Troy Davis is dead, killed — murdered, some would even say — by the state of Georgia for a crime he may well not have committed.
While many questions remain about the case against Davis, even after his death, there’s one I want to focus on here: Who will be the next Troy Davis? Because someone will be. Our system of justice guarantees it.
Update: The Supreme Court won’t stop the execution. At this point, if you’re wrongfully convicted and sentenced to die for a crime you didn’t commit, with no more evidence than the state had against Troy Davis, I guess you’re toast.
I reiterate my earlier statement. Tonight, the state of Georgia will kill a man who is very likely innocent. Tonight I am ashamed to be a Georgian.
Update: Checking the news upon arriving at home, I read that the execution has been delayed by an appeal to the Supreme Court. As of 9:42 pm, there is no word yet from the Supreme Court.
Unless something changes between now and 7:00 pm, today I am ashamed to be a Georgian.
“The struggle for justice doesn’t end with me. This struggle is for all the Troy Davises who came before me and all the ones who will come after me. I’m in good spirits and I’m prayerful and at peace. But I will not stop fighting until I’ve taken my last breath.”
I won’t watch a movie if I’ve missed the beginning, and I hate missing endings so much that I won’t start watching a movie I can’t see through to the end. As a writer, the beginning and end are two of the most important parts of the story to me. They answer two important important questions in any story: “How did we get into this?” and “How do we get out of this?”
Monday night, I watched Too Big To Fail — HBO’s eponymous adaptation of Andrew Ross Sorkin’s book — from start to finish. Yet, I still ended up feeling like I’d missed the two most important parts of the story: the beginning and the end. Thus, I never got answers to those important questions: How did we get into this mess? How do we get out of this mess?
(Or, An Ounce of Treatment, Pt.2)
I don’ think this is what anyone meant by “Calgon, take me away.” (Ed. Note: I know the bath salts in question are in no way associated with Calgone bath beads or other products. It just seemed like a good line.)
When Neil Brown got high on bath salts, he took his skinning knife and slit his face and stomach repeatedly. Brown survived, but authorities say others haven’t been so lucky after snorting, injecting or smoking powders with such innocuous-sounding names as Ivory Snow, Red Dove and Vanilla Sky.
Law enforcement agents and poison control centers say the bath salts, with their complex chemical names, are an emerging menace in several U.S. states where authorities talk of banning their sale. Some say their effects can be as powerful as those of methamphetamine.
From the Deep South to California, emergency calls are being reported over exposure to the stimulants the powders often contain: mephedrone and methylenedioxypyrovalerone, also known as MDPV.
Sold under such names as Ivory Wave, Bliss, White Lightning and Hurricane Charlie, the chemicals can cause hallucinations, paranoia, a rapid heart rate and suicidal thoughts, authorities say. In addition to bath salts, the chemicals can be found in plant foods that are sold legally at convenience stores and on the Internet. However, they aren’t necessarily being used for the purposes on the label.
Still, I’m not sure that banning bath salts is the answer.
(TRIGGER WARNING: The descriptions and some of the media in this post depict extremely violent acts of child abuse. If this is an issue for you, consider yourself warned.)
I had not expected to update this series so soon after the last installment. But, via Alvin McEwen, comes the latest conservative blather on gay parents. This time, from former Arkansas governor and GOP presidential candidate Mike Huckabee.
He continues to oppose any government recognition of same-sex relationships. Even civil unions are “not necessary,” Huckabee said. “I think there’s been a real level of being disingenuous on the part of the gay and lesbian community with their goal of civil unions,” he alleged, referring to LGBT activists who first claimed that their goal in several states was to enact civil unions, but subsequently launched efforts to implement full marriage rights.
Huckabee went on to draw parallels between homosexuality and other lifestyles that are considered by some to be morally aberrant. “You don’t go ahead and accommodate every behavioral pattern that is against the ideal,” he said of same-sex marriage. “That would be like saying, well, there are a lot of people who like to use drugs, so let’s go ahead and accommodate those who want who use drugs. There are some people who believe in incest, so we should accommodate them. There are people who believe in polygamy, so we should accommodate them.”
No surprise here. Nor is it all that surprising that — given the connection cemented in the conservative mind that the sole purpose of marriage is procreation or the symbolic possibility thereof. This last part makes it OK for, say, infertile or elderly heterosexual couples — who physiologically unable to procreate, or well past their reproductive primes — to marry, and to marry for a “reason” that can still be used disqualify same-sex couples (who cannot reproduce with one another).
Predictably he attacks same sex parents
It’s been a while since I’ve added to this series. There are probably a number of reasons, among them that I’ve found myself blogging more about other issues and less about LGBT issues. There are any nmber of reasons, including that my writing at work tends to bleed over to this blog because I have less time to write these days to my interest in what’s happening on the national political scene. But I’ve been keeping up with the latest chapter of the abuse scandal swirling in the Catholic church in the past weeks. And found myself thinking more and more about this series.
Besides the Catholic church scandal, there’s the news of the Boy Scouts covering up abuse. I find it, if nothing else, noteworthy that two organizations that have gone to some lengrhs to defend their anit-gay policies and that have inveighed against families like mine have the same problems with child sex abuse, and the same penchant for covering it up — or, rather, keeping it in the closet.
I came across this in my work-related news-reading. According to a Bakersfield woman, five police officers — and maybe one bounty hunter — entered her home without consent or a warrant. At least she had the presence of mind to grab a video camera.
“Open the door now!” shouted the official just outside her window.
[Star] Hills grabbed a video camera and recorded Kern County Sheriff’s deputies and at least one unidentified bounty hunter entering her home without her consent.
“Is Mr. Baker in your house?” asked an unidentified sheriff’s deputy.
Deputies and the bounty hunter were looking for Joseph Baker, who was charged with a misdemeanor count of assault on a peace officer. Baker was not at the home, but that did not stop them from continuing their search of Hills’ home.
During the search, Hills repeatedly kept asking to see a warrant and for the names of the deputies and bounty hunter in her home.
“I have a bench warrant,” responded the bounty hunter.
“Where is it?” Hills asked in return.
“Actually, I don’t need a bench warrant … I’m a bail enforcement agent,” responded the bounty hunter.
The big news, since President Obama signed health care reform into law, has been the threats made against Democratic lawmakers. [h/t, Prometheus.]
But there is another threat looming, that isn’t directed at Democratic officials, and isn’t getting nearly as much press.
Here’s a question I bet you thought didn’t need to be asked in a post-9/11 America: Does flying a plane into a building make you a terrorist or a hero?
Joe Stack attacked the IRS by flying his plane into one of its buildings. Is he a hero?
Some people think so. Stack’s adult daughter, Samantha Bell, said Monday that her father’s attack was “inappropriate” but that she considered him heroic because of his antigovernment views.
“Maybe now people will listen,” she told ABC’s “Good Morning America.”
Stack is also becoming a hero to the radical right – specifically, white supremacists and their fellow travelers, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. Supremacist web forums have been filled with comments that elevate Stack into an icon of resistance to tyranny, writes Mark Potok, director of the SPLC’s Intelligence Project.
Potok quotes one poster on Stormfront.org, a large supremacist web site, as saying, “The Guy is a true HERO!!!”
Let’s break this down.
iii
Tell me, tell me, tell me the answer…
“Helter Skelter,” The Beatles
His name was Jason. I didn’t remember that right away, but I remembered him. As I closed the book on Rader and asked myself how people could sit right next to a murderer like him — or like any of the others whose deeds I’d been reading about — and not now it … I thought about Jason. I hadn’t done that in a long time.
He was, when I knew him, a fairly ordinary guy. I didn’t know him well, and we weren’t close friends. He was, for a while, part of my social circle in college. Most of the time, I’d see him in the dining hall, where some of us who had a break in classes at the same time of day would gather for lunch. Or I’d see him when (roughly) the same group got together for dinner in the dining hall.
I don’t remember how he came to be a part of the group, which was randomly assembled. He may have been someone’s roomate. Perhaps he had a class with someone in the group, or attended the same high school, or came from the same hometown.
He was a pretty regular guy from what I recall. He was average height or maybe a little shorter, kinda skinny, brown hair, blue eyes. He had a nice smile and a somewhat deep voice. Knowing me, I might even have thought he was somewhat cute back then, briefly, before moving on to some other crush on some other guy within a day or so.
Anyway, he was straight, so I likely dismissed the notion quickly. He dated one young woman in our group, for a while. They eventually broke up, but don’t remember any drama about it. He still hung out with the group.
Most of all, I don’t remember anything that stood out about him. He wasn’t, violent as far as I remember. I don’t remember anything about him that suggested he was likely to murder anyone.
Like I said, I couldn’t even remember his name. But I remembered him. And, more than that, I remembered his victim’s name.
Not every evening, but several times a week — after the kids have gone to bed — there comes a moment when my husband reaches for the television remote and declares what we we will now “watch something in which no one is not horrifically murdered.” I chuckle, but I don’t object, because by then he has already indulged my penchant for the “True Crime” television genre.
On any given night, there will be at least one viewing of Dateline, 48 Hours, Deranged, Most Evil, Cold Case Files, Crime 360, The First 48, True Crime, American Justice, Dominick Dunne: Power, Privilege and Justice, Crime Stories, City Confidential, The Interrogators, Notorious, or Forensic Files. Maybe any two of the above. Then my hubby commandeers the remote and it’s either HGTV, DIY, The Food Network, or Logo.
Can’t say that I blame him. But it wasn’t until the first time he made that announcement that I realized I’d had a longstanding fascination — more than half my life at this point. —with crime stories. It was something I took so much for granted that I didn’t notice how much I watched the shows above or others like them. It wasn’t until just recently that I thought about where, when and how it got started.
Henry Louis Gates and I are very different people. He is a Harvard Professor. The closest I got to the Ivy League was a weekend visit to Yale. He is a successful author. I am a blogger whose aspirations may outstrip his abilities. He is world renowned. I am, well, not. He is, most definitely, far more knowledgeable about a great many things than I am. Of that I’m sure.
However, we have two things in common. We are both black men. As such, though he’s a college professor and I’m long out of college, we are both perpetually enrolled in the same course.
It’s called Black Man – 101.
I don’t know about you but “sorry” doesn’t begin to cut it
Chris Brown has publicly apologised for attacking his ex-girlfriend Rihanna.
In a two-minute video on his website, the R&B star said “I thought it was time that you heard directly from me that I am sorry”.
He says he is seeking help and wants to live his life as a role model, saying: “I wish I had the chance to live those few moments again”.
Chris Brown pleaded guilty to assault after he was arrested the night before the Grammy awards in February.
Not when we’re talking about this.
This series is overdue for an update. I’ve been meaning to get to it for a while now. But every time a relevant news story reminds me of it, there’s always something more pressing.
The entire time the “Octomom” saga played out in headlines and newscasts, I thought about continuing this series. Only, every time I’d get started, there’d be another revelation. At some point, I got tired of trying to keep up. I kept it in the back of my mind, though.
To tell the truth, I’ve never watched Jon & Kate Plus 8, except for a few minutes when I stopped in the middle of channel surfing and caught a few minutes of it. I didn’t know why, but something about the show creeped me out. I couldn’t put my finger on it. But when the allegations about his affair, then her alleged affair, then her alleged violent rages, his alleged lack of ambition, her tummy tuck and nose job, his hair plugs, and the difference between the reality of their marriage and the facade presented on television, I found myself asking “Why are these people famous?” All they did was have babies, and have more at one time than most people.
These people are famous for reproducing?
Then it hit me, what bothered me about the very idea of the show, let alone the show itself.
Yes. Once upon a time.
I took this survey via Lifehacker.
CNET reports that Wikipedia has received $890,000 in funding specifically aimed at creating an easier to use interface for readers with a low level of tech knowledge. Wikipedia’s goal is “to identify the most common barriers to entry for first-time writers, and then work to systematically reduce or eliminate them.” It’s an excellent idea, considering the obvious fact that there are presumably countless potential contributors with a lot of knowledge but a low level of tech skill. Still, since most of our readers are a tech-savvy bunch, it got us wondering:
Have you ever edited Wikipedia?
Well yes. But I soon stopped.
I read about an attack on a lesbian student at Wayland Union High School, near Grand Rapids, MI, via Ed’s blog.
Police in Wayland, Mich., are investigating an attack by two 14-year-old girls on a third girl in Wayland Union High School. The victim was identified as a supporter of gay rights. The June 10 attack was purposely recorded on a cell phone video by another female, police say.
Wayland is located south of Grand Rapids and according to the city’s Web site has a population of 3,939 people.
Police told Grand Rapids-based WOOD-TV 8, the NBC affiliate, the two girls attacked the victim because she was a “gay rights advocate.”
Chief Dan Miller of the Wayland Police told the Kalamazoo Gazette the 14-year-old victim identified herself as a lesbian.
“I guess some say she’s pretty outspoken, and the other two girls didn’t like that,” he said in the Gazette. “We were told by the two suspects it was over the sex-orientation issue that they don’t believe in.
It was around the same time that I was researching the murders of Simmie Williams and Lawrence King, both of whom were harassed in school. I guess it interested me because of that, and because I was harassed in school. But I was fortunate never to experience something like this.
I started researching the murder of Simmie Williams back in August, around the same time I began researching the murder of Lawrence King. I started researching King’s story because of the Newsweek article about his murder that came out in July, and there was a lot of controversy around it. I starting researching Simmie William’s murder because the similarities with King (gay youth, of color, non-gender conforming, etc.) and the reality that —though his murder happened little more than a week after King’s — William’s murder got far less attention.
Maybe it was because of race, maybe it was because of the difference in age between him and King, whose murder has arguably received the most attention since Matthew Shepard. But, then, that’s no different from any number of anti-LGBT hate crimes that rarely make headlines outside of the communities where they occur. Memorials are held, sometimes vigils on the murder site or where the body was found or outside of hospitals. Local groups organize. Sometimes a suspect is caught, and even tried and convicted.
But most of the rest of the world never hears.
Damn. It’s 9:21 p.m. on a Friday night. Nobody’s reading blogs right now, but I gotta run with this.
Not just abuse of power, but unlawful abuse of power. Well, what can I say?
Then I’m walking in Memphis
Walking with my feet ten feet off of Beale
Walking in Memphis
But do I really feel the way I feel
~ Marc Cohn, “Walking in Memphis”
On my next-to-last day in Memphis, before flying home, I finally made my pilgrimage. No, not to Graceland. I never really had any desire to go there. Besides, I knew that when I got home, most of the people who knew me and knew about my trip wouldn’t ask if I went to Graceland. At least not first. If I was going to visit anywhere in Memphis, there was one place I had to visit first. So when I co-worker told me that several people were planning to visit the National Civil Rights Museum — which includes and incorporates the Lorraine Motel, where Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated — I knew that was where I was going to go, if I went anywhere else in Memphis.
I remember walking through the exhibit, and finally making my way to the King Room, looking through the glass that protected and preserved it, and then walking through an adjacent room and stepping out onto the balcony next to where King was shot. I remember looking across the street and seeing the window of the boarding house where James Earl Ray made the fatal shot. I remember walking through a tunnel, across the street to that house, and looking into the room from which he made the shot. And I remember walking past James Earl Ray’s car when we finally left the museum.
I stepped out into the sunlight, at last, with the rest of the group —all of us blinking our eyes, trying to get used to the light, grateful for the awkward silence, yet feeling the need to fill it with something profound or moving, but coming up short. The thought I kept to myself was how strange it was that in Memphis people ended up visiting a monument to someone’s death, both named — at birth or at birth as a celebrity — “King.” I didn’t think about then, what comes to mind now: how many deaths will receive no monument in Memphis, or be remembered even a year later.
Saw the Ghost of Elvis
Down on Union Avenue
Followed him up the gates of Graceland
And I watched him walk right through.
~ Marc Cohn, “Walking in Memphis
My one trip to Memphis didn’t include the expected pilgrimage to Graceland, and I never saw the ghost of Elvis (impersonators notwithstanding) even though I stayed on Union Avenue. Even if I had I’m not sure I’d have followed him to Graceland. I say expected, because almost everyone I met who wasn’t connected with the conference asked me if I was going to Graceland. I said no, but what I didn’t share was that I’d already made up my mind where I was going while in Memphis, and my itinerary didn’t include Graceland. Not even a walk down Elvis Presley Blvd.
OK. I plead guilty to this When I got my iPhone 4, I gave Parker my old iPhone 3G (with parental controls in place, phone service deactivated, everything restored to factory settings, history wiped clean, and internet access and the App Store on lockdown) to play games on, etc. But does that make me a “Scrooge”? Puh-leeze. An eight-year-old needs the latest iPhone?
It’s happening again. I’m getting that “I’ve got a book in me, if I can make time to write it,” feeling. Of course, that “if” is the big, and the deciding, factor.
I was never one of those who claim “there’s no such thing as bisexuality.” I’ve known too many bisexuals to buy that the “don’t exist.” So, I’m not surprised that a study now indicates there is too such a thing as bisexuality. In men, that is.
Apparently, it’s hard to build a successful television show around someone who’s (a) unlikeable and (b) had no discernible talent beyond reproducing.
It’s not that I don’t trust the guy, and maybe the whole Weinergate thing has me a little gun shy, but am I the only who thinks Obama tweeting for himself may not be the best idea?
Archive for Asides »
del.icio.usPowered by WordPress. Theme: TheBuckmaker. Bank
Posts
