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  • Collins to NRA: “Leave Us Alone”

    Gail Collin on gun control:

    Personally, I’m worn down from arguing. Florida, follow your own star. Arizona, arm your kindergarteners. Just stop trying to impose your values on places where the thinking is dramatically different.

    Really, just leave us alone. If you don’t like our rules, don’t come here. Is that too much to ask?

    The problem, of course, is that gun advocates are trying to impose their permissive carry-laws on the rest of us.

    Maybe if New Yorkers are made to accept their guns, they should be forced to accept our gay marriages.

  • Show me the blood?

    Video of Zimmerman entered the police station has been released. I don’t see any blood. I don’t see any grass stains. I don’t see anybody who looks faintly like they were on the loosing end of a fight. The clothes look neat and unripped and he’s walking well. I don’t see how it coincides with the police report.

    All that said, Zimmerman’s nose is a bloody (or not) distraction. Zimmerman’s condition, though interesting, is irrelevant to the actually issues which matter. Namely that Martin, who was walking home and minding his own business, was shot and killed by a man who remains free. None of those facts, best I know, have ever been disputed.

    Here’s a link to a Sanford government website that offers some answers to many questions.

    Update, April 21: There is some blood. And no, it’s not life threatening. It’s also still irrelevant. And I can’t help but think that perhaps Zimmerman deserved a little ass-whupping for his incorrect pursuit of Martin.

  • Man arrested after standing ground

    Not in Florida. But in Chicago. He is 80 years old. Yeah, the gun was illegal… but still…

  • Cures Malaria

    Cures Malaria

    There’s a great picture of Baltimore’ harbor from 1903 over at Shorpy.

  • Irving Louis Horowitz, Sociologist and Ideological Critic, Dies at 82

    From the New York Times:

    Irving Louis Horowitz, an eminent sociologist and prolific author who started a leading journal in his field but who came to fear that his discipline risked being captured by left-wing ideologues, died on Wednesday in Princeton, N.J. He was 82.
    …
    Though many considered him a neoconservative, he professed no political allegiance. In a 2007 article, he argued that Fidel Castro, the Communist Cuban leader, and Francisco Franco, the conservative leader of Spain, were equivalent tyrants.
    …
    In a journal article, he denounced leftist advocacy, writing, “You do not get good science by being politically correct.”

  • Conservatives on Trayvon

    I’m a little shocked to see so many conservatives (on social media, mostly) not exactly defend the killing of Trayvon Marin, but try and turn the tables or say, “what’s the big deal?”

    I’ve heard or read all of the following:

    1) Zimmerman had his nose broken before he shot.

    2) Blacks kill whites all the time.

    3) Holder is a racist.

    4) We only care about this because the victim was black and the killer wasn’t (see #2).

    5) We shouldn’t judge because we don’t know all the facts.

    6) Actually, the Stand Your Ground law shouldn’t apply in this situation.

    All this talk is insane. What people do not understand is that people are most upset not at the crime or the race of the victim, but because the killer of an innocent teenager hasn’t been charged with a crime!

    Why is this so hard to grasp?

    Sure, some who don’t understand the point are just racist. But most, I think, actually just have such a gut reaction to any perceived liberal issue that they just take the other side.

    If, after all, you think the country is at war with liberals and white-hating Obama and socialists and the 2nd Amendment and national health care, you can’t let your guard down just because one innocent kid was killed.

    Why is it so hard to let your culture-war guard down and say, gosh, maybe the NRA and Republicans advocated a bad law and maybe Trayvon shouldn’t have been followed, assaulted, and killed? And maybe the killer should be charged with a crime, to be settled in a court of law.

    Update: If (like many liberals I know) you haveno conservative friends, see this piece for an example of “not getting it” and to learn what the other side is saying:

    Last weekend in the city of Chicago alone, gangbangers slaughtered ten people and wounded another forty. The youngest fatality is only six years old. The youngest person wounded is only one-year-old. Many of the victim were pedestrians sprayed with bullets in drive by shootings. The national news has said nothing about this.

    So why does one shooting in Florida warrant weeks of national news? Why has there been thousands of articles a day, for the last four days, about one single shooting?

    Almost all of the news items about George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin contains a combination of false statements, opinions presented as facts, transparent distortions, and a complete absence of some of the most relevant details.

    …

    I think you will come to the conclusion that the “mainstream” clearly is pushing an agenda. Even when they have to grossly alter and adjust a story to fit that agenda.

  • Officer who shot first at Sean Bell is fired

    The departmental wheels of justice turn very slowly, but they do indeed turn. It’s been six years since Sean Bell was killed. Leaving aside the merits of the case against the officers (If I remember correctly, I think my position was that the officers indeed were not criminally guilty, except maybethe officer who fired first), note that Ray Kelly didn’t have to do this. It’s not like this is still much in the public’s eye. It’s not like he’ll gain politically from this (unless, however, he runs for mayor). Maybe he just thought it was the right thing to do.

    From the New York Times:

    Law enforcement officials said word of Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly’s decision came late Friday. Detective Isnora, an 11-year veteran, will not collect a pension, one official said. “He loses everything,” the official said.

  • Up With Chris Hayes

    I’ll be on my favorite intelligent TV show again this Saturday, 8-10AM (Eastern Time). MSNBC. Man oh man do I hate the idea of setting my alarm for 6:30AM. But it should be fun.

  • “There are police and there are police”

    I received a very gracious and lengthy email from a very prominent professor (which in and of itself was thrilling). He read Cop in the Hood and wrote, in part:

    There are police and there are police. They all look similar to the general public because they are all (most, at least) in similar uniforms, wear badges and carry firearms. But departments and even individual officers differ enormously. What is common practice in one police department may be unthinkable in another. I suppose it was natural for me to settle on the importance of this rather obvious point only after I moved into retirement as I had the opportunity to reflect on the thousands of officers I got to know individually over the years and the hundreds of agencies that I got to know in varying degrees both here in the U.S. and in other countries. Understandably, I found myself rebelling at some of your descriptions and analyses of policing in Baltimore and New York City because they were in such sharp contrast with what I’ve learned about policing elsewhere….

    There in, it seems to me, is one of the major challenges for your generation. Why is it that we have such variations? Why are some departments so committed to prevention over apprehension or meaningless patrol? Why are some departments so committed to protecting the civil rights of everyone with whom they are in contact, and others so flagrant in their violation of them? Why are some individual police officers so thoughtless, and others so thoughtful? Why do some agencies handle protests in ways that protect the right of protesters, and others almost guaranteed to provoke conflict? I wish I had another fifty years in which to explore along these lines.

    What do you think? Anyone have ideas? What are the answers? Bueller…?

  • Investigating Beheadings, 12 Officers Slain in Mexico

    Ten beheadings in Mexico wasn’t enough to make me post…. But then killing 12 police officers who came to investigate? That’s hardcore. From the New York Times. Let me know when we start winning this war.