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

    The Trayvon Martin Case Writ Large

    There is an interesting article from the New Yorker in the news section that was linked to by Artappraiser. For the purposes of this rant I will only refer to the introduction and not the document the article presents.

    Most people in this country have taken a side in the controversy surrounding the arguably "legal" shooting of Trevon Martin. Everyone I have read here believes that his killing was an appalling injustice, and if the killers actions are protected by law then it is bad law which should be changed. Significantly, we are all speaking out, all venting our outrage, all feeling righteous in our conviction that this is the sort of wrong towards a specific human being which is brought about by the feelings of some, too many, against a class of human beings. The Americans who justify such action are heartless, twisted, racists. So, most everyone here can comfortably blame the other side in our national politics for their attitudes that created the situation which ended in tragic death of a human being who had as much right to walk the planet eating skittles as do any of us. We can blame the other political side because we see the error in their thinking, in their attitudes, and in their solutions. We know better, and we wouldn't allow those things if it was up to us, if it was in our ability to stop or prevent them. Yes, but we, we must speak up, we must demonstrate our outrage. There are lives in the balance. We must make our conscience a comfortable place to rest.

    tmccarthy0's picture

    Politics, the Kennedy Court and Health Care

    If I were a member of the Supreme Court I'd be a bit embarrassed at how easy it is to predict Supreme Court rulings knowing only a few elementary political facts.

    I expect a 5-4 ruling and I expect it to break down along political lines. It shows me this, the Supreme Court is only there to support certain ideology, making this less about the Constitution and more about what it is to hold power for more than 30 years.  This, whether the members of the court care or not this is the problem. They've become, based on Bush v. Gore merely an arbiter that always errs on the side of promoting the political ideology of one side or another. Imagine if  Brown v. Board of Education, Bolling v. Sharpe, Cooper v. Aaron, Gomillion v. Lightfoot, Griffin v. County School Board, Green v. School Board of New Kent County, Lucy v. Adams, Loving v. Virginia had been left for this court to decide, shit, we be where South Africa was in the 1980's in terms of civil rights. We'd be the largest segregated nation on earth!

    Well, let's get past the rant, let's talk about Anthony Kennedy.

    jollyroger's picture

    Dominique Strauss-Kahn: Simple Libertine, or Aggravated Procurer? (#can't catch a break...)

    Just as the Democrats dodged a bullet when John Edwards' primary fortunes went south, soon followed by his reputation for probity, so too did the French Socialist Party, (hopefully to be the party of the new president after Francois Hollande opens a can of run-off whup-fesses on Nicolas Sarkozy), when Strauss-Kahn availed himself of something from the in-room hospitality bar at Sofitel.

    Had his career not cratered here in New York, he would have been just about to enter the lists against Sarkozy (who may have outsmarted himself, if indeed, he was the author of DSK's ensnarement in the attempted rape contretemps) when his frolic at a bunch of run-of-the-mill orgies in Lille resulted in the current charges that he did more than wave his flagpole, but actually flew the pimp flag itself.

    coatesd's picture

    The White House and Your House: Policy Inertia and Organizational Resistance in the On-going Crisis of American Housing

    Ask any of the  Republican presidential hopefuls in this long and drawn out primary season what in general is wrong with the economic policies of the Obama Administration, and they will each tell you that the economy is under-performing now because the current Administration intervenes in its workings too frequently and too heavily. They will each tell you that the private sector has not yet rebounded with sufficient vigor from the recession of 2008-9 because the footprint of the federal government is everywhere – everywhere too present and everywhere too controlling.

    That standard Republican litany has one particularly unfortunate consequence – at least for potential Republican voters. It prevents any of the Party’s would-be presidential nominees from pointing to areas of American economic and social life in which current under-performance is caused by the lack of adequate federal intervention. Yet there are such areas, and they are areas of genuine Obama weakness. Two in particular spring to mind: inadequate intervention in the U.S. housing market,[1] and inadequate prosecution of banking folly and corruption.[2] Indeed the two are linked: the inability or unwillingness of the Obama Administration to adequately prosecute and control the economy’s major financial institutions is now one further cause of its inability to rapidly and effectively resolve the U.S. housing crisis.

    And there still is a major U.S. housing crisis.

    tmccarthy0's picture

    Justice for Treyvon and White Privilege

    I have two sons, they are 25 and 21. They are not black. They are tall, 6'3 and 6'4, dirty blond hair, one has a crew cut, one's hair a tiny bit longer, one with hazel eyes and one with sea green eyes.

    Last year I arrived home from my yearly trip to Manila. I went alone in 2011 and spent time with my parents. I arrived home February 21, 2011. The next day I was beat, jet lag, everything that goes with the trip home. I asked my son, who was 20 at that time, if I gave him a list and some money would he do some shopping for me, I was much too tired to be driving to the store let alone trying to shop. As usual, as he is a sweet boy err ummm man he said, sure mom.

    He brought home the 2 gallons of organic milk, jazz apples, veggies and salad. It was a small list, not much. He got home, and he I said thanks and he went back to the basement.

    Richard Day's picture

    SE DEFENDENDO

    Se Defendendo was a Latin phrase indicating acquittal for murder based upon self defense.

    I had previously written of this wonder cache of original documents from the Old Bailey (duly archived and translated into modern printing with pictures of the original documents) dating from 1674 to 1913.

    Using this site's search mechanisms I was only able to locate 10 cases out of hundreds upon hundreds of cases where a defendant was charged with 'murther' and was acquitted on the basis of Se Defendendo.

    Ten cases over a 238 year span?

    In local news....

    John Edwards and the ''Millionaire Madam':

    By Murray Weiss, DNAinfo Criminal Justice Editor / Columnist

    MANHATTAN

    A call girl working for alleged "Millionaire Madam" Anna Gristina told investigators she was paid to have sex with former U.S. Sen. John Edwards when he was in New York raising money for his failed presidential bid, DNAinfo has learned.

     

    Richard Day's picture

    THE REVEREND OSTEEN; HOW DOES IT FEEL?

    I have never seen a more disingenuous personage on the American Stage than Joel Osteen.

    Melodrama was an art a hundred years ago; hell a thousand years ago.

    We are confronted in literature and on the screen with melodramatic charlatans forever.

    Team Me

    This is not political.  It's personal.  Sometimes, the twain shall meet.

    Since moving in with my mother, last September, I've found that I'm not all I'm cracked up to be.  I thought I had my act together, and that it was my mother who was the fragmented soul.

    Alas.

    My mother was diagnosed with depression-based dementia, last summer.  I was diagnosed with "unemployed and broke".  So we decided I should move in with her, up in PA.  We needed each other.

    I think I wrote about this. 

    Elusive Trope's picture

    The Speed Limit: What Would Mitt Do?

    I recently spent some time driving across a good portion of this fine country and as one might expect I saw a number of maneuvers on our nation's highways that would lead one to conclude we are a nation of idiots.  Or at least a nation that has a good number of idiots.  Actually I would have more choice words for these folks.  And one of the most glaring examples I experienced occurred on I-15 between Salt Lake and Provo, which is currently under serious construction.

    Like most of these incidents of idiocy, the I-15 idiocy revolved around a group of cars wanting to go faster than another group of cars.  The latter group, of which I belong, is usually attempting to drive at or near the speed limit, whereas the former group is seeking to move down the road at speeds 10, 15 or 20 miles per hour faster than the posted limit.

    Richard Day's picture

    THE RAPE OF THE SABINES

    THE RAPE OF THE SABINE WOMEN

     

     

    Richard Day's picture

    LIMBAUGH'S NEW AD CAMPAIGN!


    A coffin shop in Macau

    Media Matters informs that Limbaugh's radio show has lost 98 advertisers over the last few weeks.

    Limbaugh insists that he has thousands of advertisers who request some advertising during his show hoping to reach his premium audiences.

    And some of these new advertisers specifically focus on certain listeners that relate to the subject Limbaugh has been referring to prior to the ad breaks:

    What do these have in common?

    o The New York police department has for years been visiting services in mosques, all over the north east, taking notes, jotting down license plate numbers

    o In Afghanistan we burn objectionable books, even the Koran

    o And a sergeant walks down a rural street and murders 9 children and 7 adults probably mostly women

    They all show that we hate Muslims.

     

    Would Bloomberg and Kelley have staked out St. Patricks? Or a temple in Great Neck? The question answers itself.

     

    tmccarthy0's picture

    2012 -- Year of the Republican Legislative Assault on Women & Privacy

    It is only March of 2012 and already this is turning out to be the year Republicans took their war on women to entirely new heights.

    It might seem like it all began when the powers that be at the Komen Fund decided it was time to get into the game of shutting down Planned Parenthood. Shutting down Planned Parenthood has been a goal of the right since the abortion wars began. Controlling the type of healthcare available to women, effectively renders us children to the state, it's right out of A Handmaid's Tale, it is scary how far some of the foes of reproductive health will go. They do no only employ intimidation through threats of bodily harm, they have coupled that with enacting legislation effectively curtailing the rights of women to be full and total citizens of this country.  It's shameful.

    MuddyPolitics's picture

    Atwater: Romney Won't Win in November

    Master political tactician Lee Atwater once said that “anyone who gets more than a 35-percent negative factor can’t win an election.”
    In the 2012 Republican presidential contest, Mitt Romney is that person.
    According to a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, 39 percent of adults in America view Romney very or somewhat negatively, compared to 28 percent who view the former Massachusetts governor very or somewhat positively.
    “If his negatives are 35 percent and his positives aren’t at least 5 percent higher,” Atwater believed, “it’s politically fatal1.”
    coatesd's picture

    Taking the Republicans to Task: (3) on Smaller Government, Smaller Deficits

    The current front-runners in the fight for the Republican presidential nomination vary far more in their personalities and leadership styles than they do in their problem analysis and policy prescription. Ron Paul apart, their explanation of what is going wrong in contemporary America, and what therefore needs to be done to put things right, is in all its essentials both simple and similar. Taxes are too high. Business regulations are too intrusive. Government programs are too generous. The federal deficit is too large. Their solution is similarly simple and shared: elect a Republican President willing to cut taxes, remove regulations, reduce government spending and bring down the federal debt – do that, and the revival of the American economy awaits us all, just around the corner.

    Oh that it was that simple. But it is not. The claims being made, and the policies being offered, are not just similar: they are also profoundly misguided.

    tmccarthy0's picture

    Weasel Words

    "Those aren't the words I would have used."

    Wait, what? Yes that was Romney's response to a reporter when asked about the Limbaugh controversy. Really Mitt? I say those are Weasel Words!  Mitt don't you understand that saying that is worse than not saying anything at all! Dude seriously. Basically Mitt, you seem to be saying that you fundamentally agree with Rush, Inevitable Mitt is an inevitably weak candidate.

    The last word on Limbaugh

    His latest, about a double standard, is revelatory.

    Limbaugh, having never before encountered a standard, is seeing double after self-propelling headlong into his first ever.

    Sanctorum 2012

    “President Obama once said that he wants everybody in America to go to college.  What a snob.” -- Rick Santorum - Troy, Michigan, Feb 25 2012

    "The Latin phrase sanctum sanctorum is a Latin translation of the biblical term: "Holy of Holies" . -- Wikipedia

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