The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age

    Rep. Peter King at the pearly gates.

    By Oxy Mora on Fri, 12/05/2014 - 10:57am |

    Rep. King has appeared at the pearly gates and stands gaping up at Saint Peter who is about seven feet tall, weighs in at about 450 lbs and is reading notes from a legal pad.

    "I'm a peter too", says King.

    "No doubt", said Saint Peter, " ...it says here that you choked to death on a piece of red meat. How did that make you feel?"

    "I didn't die from the meat", said King, "a small piece of steak got caught in my throat and a waiter runs over yelling Heimlich!, Heimlich!, grabs me by the throat and chokes me to death---everyone in the restaurant was filming it on their cell phones. It was homicidal.

    "Yes, that was....hmm..the waiter...oh yes, LeSean, but he says here that the Heimlich didn't work so he grabbed you by the throat and squeezed hard, hoping that the piece of meat would just pop out. That's not murder or even manslaughter. Can we proceed?", grumbles Saint Peter, looking at the large legal pad full of notes.

    "So you believe the waiter?" snorts King, "you don't know these people like I do".

    "You wanna shut your pie hole" says Saint Peter, "I'm about to drop the trap door right now and I'm only on page one."

    I don't mean to make light of Peter King's rotting tongue remark that Eric Garner might not have died if he hadn't been obese. The remark was so disgusting that I had to reflect on how any person could utter such words without the sense of what it means to be human, to take another person's life, to perpetrate a homicide.  The remark made me wonder about karma, the pearly gates, and "do unto others".

    As I grow longer in the tooth, I think about what it means to be human, to have lived on this earth in this universe. Is life a farce? What is the meaning of it all? The conclusion I reach is that the essential meaning of life is to respect and be kind to others. None of us can achieve perfection in pursuing such goodness, and we all argue, slam doors and make crude remarks about others. But when such a horrific homicide takes place right in front of our eyes and we blame the victim, or blame cigarette taxes, or worry about how we might run into traffic jams or not get a Christmas tree up in time, haven't we already descended into some form of societal Hell?

    I'm not particularly "religious" and only marginally superstitious. But I think Saint Peter got wind of King's remarks and I think the Representative from New York might want to rethink what's in the heart of a man who would make such a sub-human comment as he did---that a man who died fighting for a breath while he was being choked to death brought it all on himself because he was obese.

    Peter King, I'm not now going to say that "what goes around comes around",  but Saint Peter might well say it.

     

     

     

    Comments

    To the management. I can't seem to edit the post after it's published. Need to do a little trimming. What's the procedure for edits? Thanks


    by Oxy Mora on Fri, 12/05/2014 - 12:13pm

    If the cops had choked a dog on video Republicans would likely be with those calling for criminal charges,

    The reaction (or no reaction) from the 12-15 'public servants' when Garner appeared near death, or already dead, on the Daily News video rmrd linked is a disgrace and says it all.

    A fairly large portion of our voting population, King supporters etc, most NYC cops, and many cops/prison guards in other regions, have a moral code little elevated from, say, Waffen SS police in the Warsaw ghetto of 1943. The poor, the black, the mentally ill, are the untermensch, the victims are solely accountable for who they are, and for their unfortunate fates.


    by NCD on Fri, 12/05/2014 - 1:14pm

    I don't know if the problem is getting worse or not, maybe we're just seeing fewer cases more publicized. Hopefully, the ventilation will improve training and these tragedies will eventually stop.

    A day or so after the Michael Brown shooting another black guy was shot in his tracks by two St. Louis white cops. The whole thing was filmed and to me it looked like an execution. But it got no publicity.


    by Oxy Mora on Fri, 12/05/2014 - 3:46pm

    Peter King.

    I would have thought that it was that Iowa King, the one who longs for cantaloupes. hahaha

    Fat folks die faster, especially when five cops attack one of them at a time.

    Peter is usually half way sane.

    But ever so often, he just sounds like another repub!

    I was having problems just deleting comments; my PC had been acting up and I ended up commenting twice, which Momoe caught onto. The best I could do was delete and add one A.

    I have not blogged for a week but we used to get an 'edit' section.

    I used it all the time, especially when Missy would call me on some issue. hahahah

    Great blog!


    by Richard Day on Fri, 12/05/2014 - 1:52pm

    Thanks, Mr. Day.

    There used to be an edit button on the published piece, not now. Then when I make edits and hit save, even when I'm a good guy and explain my intentions, the edits don't translate into the published piece. As you are wont to say, I dunno.


    by Oxy Mora on Fri, 12/05/2014 - 3:54pm

    I still get an edit button on my "In the News" posts, accessed on my own Tracking BUT I have had another major problem with this site for the last few weeks and have been wondering why no one else is mentioning it: I often get a page with 404 Not Found nginx/1.4.7 instead of any one page on this site, including the home page and many other addresses here. If I am lucky, and try reload ten times I get the site, but then it is agonizingly slow. Example: it took like a full minute to get the reply boxes for these comments and then like 30 seconds to post the comments themselves. It doesn't happen on other websites

    The first time it happened, I figured Mike is maybe working on the site and fixing it so I said nothing. But now it's not getting better but worse, I was thinking maybe he is having trouble with the server or something. But I thought it odd that I didn't see anyone else mentioning it. This is coming from someone who doesn't know geekity much at all: It does look like something that would affect different systems, internet services and different browsers in different ways, that in my case, nothing loads, in other cases, maybe they get part of the page but not all of it, like certain buttons?

    Anyone else having the problem? I sure don't have time these days to wait for long to use it. Only do it when I absolutely crave this kind of break. If others are experiencing, I cannot imagine that it is not affecting traffic and participation.


    by artappraiser on Fri, 12/05/2014 - 6:38pm

    Likewise.


    by Oxy Mora on Fri, 12/05/2014 - 7:07pm

    Yes, it's getting worse. Almost every page is extremely slow to load, and 404 error messages are increasingly common. I've run into Oxy's exact problem recently - trying to revise a previously published Reader's Blog. All the changes appeared to be accepted, but when "saved" nothing happened. And I've previously noted that I can't use Preview if composing a post in Reader's - though it works in Creative Corner. All of these issues have occurred in the last few weeks.


    by barefooted on Fri, 12/05/2014 - 8:06pm

    Guys, almost always seems to get better late at night, like right now. Which is another thing that makes me think it some kind of a server issue, where we are sharing space with a lot of traffic during the day and not getting much of it, getting throttled, along the lines of the whole net neutrality thingie?


    by artappraiser on Sat, 12/06/2014 - 12:04am

    Hey guys, I know what caused the edit issue and will look into it.

    Not so sure about the slowness and 404 errors, which I haven't seen myself. Our server should have plenty of capacity. If one of you sees the issue again, please email me at [my-last-name]@yahoo.com, and I'll see if I can reproduce and troubleshoot it.


    by Michael Wolraich on Sat, 12/06/2014 - 12:47am

    Thanks Mike. Right now the site is working speedier than it has in weeks for me. I will try to find the time to report if I get 404's again. Appreciate all your behind the scenes work, it's a constant nightmare, I am sure.


    by artappraiser on Sat, 12/06/2014 - 3:26pm

    I second that. We don't mean to be ingrates.

     


    by Oxy Mora on Sat, 12/06/2014 - 4:13pm

    Thank you, Michael. It's good that you notice when issues are reported, but even better when you let us know that you have.


    by barefooted on Sat, 12/06/2014 - 5:02pm

    I just got a bunch of 404's on this site trying to click on comments.  When I have time I will come back and try again.  I have to go and learn how to do a MLA citation and teach it to my little grandson.tomorrow.  We have been using easy bib in our ignorance. 


    by trkingmomoe on Sat, 12/06/2014 - 9:53pm

    I saw the 404 bug. It seems like CPU is overloaded, but I'm not sure why. Will try to figure it out.


    by Michael Wolraich on Sun, 12/07/2014 - 7:32pm

    Bad Fan? CPU overheating? 


    by Resistance on Sun, 12/07/2014 - 10:22pm

    The site has been running slow for a while.  I get 404 error often. I even get the 404 after I hit the save button on a comment after a long wait for it to post.  I just open up a new page and see if it has posted and delete the page I was working in on chrome.  I haven't posted for a while because I have not had the time.  I don't get double posts because my router is as slow as the dag site but I also had malware that I had to clean out of my chrome. The Hits of the day doesn't seem to have anything after you click the more button for me.  I noticed that when I was tracking my peanut butter cookie recipe that has had lots of hits.  

    It looks like Mike will have his hands full with maintenance on the site until it is running smooth.  


    by trkingmomoe on Fri, 12/05/2014 - 8:39pm

    If a blogging violation is committed, it is my duty as an authorized reader of this site to confront the perpetrator of said violation. Should the suspect resist my commands to cease and desist, Dagblog regulations clearly state that minimal force is allowed, if necessary, to restrain the suspect. In this instance, no excessive pressure was applied to the blogger's computer or keyboard. Moreover, it was never my intention to inhibit his writing in any way. Published accounts to the contrary notwithstanding, it is fair and just that no indictment for "calling him on it" be issued.


    by barefooted on Fri, 12/05/2014 - 5:06pm

    Thanks, barefooted. We are duly warned.


    by Oxy Mora on Fri, 12/05/2014 - 7:01pm

    I heartily endorse this blog because --

    One of my passionate pet peeves is the current societal preference of assigning the overweight to a category of Untermenschen (thank you, NCD for the excellent verbiage) due to supposed moral failings.

    I've never been overweight in my life, have always eaten to my heart's content and have been shocked at what has happened to the weight of others whom I have lived with who eat less than I do and maintain a healthier lifestyle than I do. I truly believe that in like 80% of cases, it has little to do with willpower or morals and in that it is little different than ethnicity or skin color. Throw in that in different eras and cultures the overweight have been the elite rather than a category of Untermenschen, and you have a prejudice that is very similar to many other nasty ones.


    by artappraiser on Fri, 12/05/2014 - 6:24pm

    Artsy, thanks for the endorsement and the always thoughtful comments. I agree that some people are genetically prone to putting on more weight than others.

    Of course, King's remarks are a purposeful stereotyping of "those people". He followed the remark by talking about white guys being taken into custody always complaining also about the treatment, etc., but then didn't mention whether the outcomes were also lethal. I truly think King might want to avoid the NY strip.(that's what they call it in Texas).

     


    by Oxy Mora on Fri, 12/05/2014 - 6:51pm

    Hey guys, I made a change that will hopefully fix the 404s and sluggishness. Please let me know if you still see issues.

    Still working on the edit post problem.


    by Michael Wolraich on Mon, 12/08/2014 - 6:45pm

    Many thanks. And I await your new inspirations.  


    by Oxy Mora on Mon, 12/08/2014 - 7:31pm

    I fell on the ice and screwed up my lower back.

    That was two weeks ago and the problem cleared up without medication.

    So on Saturday I fell again and now the pain is in my left rib cage. I mean it only hurts when I breath real hard or cough.

    can you do anything about this?


    by Richard Day on Tue, 12/09/2014 - 6:26pm

    See if the pain clears up if you go without breathing for a day.


    by Verified Atheist on Tue, 12/09/2014 - 6:27pm

    See, and everyone says we are all on our own.

    hhahahaahahah


    by Richard Day on Tue, 12/09/2014 - 8:04pm

    I once cracked a rib vaulting head over heel on a ski pole, So could be a cracked rib---but you better have it looked at. If it's a cracked rib, one just has to give it some time. My worst time was getting up in the morning. Hope you get it resolved and feel better.


    by Oxy Mora on Tue, 12/09/2014 - 6:47pm

    You may have a hairline rib fracture, which hurts like hell but won't kill you. An OTC pain reliever might help if you don't want to see a doctor for something stronger. And lay off the ice skating for awhile!


    by barefooted on Tue, 12/09/2014 - 6:54pm

    Normally I would suggest three sinus advil and a quart of classic coke. But the damned oppressive gummit (and Breaking Bad) made it so hard to get the tablets it hurts more to be oppressed than than it does to have a headache or cracked rib.. Next it'll be coke you can't get none of.  Damn gummit.


    by Oxy Mora on Tue, 12/09/2014 - 7:07pm

    I'm pretty sure you're not allowed to get coke now - especially by the quart.


    by barefooted on Tue, 12/09/2014 - 7:20pm

    There is some truth in all of this.

    I just get three bucks worth of aspirin and remember to have some coffee.

    It is cheaper than anacin and it does the job.

    Caffeine and aspirin do the job, eventually!

    Worked for the low back!


    by Richard Day on Tue, 12/09/2014 - 8:46pm

    Please keep us posted on your recover.  I think I made this suggestion before to keep some emergency food ahead so you don't have to go out when the weather is iced over or bitter cold. Falling is a scary thing at our age.  It seems once you fall and hurt yourself, you end up with another fall because you are off balance from the first hurt. I usually take the generic Aleve and curl up to the heating pad. 


    by trkingmomoe on Wed, 12/10/2014 - 4:01am