There are few occasions for international irritation more abrasive than the refusal by one sovereign to honor the request of another that a fugitive from justice be surrendered to the tribunals if the aggrieved nation.

Recall that the proximate casus belli for the longest war in American history was the refusal by the Taliban rump Afghan government to extradite Osama Bin Laden.

In case you didn’t notice, with all the recent fanfare involving ground-breaking Supreme Court decisions, government spying, or the demise of a Southern cooking empire, Texas—where they do everything on a grand scale—carried out its 500^th “modern execution.” Modern, that is to say, since 1982, when the death penalty was resumed in that state.

While the public is thoroughly distracted with unending news and commentary on phone call logs, metadata, roller coaster accidents or the lack of accountability for the murder of a teen in Florida, one lonely article in the New York Times discusses how Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and Blackrock are fleecing the consumer on Main Street with a game of merry go-round played with 1,500 lb. bars of aluminum in the environs of bankrupt Detroit:

The vast majority of people in this country - both Black, White, and others - are good people. While we all have a strain of racism in us, it’s not a conscious racism, and most of us of normal intelligence are engaged in a constant internal struggle to eradicate it when we recognize it in ourselves. What makes it such a struggle is we’re constantly inundated by it in this country, and the reason we try so desperately to weed it out is, being of normal intelligence, we see it for what it is - a form of gross stupidity.

Many bigots in this country are giddy with delight over what they view as a victory for bigotry in the George Zimmerman verdict. But since scientific studies have shown that racist attitudes have a positive correlation with gross ignorance (http://www.livescience.com/18132-intelligence-social-conservatism-racism...), many of them are probably not familiar with the concept of "unintended consequences?"

White conservatives often criticize Black people for being too quick to play what they call "the race card." On the other hand, many Black people criticize America for not being sensitive enough to the reality that race plays in American life. George Zimmerman’s trial for the murder of Trayvon Martin clearly validates the Black community’s point of view.

Unconcern about all the privacy scandals often wraps around "yeah, but it doesn't really affect you, theoretically these things could happen but in real life..."

I made one of those comments out with a friend on 9/10 2001, something about the wisdom of the American people pulling back from too much hysteria.

So here's Texas jailing a teen for violent-sounding (but fairly obvious joking) Facebook comments - now in his 5th month in jail awaiting trial, bail at $500K, charges up to 8 years in jail. Even if he's found innocent, he's served 5 months for a joke.

A little note - Dagblog has a code, Terms Of Service, that we all are obligated to follow as long as we are here. I realize I've passed those bounds myself and so have others. This is a very heated issue and it is wise for all of us to try to watch ourselves.

If you guys have the time, read this entire essay. It was sent to me by a friend from Florida and is written by a gentleman who obviously did not enjoy his experience working at a predominantly black school. If you can make it through, reading stuff like this is very important as it taps in to the mindset of many in our society:

[copied in from a comment for further discussion re: the NSA]

We can skip the word "evil" and just take examples of what citizens might want to know.

While apparently the post office has been scanning envelopes a long time, the use of OCR means they have a huge searchable database of From, To and Date. The recent improvements in data analytics & Big Data means it's trivial to compile that into categories - especially if you link it to Facebook and collected phone metadata - who your friends are, where you work, where you bank, who you call, what organizations you're involved with. Depending on who's sending you mail, they can figure out if you're having credit problems, health issues, seeing a psychiatrist, getting a divorce.

It's been suggested here at Dagblog and elsewhere that focusing so much attention on Edward Snowden is distracting us from the important work of holding our government accountable for the misdeeds Snowden has helped to expose. And while I agree the narrowly framed hero/villain back and forth has some limits, I think it begs a broader, more thoughtful conversation about our evolving attitudes toward Patriotism, especially in the context of foreign policy, as we continue racing through the 21^st Century. The eve of the 237^th anniversary of the approval of the Declaration of Independence seems like as good a time as any to jump into the fray.