Infrastructure Week
When a police officer killed Eric Garner with an illegal chokehold, the grand jury (i.e. the Richmond County, New York, district attorney) did not indict him. The justice system is based on deterrence -- make an example of a criminal so others at least hesitate to do the same thing. The system doesn't work if you don't use it.
Something to keep in mind as you watch this video of a black man being "arrested" by a white officer in Minneapolis. He was not deterred from handcuffing the man, pressing his face into the pavement until his nose bled, and kneeling on his neck as he begged for his life. He died of a "medical incident," whatever that means, apprehended in the act of -- forgery? Unarmed. In front of witnesses, one of whom made the video. The officer is on paid administrative leave, so no need to start a BlueLivesMatter GoFundMe for him just yet. Rush and Hannity will let you know when.
White people (some of them) were starting to examine their consciences for signs of racism. It's almost as if the last several years have given them permission to relax and let their hate flag fly again. Sometimes the results are more satisfying, as when a man asked a woman to leash her dog, which was digging up bushes in Central Park. (There's a place for dogs to run unleashed, but this wasn't it.) In response, Karen pulled out her phone and said, "I'm going to tell them there's an African American man threatening my life." Christian Cooper made this video of her doing that, but this time no one was arrested. Instead Karen (real name Amy Cooper, no relation they both hope) may lose her job. If not for the atrocity in Minneapolis, she would be today's Worst Wypipo in the World.
For all his big talk, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey does nothing to deter hate and lies on his platform. Some accounts have been closed, but it doesn't stop others from opening. Dorsey will have another chance -- Timothy Klausutis has asked him to delete Trump's tweets demanding the arrest and probably execution of Joe Scarborough in the 2001 death of his wife Lori. Not all the thousands of idiot conspiracy theories, personal insults, semi-literate rants and threats against individuals and countries, just the one he's currently obsessed with, despite Lori Klausutis's death being ruled accidental. (A heart problem caused her to lose consciousness and fall, striking her head on a desk. The desk happened to be in the office of her employer, then-Rep. Scarborough.) Dorsey probably thinks that if he deletes one set of Trump lies, people will expect him to get rid of them all. Next thing you know, his most prominent user will move over to 8Chan with the other neo-Nazis. Don't look for trouble, Jack, or you might be the subject of semi-literate rants on your own damn platform. How ironic.
I would respect YouTube more if they had removed Michael Moore's Planet of the Humans to deter others from promoting nonsense about climate change, but it was a simple copyright issue. Moore is therefore free to visit Bill Maher, CNN and anyplace else that will have him, and talk about how the scientists are all wrong and the fossil fuel purveyors are right. Additionally, he can now complain about censorship. Moore apparently wants to replace John McCain as our official Maverick, someone who once took a principled stand about one thing and will ride it like a mobility scooter for the rest of his life.
Nothing deterred Americans from crowding the beaches, parks and eateries yesterday, in a sort of Masque of the Red, White and Blue Death. Like cranky children they're tired of being told what to do and how to avoid possibly mortal illness, so they just decided to ignore the stinky old coronavirus and have fun. As usual, two movie lines jostled in my head. Richard Dreyfuss (Jaws) watching an overloaded boat head out of the harbor and muttering, "You're all gonna die." And Greta Garbo (Ninotchka) bringing her comrades news of the Moscow show trials: "There are going to be fewer but better Russians.") And somewhere in there, the title song from Mel Brooks's little-known The Twelve Chairs: "Hope for the best, expect the worst, You could be Tolstoy or Fannie Hurst..." What is wrong with me?
Update: The man who died in Minneapolis was named George Floyd, and four police officers have now been dismissed.
Something to keep in mind as you watch this video of a black man being "arrested" by a white officer in Minneapolis. He was not deterred from handcuffing the man, pressing his face into the pavement until his nose bled, and kneeling on his neck as he begged for his life. He died of a "medical incident," whatever that means, apprehended in the act of -- forgery? Unarmed. In front of witnesses, one of whom made the video. The officer is on paid administrative leave, so no need to start a BlueLivesMatter GoFundMe for him just yet. Rush and Hannity will let you know when.
White people (some of them) were starting to examine their consciences for signs of racism. It's almost as if the last several years have given them permission to relax and let their hate flag fly again. Sometimes the results are more satisfying, as when a man asked a woman to leash her dog, which was digging up bushes in Central Park. (There's a place for dogs to run unleashed, but this wasn't it.) In response, Karen pulled out her phone and said, "I'm going to tell them there's an African American man threatening my life." Christian Cooper made this video of her doing that, but this time no one was arrested. Instead Karen (real name Amy Cooper, no relation they both hope) may lose her job. If not for the atrocity in Minneapolis, she would be today's Worst Wypipo in the World.
For all his big talk, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey does nothing to deter hate and lies on his platform. Some accounts have been closed, but it doesn't stop others from opening. Dorsey will have another chance -- Timothy Klausutis has asked him to delete Trump's tweets demanding the arrest and probably execution of Joe Scarborough in the 2001 death of his wife Lori. Not all the thousands of idiot conspiracy theories, personal insults, semi-literate rants and threats against individuals and countries, just the one he's currently obsessed with, despite Lori Klausutis's death being ruled accidental. (A heart problem caused her to lose consciousness and fall, striking her head on a desk. The desk happened to be in the office of her employer, then-Rep. Scarborough.) Dorsey probably thinks that if he deletes one set of Trump lies, people will expect him to get rid of them all. Next thing you know, his most prominent user will move over to 8Chan with the other neo-Nazis. Don't look for trouble, Jack, or you might be the subject of semi-literate rants on your own damn platform. How ironic.
I would respect YouTube more if they had removed Michael Moore's Planet of the Humans to deter others from promoting nonsense about climate change, but it was a simple copyright issue. Moore is therefore free to visit Bill Maher, CNN and anyplace else that will have him, and talk about how the scientists are all wrong and the fossil fuel purveyors are right. Additionally, he can now complain about censorship. Moore apparently wants to replace John McCain as our official Maverick, someone who once took a principled stand about one thing and will ride it like a mobility scooter for the rest of his life.
Nothing deterred Americans from crowding the beaches, parks and eateries yesterday, in a sort of Masque of the Red, White and Blue Death. Like cranky children they're tired of being told what to do and how to avoid possibly mortal illness, so they just decided to ignore the stinky old coronavirus and have fun. As usual, two movie lines jostled in my head. Richard Dreyfuss (Jaws) watching an overloaded boat head out of the harbor and muttering, "You're all gonna die." And Greta Garbo (Ninotchka) bringing her comrades news of the Moscow show trials: "There are going to be fewer but better Russians.") And somewhere in there, the title song from Mel Brooks's little-known The Twelve Chairs: "Hope for the best, expect the worst, You could be Tolstoy or Fannie Hurst..." What is wrong with me?
Update: The man who died in Minneapolis was named George Floyd, and four police officers have now been dismissed.
posted by Buttermilk Sky at 1:06 PM
1 Comments:
>> He died of a "medical incident," whatever that means, apprehended in the act of -- forgery?<<
That's the thing with medical incidents. If you effectively and from the looks of it with wanton malice cut off the flow of air through somebody's windpipe, before you know it — boom, it turns into a medical incident. I mean, if a police officer does it it's a medical incident. If it were the other way around it would be murder by strangulation.
Given that the knee strangler (I can't believe I just wrote those two words in that order) but given that the knee strangler is told several times to stop it and that the man can't breathe, and cooly ignores the the crowd and his victim while continuing the effective garroting, one could argue first degree murder. Just saying. I'll be curious to see how the local DA weighs in about all of this. Probably with something like,"Why do incidents like this have to happen to on my watch?!"
It is not clear from what we've heard thus far that the murder victim was in the "act" of committing forgery, only that the police were responding to a complaint of a "forgery in progress." Which may (or may not) mean that the man was in the process of writing his name when somebody phoned it in, a brutal act worthy of an aggressive response if ever I've seen one. Let people write their names and the next thing you know, they'll be writing opinions of things, too. We've just got to put a halt to public education!
Yours very crankily,
The New York Crank
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