Coming February 6, 2024 . . .
MURDER, POLITICS, AND THE END OF THE JAZZ AGE
by Michael Wolraich
Pre-order at Barnes & Noble / Amazon / Books-A-Million / Bookshop
Coming February 6, 2024 . . . MURDER, POLITICS, AND THE END OF THE JAZZ AGE by Michael Wolraich Pre-order at Barnes & Noble / Amazon / Books-A-Million / Bookshop |
Amy Davidson, The New Yorker online, yesterday (excerpt is last 2 paragraphs)
............
We have heard a good deal from the N.R.A. in the last couple of months about how a gun defends a home. Wayne LaPierre, the group’s executive vice-president and increasingly unhinged public face, has been out talking about how everyone needs a gun to be prepared for a coming time of financial crisis and natural disaster. South Africa and the United States are distinct countries with different gun cultures, but people are not so different. The array of objects within arm’s reach can turn a moment of rage to something worse in any country. A gun in the house makes it more likely that domestic violence will lead to murder. (The Times has a story this morning about how living with guns has also been connected to dying by suicide.) Oscar Pistorius’s gun did not keep Reeva Steenkamp safe. Living in a house with many guns did not keep Kasandra Perkins safe when Jovan Belcher, the father of her child, shot her and then himself.
There is much to admire in the confidence that made Pistorius believe that he could challenge world running federations, and make them let him run. There was a clarity there, and inspiration, and the right kind of pride. (This morning, someone reportedly took a Nike ad with the line “I am the bullet in the chamber” off of his Web site.) There will be plenty of talk, too, about what brings athletes to both the highest levels of sports and to a place of domestic tragedy—publicity, pressure, even the unsettling question of performance-enhancing drugs and their psychological effects. That discussion is worth having. But what matters even more is what can happen in any home, in any room, with a man and a woman and a gun.
The intra-Palestinian meeting in Moscow has precedent
— Hanna Notte (@HannaNotte) February 29, 2024
Russia's hosted such meetings in the past, most recently Feb 2019
Russia has long lamented the US' "monopolization" of the peace process & tried to carve out a niche for itself: mediating among the disunited Palestinians/2
Here's what I told them: https://halginsberg.com/vote-for-jill-stein-again/
Controversial Brazil law curbing Indigenous rights comes into force https://t.co/pCoDg05irX
— Gareth Harris (@garethharr) December 28, 2023
Location: U.S. Embassy and residential compounds
Events: Heavy gunfire is occuring around the area of the U.S. Embassy and residential compounds adjacent to the Trutier area of Tabarre. All Embassy personnel have been instructed to remain indoors and shelter-in-place until further notice. All others should avoid the area.
Actions to take:
- Avoid the area;
- Avoid demonstrations and any large gatherings of people;
- Do not attempt to drive through roadblocks; and
- If you encounter a roadblock, turn around and get to a safe area.
By The Editorial Board @ Bloomberg.com, December 8, 2023
A mass expulsion of Afghan migrants could destabilize the region and fuel radicalization. The West should pressure Islamabad to change course.
All eyes on #Chad right now
Chad has two internet trunks coming into the country: One from the Red Sea via Sudan; the other from Cameroon. Not possible for the totality of the country's internet network to be shut unless done centrally. A lot of rumors swirling; few facts. https://t.co/N6bDJZ2ixO
BREAKING: Three loss prevention employees in Macy’s across the street from Philadelphia City Hall stabbed, one of them has died from stab wounds, @PhillyPolice sources tell me. Police converged on the store as the three workers were rushed to Jefferson Hospital. pic.twitter.com/4U1eKycL4W
Former US Ambassador Arrested, Charged With Working As Secret Agent For Cuba https://t.co/LDwo4ZJI1K
— HuffPost (@HuffPost) December 4, 2023
[Chapter I news is HERE, Oct. 7 til today]
You don’t get it.
— George Deek (@GeorgeDeek) December 2, 2023
It’s not about an UNRWA teacher who held an Israeli kid hostage in his house.
It’s all about how for 75 years you have destroyed the future of generations of Palestinians, including my family.
My cousins in Arab countries are still not citizens - not even the… https://t.co/nv6anubGhc
Note 'Community Notes' attached to UNWRA's statement.
Imperialism for me but not for thee?
It's wild that Venezuela is now holding a vote on whether 2/3 of Guyana actually belongs to them! Analysts suggest that Modoru may want military action to pump up his sinking popularity.
Could we have a war in South America?!?
"The people who live in Essequibo are largely… pic.twitter.com/QvMEjkkgwy
The lack of a cohesive delegation has allowed attention-seeking lawmakers to act on their own.
McCarthy: “You have [Rep. Matt] Gaetz, who belongs in jail…”
Gaetz: “Tough words from a guy who sucker punches people in the back. The only assault I committed was against Kevin’s fragile ego.”https://t.co/LctPuz6Pcf
By Martinn Pengelly in Washington DC for TheGuardian.com, Nov. 30
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tells Ryan Grim life in Congress ‘completely transformed’ after Democratic leader stepped down
"Both the AU and the intl community place more weight on whether elections are held than whether they are free and fair. Sanctions/expulsions occur when there is a coup but not necessarily when elections are rigged or if an “institutional coup” occurs." https://t.co/m9dNimJP0D
— Cameron Hudson (@_hudsonc) November 28, 2023
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Comments
You know, this article is very well intentioned and it's not really wrong - nor is the guy rapping in the song I posted. Regulating guns would make this problem a lot less worse. However...
Guns don't go off by themselves. Just like a car doesn't move unless someone drives it, a gun is just a hunk of metal without a person behind it. I'm wondering if a lot of people are scared of what they'll find if they start to delve in to why more people are feeling like shooting each other or stabbing each other or running each other over with a car than they did fifteen years ago.
Oscar Pistorious felt the compulsion to shoot his spouse in the face with a gun and so have people almost every day in this world. There's something much deeper going on.
by Orion on Sat, 02/16/2013 - 3:36am
Well said. The point which many here continue to make--which I'm not hearing you disagree with in the least--is that when the impulses that lead people to do these things are in play, fewer people are likely to die or be maimed if there is a different societal approach to the question of who can obtain what kinds of guns under what circumstances.
Of course there is a chicken-and-egg dynamic here, in that it is the darker outlooks and impulses that can lead people to do these things that also are barriers to adopting and enforcing and complying with better thought-out gun availability policies and practices.
The US is a violent society. We are a restless, always churning kind of people. And we have all of the creative tensions but also just tensions that come with our extraordinary diversity. So we have enormous energy channeled into constructive pursuits, but also destructive ones.
by AmericanDreamer on Sat, 02/16/2013 - 8:12am
I have myself been assaulted and, as you probably gather from the writing, thought of assaulting others in ways that would have been horrific if a gun had been involved. They are way too dangerous to ever have around trustfully.
But they are only as dangerous as the person using it.
by Orion on Sat, 02/16/2013 - 5:35pm
There's something much deeper going on
Yes, but it's not at all the same thing as your "drugs influence spree killings" or "people everywhere are going crazy" topic.
South Africa has a very severe crime and violence problem. People have guns to protect against the crime. And then people end up shooting each other with them when no crime is involved. It's an old story, ask any cop.
The "much deeper" things going are particular to South Africa (and quite a few other African nations,) some things that many of the so-called "first world" nations have learned how to lessen. if not eradicate:
South Africa's astronomical homicide rate ( currently 31.8 per 100,000 vs. United States @ 4.8 per 100,000 and UK @ 1.2 per 100,000 for comparison purposes ,) started falling concurrent with restrictions on gun ownership.
Crimes of passion have always been with us (we know the incidence of them is always worse when there is little rule of law to deter them; we learned that over thousands of years.) Guns and guns owned by civilians have not always been with us.
A cavaet: we do not know that Pistorius committed a crime of passion yet and we do not know whether he was a domestic partner abuser, either; his story that he mistook her for an intruder may be true.
by artappraiser on Mon, 02/18/2013 - 5:36pm
If true, the claim that her skull was crushed with a cricket bat will makes his story harder to believe.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/early-lead/wp/2013/02/18/oscar-pistorius-bail-hearing-begins-tuesday-bloody-cricket-bat-eyed-as-evidence/
by Donal on Mon, 02/18/2013 - 5:55pm
Thanks. If the prosecutor's case is correct, yes I would certainly put this in Hunter-Gault's "femicide" category without any problem, to say the least (and geez-the brutality level that is suggested! O.J. comparisons, anyone?)
Come to think of it, his breakdown in court, that did remind me of what I was talking about in this paragraph from a comment on one of Orion's threads:
by artappraiser on Mon, 02/18/2013 - 7:58pm
Those leaks are very much up in the air, and the related intrigue is interesting in itself:
And see:
which makes me wonder about the "crushed skull " thing. It's hard to sync the Steenkamp family reaction here with that, I would think they would be reacting a little differently if they had just buried a body with a crushed skull, unless they are an exceptionally calm group.
by artappraiser on Tue, 02/19/2013 - 2:03am
It does sound out there, and only the rags are going with it, but Forbes adds another odd snippet:
Two Simple Words: "I ... forgot."
by Donal on Tue, 02/19/2013 - 8:54am
I feel like I need to defend myself against that. Are you sure there was no drug influence?
Look - drugs, especially the class of stimulant drugs that are almost always involved in alot of violent crime, are just really, really dangerous. There are pretty solid reforms that could be put in really quickly to make sure that mind altering drugs, at least the sort I have been writing about in my presence here, are not as freely available as they are now. They certainly shouldn't be advertised on television with cartoon bouncy faces as if they're going for the Teletubbies demographic. I mean seriously.
Yeah.And athletes also weren't juiced up on steroids. You can tell that because today's athletes actually look physically different than they did just decades ago.
Well, that is actually very possible. He is a famous influential man, correct? That probably leads to a good deal of paranoia and paranoia plus firearms equal this.
Even if he was paranoid due to crazed fans and was on high alert though, he pulled the trigger. A shotgun wouldn't have been as easy to fire like that. And he shot her in the head too, right? You don't do that by accident.
by Orion on Wed, 02/20/2013 - 10:06pm
And he shot her in the head too, right? You don't do that by accident.
Where her body got hit certainly was "by accident," unless he has X-ray vision like Superman. Both sides apparently agree she was shot through a locked bathroom door. That was repeatedly reported all along, and Pistorius described that in his statement yesterday, and today asked repeatedly by Roux if he found anything at the scene inconsistent with the account presented by Pistorius in court on Tuesday, Botha confessed that he had not.
by artappraiser on Wed, 02/20/2013 - 11:53pm
http://www.theonion.com/articles/world-doesnt-even-know-who-to-admire-an...
by Orion on Wed, 02/20/2013 - 2:03pm
The prosecution is a pitiful mess but they have found evidence suggestive of Pistorius being a hothead in the past:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/feb/20/oscar-pistorius-case-police-...
by artappraiser on Wed, 02/20/2013 - 3:28pm
I suppose they will try to work around it--what else can they do? But when the lead detective for the prosecution turns out to be facing seven charges of attempted murder himself, yes, that would seem to fall into "pitiful mess" territory.
From the never-sensationalizing, just the facts ma'am "yahoo expert" Martin Rogers, earlier today, at: http://sports.yahoo.com/news/olympics--lead-detective-in-oscar-pistorius-case-faces-his-own-attempted-murder-charges-084528141.html
by AmericanDreamer on Thu, 02/21/2013 - 10:27am
And as the world turns...these are the days of our lives. New lead investigator appointed by the prosecution...
http://espn.go.com/olympics/trackandfield/story/_/id/8970191/lead-investigator-oscar-pistorius-case-replaced
Ya mean facing charges for attempted murder is a deal-breaker for being lead investigator in a murder case?
by AmericanDreamer on Thu, 02/21/2013 - 11:21am
I was just thinking that this news is less devastating in their system than it would be in ours because he won't be tried by a jury but by a judge and two magistrates. Though it's still pretty pitiful and I can imagine the judge and magistrates struggling to find a line where they aren't just punishing law enforcement for incompetence and forgetting all about the victim. There are so many outrageous things besides the simple fact of assigning this guy--leaving a bullet behind, not getting the cell phone used....
Got hints of something similar to the OJ case, where in the initial investigation, responding cops are eager to believe the celebrity and don't take the crime scene seriously, they are influenced by their knowledge of the celeb, that "this is a decent person, not a criminal." Which is, ironically, how we often wish cops would approach citizens in general.
by artappraiser on Thu, 02/21/2013 - 12:22pm
by artappraiser on Thu, 03/07/2013 - 3:04am