly truth is, crimes, arrests, resisting, punishment, death—these phenomenon do not transpire in a vacuum.  Eric Garner was sick of being harassed, but he was no doubt sick of so much more. The protesters who took up signs and began chanting slogans after his death, and after the failure of justice, were sick—and still are sick—of so much more than the death of just one man.   
A New Yorker who might bear the vaguest resemblance to someone who once committed a crime somewhere—because he’s black, because he’s brown, because he’s wearing a hoodie, because he’s wearing Air Jordans—is suddenly hassled.  He’s hassled for standing, for walking, for getting on the subway, for getting off the bus, for driving in his car, for sitting in his car.
Hell, you can’t even ride a bike without putting your life at risk, thanks to the boys in blue.  Thanks to the NYPD. Let’s end this chapter with one of my favorites:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbCFIsxzq2I
Now, assuming you have watched it—a cop ramming his body into a bicyclist, and sending the rider slamming onto the concrete—it is worth noting that a jury found the officer not guilty of assault.

    SOURCES:
For abundant “Stop and Frisk” statistics, see May 9th, 2012 Briefing from the New York Civil Liberties Union, (pdf on web). 

THE WISDOM OF GRAHAM WITHERSPOON

The Police Reform Organization Project held a symposium in the fall of 2012.  The goal was to find men and women who had served as police, who had seen—to invoke understatement—a need for reform, and who had some very definite ideas about how those changes might come about.  Although each member of the panel was informative and inspiring in their own way, it was Graham Witherspoon who stole the show. I watched him over and over again. His story—his vision--is infused with candor, wisdom, and heartfelt energy.  It is this kind of honesty and passion that we must have, if we are to bring about meaningful and lasting change.

Here is his speech. But you owe it to yourself to watch him, in the flesh.


TRANSCRIPT OF GRAHAM WITHERSPOON’S SPEECH

I was born in east New York, and raised there.  I had a negative encounter with a police officer in 1957, maybe ‘56.  I was struck in the face by a cop, a white cop, with his night stick, outside of the school where Danny Kaye was doing a concert for the kids in East New York, because he grew up around the corner from where I lived.  I was very much disturbed, because my father had died a few years prior, and I knew that if my father was alive and I told him that this cop hit me in the face with his nightstick, my father would have broken his neck.  

When I was sixteen, my mother worked for the Board of Ed, and back in the Sixties, you could go to school at night, and you could learn.  The Board of Education was about educating people. And we went to pick up the payroll slips for the people working in the schools at night and I was kicked, right at the base of the coccyx bone, which is at the base of your spine.  Kicked very hard with a hard shoe. And someone said, “I say get on the wall” and I turned around and there’s a white guy in a sports jacket and an overcoat, and I had no idea who he was. At age sixteen I could snatch 130 pounds off the ground with either arm, do reverse curls with 140 without breaking a sweat.  As I turned and looked at this guy, before I could take him, he was punched in the mouth by my mother. She told those detectives to get out of the building. She said “This is a school! You don’t come in here kicking anybody, let alone my son. Get out of this building!” I told my mother at age 16 the next cop that touched me, I would kill him.  And I meant that, and she knew I meant that. And she had no problem with my mindset. My father and grandfather gunned down the Ku Klux Klan in Georgia in the 1930’s.
  
In 1973 I took a walk-in exam for the transit police department.  I figured, if I take that job, there’s one less psycho that can get the job.  And I said I can’t do anything about that system if I don’t go into it and try to effectively make some changes.  NYPD called me two months later, I turned them down. That was during the Knapp Commission, for those of you who are old enough to remember the Knapp Commission.  I said “I don’t work with bigots, and I don’t work with criminals.” I went into the transit police, which at that time was almost 30 percent black, and I was taught by some very astute black men, not just about policing but about the community, but about protecting the people.  

As a Christian, I saw police work as a form of ministry.   It wasn’t a job; it was something you needed to be called to.  This isn’t hamburgers and french fries, or anything like that. Because you are dealing with the critical issues of people’s lives.  I wasn’t drafted, I volunteered to do it. So I can’t have a bad day, at your expense. I volunteered; I wasn’t drafted, so I can’t be afraid of you because of what you look like. I cannot kill you, and, as they say, if you can articulate it, that’s the code word … If you can articulate the reason for doing what you did, don’t worry about it.  
I worked in the top plainclothes unit of the New York Transit Police.   I went into the transit police 1974. And we worked in a unit called the Black-Hispanic squad, and we did the entire city.  Homicides, kidnapping, everything. The transit police. All of us got promoted. Detectives Sergeants, Lieutenants. I went to the squad as a detective, and in my tenure as a detective I sent cops to prison for raping young girls.  Black cops. I sent white cops to prison for brutalizing people because they thought they were just beatin’ up niggers. And that individual was a PBA delegate.

There’s no grey area.  You’re either walking the road correctly, or you’re part of the problem. All through my career, I was involved …we were at 370 J Street when Kalvin Alexander had the idea for an organization to do even more than what the Guardian’s Association was doing.  I was the vice president of Transit Guardians. And we formulated 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care. And during my twelve years with them, our objective was to inspire younger cops to take up the gauntlet.

You have to know who you are before you go into policing.  You cannot allow them to define you. If you don’t know who you are going in, they’ve got your mind.  The psychological exam is only to protect the city in lawsuits. They’re not looking to weed out any problems.  ”And as a man thinketh, so is he.”   So the actions of the officers are the outcry of how they‘re thinking.  

***
“As a man thinketh, so he is.”  
--From “As a Man Thinketh,” motivational and spiritual classic by James Allen: 
“Men do not attract that which they want, but that which they are.”
“The dreamers are the saviors of the world. As the visible world is sustained by the invisible, so men, through all their trials and sins and sordid vocations, are nourished by the beautiful visions of their solitary dreamers.” 
“He who would accomplish little need sacrifice little; he who would achieve much must sacrifice much. He who would attain highly must sacrifice greatly.” 
“Cherish your visions.
Cherish your ideals.

Cherish the music that stirs in your heart, the beauty that forms in your mind, the loveliness that drapes your purest thoughts.
For out of them will grow all delightful conditions, all heavenly environment, of these, if you but remain true to them, your world will at last be built.”


Thank you, James Allen.
Thank you, Graham Witherspoon.  

Rest in Peace, Eric Garner.

​
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AN OPEN LETTER TO THE GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY FORENSICS TEAM, letter # one

4/4/2019

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Oh Team:  Some of you may notice that this letter is the same letter that I wrote in previous years.   It is not that I am too lazy to write another letter, it's that it has taken me decades to get my thoughts out, just the way that I want them, and this is really quite precisely how I feel about matters pertaining to forensics, when I think about it every year, come Nationals.  So here we go again:
(Some say I lack brevity.   Bugger them. To invoke a fine Pascal quotation: “I have only made this letter longer because I have not had the time to make it shorter.")

Dear Kids;
I have been thinking a lot about the OXYMORONIC nature of forensics these days.   Here’s my best explanation of that. Here you are, wandering through life (time for first Tolkien quote interjection:  “Not All Who Wander Are Lost…”), and you all are what--17, 18?   21 or 22? Somewhere’s around there.  And yet, you are being asked to write about, research about, read about, interpret about, memorize about, cram into that precious little black binder, and most importantly IMAGINE about everything under the sun—and we all know that if there is going to be some trophy winnin’ involved, many of those subjects will be grim.  I think I had pretty good exposure to those topics, as competitor and coach: death, divorce, taxes, pollution, abuse, murder, gunplay, foreplay, torture, The Jewish Holocaust, The Armenian Holocaust, incest, pedophilia, illness, cancer, accidents of all kinds, babies, teenagers, old people, homophobia, xenophobia, illiteracy, poverty, date rape, serial killers, depression, dying pets, bi-polarity, Black Lives Matter, black lives matter, Blue Lives Matter, immigration, neo-Nazis, Congressional scandal, the song "Hey Mr. Tangerine Man" taking on a horrifying new meaning, Veterans Administration backlogs, birth defects, cleft palates, back acne, double amputees, decimation of animal populations, Cecil the lion, extinction, the dwindling rain forests, AIDS, STDS, IBS, UTI infections, ICBMs, planes falling from the sky, aliens falling from the sky, the Dark Web, erectile dysfunction, internet catfish, ISIS beheadings, home invasions, toys that come to life, deadly dramas played out on public streets, buses, subways, eviction, foreclosure, food additives, love, global warming, fear of clowns, fear of mimes…..and at the end of it all, lots and lots of winged victories.

And what’s so very creepy about that list is that I haven’t even scratched the surface of the topics in all y’all’s speeches and interps, am I right?

But here is the Oxymoronic part:  by the time that all of the above-mentioned horrors and tragedies happen to you, in your own personal life—and trust me, pretty much everything on that list above will happen to you in your own personal lifetimes, maybe each one a couple of times, I’m thinkin’.  Trust me on that. Anyway, by the time that unforeseen heartache comes raining down on you, and you are weeping and shrieking to the heavens while you pray and beg and threaten and wheedle and crumble and rise again, you will be thinking, “MAN OH MAN, WHERE THE HELL IS MY BLACK BINDER AND THAT PANEL OF JUDGES, BECAUSE I COULD SO INTERP THE SHIT OUT OF THIS, RIGHT ABOUT NOW.”   But the joke is on you. There is no binder, and there are no judges. Well. Not that kind of judge. And there are certainly no winged victories lined up shiny and waiting for you at a fancy ass ceremony.

But there is good news about all this.   And at this juncture, I will mention, but not dwell on, that prescient Greek caveat:  “Whom the gods wish to destroy, they first call ‘promising.’   "

Where was I, though …ah yes … the good news.  I suppose most of you are so focused on the Here and Now that you don’t know the great Grail Secret of Forensics:  for while you do all the important and urgent and crazy and focused and traditional and high pressure things that you have been doing to prepare for this moment, what you REALLY are doing, is developing a set of muscles.  Nobody ever qualified for, or won big, in a Pentathlon competition without an impressive set of muscles, and that is what you all are developing. And not just the mental variety, that part is obvious. But spiritual muscles as well.   The whole package: the discipline and drive, the diplomacy, the originality, the respect, the whimsy and the grace, the tenacity and the tirelessness, even those more invisible qualities like faith and creativity and a sense of humor bordering on Mount Olympus-quality-stand up ….(a Roman, a Jew, and a Cyclops walk into a bar at the Colosseum)…  Please believe me when I tell you, you will need these muscles, as you navigate through the life that is waiting for you.  You will need them more than you can possibly imagine. And right now, I know that you all can imagine a great deal.

You will need these qualities to survive, and then, when you have survived all the above mentioned slings and arrows that fate has waiting for you, you will need them to thrive on the other end.   I, for example, cannot even begin to recognize the writing that I penned in my youth as even coming from the same person who fought drug addiction for oh too many years, and came out the other side.  (Although, of course, the battle is never over.) I wouldn’t wish it on anybody. And I don’t have the power to change the past, or to take back my own megalomaniacal arrogance and hubris. But as for the long and winding dark road, I do know that if a better writer came out of it, that’s something to cling to.  Frankly, I look at that cacapoopoodoodoo that I wrote in my teens and twenties and wonder how I won anything, ever.. (And I can’t believe I used a live hamster for a visual aid in After Dinner Speaking.)
So friends, forensicators, soulmates—know this:  everything you are doing, you are doing for your future.  The stuff that goes on this weekend, and during these precious years, that’s just icing on a cake ...a cake that I truly hope for your sake is not artificially sweetened, low carb, gluten-free, or vegan.  We can all get together in the future (if there is one) and compare notes, but I bet other alumni would agree with most of what I have written here. I think if we hadn’t been able to use the skills we learned in forensics, we would be living vastly inferior lives, if indeed we survived at all.  You kids? You, team...you are a breed above and apart from the average American college student, playing beer pong, buying term papers from Fiverr, and being far, far too easily offended, frightened, and bruised. (That said, if anyone needs a term paper for five bucks…)

And one last word:   The next time some whiny student or professor starts yammering about “safe spaces”, the first thing you do is slap them upside the head, just to playfully remind them that there is no such thing.  Then you run, run as fast as you can from any space deemed “safe”, because it’s a lie. And when you stop running, and anybody dares make fun of who you are, what you are, or how you look, get your freak on even more, and watch them throw a tantrum.   It’ll be great theatre. And if some dopey teacher from Mizzou tries to muscle away the photographers, grab that photog and tell him you’d love to have your picture all over the news. And if someone writes “Trump” or draws a swastika in chalk on the sidewalk of your campus quad, don’t call campus security, like some pissantsparrowfartscaredypants crybaby.  Do what any good college student would do. Unzip your trou, whip it out, and piss all over Drumph’s stupid moniker.

Kids.  There really are no safe spaces in the world.  Just tiny elevators between levels of life--levels which, while being wonderful, zany, illuminating, terrifying, tasteless, hilarious, surprising, and inspiring, are rarely ever “safe.”   Run towards the danger, towards thinking and wording that rocks your world. Take chances, and be a little politically incorrect, without being cruel—there’s a difference. Don’t just color outside the lines, take a blank sheet and forget there ever were any lines.  And when the situation seems unwinnable, do what Captain Kirk does to Kobayashi Maru. Travel the world, play in the rain, question authority, use your OUTDOOR VOICE, and make things up every single day of your life, I’m begging you, as we will need that creativity more than perhaps any other quality, as we struggle to create a new world out of the one we are apparently destroying.  And by the way. There are wings and victories and gold waiting for you on the other side of all this. More wonderful than you can imagine.


So I think that about covers it for now.   

There—can you feel it?  

Little angels are line dancing on your shoulders.

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AN OPEN LETTER TO THE GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY FORENSICS TEAM, letter # 2

4/4/2019

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SUBJECT:  American Forensics Association National Tournament, and the George Mason University Forensics Team, and me.

Here is my letter to the team that goes with the three boxes.

Why, you may ask do I get to render two Nationals letters, instead of the usual one?  Well, I figure one for each of my American Forensics Association Pentathlon Championships.  So there. Now that we have summarily blown any notion of false modesty out of the water, we can continue.

Now I will tell you a story.  It is a true story. Once Upon a Time in 2003 I bought a beautiful house in Los Angeles. It did not have a pool, but it had a guest house. I put all my blood, sweat and tears--and money (including $50,000 cash down payment)--into this house, planning to then sell it in a decade or so and use the proceeds to open my humble miniature museum.

Then, in 2009, the global economy crashed.  Los Angeles, along with Las Vegas, took it worse than anybody else on the planet.  My house went from a value of about $600,000 to $186,000. And this market was not coming back for a long time.  Consulting work had taken a hard hit too. It was time to get back to the east coast to be near my aging parents, and the bottom line was that I was completely broke.

Before leaving L.A., I had managed to put together a couple of months rent towards the opening my miniature museum in Appomattox, Virginia (lots of tourists), and the lawyer landlord told me that I would have to take care of the water and heat on my own.  I had driven by this building after my father's funeral at Arlington Cemetery, and the lawyer and I had spoken extensively on the phone.

I left Los Angeles with about $140 to my name, three beloved dogs in kennel cages, and the keys to my storage units containing the doll houses.  When I got to the airport to check in my one piece of very heavy luggage, I was told it would be $127. I started crying, the woman behind the counter looked around furtively, said "Give me a $20", and she checked it in. I am pretty sure this favor to me was a felony.

When I got to Appomattox, I learned that when the lawyer said “you are responsible for heat and water”, he meant that I would have to install a heating system in the building.  It was winter. I had no money. And while the museum was warm enough during the day for patrons, it was freezing at night. I had only a blow-up mattress with a leak in the rear room, and a small space heater.

There was no effective plumbing.

I urinated and defecated outside in the Virginia winter.

It was so f-ing cold.   

I ate from all the free food samples at the Food Lion and the Farmers Market, became an expert at dumpster diving, and got very out of shape and chubby. I left Appomattox after two years, because on several occasions, I walked down the street and heard people saying the word “nigger”, loud and proud.  This is not unusual in southwest Virginia, tragically.

But that was ten years ago, and I'm on the rebound.  I tell you this story only because I firmly believe that I am a better person for having gone through all of this. Humbled, and stronger.  More determined, and with a sense of humor that is outlasted it all. I confess these humiliating memories because I want you to know how much I sympathize and empathize with the hell that you have been through at the hands of this evil coach named Peter Pober.   If it helps at all, or amuses you, he had really bad hair when we competed against each other. It looked just like Ronald McDonald, but less elegant.

And even though I went through my hardships, I am always mindful of the fact that other friends, other alumni on the team, have been through far worse hell, and it is their continued strength that has helped me get through my hardships.   We live in treacherous times, and I find that I gained most of my strength from watching the people around me who have suffered so, yet who find a way to soldier on, with grace, kindness, and even mirth.

(Last time I went to get my hair done-- always a scary experience for the poor stylist, as I now live like a pioneer in the mountains--I immediately started cheerfully gossiping to her, as is my way.  She looked at me and said “You don't know, do you?” She proceeded to tell me how a month earlier, her husband of forty years, her daughter, her grandson, and her dog, had all been swept away by flood waters. Only she had survived, because she was many miles away, at the hair salon when it happened.  I think of her nearly every day, and draw strength from her strength, just as I draw strength from people like Kent Wayson and Debbie Sausville.

And now it is my honor to draw strength from all of you, as my way of saluting the strength and grace that you have shown throughout this last year.   I know it's probably hard to see at this time, but what you have been through will make all of you more powerful, more fascinating, more charismatic, and more creative. It is no accident that the most interesting person I have ever known was my Master's advisor, Arnost Lustig, who escaped the Holocaust death camps, while on a train and route from Buchenwald to Dachau--barefoot after having lost his shoes.

They say that that which does not destroy you makes you stronger.  Cliches: bad idea in original writing, but good advice in life. You all will be fine.  You will be amazing.

Now, to the boxes:
​

Let me say this about the necktie & jewelry collection. I wanted to to give it any number of fancy names, as I have worked very hard to curate these neckties and bits of bling for you, but let's just call it the “Fuck You, Peter Pober These Ties Are Some Wild Ass Colors, Some Even Made To Go With Black Suits, And As For The Girls, Please Find Bling And Sparkle And All Manner of La Boheme Adornment.  And Did I Say, Fuck You Peter Pober? I Wore A Three-Piece Red Satin Pinstripe Suit To Compete In, And I Did Okay.” ​

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 That’s what we’ll call this collection of haute couture.   (Or, as Tom Dannenbaum called it, “La Moda Altissima.”)  Please let Kent Wayson select any tie he chooses, even if you are wearing it, as I owe him for imparting strength.  And have him select one for John Bosma, as I owe him a mule cart full of Pepsi Colas that I never paid back.

As for the strength that you have shown, and the strength that you will need, I've spoken about that in my other letter.   Just please know I think about you all with so much affection, for even though we have never met, we are soulmates. We are doing this thing called forensics.
​

I wish each and everyone of you my very best.

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Politicize?   Seriously?   POLITICIZE?!?

2/22/2018

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A lengthy screed about the latest shooting.

by Meg Langford

​
Among others.  Among many, many others:

​A fifteen year old boy is dead, shot down as his friends looked on in horror, because a seventeen year old with a gun decided that was how it was going to be.  The gun gave him the power to take life, and he did it.   On the edges of America, both physically and literally, death was in the air that day.

And speaking of things floating in the air . . .

There is a word out there now, floating right in front of us, lurking on the edges of our brains, hovering unspoken in the air.  It is on the lips of private citizens and public officials, of politicians and pundits.  Everybody is afraid to say it.  

That word is:  Etymology.  That’s right.  Etymology.  Admit it.  You want to say it, but you are afraid.   So afraid, am I right?

For those of you who may be a bit foggy about the definition, Etymology is, “The study of the origin of words and the way in which their meanings have changed throughout history.”  (Not to be confused with entomology, by the way, which is the study of bugs.)  I can see that some of you are wondering how and why “etymology” might hold the key to changing America after yet another ghastly school shooting.   Here is why.   And I am only going to say it once, so listen up:  WE CANNOT CHANGE ANYTHING WITHOUT TRULY COMMUNICATING, AND PEOPLE DON’T SEEM TO KNOW WHAT THE FUCK WORDS ACTUALLY MEAN ANY MORE.   It seems that virtually every great mind that has graced this sweet, dirty Earth of ours has had something to say about the power of words:
“Better than a thousand words is one word that brings peace.”  -The Buddha

“Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used in mankind.” -Rudyard Kipling

“We have too many high sounding words, and too few actions that correspond with them.”    -Abigail Adams, wife of the second President of the United States, John Adams.  

“It makes my heart sick when I remember all the good words and broken promises.”       -Chief Joseph, leader of the Nez Perce tribe who, according to his doctor, died of a broken heart after being exiled from his land.

As far back as the late 1700’s, that august man of letters, Noah Webster, father of the famous dictionary that we all grew up with, (and had such fond memories of, from when we asked a question and our parents shouted “Look it up!”) had much to say about the importance of the true meaning of words.  In fact, when asked by the notable colleagues of his day why he chose to spend several decades of his adult life laboriously compiling a 70,000 word dictionary--the first of its kind, really--Noah Webster was crystal clear in his reply:  “WE CANNOT CHANGE ANYTHING WITHOUT TRULY COMMUNICATING, AND PEOPLE DON’T SEEM TO KNOW WHAT THE FUCK WORDS ACTUALLY MEAN ANY MORE.”

And why should we be surprised that people don’t know what… well, you know what they don’t know.  I just said it twice.  Words and stuff.   But in a world where governments and their military branches and their police forces have created bone-chilling lists of euphemisms to describe some of the most horrific behaviors in history, is it any surprise that “politicize” seems mild by comparison.  Just look at this list of words that have been euphemistically bastardized, etymologically speaking:  Terminological Inexactitude, Plausible Deniability, Paradiastole, Conversion Therapy, Strategic Ignorance, Collateral Damage, Enhanced Interrogation, Terminate with Extreme Prejudice, Ethnic Cleansing, Corrective Rape, and Final Solution.
​

Etymology may seem to be an obscure reach for approaching something as overwhelming as school shooting, but it isn’t.  Not really.  Because we only need to look at the origin and meaning (the etymology) of the word “politicize” to realize that it is not the dirty word that Republicans are making it out to be.  “Politicize” means, of course, to make something political.  And politics, contrary to popular belief, is one of the nobler concepts conceived of by the mind of humans.  “Politics” is defined as, quite simply “of, for, or relating to citizens”.  It has a long and noble history, deriving from the Latin “politicus” via the Greek “politikus”.  To put it quite simply, the word “politicize” means “to cause an activity to become political in character.”   
So where is the problem?   

Seventeen human beings are shot down, and while it could not be more personal for those who loved and cherished the dead, what could be a better way to honor their memory than by taking it from the level of a personal loss to a public one, and strategizing in the public forum about how we might prevent this from happening again?  Of course this matter must become political.   Nothing could be more obvious.  And it must become political immediately.   

Oh, and for those politicians whose second response, after nattering on some hollow clichés about the victims, is to thank the first responders--well, the kindest thing you could do for those first responders is to design and implement policies which would minimize the number of times that police, EMTS, firemen, doctors, and nurses have to put their hands on children who are bleeding to death.  Within the first few hours after a shooting, there is absolutely no reason that we cannot pray AND thank the first responders AND start talking about prevention.  Seriously, friends, any politician who can stare at pictures of the dead bodies of children, and then say we should NOT discuss preventative POLICIES (POLITICS), because it is just “too soon” ought to have their mouths washed out with Tide Pods.

The pundits are understandably furious at the politicians, and speaking with a noticeably unvarnished eloquence.  Jeffrey C. Billman, of Indyweek, articulates the popular rage:  lf there’s one phrase I hate more than any other, it’s that we shouldn’t “politicize a tragedy,” or that “it’s too soon to talk about gun control.” Right now the whole country—the whole world—is focused on this dreadful scene. Seventeen dead. At least a dozen more wounded, some with life-threatening injuries. An entire school, and an entire community, dealing with the aftermath. There’s nothing special about Parkland, in the sense that there’s no reason something like this couldn’t happen anywhere. And if you want to effect change, if you want to at least try to make this school shooting the last school shooting, now is the time to act, to press your case, while everyone is thinking about it. There’s a reason the NRA and other gun groups want to perpetually put this conversation off. But there needs to come a reckoning, and it needs to come now. So yeah, you’re goddamn right I’m going to politicize this tragedy. I desperately hope that you will, too. That’s the only way we can hope to stop it from happening again and again and again and again.


And Esquire Magazine’s Dave Holmes captures the true meaning of waiting to act in his incident autopsy:We are always told not to politicize. To honor the memory of the recently fallen, to respect the families whose children won’t be coming home from school, by doing nothing. So let me say this as clearly as possible: Doing nothing is also a political act.
 
Waiting until you are more sanguine about another pile of dead children is a political act.  Our country leads the world in this epidemic, and everything every single one of us does about it from right now until the moment we put our heads on our pillows tonight is a political act. There, just now, whatever you just did, you politicized it.
 
These teenagers, these beautiful, bewildering teenagers who just yesterday sat barricaded in their classrooms, hearing their friends get murdered, and searching for le emoji juste to express their emotions because what else were they to do, were doing their jobs.   
 
God dammit, when are we going to start doing ours?


And in case anybody (read: NRA and its evil minions) is wondering precisely what is our parenting task, when faced with these mass shootings, Mr. Holmes sums that up with a chilling succinctness as well: “ Our job, as adults, as the caretakers and stewards of the world they are actively trying to figure out, is to keep them from getting shot the fuck up in the middle of algebra.”

And now, a few words for the Conservatives out there:  you’ve read this far.  Thank you.  But since you have this thing about politicizing, let’s stop for a moment and talk about the biggest politicizer of all, when it comes to gun issues.  I am referring, of course, to Harlon Carter.  Harlon Carter is the seventeen year old killer that I described in the first paragraph of this blog.  Harlon Carter was not only the capo di tutti capi of the NRA during the 1970’s and 80’s, he was also the vigilante kid who gunned down a fifteen year old Latino kid because the kid would not come to Carter’s house at gunpoint to be questioned about some imagined slight.   

An
archived New York Times article offers us a glimpse of the murder and subsequent trial:  
According to the trial transcript, Ramon Casiano was killed in the afternoon of March 3, 1931, shortly after young Carter returned home from school to find his mother, Ila, upset. Three youths had been loitering outside all afternoon, Mrs. Carter testified that she told her son, and she believed that they might know something about the theft of the Carters' automobile three weeks before.

Telling his mother, according to his own testimony, that he would ''see if I could not get the boys to come to the house and talk to her,'' the son picked up his shotgun and walked out of the house. What happened next was the subject of dispute, but within minutes Ramon Casiano lay dying, a two-inch shotgun wound in the right side of his chest. On March 21, 1931, young Carter was indicted by a Laredo grand jury on charges of murder with malice aforethought.

The chief witness for the prosecution was 12-year-old Salvador Pena,who testified that he was returning with Ramon and two others from a nearby swimming hole when ''the American,'' as he called Mr. Carter, ''asked us to go up to his house.''  'We asked him why,'' Salvador remembered, ''and he said, 'Oh, go to my house.' '' According to other witnesses, Ramon, the oldest and largest of the four boys, replied, ''Hell, no, we won't go to your house and you can't make us.''

According to the transcript, 12-year-old Salvador testified: ''Ramon took out his knife and asked him, 'Do you want to fight me?' The American began to curse and Ramon also cursed back at him. Then the American aimed at Ramon, towards the breast or bosom. Ramon told him not to do it, and put aside the rifle with his hand. Then Ramon stood about half a pace backwards and laughed. Then the American asked him if he thought that he was not going to use the rifle, and fired at him.''

Harlan was later charged with murder.  But given that this was Texas, in the first part of the last century, are we surprised that after nearly two years of drama, all charges against Harlan were dismissed?  Fast forward several decades, to when the Justice Department issued a report following an investigation enumerating “various allegations” of wrongdoing by Carter, including one “investigation into the disappearance of 50,000 rounds of government ammunition, which Carter stole, with the sole intent of converting this property to his own use.”  The missing ammo was never found, though, so charges were never filed.  Fast forward to the 1970’s, when Harlan Carter essentially took over the NRA in a bloodless coup, and transformed it from the useful hunting club and gun training organization that it had been since the Civil War, into the lobbying juggernaut we have come to fear and hate.

So here are the facts:  when it comes to “politicizing”, since Conservatives seem to find that such an abhorrent word this week, well, we need to point out that the first person to politicize guns was this former delinquent who killed another kid--and, it is fairly clear, got away scott free only because he was a white boy living in a border town in 1931 Texas, and that victim happened to be dark skinned.  It was Harlon Carter who took the NRA from being a reasonable, middle-of-the-road hunting club and instruction type of organization, to one of the most powerful lobbying groups in the county.  NOTE TO CONSERVATIVES:  This is called “politicizing.”  

But if I may return to my original point--when it comes to school shootings, there is nothing basically wrong with politicizing an issue.

The personal becomes public.  
And while it may seem a bit inappropriate or obtrusive at times, the bald fact is, most family members mourning the death of a loved would insist that the private became public, if it means that the victim did not die in vain.  

The personal becomes public.  

Hell, Trump did it himself just a couple of weeks before the Florida school shooting, when he stopped his own State of the Union speech to introduce the parents of a child killed by MS-13.  And do you know what?   That particular act of politicizing wasn’t a bad one.  MS-13 gang members are among the most violent criminals in the country, and if Trump wants to make some point about how illegal immigrants who commit murder should be deported, I am with him 100%.  (This, of course, was not his point, nor was it his goal.  He has demonstrated his goal regarding undocumented immigrants, in the days following that speech.)  

My point is this:  not only is it wise strategy to politicize--for the private to become public--it is imperative.  Anybody who survived first year Latin or a basic rhet crit class (“ethos, pathos, logos”) knows that without an appeal to the emotions, a speech full of data and proof and statistics will bore its listeners to tears.  And no change will ever follow.  Nothing.  Never.

For those of us trying to keep some logic and mental discipline in the post-Stoneman Douglas High School shooting, it is worth noting that Republicans are indulging in that most base of rhetorical fallacies, the False Dichotomy.   Thousands of citizens--parents, protesters, and persons from both political parties--are calling for a ban on the AR-15.   And how do Republicans in Congress respond?  They invoke the sacredness of the Second Amendment.  This is absurd.  Almost nobody is calling for the unilateral banning of guns; the Second Amendment is not threatened.  The right of citizens to keep and bear arms is not in play.  Just semi-automatic weapons.  And while there are some peaceful souls, who will not rest until nobody owns a gun, the fact that the GOP will not even mention the possibility of banning the AR-15 in the days following this latest shooting shows that they are not even willing to consider peaceful compromise.  They are sending dog whistles to the alt-right, even as they take millions from the NRA.

Marco Rubio, for example, Florida’s Republican Senator.  His response following this tragedy was to talk about the preciousness of the Second Amendment: "And I happen to oftentimes point to the Second Amendment and say it's the Second Amendment, right after free speech, which tells you how important it was to those who wrote those words."  And not surprisingly, Rubio stonewalled and stammered when asked by a survivor of the Stonemanl shooting if he would now refuse NRA campaign contributions.  

And governor of Florida Rick Scott has earned himself an impressive “A+” from the National Rifle Association’s grading system, because Scott has rolled back gun regulations so that there are fewer of them in his state, and opposed background checks, among other pro-NRA rabidities.

And as for Ted Cruz, Republican senator for gun totin’ Texas, the ferret-faced Frank Burns of Congress--can anybody forget when Cruz, in one of his creepy campaign ads, wrapped some bacon in foil on the end of his AR-15 and cooked it by firing the weapon repeatedly?  Cruz has stated repeatedly that he does not want semi-automatic weapons ban, citing the sanctity of the Second Amendment.  
Well, I have news for you, Mr. Cruz.  A higher authority than you has spoken.  Nobody less than that legendary conservative Justice speaking for the Supreme Court of the United States of America has come out in favor of assorted forms of gun control.  Specifically, Justice Scalia had this to say:  “Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited.” It is “not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.”   And Scalia also said this:  “Nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.”  

So now, Ted, you can go back to being a butt plug in a suit.  

And by the way, I do not mean that as metaphorically as it may sound.  I truly believe he is that thing, stopping a torrent of shit from flowing out of the toxic body politic, as it surely would, if Ted Cruz were not there to stonewall and obfuscate.  

Let’s face it, these talking orifices would love it if we would just all mourn privately until the matter is forgotten, and the Florida shooting headlines replaced by some ghastly story about our country’s latest embarrassment.  

But it would appear that the students who had to witness their friends and teachers die are not going to let this matter die.   Emma Gonzales and Cameron Lasky, for example, are clearly going to set the world on fire, and they are going to start by doing everything in their power to start with changing the gun laws.  Their heartfelt speeches have gone viral--and folks, their articulate passion is the reason “viral” was invented.

And the reason that this matter needs to be “politicized”--as in, the personal tragedy becomes out public shame--is because of the following list:  none of you reading this know who the hell these people are, nor do their names alter your mood, impact your day, or impel you to action: Jack Beaton.   Sonny Melton.   Kelly Brewster.  Shannon Johnson.  Jonathan Blunk.  Alex Teves. Matthew Robert McQuinn.   Corey Tyler DePooter.   Who are these people?  Who cares?  In a nutshell--we’ve all forgotten about them, and moved on.  Let’s not let that happen in Florida.  Let’s not let that happen ever again.    This longform is not meant to take on the issue of gun control in its entirety; the debate is already playing out in the public forum.  

FUN UPDATE:  There is a President’s Day Sale on Bumpstocks!  Can you say Lollapalooza?

There is a movement out now called “Politicize my Death,” and it is a stroke of genius, given the circumstances.  It essentially is a petition, or a database, if you will, in which people can agree, before they are gunned down, in the increasingly probable event that they will be gunned down, that their death is to be used to “politicize” the issue of gun control, as soon as the names of the dead are actually known … because in a Trump-heated world whose climate has created a daily tsunami of headlines, if you don’t politicize the names and lives of the dead while the corpse is still warm, the world will have turned its attention to the next drama: the next terrifyingly iminent shooting.  But where will it be?  How many victims?  Will someone you know be gunned down while studying calculus or gerunds?

I gotta tell you, sometimes kids and their phones make me crazy. I mean, do they never look up from these things?  But I am not against them owning them and using them, and the Florida shooting indicated why:  many of us would never have understood, on a truly visceral level, the terror and the tragedy of what happened in that school that day, had it not been for cell phones.   And let me warn you, Mr. Trump, Mr. Rubio, Mr. Scott, Mr. Cruz, et al. . .one day, and very soon, I can guarantee you this:  some kid with a smartphone is going to crawl over to his dying classmate, and that classmate, riddled with bullets and drawing their last breath, will sputter through their blood and their tears:  “If any grown-up sees this ...why did you let this happen?”

And that will go viral.   

And then, sirs, your political careers will be over.   Is that politicized enough for you?  


In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”       -Martin Luther King

It is in our lives, and not our words, that our religion must be read.”  -Thomas Jefferson

“No matter what people tell you, words and ideas can change the world.”      -Robin Williams

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THE LEADER: HANNIBAL AD PORTAS

2/5/2018

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by Meg Langford


Civilization as we know it is going to end in the not-too-distant future.   You can take that to the bank.  

And there is one person, more than anyone else, who will be responsible for this.  He will influence millions of people with his words and his actions.  He will use his great white, blonde, Aryan superiority attitude to make everyone who does not look like him feel inferior.  He has wielded great power for some time, and no matter how outrageous his gaffes and ghastly pronouncements, know this: his followers will swell in numbers.  When one poor soul saw fit to criticize this Caligulesque king, that critic was threatened with assassination by an ardent fan of The Leader.

He travels to foreign countries, and humiliates the image of America and Americans when he does so.

He is an uber misogynist to women.   

He destroys things with abandon.

His display of wealth is garish and decadent.

He loves to ridicule and belittle other human beings.

He is cruel to animals.

And he is always hawking his wares and his wiles, his brand name plastered all over everything he can think of.  

Trust me, he is the reason the world will end.    He truly is the antiChrist.

But by now you may have guessed it:

I am talking about Logan Paul.

(Hyperbole?  Of course.   But Mr. Paul needs to learn what it is like to be the object, nay the victim, of over-the-top behavior.  Subtlety is dead in the world.  And nuance has stage 4 cancer.)

YouTube star and mocker of suicides--wouldn’t you love to be sitting next to him during a screening of Sophie’s Choice?--Logan Paul represents everything that is wrong with America.   In a unique twist that will baffle even the most respected medical journals, Logan Paul, in a single ten minute video, manages to be both the disease and the symptom.

Now, before you tune out, because you think I am mad, Mad You Say, to announce that Logan Paul will bring about the end of civilization as we know it, just bear with me a moment.   

SPOILER:  I misspoke.  Logan Paul will not bring about the end of civilization as we know it.   He already has.  (And by the way, it’s worth noting that the subtext here should include Logan Paul’s brother, Jake Paul.  They often commit their own individual pranks, but they are also known for collaborating.  And both of these pinheads are arrogant, hurtful, dangerous, and oblivious.)

TO ANSWER YOUR OBVIOUS QUESTION:  Why wasn’t the build-up about Donald Trump?   That’s easy.  Trump will do a hell of a lot of damage, yes.   But Donald Trump is (if only in dog years) a grown-up, and hence, he is being watched carefully by millions of grown-ups.   

Logan Paul, however, is (or was for years, until five minutes ago) flying dangerously under the radar.  In point of fact, hardly anybody whose acne has finally cleared up even knew who Logan Paul was, until the beginning of 2018, when he thought it would be a really cool plan to trek into Japan’s infamous, tragic, and heartbreakingly beautiful “suicide forest”, where he then found an actual hanging dead body.  A fresh one, no less.  Minutes later, Logan Paul was cackling.   Yeah, yeah, it was a nervous reaction, I get it.  But he had all the time in the world, literally, to ponder whether or not he should upload it to the world wide web.  And given that the twenty-two year old has a lawyer, an agent, a manager, many close friends, and two parent figures, you would think he would have thought better of posting the whole ugly mess.

Logan Paul tipped his hand more than once in his recent Good Morning America interview.  When asked what he was planning before the video blew up in his face, and why he in fact went to the forest in the first place, Logan said this:  “The idea was to do another fun vlog, go camp for a night and make an entertaining piece of content in a forest.”   Think about this comment.  That trip (halfway around the world, no less), was a choice.   Logan Paul has the world to choose from, and he chose Aokigahara, on the northwestern side of Mount Fiji.  The site of hundreds of suicides, we can never even know the true tragic numbers, as officials have stopped releasing the figures in the last few years.  In a chilling example of suicide being a permanent solution to a temporary problem, there is an annual uptick in suicides at the end of the Japanese fiscal year, in March.  Mementos of loved ones--photographs and children’s shoes and such--are sometimes found with the bodies.  So.  Logan Paul’s best plan is to put on a large yellow hat that makes him look like a chicken abortion, and whoop it up.  This was his plan.  His actual plan, going in.  

The dead body was just gravy, an opportunity to become truly world famous.

I haven’t been able to get Logan Paul out of my head.  And I mean that in the worst way.  Yes, I know, there was a flurry of articles about L.P. right after the incident, and that was almost a month ago, but here’s the thing. I actually find I have to think about a subject long and hard before I spew words  That and the research, and the fact that this is not my full time job, means I post….after a while.  Also, I try to really digest what the world is saying about any particular subject, and I like to give the matter time to marinate.

What I learned about Logan Paul was frightening, but fascinating, and it speaks to why I am blogging about him.  There seem to be two categories of people, regarding this manic prankster:  kids who have known about Logan Paul for years, and think he’s the greatest thing since grilled cheese sandwiches.   And adults who just recently heard about the suicide forest story.  Those adults watched his stupid, rude, cruel antics in Japan during the week preceding the infamous video, and they are now up in arms.   Well, since adults ostensibly still rule the world, it is definitely time for adults to know that there is much more to Logan Paul than just this suicide video.   (Here’s an hour of your life that you can never get back, watching Logan Paul be the worst tourist ever to visit Japan, which he affectionately refers to as “a foreign ass country.”  Nice.  Video One, in which he taunts the Japanese citizens with an octopus leg.  Video Two, in which he mocks the culture and the police have to get involved.  Video Three, perhaps the most chilling, because it takes place the day after finding the body--and Logan Paul is not the least bit sobered or saddened.  Everything, everyone, is a joke to him.)

Regarding us grown-ups.  Let’s use Dr. Phil by way of example.   Now I don’t hate Dr. Phil.  He seems like a nice, smart guy who is pretty excited about monetizing his profession to its zenith, but that doesn’t make him dangerous.  Just opportunistic.   But he got this one wrong.  Clearly, in a sleazeball attempt to cash in on quick suicide video publicity, Dr. Phil commented that we shouldn’t bury the kid’s career over one mistake.  Trust me, Logan Paul and his brother have been behaving badly for years.   Endangering people and animals for years.  Engaging the police and fire department because of their pranks for years.  Breaking the law for years.  And Dr. Phil, you should have done a few minutes worth of research before jumping on the free publicity bandwagon.  You, of all people, would have recognized the dangerous adolescent behavior.


Cases in point:

After thoroughly offending the citizens of Venice, Italy, Logan Paul was arrested in Rome, Italy because Logan decided to fly a drone over the coliseum, a glorious ancient structure two thousands years old.  Logan knew it was illegal, but he not only did it, he recorded the entire incident, including his arrest by the Italian police.  

After luring his young fans to his house, Logan Paul waved to them through a wall-to-ceiling glass window on the second floor.  As he was doing so, an assassin entered from a rear door and shot Logan in the head, splattering (presumably) brains and blood everywhere, as the youthful audience watched.

Logan Paul attached giant helium balloons to his little Pomeranian’s tiny bed, and let it rise up in the sky.   Dog could have been killed.  Logan thought it was hilarious.  (Jump to minute 17:00 exactly if you cannot stand 20 minutes of Logan’s nutsy fagan mannerisms.)

Brother Jake Paul is pranked by having 10,000 firecrackers dumped on his head … But if that is funny, surely dropping firecrackers on the heads of unsuspecting girls is even funnier.  Ha ha ha ha ha!

Jake Paul was once invited to a media event in the White House.  He hid in the bathroom, then stayed in the White House all night, without anyone knowing--until he posted his vlog. Needless to say, the Secret Service had to get involved.

Brother Jake Paul set a pile of furniture on fire outside his house, just because he can.  Anybody who lives in California--as I did for nearly twenty years--will tell you this is precisely the kind of behavior that causes those deadly wildfires that destroy millions of dollars worth of property, and kill human beings---to say nothing of thousands of innocent wild animals, and beloved pets. The sparks and cinders could easily have been devastating.

Logan Paul created a vine in which he and a cohort literally lassoed women.  (Now deleted.)   Why did this alone not destroy Logan Paul’s career?  Simple, because the national radar was not up and running yet, #MeToo was years away, and perhaps worst of all, Logan’’s audience consists of impressionable young kids, who simply wouldn’t think to hire a lawyer, call a journalist, or start a movement.  (SAVING CAT)

Logan Paul wrestled an alligator.

Logan Paul wrestled a bear.  This was f*cking cruel to the bear.  Drop your jaw in horror that dopey Logan Paul could have been killed (he does have a family, after all), or crack nasty comments about what you wish might have happened to Logan Paul, if you are a Hater.  But this was cruel to the bear.  Cruel.   (I, for example, am terrified of sharks, but was equally horrified at the Floridian creeps who dragged a helpless hooked shark for miles.  You don’t terrify and torment and torture animals, Logan.  It’s, well, the sign of a budding psychopath.  Simple as that.

Logan Paul got a fake service dog certificate for his little Pomeranian, so he could circumvent the airline rules. This seriously endangers people with disabilities, because there is a high likelihood, as is proven by hundreds of stories, that a non-trained animal in an airport scenario with become aggressive and/or interfere with the duties of an actual service dog, with all kinds of horrific consequences.  (different video, start watching from 1:55.)  The impact and danger is multiplied when that untrained dog is uncaged in an airplane cabin with a service dog.   Equally alarming is the fact that Logan Paul’s untrained and high strung “service dog” not only defecates all around the airport in Logan’s video, but the poor dog is terrified and has to be dragged towards the escalator.  Dear Logan:  if you don’t have the common sense to figure it out, any veterinarian or google search can tell you, that horrible accidents can happen to small dogs with escalators … You are a monster of a pet owner. (Go to 7:25 in the video.)

In his obsessive craze to break plates--something viewed as wildly hilarious by his fans, and which he does in at least 75 of his vlogs so far--he doesn’t think twice about breaking these plates around his very small dog, that same mini Pomeranian.  Shards large and small fly everywhere.  The dog is terrified, and could be badly hurt.  Logan Paul thinks traumatizing his dog is hilarious.

But it gets better.  Logan Paul thought it would be hilarious to let a tiger cub play with his six pound dog.   Tigers are known to be unpredictable, and even their play is aimed at killing prey, so Logan is clearly putting his dog in danger, and terrorizing the little dog. “It’s not a great idea, but it’s definitely entertainment.”  Logan Paul’s own words.  As he puts the dog down in front of the cub.  I hate Logan Paul for this.  I hate Logan Paul, period.

So there’s a partial list.  Not just partial in the sense that Logan (and Jake) Paul have done so many horrible things, but also in that they are just two of a growing legion of YouTubers who want to make millions of dollars simply for churning out daily the most dildoic videos imaginable.  And yes, I will freely admit that Logan Paul is not the worst of the pack.   But with SIXTEEN MILLION FOLLOWERS, he is the most influential.  Hence, he is not only part of the problem.  

He’s pretty much the cause.

Part of the key, it seems, is that these vlogs have to be regular, just as joyfully regular as a fourteen year old’s problem-free bowel movements.  And just as shitting once a week isn’t enough for kids, so YouTubers who seek fame and fortune are learning that if you wait a whole week between postings, you may have lost your teen audience, who will have drifted off to other wannabe celebs.  Logan Paul promised his fans a video a day, and since he has no real talent, his pranks must become crueler and crueler until---oh dear.  We find ourselves in the Japanese suicide forest.  Oh, and a big kudos to Logan’s mom and dad, who are clearly in constant contact with their son (and living well because of it)--but who were too dim and greedy to tell him no, do not, whatever you do, under any circumstances, post that video.

I ask you to watch the links in this blog. This is the most hyperlink-saturated epistle I have ever written, but that is the only way to expose the new YouTuber prank world in which we live.  This is what passes for entertainment these days?  

“I want to be the biggest entertainer in the world!”   So says Logan Paul.  Logan needs to grasp that traditionally, great entertainers are people with great talent, who have augmented that talent with years of practice.  I’m thinking Andrea Bocelli Yo Yo Ma, Tony Bennett, Wynton Marsalis, Penn and Teller, David Copperfield, Elton John, Barbra Streisand, Kendrick Lamar, Lady Gaga, the Rolling Stones, Jerry Seinfeld, everyone in Cirque du Soleil, almost everyone who ever won an academy award, almost everyone from the Saturday Night Live casts, Beyoncé--the list could go on and on, growing to include names that dig deeper into history, or reflect the fact that writers like J.K. Rowling and Stephen King are in fact entertainers as well … and we could actually acknowledge on said list that countries other than America United States have produced entertainers as well.  

And nobody, my friends, who can legally vote or drink, would put Logan Paul on that list.  

Now, I know what Logan and his pissant fans would say:  He made 12 million bucks in 2017, he must be entertaining someone.  To which I respond, yes, he is.  Just as many people are entertained by bullfights, dogfights, kiddie porn, Joanie loves Chachi reruns, and surfing the Dark Web.  Logan likes to talk about how old people don’t understand the new business models, and their deep entrenchment with social media.  Fair enough, Logan.  But you, my young friend, do not seem to understand the meaning of the word “entertainment.”  At its face, it is so ambiguous and bland as to be fundamentally useless.  True power, Logan, lives in a deep understanding of the power of human communication.

As for Mr. Paul’s supposed acting aspirations, as part of being “the greatest entertainer in the world,” yeah well.   He actually got a journalist from Business Insider to follow him around for a day, and the journalist wrote that watching Logan in acting class was painful--not because Logan was a bad actor, but because Logan made a conscious choice, when put into a gritty impromptu scene about a young couple discussing an unwanted pregnancy, to completely disrespect the scene and his fellow actor.  Logan began ad libbing that he had come home because he was horny and hungry.  “Eating while I have sex” was his big attempt at a laugh.  Horny and hungry, when confronted with an unwanted pregnancy.  Logan is about one pound sign away from being a target of #MeToo.

Since the zookeepers were never able to successfully breed me in captivity, I am hesitant to ever offer parenting tips, but oh, fuck it.  Why shouldn’t I offer parenting tips?  For decades now, moms & dads, I have been the frequent victim of your little prince’s or princess’s antics and attitudes.  I taught at three colleges and universities, and was constantly blown away by the intellectual wind tunnels that IS the modern American post-pubescent brain.   

So here goes: mind what goes into your kid’s mind.  In effect, Logan Paul is babysitting your kids.  His toxic pranks and his horrible examples are becoming the lifestyles that teenagers desperately want to replicate.   What?  What did you just think at me?  You think that after one or two Logan Paul videos, your kid says, “Well, enough of that.  Time to view some of those archived Model U.N. training videos,” so they can be a vital part of achieving eminent World Peace.  Uh, no.

No, folks ... if they do move on from watching Logan Paul, it will be to watch:

Innocent strangers having their chairs pulled out from under them, just as they are about to sit.

Innocent strangers having ketchup squirted on their shoes.

Innocent strangers having snow cannons shot into their face (watch for the one where they blind a guy riding a bike),  drinks smacked from their hands, smashing water balloons on girls,

Innocent strangers on the street, jittery from a horrific wave of acid attacks being perpetrated on innocent strangers on the street, having liquid thrown on them from an Iranian man, who then runs away.   (Apologia from the prankster: “It’s only water.”  So it’s funny!”)

There is an entire genre of YouTube pranking which involves white punks going into the hood and terrifying black people.   Or, if all of that is too tame for you, you can watch this man pranking the death of his child in front of his wife.

Or you can watch this jerk pranking his girlfriend so she thinks she ran over her dog with her car.  Oh, how you will laugh.

Or you can watch parents smashing their children’s electronics as their children look on, screaming, sobbing, and helpless.  Or, you can watch this clip, which actually caused the parents to lose custody of their kids:  but fear not.  They got their kids back, and they have a new channel, after their old one was quashed by YouTube.

And here is a montage of copycats.   The above parents got so many views from smashing their kids’ toys, it became--yes--another prank subgenre.  

(And here is one that shows not so much physical pain, as it does mortal terror mixed with gross prejudicial stereotyping.)

I never thought I would be defending “Jackass” but L.A. Times’ Katie Walsh summed it up in one insightful sentence:  “The “Jackass” guys always made themselves the butt of the joke, the recipients of the worst abuse.”   Crimony, people, the message should be obvious:  if physical pain is going to be part of your pranks (which is stupid anyway), at least make sure that you or your cohorts are the object of that pain.

Two teenage girls thought it would be funny to put Superglue on a McDonald’s toilet seat.  The victim was a little four year old girl, whose skin was ripped off when she was finally removed from the seat.

Oh, and speaking of pain, I forgot to mention the video of the guy squirting fresh pepper juice from fat ripe jalapeno on his girlfriend’s tampon.

And for those delinquents among you who bluster, “but some of those are faked.  The person pranked knew about it.”   Let me ask you, dear readers, how much better does that make you feel about this whole matter?  Because let me tell you--clearly, most of these prank victims are not in on the joke.

But the pranks get crueler and crueler.  It is this simple:  the crueler you are, the more views you get.  Into the millions.  Then, the big advertisers get onboard, the channel creator gets their big cut, and now we have arrived at the big apocalypse of our civilization:  People get paid big bucks to be bigly cruel.

Let me say that again, because that is the fact, that is the central message of this blog, and that is what does not make this a generational thing or a hyperbolic thing or a “they said that about Elvis” thing:  PEOPLE GET PAID BIG BUCKS TO BE CRUEL.

In the case of a “Call of Duty” video game swatting prank, a man actually died.  Shot by police.

Oh, and let’s not leave the endless list without remembering, as the Bible says, “the least among us.”  People can be hard to prank.  They fight back, they sue you.   Not so with animals.  

Some people think it’s funny to terrify dogs with firecrackers--as was the case with this man, in Atlanta.

And so the idea spreads.  Here is another animal subjected to a firecracker prank:  Ask yourself how and why the incident in this link came to be recorded?  It had to have been recorded by the perpetrator of the “prank”, and the only reason you record something is to share it with the world.  “Hey, I know what would be funny.  Let’s get this little monkey used to being offered peanuts in a bag from tourists, then … wait for it ...we’ll put a firecracker in the bag, and blow his hand off!”
The world wide web is now broadcasting pranks that are absolutely unspicably cruel.

NEWS ALERT:  Before you fall for the remorseful side of Logan Paul, as he attempted to show in last week’s “finally breaking his silence” GMA interview, ask yourself if he’s sincere.   No, ask yourself if he is a liar, a liar who is backpedaling frantically.  When asked if he knew that kids watched his channel, Logan acted (see above paragraph for the quality of his thespianship)--shocked.  “It’s odd, because Michael, I’m 22 year old, it’s not like I’m making content necessarily for kids.  Sometimes I cuss. Sometimes I make inappropriate jokes.  I wanna make jokes that kids my age are gonna like.  I am my own demographic.”   I call bullshit.  Logan is swamped by ‘tween and teen fans at large numbers of events every month, and adolescent autograph hounds (or perhaps I should say “Selfie Sluts”) besiege him virtually every day of his life.  Furthermore, he can clearly see the age of the kids who are imitating him on Youtube.  He knows.  He knows damn well.  He condescends to his elders about their lack of understanding of the power of social media in sales and branding, then pretends that he does not know the age of his own demographics--information which is handily available on a variety of free Youtube tracking tools.   Liar.  Cop-out.

The problem with Logan Paul is not simply his content.  The problem is the ridiculously far reaching influence of that content.  Paul wants the mansion, the pool, the luxury vehicles, and the seven figure salary that go with being a social media star, but none of the responsibility.   Ask yourself:  how far is the kid who threatened to assassinate one of Logan Paul’s critics from the kid who, in classic Hitler Youth fashion, tried to get his dark skinned classmate deported?  Logan Paul’s fans have made comments about how the Japanese should all kill themselves, and the kid who turned in his classmate also wrote in detail about how he would torture immigrants, given the chance.  And they learned mocking from their master:   Logan has made disgusting comments about the penis size of blacks and Asians.  For what it’s worth, Logan Paul’s antics in Japan prior to the suicide forest incident were beyond disgusting--and when Japanese blogger Reina Scully commented on this, these were the kinds of comments offered by the fans of Paul Logan:  “You bitch you don’t have the right to talk about him, you fucking peaces of shit you are just using his name for clickbait fuck you bitch.”   And this: “I feel like Logan has done nothing wrong, like what’s everyone crying for its a fucking dead body like he new he was gunna find a dead body.  He’s a fucking savage cause he’s going to upload the video it’s a savage video so enjoy your view from Logan.”   And this:  “Shut the fuck up you suicide faggots.  Let the Japs kill themselves.  LOGANG for life.”

Do you think these kids wouldn’t happily be part of a crowd that would cheer the burning of a witch, or the public drawing and quartering of a person who had offended the Crown?  Do you think these kids wouldn’t just love a Saturday at the coliseum, watching wild animals slain and Christians slaughtered?  Do you think they would hesitate to join 20,000 decent, churchgoing citizens cheer in the burning and torturing of Jesse Washington and Henry Smith?  After all, it was a fifteen year old boy who aided in gouging out Henry Smith’s eyes with a red hot poker, then ramming that poker down the man’s throat while he screamed in agony.  And if you think that sounds a bit extreme, ask yourself: has human DNA changed that much in the last couple of centuries?  Of course not.  All that really matters is what our psyches are fed.  And if you think that I am only describing a fringe group of Logan Paul’s fans--or those fans of pranking in general--ask yourself, how big does that fringe have to be before we all live in fear?  Before the quality of life in society is eroded past salvaging?


(Sidebar.  I have a perverse sense of humor, but for some reason, I find it absolutely hilarious that these “Logang” fans have bought millions of dollars worth of Maverick merchandise from LoganPaul, so they can all look like each other, kinds sorta forgetting that the very definition of “maverick” is “an independent minded person who does not go along with the group or mob.”   And that is not even getting into the fact that Logan Paul has literally stolen this trademarked name from a clothing line that is now suing him, because they are currently reeling from the negative blowback they are getting from the infamous suicide video.)

I know a man who shovels shit for a living.  Seriously.  That’s pretty much all he does.  He lives in the rural town of Appomattox, a hamlet dotted with farms large and small.  This man has figured out that if he buys the manure off of half of the farmers in town, who fancy cows and horses and such, then processes the poo, he can then turn around and sell it to the farmers who focus on growing crops. The man is humble, and of modest means, but you must give credit where credit is due:  he provides a good life for his family.  I bring the shit-shoveler up not as some kind of metaphor, but to make the point that even a man like this, blue of collar and short on formal education, does a damn fine job of parenting.  His kids have cell phones.  Every twenty-four hours, he checks those phones.  If they are used for anything, whatsoever, during school hours, driving home from school hours, or homework hours, the phones get locked away for a spell.  If they protest, or should you, dear reader, talk back to this writing, the shit-shoveler would remind you, as he reminds his offspring:  HE is the parent. The kids do well in school, and this is part of why they do.  The system is simple, and it works.  Why can’t we all emulate the shit-shoveler?   Checking your kid’s Youtube feed requires pressing one button: HISTORY, under LIBRARY, to the left of your screen.

Oh, and by the way, I spelled “Mount Fiji”, “eminent” and “unspicably” that way on purpose, to give you a wee soupçon of exactly what it’s like to be a teacher grading papers these days.  Watch Logan Paul’s video, and you will see he does not know the difference between the Republic of Fiji and the mountain called “Fuji”.  And as for my other unspicable spelling error--that horror is taken from an actual blog comment.

                                                           ******


So, now that we have gotten to know Logan Paul a little better, and seen his oeuvre of work, let me return to my original premise.

Take a charismatic man--a young, handsome, muscled Aryan type will do excellently.  Let him use his passion and energy and pizzazz (however hurtful and harrowing it may be) to gain a great following, into the millions.  Let him teach those millions the joys of mocking, frightening, demeaning, and perpetrating outright cruelty.   Sit back and watch as millions, in their adulation and adoration, spend every waking moment trying to become him.  Imitating his every move.  What he mocks, they humiliate.  What he breaks, they smash.  What he ridicules, they despise.   And most exciting of all, to his followers: emulating him to perfection will also involve not really working for a living.  It will involve no creation, but destruction.   And getting fabulously wealthy as you do all of this.  

End of civilization as we know it.   Logan Paul for President!

Folks, listen to the shit shoveler.


                                                                        **********


Our takeaway insight on all of this was, we believe, best voiced by Daniel Dockery, writing in “Cracked”.

“The biggest prank ever pulled is your parents laboring under the delusion that you would be a contributing member of society.”

And, our more global view of this entire nightmare, and its impact on society writ large, is, we believe, best captured by San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich, when commenting on the current political realities of our time:   


                                                                      “WE ARE ROME.”


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POST SCRIPT:   Almost a month to the day later, Logan Paul is vlogging again. ​
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Justice.

12/7/2017

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An excerpt from "The Little Book of Lynching, Part II"   Rest in Peace, Walter Scott

​by Meg Langford

CHAPTER THIRTEEN
SHOT A MAN IN THE BACK: SLAGER’S SHAME
 
DRAGNA: You wouldn’t shoot a man in the back, would you?
RIVKA: A man, no. But you’re not a man.
—The Bag Man
ODO: You’d shoot a man in the back?
GARACK: Well, it’s the safest way, isn’t it?
—Deep Space Nine
RABBIT: Only a big, fat rat would shoot a guy in the back.
(Fudd shoots; a cloud of smoke appears where the rabbit stood.)
ELMER FUDD: So I’m a big, fat rat.
(Rabbit appears, shoves a wedge of cheese in Elmer’s mouth.)
RABBIT: So have some cheese, rat!
—Bugs Bunny cartoon

No. I am not including a Bugs Bunny quotation to trivialize the shooting of Walter Scott by cop Michael Slager. Quite the opposite. I include it to make the point that not shooting a guy in the back is one of the human rules instilled in us since childhood. In a wicked world determined to make war with itself, the rule about not shooting a guy in the back is inculcated from the earliest days of kids watching Westerns. I have had children as neighbors my entire life; I’ve babysat for about ten thousand of them, and never once, when watching little boys play at war, cops and robbers, or cowboys and Indians, have I ever once seen one kid shoot another kid in the back. John Wayne made over 250 movies, and often bragged that his character never once shot anyone in the back. It has something to do with fairness. And it has everything to do with honor. Officer Michael Slager has no honor. Then again, what would we expect from someone who would plant evidence at a crime scene? Then again, what would we expect from someone who would deny a dying man CPR?

                                                                                      ***

This is the brief story of the shooting of Walter Scott, an African American, by the white police officer Michael Slager. The incident occurred on April 4th, 2015 in North Charleston, South Carolina. It was a beautiful spring day.

If this chapter seems short, or somehow incomplete, that is because the most important part of the chapter has yet to be written. Those who care—about law, about justice, about the way black men are treated by police officers, about humanity in general—are all wondering what will happen to the cop who shot a fleeing man in the back five times and left him to die in the dirt—after planting something (presumably that now infamous Taser) on the ground by the dead man’s feet.

For those who read this as history (in case we are already starting to forget), here is what happened. It is worth noting that two pieces of crucial video footage tell us about the beginning of the incident, and the end of the incident. What happened in between is a matter of some confusion. We know that Walter Scott was pulled over for a broken tail light. We know that he told the officer he didn’t have all the appropriate papers on him at the time, as he didn’t own the car yet and was planning to purchase it the following Monday. We know that after the officer returned to his cruiser to run the license check, Walter Scott made the foolish mistake of bolting from his vehicle. Officer Slager got out of his car and gave chase. We do not know for certain what happened immediately after that. But we do know that Walter Scott began to flee again, and then was shot in the back five times by Officer Slager. Slager fired eight times, three bullets missing Scott. We also know that in talking with a senior officer a few moments later about the shooting, Slager actually laughed as he commented about how his adrenalin was pumping. (Oh, excuse me. Is this the part where I get to point out that since the shooting took place in a public park, and since three of Slager’s bullets missed Walter Scott and went God knows where, Officer Scott could have just as easily wounded—or killed—up to three innocent bystanders, possibly children, with his stray bullets.)

Slager still lived in the arrogant world of an earlier time, before police officers lived with the reality that their actions could be recorded for all the world to see. Clearly Slager never imagined that a terrified passerby had captured the entire incident on his cell phone. Had the cocky Slager stopped to imagine the possibility that he was being recorded, he surely never would have picked up the Taser from the ground, walked it over to a dying Walter Scott, and planted it near his feet. Then again, had he known his actions were being recorded, one doubts he ever would have shot his weapon over and over again at a fleeing man.
 

                                   OFFICER MICHAEL SLAGER: WHAT WE KNOW

At the time of the shooting, Slager had only been with the North Charleston Police Department for five years. And yet, like so many other officers in this book, he had managed to rack up a
number of complaints, charges, and lawsuits in a relatively short period of time. I take citizen complaints and litigation with a grain of salt, just like any other savvy news junkie. But when the incidents stack up, it is hard to deny the impact of numbers. And as for credibility: there was a time when I would have believed an officer of the law over a private citizen with some kind of a checkered record. Increasingly, that is difficult for me to do. And I know I am not alone. After all, in so many of these cases, we have found the cops to be lying, so where is their credibility?

Here is what we know about Slager: twice prior to shooting a man in the back, he has been involved in excessive force cases. Include the shooting of Walter Scott, and that is three excessive force charges in five years. Add to that the time he refused to come to the aid of a citizen, and the two reprimands he received from a superior officer, and that is six black marks against Slager in five years. Excuse me—why is he still working? Well, actually, he isn’t anymore. He is sitting in jail. The more precise question would be, why was he allowed full powers and permission to carry a gun after the first several incidents? If the North Charleston Police Force had taken the problem of Michael Slager more seriously, Walter Scott might be alive today.

Let’s take a look at those incidents—in order of increasing severity.

Incidents one and two involved a supervisor on the force having to talk with Slager about his behavior while on duty. Frustratingly few details are provided, but according to departmental reports, on two separate occasions, a supervisor “spoke with Slager in reference to certain procedures in reference to conducting motor vehicle stops and citizen contacts.”

Incident three involved a mother who turned to the police to help her, because her children were being constantly harassed by certain individuals in the neighborhood, and she was afraid for their safety. Officer Slager answered the call, and decided to take no action. The mother was an African American woman.

Incident four was yet another traffic stop. And yes, the driver was an African American. According to the law firm of Loevy and Loevy, who are handling the excessive case force for the victim (the incident is caught on videotape): “During what should have been considered a routine traffic stop, Julius Wilson, of North Charleston, South Carolina, was forcibly pulled out of his car and restrained on his stomach by the officer that pulled him over and those that then responded to the scene. After being forced to the ground, Mr. Wilson placed his hands above his head, palms facing down. Two officers then started to place him in handcuffs. At that point, although Wilson was compliant and about to be handcuffed, the third officer stood and fired his Taser gun at Wilson’s back. …the officer who used a Taser against Wilson was Michael Slager, the same North Charleston Police Officer who fatally shot Walter Scott in the back as he ran following a traffic stop.”

The fifth incident was perhaps the most alarming event, prior to the Scott shooting. As you read,  
imagine what would have happened if Officer Slager had been removed from service, forced to undergo major retraining, or otherwise penalized—would he have thought twice about shooting Walter Scott?

It was September of 2014 when a man named Mario Givens was awakened by a pounding on his door in the early hours before dawn. Givens was naturally alarmed; he looked out and saw Patrolman Slager standing on his porch. Slager was at the house looking for Givens’s brother, Matthew. It turns out that Matthew’s ex-girlfriend, Maleah Kiara Brown, had sworn out a complaint against him. Maleah Brown and her friend went to the Givens home with the police, and they both watched in horror as the officers’ attack on Givens unfolded.

Givens opened the door as the officers stood on the front porch, and Maleah Brown immediately yelled to the officers that the person who answered the door was not the suspect. "He looked nothing like the description I gave the officers," Brown told Associated Press. She noted that she had provided the two officers with a very detailed description of her ex-boyfriend, who is 5 feet, 5 inches tall, while Givens is 6 feet, 3 inches in height.

Givens then asked the officer why he was at the house, and Maleah Brown said Givens asked very nicely, and was very polite to the officers. Slager told Givens to step outside. Givens then asked “Why do you want me to step outside?” Slager then barged inside and grabbed him, yelling, "Come outside or I'll Tase you!" Givens told the Associated Press, "I didn't want that to happen to me, so I raised my arms over my head, and when I did, he Tased me in my stomach anyway."

Givens said the pain from the stun gun was so intense that he dropped to the floor and began calling for his mother, who also was in the home. At that point, he said another police officer came into the house and they dragged him outside and threw him to the ground. He was handcuffed and put in a squad car. Givens was not resisting when he was Tased, Maleah Brown told AP. She said she kept yelling to the cops that they had the wrong man, but they wouldn't listen, and used the stun gun on him again. "He was cocky," she said of Officer Slager. "It looked like he wanted to hurt him. There was no need to Tase him. No reason. He was no threat - and we told him he had the wrong man."

The internal investigation the police department opened after Givens filed the complaint exonerated Slager, but Givens and Brown both dispute the conduct of the probe. Givens told AP he was never contacted during the investigation, and only learned the case had been closed after he went to the police station six weeks later to ask what happened. Brown said that her statement in the final complaint included none of the details she had given police about Slager shocking Givens while he was on the ground and clearly not resisting arrest. There was no mention in the final report of the fact that she kept repeating that Givens didn’t fit the description, and that she kept telling officers through the Tasing that Givens was the wrong man. She also said she was not contacted during the investigation. Though initially accused of resisting the officers, Givens was later released without charge.

So there you have it. The low down on Michael Slager. Six incidents in five years, four involving Afro-Americans, and two persons whose race the police will not disclose. And three of the four Afro-Americans were victims of excessive force. Is Michael Slager a racist?

What happened after the horrific shooting does offer some small glimmer of hope that there can be justice in cases of excessive force—oh, let’s say it. Cops killing blacks.

Initially, Slager’s supervisors and the local authorities were sympathetic to Slager’s story of why he had to kill this man. Then, the world rocked on its axis a little when the bombshell came out: a citizen had recorded the entire killing on his cellphone. A young man name Feidin Santana, walking to work as he did every day, heard the commotion and started to record. Many, many people wonder what would have happened of all this if Santana had not had the courage to record the police murdering a man.

The authorities in North Charleston, in a refreshing change from the usual narrative in these chapters, were quick to state that Michael Slager, fired from the force, would be held accountable. Stated Mayor Keith Summey "As a result of that video and bad decisions made by our officer, he will be charged with murder … When you're wrong, you're wrong …When you make a bad decision, don't care if you're behind the shield or a citizen on the street, you have to live with that decision."
On June 8th, 2015, a grand jury indicted Slager on a charge of murder after just a few hours of deliberation. Separate investigations are being conducted by the FBI, the U.S. Attorney in South Carolina, the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, and the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division. Slager’s lawyer quit on him. A GoFundMe campaign was started to raise money for Slager's defense, but it was quickly shut down by the site. Sometimes, thing go a little bit right, eh? Slager is sitting in jail, denied bond thus fair and awaiting a trial date.

In the meantime, another black family tries to move on without one of its own.

Who was Walter Scott? He loved his four kids, two of them in their twenties at the time of his death. Walter Scott had served in the Coast Guard. He was taking courses in massage therapy because he wanted to help lessen people’s stress. He was newly engaged. And he came from a close knit family. He had previously seen all of his brothers a few months earlier, when they all planned a surprise party for their parents’ anniversary.

Yes, it’s true—Walter Scott was far from perfect. He’d tried several careers, and as a result of his struggles he was behind on his child support payments. In fact, that’s the suspected reason for his fleeing—our justice system locks up fathers who are behind in child support, so they can’t work a job to make it right and pay it back. Now, Walter Scott’s children have zero chance of getting any back child support.

His children did have a chance to express their love at the funeral, though. One of his daughters read a poem: "I had your love from the start... You brought so much joy into my life … I will always be your little girl. But I know I need to grow up and move on. But I will never move on from you." And a Dallas Cowboys flag was placed in the casket with Walter, as his father, brother, and sons remembered watching games together through the friendly family rivalries. The Star and Stripes covered his coffin, as tribute to his status a United States veteran.
​
Was Walter Scott wrong to have fled from the car? Of course. And that surely would have been reflected in the charges levied against him.

But we do not execute people for being behind on their child support, or fleeing in a panic. Although Michael Slager does. That is exactly what he does. How is he not a murderer?
 


SOURCES:
Use of Tasers is Scrutinized After Walter Scott Shooting”, by Alan Blinder, Manny Fernandez, & Benjamin Mueller. The New York Times. May 31st, 2015.
“Officer Michael Thomas Slager of South Carolina: What we know about him", by Ray Sanchez. CNN. April 8, 2015.
“Walter Scott funeral: Family hopes 50-year-old's death will be 'a catalyst of change' ”,
by Christina Elmore, Cynthia Roldan, Deanna Pan. The Post and Courier. Apr 11 2015.
“The Total Rejection of Michael Slager”, by Adam Chandler. The Atlantic. April 9th 2015.
“A Camera will mean Justice for Walter Scott”, by Charles C.W. Cooke. National Review. April 8th, 2015.
SEE WIKIPEDIA “References” for an extensive listing of article also used.



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It Just Never Lets Up

10/15/2017

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Folks.  The Pickford Word has not been blogging much, as of late.  A brief explanation, for our readers. Family matters have intervened.  We are dealing with two senior citizen crises, and it goes without saying that two mothers in their eighties who are in desperate need take priority.  In particular, one situation has required that we work on a house for the better part of a year, in order to keep finances in order for a senior who requires special care.  The heartbreak of dementia.   While this work sometimes felt a bit endless and thankless--and was sometimes done in temperatures over a hundred degrees, since replacing the home’s air conditioning system was an ongoing  issue--we nonetheless turned our memories to all the things our moms did for us, them getting no thanks or appreciation most of the time, and often a lot of ‘tude from us, way back when we were young, rude, stupid, and just oh too cool for school.  

And then, in the middle of that, another parent experienced the terror and anguish of a stroke. Hearing your mother, who always captured the essence of life and love, repeat over and over again, “I want to die . . . I want to find John.   I want John to find me . . .”   That changes you, forever.  I am not even sure I can capture how it does.  I haven’t cried that much in a decade.   I screamed in private. ​

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But one day, we reached the end of the massive project.  It was a surprisingly emotional journey, emptying out a house where parents lived and loved for decades.  (The entire home’s decor is very mid-century modern, very George Jetson. There are band-aids they kept for decades, dating back to when Eisenhower was president.  An exhaustive and meticulously catalogued twistie-tie collection. Drink stirrers of every style imaginable, jabbed into floral foam bricks, standing tall (for drink stirrers), imposing and labyrinthine, like a wee
Drúadan Forest.   And then, there are the endless troves and boxes: we find a diary recounting our birth.   IBM office supplies dating back nearly to the company's founding.    Another forest, this one of shoe trees.  A 50's large plastic syringe, its true purpose the subject of a parlor game.  Some dead mice.  Dad’s box of naughty bits.  You been through this yet?


But finally, methodically, memories have been dispersed, divided, tucked away.  Furniture has been sold or stored.   Repairs made, the beautiful old plantation shutters meticulously dusted, faucets cleaned to a perfect high shine, new ochre mulch laid around the plants--all those things that took us ten months.  And of course, there was the hellish bureaucracy of aging and illness.  The paperwork, the insurance, the government administrivia: that alone will kill you, if nothing else does.

And so now, finally our minds turn back to the big wide world outside of this skeletal home--the sweet, dirty earth, with its abundant and heart-wrenching natural disasters:  hurricanes with tornados.  More hurricanes.  Dams bursting because of hurricanes.  Earthquakes.  Even in Bali, they are evacuating because Mount Agung is waking from a long sleep, like some malevolent dragon. (And then, as we proofread this, the fires.  And those penguins.  It just never lets up.)  It is impossible not to be arrested and saddened by the flood of stories and images that have accompanied all of these events.

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That is why, we can report, our writing now turns to a significantly under-reported disaster … one which carries with it increasingly grim consequences.

I refer, of course, to a tsunami of out-of-control Tweets.  But, for something a little different, I am going to pose this blog as an open letter, which I encourage you to cut, paste, and email to everybody you can reach.  This is not so much for liberals, or Democrats.  They don’t need to be told.  And by the way.  It isn’t about Trump.    (Like that needs more commentary.)

This is for Christians and Conservatives.   I have called myself both in the past, as I still believe in a Higher Intelligence--much as Einstein did--and I have a fundamental respect for those two aforementioned groups.




​AN OPEN LETTER TO CHRISTIANS EVERYWHERE

Christians:  It has got to stop.   Or, at least, if it can’t be stopped, it must be fought, it must be pushed back against; we must do everything within our Christian power to stamp it out:  I am talking about the ubiquity of Tweets (and other forms of social media posting) that are injected into the cybersphere for no other reason than to shock, demean, ridicule, and disgust the world writ large.

And if you are wondering who I am, I am a person who has voted for Republicans, worked pro bono as a staffer on a Republican Congressional Campaign, and worked tirelessly to keep the cross on the seal of the County of Los Angeles.

Allow me to be blunt:  this is not a political screed, and I would never bring politics into the church--although I do know that Matt Staver, of Liberty Counsel/Liberty University (think Jerry Falwell) has done extensive YouTubes explaining how you can do just that, and get away with it ...just as I know that there are parishes where the leader of the flock tells his parishioners how to vote.  But please note, the quotations contained herein are not about politics.  They do not deal at all--much less in any depth, or with any rhetorical sophistication--with matters of the United States electorate: they do not talk about abortion, education, taxes, social programs, infrastructure, Congress, the penal system, or defense spending.   All of the Tweets I have amassed here are about nothing but cruel ferocious mocking, vicious bullying, and unconscionable cruelty--the very antithesis of everything that we think about when we ponder the notions of how Christians should behave.

These “Tweets”--these kinds of thoughts, that guttersnipe kind of communicating, ought to have no place in the public forum.  And it certainly should have no part in the lives of Christians.  They do nothing but lower the morale, esteem, and thought process of everyone who encounters them in any way, shape, or form.   That is why I am asking you to rebuke the author of these Tweets.  To ban the person who wrote them from your universe.  And, perhaps most importantly, to join with me in urging those forums who oddly choose to publish this person, to drop publication of this person’s writing--and to boycott those publications, if necessary.  

And again, please understand.  I am not advocating censorship, but censureship.  And the distinction between the definition of these two words contains the very essence of what we mean when we invoke The First Amendment.   Censorship is the stuff of tyranny and dictatorships.  But censureship...ah, that is Democracy’s darling!  Nobody is saying that the author of these cruel Tweets doesn’t have the right to tweet them.  Nobody is saying that they don’t have the right to publish an article or a book.   We are just standing up to the ugliness, and saying that “we don’t want any part of this ugly speech”.  We categorically reject exposing ourselves to it--and because this person’s thoughts are already widely disseminated, we feel that a boycott is a valid method of protest to let our profound distaste be known.  

More on how you can boycott--and more importantly, what organizations you should boycott--later.  But now, an example of some of this singularly hateful author’s vile Tweets:

TWEET:  “HURRICANE UPDATE FROM MIAMI: LIGHT RAIN; RESIDENTS AT RISK OF DYING FROM BOREDOM.”  
No, actually they are dying from an excess of water all around them.  It is called drowning.  They are dying from electrocution, because some twist of fate caused them to be at the wrong place, at the wrong time, when a power line came down.  They are dying from heat, because they are dependent seniors who spent their entire lives parenting, and now depend on others, but those others dropped the ball.  So know, Cruel Twitterer, they are not dying from boredom.  They are dying, period.

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TWEET:  “I WISH CABLES WOULD MENTION THE HURRICANE. THERE IS A DECIDEDLY HEAVIER-THAN-AVERAGE MORNING DEW IN MIAMI; PALM BEACH BORDERING ON BREEZY.”
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Actually, it was a bit more than breezy.  For example, a two year old was ripped out of its mother’s arms when the hurricane made landfall.   You think that this is the stuff of journalistic satire, oh Cruel Twitterer?  What about the “heavier-than-average morning dew” that resulted in the deaths of two peace officers, who collided with each other in the midst of high winds and pounding rain, enroute to rescue the desperate and the dying.   This is funny to you?


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​TWEET:  “RIGHT NOW, THERE ARE PEOPLE IN FLORIDA WHOSE GROCERIES ARE SPOILING.” Yes, that’s right, Cruel Twitterer.  And groceries are food, which means when groceries spoil, people--many of them children--risk starving to death.   Here are some quick figures:  when evacuating a family, you are going to lose a week, maybe two weeks of work.  Maybe longer.  (That is, assuming your place of work still exists.)  So we are probably already into the four figures.  And for those who make minimum wage, they are the ones who can least afford it.   Then, a thousand dollars a week roughly, to feed a family three meals a day on the road for a week (at least), with only a dinky cooler, and ice mighty hard to come by.  Then, another thousand dollars that same week to keep your family cramped in a hotel.   Then, a few hundred for gas for your car--if you car can travel the hundreds of miles you may need to travel, much of it in bumper to bumper traffic.  And considering that more than half of all Americans can’t afford an emergency bill of $500 dollars, those are some mighty scary statistics to consider, when facing the reality of evacuating.   And considering that we are looking at this from a Christian filter, condemning people for being poor is, oh, about as un-Christlike as you can be.  Furthermore, since the author of the above Tweets grew up in a town where the median income is almost five (yes, 5) times larger the average median income, it is unfathomably insensitive of the Tweeter to assume some innate superiority because they have liquid cash, and the evacuee families don’t.   It can easily cost thousands of dollars to evacuate a family.   And that is before they return home, to discover the (tens of) thousands of dollars worth of damage to their home, and whether or not they still have a job.  Even responsible Americans who have home insurance for hurricanes and tornados were gobsmacked when they learned that for this monster wind, they needed flood insurance, not just hurricane insurance, or they were up the infamous creek--a creek that had swelled to deadly levels.  And while we are on the subject of insurance, how many well-educated, snobby rich Americans even understand the difference between ACV and RCV?  I do, but only because me and my property have been through two fires, two floods, and a 6.6. earthquake.  (Is it something I’m doing?) So, Cruel and UNusual Tweeter, shut up about the mocking of the groceries.
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​TWEET:  “I DON'T BELIEVE HURRICANE HARVEY IS GOD'S PUNISHMENT FOR HOUSTON ELECTING A LESBIAN MAYOR.  BUT THAT IS MORE CREDIBLE THAN "CLIMATE CHANGE."
  I don’t even know where to start with this one. Even if you think homosexuals are vile and unforgivable, this, then, is the reason that sixty innocent strangers have to die?   If you think this is how Christianity works, you need to spend more time in church.
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As some of you may have surmised, these are all the ugly words of Ann Coulter.  And at this juncture, allow me to emphasize again that I am not bringing politics into the church, nor suggesting that I am for or against any political stand--although if I were sharing the names of worthy conservative pundits, names like George Will, Charles Krauthammer, Ben Stein, David Brooks, Peggy Noonan, and Thomas Sowell all spring to mind--and, if you are in a more whimsical mood (but still a Conservative), you can cackle and take comfort in the likes of P.J. O’Rourke, James Lileks, and Florence King.  Fine writers!

But I am not doing that.  I am pointing out, with all the urgency I can muster, that Ms. Coulter has perfected the art of writing short, scathing barbs whose only purpose is to diminish, ridicule, and bully.   And this vicious activity is not what it means to be a Conservative.  They are, if truth be told, the polar opposite of what it means to be a Christian.  Just listen to Ann Coulter, who literally claimed to be, and I quote, “an extraordinarily good Christian”, as she comments on her view of God’s world.

And as you read, please remember--spoiler alert--that I am going to end this epistle with a concerned look into why young people are leaving the church in record numbers … as in, please, I beg of you, hear the following through the ears of your children:


“GOD HIMSELF COMMANDED THE ISRAELITES TO GO TO CERTAIN CITIES AND KILL EVERY LIVING THING.”

“TRUMP IS ALREADY HEAD OF STATE.  AFTER THAT PRESS CONFERENCE, IN MY EYES, HE’S NOW HEAD OF THE CHURCH.”

“IT'S BECOME INCREASINGLY DIFFICULT TO DISTINGUISH THE PRONOUNCEMENTS OF THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH FROM THE LATEST MADONNA VIDEO.”

Interviewer:  “ARE CHURCHES THAT DON'T AGREE WITH YOUR POLITICS OR RELIGIOUS BELIEFS NOT REALLY CHURCHES?”  Ann’s response:  “CORRECT.”   And when Coulter is asked, “DO YOU PRAY?” SHE RESPONDS.  “I PRAY FOR HIM TO SMITE LIBERALS.”

“TO THE EXTENT ONE IS PRACTICING LIBERALISM, ONE IS NOT PRACTICING THE RELIGION OF OUR FATHER.”

“CONSERVATIVES BELIEVE MAN WAS CREATED IN GOD'S IMAGE, WHILE LIBERALS BELIEVE THEY ARE GODS.”   (Ms. Coulter refuses to look at repeated polling dating which states that the majority of Democrats clearly and proudly declare themselves as Christians.  Apparently, she knows their hearts better than they do.)

“GOD DID NOT ‘CAUSE’ EVOLUTION BECAUSE EVOLUTION DOESN'T EXIST.”

“WE HAVE DOMINION OVER THE PLANTS, THE ANIMALS, THE TREES. GOD SAID, 'EARTH IS YOURS.  TAKE IT.  RAPE IT.  IT'S YOURS.' "

"WE SHOULD INVADE THEIR COUNTRIES, KILL THEIR LEADERS, AND CONVERT THEM TO CHRISTIANITY."

“I’M A CHRISTIAN FIRST, AND A MEAN-SPIRITED, BIGOTED CONSERVATIVE SECOND, AND DON’T YOU FORGET IT.”


Now, gentle reader, take a moment to snap a mental picture of your sweet, mouthy, moody, smart, caring ‘tweens and teens.  Imagine their daily struggle, as they are trying to find their way in the world, and trying to find God in the insanity of today’s headlines, and in their cyber universe.  Now, imagine your kids reading Coulter.  What will be their reaction to Christianity, the Church, and “God”?   
How will their nascent belief systems react, when they learn that this person, with these ugly thoughts, is a “Christian”?   And that she is endorsed--and watched, and read--by you.  Caution, danger ahead.


But it gets worse.  The above quotations are just Ms. Coulter’s thoughts on Christianity, and on herself as a Christian.   Remember, the point of this epistle is to suggest we take a firm and boycotting stance and all communication (i.e. books, speeches), and social media communication in particular, whose sole purpose is to wound, shock, mock, disrespect and humiliate--because none of these are Christian values.

Just take a look below at some of Ms. Coulter’s more famous brickbats--intermixed with the actual words and testimony of young people who have felt driven away from the Church because of its pettiness, judgment, and hateful rhetoric--its tolerance of intolerance, if you will:

COULTER ON THE 9/11 WIDOWS:   “I have never seen people enjoying their husband's deaths so much ...and by the way, how do we know their husbands weren't planning to divorce these harpies?  Now that their shelf life is dwindling, they'd better hurry up and appear in Playboy.”        “One of the biggest reasons I left the organized church was the fact that we, as a church, were simply maintaining our own club/clubhouse. We tithed to pay the costs to operate the organization. I guess since there were no widows, orphans or hungry people around we were able to justify keeping it all in-house.”


COULTER ON SHAMING:  “Shaming is good!”       “I am tired of having to hide what I believe in a culture that prides itself on being welcoming, accepting, and real. When the tagline on so many churches is “come as you are” but they don’t really mean it, I’m done.”


ON NATIONAL COMING OUT DAY:  “Last thursday was National ‘Coming Out’ day. this Monday is national ‘disown your son day.’ ”      “The more I started doubting my faith, the more the Bible made perfect sense to me, and the easier it became to read: Jesus loved the poorest of the poor. He spent time with the prostitutes, the tax collectors, and the people with the worst reputations, and loved them unconditionally, contrary to the culture they were a part of. God wasn't a god of the rich and powerful, but a god of the outcast and enslaved, who freed oppressed people and stood for the rights of the downtrodden. So naturally it would feel like this kind of unconditional love, and this unity and welcomeness should be extended to all people, regardless of gender, race, and class, just as Jesus embodied in his life. Yet I fail to see that in so many churches.”

COULTER ON PUBLIC SCHOOLS:   "Most public schools are….criminal training labs, where teachers sexually abuse the children between drinking binges and acts of grand larceny."       REDDIT THREAD:   Elementary Schools Teachers, how much do you spend in your classroom?  Just curious on how much you spend for the year?”    “I think so far this year my wife and I have spent a combined $3000.”   “Why do you spend so much?”    “Because ‘classroom budget’ is the devil’s phrase, and i you want the good stuff for your classroom, often you have to buy it yourself.  It’s for the kids.  That’s really the only answer.”

COULTER’S IDEA OF HUMOR:   TO SAY ‘STOP RAPING ME’ IN ENGLISH,  PRESS ONE NOW.       “When something bad happens and all we are told by religious people are 'God did that because he's punishing you' really turns us all away.  Hurricanes are not disasters natural to our earth, but divine wrath from God because we dared go socialist or some other mesh like that. Right down to tripping against a chair leg and suffering a simple two-second pain is a warning from God to get you back in line.  No one likes this anymore. We all prefer to see God as a loving Being.”

COULTER ON NON-CHRISTIANS: "Press passes can't be that hard to come by if the White House allows that old Arab Helen Thomas to sit within yards of the President."     “The Bible and God were twisted into something ugly and frightening. Most of the time, people just wanted to step on us, to grind their Christian truth into us with their heel . I was so disgusted by the hate radiating from Christians, from churches.  It made me sick . And if that’s what being a Christian was, what God was, I wanted nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with it.”

COULTER ON IMPERIALISM:   “Aren’t we the ones who should be arrogantly oppressing countries that unaccountably do not have the death penalty?”      “Christianity is still thriving in areas where it is heavily persecuted. It's the regions of the world that have been ruled by pseudo-Christian authorities for any length of time that are shunning the Gospel.”


COULTER ON FOREIGN COUNTRIES WHOSE PEOPLE WERE BORN INTO DIFFERENT RELIGIONS   “Invade their countries, kill their leaders, and convert them to Christianity.”     “We went to a church where they were holding a $40,000 fundraiser... for a parking lot. And yes, they already had a completely functional parking lot, but they wanted a nicer parking lot. I was furious at the thought, especially when we had just gotten back from Ghana and had encountered some of the most blatant and unfair forms of poverty I had ever seen in my life.”


COULTER ON OBAMA:  “I highly approve of Romney’s decision to be kind and gentle to the Retard.”   (Note to reader:  and even if you got a guilty giggle from the insult, remember that the reaction was for legions of parents to have to explain to their mentally challenged children why that word was considered so insulting.   And what was her response the next day, after the overwhelming public backlash against her cruelty?  This:  “The only people who will be offended are too retarded to understand it.”


COULTER ON A CANDIDATE SHE DISAGREES WITH:  "I was going to have a few comments about John Edwards but you have to go into rehab if you use the word faggot.”     “I'm a white 33-year-old voter and I vote based, in large part, on my Christian faith, which is precisely why I am a Democrat ... Many of my former seminary classmates and other religious folks I know also vote based on their faith and are therefore Democrats.”   


COULTER ON THE FIRST AMENDMENT AND THE FREE PRESS:  "My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times Building."        “I left [the church] because the pressure to be perfect created an atmosphere of judgment. I don’t know if or when I’ll be able to go back. I miss the familiarity but not the nauseating atmosphere of lies.  The hardest part is that I feel like I have to do all this searching and seeking alone. I have questions that I’m terrified to ask because I don’t want to just be slapped over the head with a Bible and have various verses spewed at me. I can’t speak for the rest of my generation, but when it comes to church I just want to feel safe.  It’s not always about rebelling, and I wish older generations could recognize and understand that.”


COULTER ON THOSE WHO DISAGREE WITH HER:  “Liberals are either traitors or idiots.”      “When I started going to a mission-oriented church that gathered in a coffeehouse on campus on Sunday nights, she said it wasn’t a “real” church and I would have to start going somewhere on Sunday mornings.”

COULTER ON HALF OF THE POPULATION OF THE UNITED STATES: There are no good Democrats    "It has become too easy, too passive, and expectations have fallen too low. Where is the challenge if I begin to feel like the view towards salvation is that it is assured simply because I fill up a space in a church pew? There is too much brokenness in this weary world, and too great a responsibility, and (by the way...) saving souls should never, ever, ever, be thought of in numerical terms... Don't give me a church with good music and good public speaking. Give me Jesus. Give me the courage that Jesus had to love tax collectors, prostitutes, and to approach the lowest caste, the diseased, dirty, and dying, and love them. Don't give me an altar call and have the nerve to tell me that all I have to do is kneel down, say 'yes,' and that is my way into heaven. Give me the weight of the world, and the responsibility of the impoverished, the dying, and the hungry."


And just some more randomly hateful, un-Christian, and meaningless vitriol from the Cruel and UNusual Twitterer:


COULTER ON WOMEN:   “It would be a much better country if women did not vote.  That is simply a fact.”    

COULTER ON THE SUPREME COURT:  "We need somebody to put rat poisoning in Justice Stevens' creme brulee.”   

COULTER ON THANKSGIVING:  “Happy Holocaust on your plate day.”

COULTER ON JUSTICE AND CHILDREN:  “I have to say I'm all for public flogging. One type of criminal that a public humiliation might work particularly well with are the juvenile delinquents.”

COULTER’S STATEMENT REGARDING THE TRAGIC DEATH OF THE SON OF A POLITICAL OPPONENT:   “If you want points for not using your son's death politically, don't you have to take down all those ‘ASK ME ABOUT MY SON'S DEATH IN A HORRIFIC CAR ACCIDENT’ bumper stickers?”

And, her comment to a Vietnam Veteran in a wheelchair who became paralyzed after being shot in combat:  “NO WONDER YOU GUYS LOST (This quote was actually the subject of a big controversy, the quotation being reworded and printed as Ann saying, “YOU’RE THE REASON WE LOST THIS WAR.”  Whoa.  Back up a minute.  That’s her defense for mocking a paralyzed veteran?  That we misquoted her original vomit?:  “NO WONDER YOU GUYS LOST.”)

She just never lets up.  The harpy just never lets up.

“If our lives do not reflect radical compassion for the poor, there is reason to wonder if Christ is in us at all.” –David Platt          


                                                                         ***************



Finally, I would like to recap precisely why I feel this matter of banning Coulter is so urgent.   This is not because of some personal grudge I have with her, nor is it because of her political opinions.  For the record, there are opinions she has expressed with which I am in agreement.  But that is not enough for Ms. Coulter; it never has been, and it clearly never will be.  She must swath it in shock jock words and images, using cruel and vicious attacks, just to sell books and speaking engagements.  Deep down, she must not have faith in her own views, just as her faith in God and understanding of his message is perverted and dangerous.   This is the truth of the crisis:  young people are leaving the church in record numbers, and overwhelmingly, their collective belief that the church is hurtful and intolerant is offered by these young people as the reason why.   And Ann Coulter, who crows about what a great Christian she is, and then attacks anybody who does not think precisely as she does, is a flaming example of the kind of person who drives young people away from religion and the church.  And just as it was unconscionable that, a hundred years ago, folks would go to church, and then afterwards, flock to the town square to enjoy a good lynching, prefaced by torturing the victim with fiery rods, so it is wrong in this day and age to attend services Sunday morning, then spend the rest of the week cackling at hate speech in the form of Tweets, Facebook posts, and emails.  Let me make this clear:  there is nothing wrong with poking fun at the opposition, or engaging in good, healthy debate.   But when the Tweets and quotes devolve into pure vicious and vile verbal acid attacks, it is time for that communication to be shut down--not by taking away somebody’s First Amendment right to issue such bile.  But by refusing to receive it, in any way shape or form.

BAN ANN.  BAN ANN.  BAN ANN.  BAN ANN.  BAN ANN. BAN ANN.

I am urging you, begging you to contact those newspapers who syndicate her, and ask that they drop her column.   Many newspapers already have, in reaction to what you have just read.  

COULTER ON TORTURE: "I THINK THE GOVERNMENT SHOULD BE ...ENGAGING IN TORTURE AS A TELEVISED SPECTATOR SPORT…”    
ONE SEARCHING CHRISTIAN:     “I've spent the past two days sobbing...I don't know how to get my friends and family to understand. People don't get that we WANT to believe again, we want to to have relationship....but attending church feels like returning to the scene of a crime.”
LET US BOW OUR HEADS IN PRAYER:


Matthew 25:35-40 “For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me,  I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’  Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you?  And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’  And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.”


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FINAL THOUGHTS:   AN OPEN LETTER TO ANN COULTER


Dear Ann Coulter;  If you were the great American you purport to be, and the great American that your mother and father wanted you to be--I read your eulogies of them by the way, how classless of you to find a way to get political digs at your opponents in while mourning your dead--but, as I was saying, if you were the great American you purported to be, you would consider (given your vast wealth) making a contribution, and you would also consider spending some time at your Florida mansion, so that you could step out and see what is really happening there. So that you cou’d step out and help, volunteer, feed people in shelters, help people get new homes.  Something.  Anything.  

And where are you, Ann, while all of this is going on?   (Update: she is literally emailing the Associated Press, today, as I write this, telling them--and these are her own words--that she is “brilliant”.   Sheesh.)

You know who I admire, Ann, when it comes to this hurricane tragedy?   Evan Gatscher, a Florida kid who made grilled cheese sandwiches on a metal shutter they laid out to dry, when the power was out and his family was hungry.  (That’s how hot it was, as the family struggled to rescue their home and their lives in the blistering Florida sun.)  You know who I admire, Ann?   Marc and Jennifer Bell, rich people like yourself, but unlike you, they invited 70 kids into their home, gave them a place to sleep for days until the danger passed, serving hundreds of meals and hiring folks to entertain the kids.

Or, here’s a thought, Ann-if you hate people as much as your Tweets would indicate you do, why not help the poor helpless animals?   Since funny dog Tweets are the only humanizing part of your twitter feed.  After all, those poor Florida dogs and cats--and horses, goat, birds, …. they have no political parties.  Just a need to eat and be safe, yet with nothing for food and nowhere to eat.  


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And if you were to ask me, Ann, what am I doing to help out?  Me, Meg, this mean pundit who is logorrheically picking on you?

Well, folks remember that house I mentioned at the beginning of this blog, the one we worked on for a year?

It was right outside of Tampa.  Right in the path of Irma, that record breaking nightmare that broke records with its 185 mile per hour winds.  We are there now.  We are getting back to work.

But as is usually the case, there are those who got it far worse.  And there is much we can spare, much we can give.   We have donated two beds, a dresser, a bureau, numerous blanket and pillows, clothes for boys and girls, food we purchased, dolls and soccer balls and an assortment of other new toys that we bought.  And frankly, Ann, we were close to broke before all this, given the year we’ve had.

The questions is, what have you given?  Why aren’t you here?

Fret for your soul, Ann.  Clearly, it ain’t here in sweltering Florida.  But it is still going to be damnably hot, when it arrives at its final destination.

Shame on you.


POST SCRIPT:   Readers will note that I have chosen not to include any one of the wicked political cartoons presenting Ann Coulter as the bride of Satan.  Frankly, that is her style, not mine.   And, more to the point--I believe that her own words ridicule and shame her more than any meme I could ever post.

The high road.

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Thank you, Andrew Hawkins

9/25/2017

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Thank you, Andrew Hawkins, for your bravery in standing up for what you believe.   

Thank you, Andrew Hawkins, for starting this whole, gorgeous, desperately important imbroglio.
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