There’s some good reporting by Frank Main of the Chicago Sun-Times. He goes beyond Police Supt. Garry McCarthy’s bombast (“We’re going to obliterate that gang,” he told police brass in a meeting in June. “Every one of their locations has to get blown up until they cease to exist.”) to talk to actual gang members. I’m generally tempted to dismiss…
Month: February 2012
“Your stated interest is in being a cowboy”
Ta-Nehisi Coates has good thoughts on the New York Times piece by Binyamin Applebaum and Robert Gebeloff describing how people vote against the government programs they receive. This isn’t necessarily against their own interests. As Coates says: What I strongly suspect is the sort of shame you see in Mr. Falk’s is neither crazy, nor ignorant, nor shocking, once you…
Jeffrey Goldberg on the crime drop in DC
And talking to Washington’s police chief, Cathy Lanier. Bloomberg.com: Lanier outlined some of the changes in the way her department does its job — procedural, technological and investigative changes that I suspect have more to do with the drop in homicides than sociologists might credit. I suspect the same.
My most requested record
This may surprise you, but my all-time most-read post, by far, has (almost) nothing to do with police or the war on drugs. This post has gotten more hits (by more than a 2:1 margin) than my next most-read post. And the latter was featured in the Atlantic Wire. My most-read post is about a young black man of no…
Up with Up with Chris Hayes
I’ve always loved doing radio interviews and never been keen on TV. Partly because most TV is so stupid. Why should I put on a suit to get driven to Manhattan (they don’t like it if you make your own way to the studio) to stare into a camera and then say a talking point to somebody I can’t see…
Me on “Up with Chris Hayes”
Tune in tomorrow (Saturday) around 8:40AM (Eastern Time) to MSNBC.
PTSD in the BPD
An article by Peter Hermann in the Sun on an important but little talked about subject, the effect on police of police-involved shootings: Union leaders say city police do a good job of providing counseling to officers in the immediate aftermath of a shooting, but fall short in recognizing long-term psychological effects. Psychiatrists and police officials interviewed all caution that…
Good guys win one in subway shootout
Denis Hamill writes in the Daily News: For all the criticism the cops are taking these days for the out of control stop-and-frisks, for the questionable shooting of Ramarley Graham in the Bronx, let’s take a deep breath and not lose track of the vital, life-risking work these guys do every day in this big scary city. And kudos to…
What they think I do
There are a lot of these “what people think I do” versus “what I do” gags going around. Some are pretty funny. Here’s one on policing. The intellectual in me thinks of the Rashomon Effect. The kid in me just giggles at seeing Lou Costello in a police uniform. [thanks to Stef the Greek] [Hey all you folks, consider buying…
Poor Greece
Well the bastards burnt down my favorite movie theater in Athens. Perhaps in the big picture of cultural destruction, it doesn’t rank up there with the destruction of the Buddhas of Bamiyan, but man, those red seats were comfy. Supposedly the theater will be rebuilt. (And supposedly a train will once again connect Athens and Patras). Meanwhile minimum wage in…