In this social-media age, disturbed threat-makers and hostage-takers post their own running Facebook updates on their ongoing police standoffs. Now it's happened three times within a month. Thursday, it was a 23-year-old man updating his Facebook friends on the progress of his heavily armed freak-out, and on Sept. 21, a guy about the same age was explaining how he "cant take it no more im done bro" as he held a businessman hostage in a Pittsburgh office building.
ON SEPT. 8 in Denver, one holed-up Facebook gunman even posted pictures of himself and his alleged partner in crime during the standoff.
Of course, then there was the Utah one in June and some others last year. To put this recent phenomenon in sociological terms . . . WTF, dude? I'm afraid to check how many folks have live tweeted their tactical staredowns with the men from SWAT. The latest standoff, the Washington meltdown with an firepower at hand, is reputed to have a shameless hussy at its root. Of course. And Levi Matthew Tucker (use of the middle name here is gratuitous -- if he had killed someone, it would be mandatory) apparently is a big fan of both guns and the tea party.
A 29-year-old man killed in a confrontation with Omaha police officers early Sunday near 30th and Pratt Streets was on a 48-hour furlough from the Community Corrections Center of Lincoln.
Jermaine Lucas of Omaha began serving five to eight years in the Nebraska Department of Corrections on Dec. 7, 2010, for being a felon in possession of a gun. Robert Houston, the director of the Nebraska Department of Corrections, said Lucas started his 11th furlough on Friday.
Houston said it's a rare occurrence for an inmate to run into trouble with the law while on an unsupervised release.
(snip)
Lucas was no stranger to police and had a long arrest record. Police have said in the past that they believed him to be a member of the 29th Street Bloods gang.
In 2006, Lucas and another suspected 29th Street Bloods member, Jimmy Levering, were charged in connection with the fatal shooting of Kenny Miller, 24, outside a convenience store at 24th Street and Redick Avenue.
Levering was charged as the shooter, and Lucas was accused of driving Levering from the scene.
Prosecutors said charges against both men were dropped after witnesses, fearing retaliation, refused to testify.
In 2010, Levering was sentenced to 30 months in federal prison for being a felon in possession of ammunition after police found him with two .45-caliber bullets during a Jan. 29 traffic stop. He died in May 2011 after being shot in the head outside the Club Seville at 30th and Pratt Streets.
JUSTICE doesn't always happen as we expect, or by ordinary legal means, but it usually occurs. One way or another. On earth or in the great beyond.
Hurricanes can't shut down Waffle House. What's a little wind and rain? Hell, for all I know, nuclear war and/or the Apocalypse couldn't keep the legendary short-order chain from scatterin', smotherin' and coverin' the hash browns . . . and probably anything else you desired. If hostile space aliens mounted an invasion of Earth tomorrow and came across a Waffle House, my best guess is that they'd be so busy assimilating waffles and chili-covered hash browns, they'd never get around to exterminating the human race at all.
And when they had sated themselves, they'd wobble away on their spindly, green little legs shouting "OOP! BLOOP! QUARK! FLEEGAMATRONICS!" That's space-invader speak for "I love you, man!"
"Y'all come back!" the gal at the register would reply with a friendly wave goodbye.
NOPE, nothing can turn out the lights at Waffle House.
Well, except for one thing: the long arm of the law. Baton Rouge, La., police were not amused -- well, maybe they were a little -- to find the lights on and a party going on at one Waffle House late into the Isaac-tossed night after a 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew took effect Wednesday.
Here's the story from a bemused reporter from WAFB television, which a generation of baby-boomer Baton Rougeans grew up knowing as "big, booming, powerful Channel 9":
The streets were bare through most of the city, but it was like a party at the Waffle House on College Drive.
"Four o'clock this afternoon, you could hardly get in the door it was so busy," said Karl Landry. "It was packed. Matter of fact, the waitress told me they had to lock the doors at 5:00 to be able to clean up."
It was one of just a handful of places open as Isaac's winds and rain lashed the Capital City, which is why Karl Landry visited the restaurant three times Wednesday.
"We're here for the food," said Leah Couvillion. "Our power is currently out, so the air conditioning and the nice break to have some food and to get together is really nice."
"I'm very appreciative to Waffle House for being the only thing in town that's open," added another customer.
However, there was one problem. With the curfew still in place, the restaurant was not supposed to be open.
"I'm sorry, they're closed," an officer said. "We're under a curfew for the town, so I'm going to have to ask you to go home."
The curfew is in effect until till 6 a.m., so officers with the Baton Rouge Police Department spent the night making their rounds and forcing shops to shut down, sending employees and potential customers home.
"No one told us, so we came here and they told us and we were like, 'Oops,'" said one customer forced to leave.
"It's pretty devastating. I'll be honest. I mean, it wasn't that serious of a storm, so we thought Waffle House would be open serving us hash browns," Couvillion added.
HERE'S A TIP for corporate: It's Louisiana, y'all. I reckon that if a cute and buxom waitress had waved a plate of scattered, covered and smothered in front of the local constabulary, Baton Rouge's finest might not have actually failed to enforce curfew, but I bet they would have taken their sweet time about it.
Just as soon as they'd finished off a late supper at a Southern institution. And a couple or three cups of coffee.
This means I have grown accustomed to looking to local government for, well . . . government. This means I've grown unaccustomed to looking to local government for entertainment.
Then another hurricane hits Louisiana and I end up glued to the computer, watching the hometown TV news online, and suddenly I'm confronted by some clown dressed unconvincingly in police casual as he tries to rock it like Clint Eastwood rockin' it like Dirty Harry.
Again, unconvincingly.
And I'm thinking "What the f*** is this?" THIS THOUGHT LASTS for a split second. Of course, it's the mayor of Baton Rouge, Kip Holden (right).
And of course, it's a hurricane. Hurricanes mean that Baton Rouge mayors have to start acting all bad ass -- it's a city ordinance or something, I think.
They have to tell people obvious things as if the fine citizens are abject morons -- which, of course, many are. They have to threaten to arrest all those potential offenders of the public order, throw their asses in jail and then laugh when Yankee civil-rights advocates demand that arrestees be supplied with soap on a rope.
I think I even saw Kip do that corner-of-the-lip thing. He even may have said "punk" a couple of times, but don't hold me to that. I was laughing pretty hard -- it all was soooooooo Baton Rouge.
I MEAN, if you were a looter, would you be deterred by the sight of . . . that?
Me neither. By the way, nice flat screen you have there, Your Worship. And you keep the jewelry and cash where again?
And for what it's worth, I think the Boss Hogg look (top) would work a lot better for you. And if you could have a joint press briefing with Gov. Bobby Jindal when he's doing his "Mister Rogers on speed" act, that would be great.
Working in a stout former bank building with windows closed and air conditioners humming, Orleans County, Vt., sheriff's deputies didn't know what was happening in their parking lot until a neighbor called 911. A man on a big farm tractor, angry about his recent arrest for resisting arrest and marijuana possession, was rolling across their vehicles -- five marked cruisers, one unmarked car and a transport van. By the time they ran outside, the tractor was down the driveway and out onto the road.
With their vehicles crushed, "We had nothing to pursue him with," said Chief Deputy Philip Brooks.
Thursday afternoon's incident ended when city police in Newport, the county seat of the northern Vermont county, caught up with Roger Pion, 34, a short distance away.
No one was injured. At least two deputies had gone inside a few moments before after washing their vehicles, officials said.
"Nobody was hurt. That's the thing everybody's got to cherish," said Sheriff Kirk Martin.
Vermont State Police said in a statement that Pion would face seven counts of felony unlawful mischief, one count of misdemeanor unlawful mischief, one count aggravated assault on a law enforcement officer, one count of gross negligent operation, and one count of leaving the scene of an accident.
The trouble with booze is it just makes some idiots -- even the girls -- think they're Alex Karras.
But they're not, as this article in the Omaha World-Herald once again illustrates:
Three police officers and a horse were needed to take a 20-year-old Omaha woman into custody early Sunday in the Old Market after she intervened in a traffic stop.
Officer Jacob Bettin, a police spokesman, said the three officers all sustained minor injuries including scratches, cuts and bite marks during the incident. The woman was booked into jail for resisting arrest, three counts of assaulting an officer and one count of assaulting a police service animal.
Bettin said the incident began about 1:20 a.m. when the woman approached an officer who had made a traffic stop near 10th and Harney Streets. The woman, who was not part of the traffic stop, approached the officer and became “verbally and physically combative,” he said.
A Council Bluffs mother is in jail, accused of leaving her baby alone in a van, with the doors unlocked, while she went to the supermarket Monday evening.
A passer-by reported hearing a baby in a vehicle about 7:20 p.m. near the SuperSaver parking lot, according to the Pottawattamie County Sheriff's Office.
Sheriff Jeff Danker said deputies found the vehicle's windows cracked about 4 inches and the doors unlocked.
The baby girl inside was crying and sweating, so deputies put the child in their vehicle to cool off.
Danker said deputies estimated the baby was alone in the vehicle for 25 to 30 minutes.
The baby's mother told deputies that she ran inside the store for cash and tomatoes for dinner, then forgot the baby was in the van. She also couldn't remember the baby's middle name, calling the child “the new one” a few times, Danker said.
YOU KNOW what the really sad thing is here? The cops believe the woman really is "the new one's" mother.
Unfortunately, there's probably a decent reason we call the Iowa city across the Missouri River "Counciltucky." And even if there isn't, mouth-breathers like Tiffany Tunney (thanks to Channel 7 for putting a name and a mugshot to this story), are doing a great job of confirming Omahans in their prejudices.
Lord have mercy, because right now, I got nothing.
Bad things happen when swamp people get not-so-secret sauced on some resort barroom's high-octane "goo-goo juice."
Ask "Trapper Joe," who found out the hard way that while Louisiana alligators might be marginally meaner than Florida cops, they ultimately lack the power to throw your ass in jail.
Which is where your ass is going to end up when your drunk girlfriend tells Orange County lawmen your drunk self assaulted and battered her, says the TMZ website, which in this case must stand for Too Many Zombies:
Trapper Joe -- real name Noces Joseph LaFont Jr. -- was arrested for assault and battery in Orange County, Florida early Wednesday morning.
According to the arrest report, a witness told police Trapper Joe and his GF were arguing at the Buena Vista Hotel and Spa just after midnight ... and both appeared very drunk.
The witness claims he watched Joe punch the woman in the chest ... and then grab her by the arms and shake her very hard.
The GF told police Joe had received a call on his cell phone ... and she wanted to know who was calling ... but when she reached for his phone, he tried to burn her with a lit cigarette.
I'M SURPRISED they both didn't burst into flames, actually.
Well, at least the Florida cops didn't choot 'em. That's somethin', at least.
If you swing by the Pep Boys on Baldwin in Freeport, N.Y., the bikini-clad lady in the hot dog truck will show you her weenies, and that's OK.
But the long arm of the law on Long Island has a big problem if you return the favor to 45-year-old Catherine Scalia . . . and thus she ended up pleading guilty Tuesday to misdemeanor prostitution, which she instead insisted was merely indecent exposure.
Nude conduct, as it were.
Thus we have the remarkable case in which Lana Lee -- not Ignatius J. Reilly -- ends up hawking Lucky Dogs, but gets into trouble when one transaction ends up being for a Night of Joy. But the saddest thing about the whole thing is not having Burma Jones there to narrate.
Now where's my soiled bedsheet? We need a good banner. How about this? "Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their weenies!"
I shall dub this movement the Crusade for Frankish Dignity. Hot-dog lovers of Long Island! Listen to the voice of the oppressed:
“I’m a mother of four kids and, yes, I show my cleavage," Scalia said. "I think it’s sexy. If Pamela Anderson can do it, so can I.”
Belinda and Paul Berloni were arrested on Sunday after a deputy in a marked patrol car saw the SUV pulling a "small plastic hot wheels car" along an access road, authorities said. The vehicle was going about five to 10 miles per hour, the probable cause affidavit said.
The girl was wearing a bathing suit with no protective gear, authorities said. The toy car was attached to the SUV with two dog leashes tied to the trailer hitch, the affidavit said.
Paul Berloni, 49, smelled of alcohol and his eyes were bloodshot and watery, the affidavit said. When asked for his driver's license, he said it had been revoked for 10 years for a DUI. He also told authorities he had two or three drinks, authorities said. He later said it was more but wasn't specific, the affidavit said.
Belinda Berloni, 47, was in the cargo area with the rear hatch open cheering the little girl on, the affidavit said. She was also intoxicated and said she had a few drinks, authorities said.
She "also stated that she understood that it was dangerous to drag a child behind the vehicle but stated they were just having fun and had been doing it all day," the affidavit said.
Belinda Berloni's son, who is the girl's father, arrived and was upset with his mother. He also said that he believed they had a drinking problem that may have affected their decision making, the affidavit said.
FRANKLY, I'm wondering about Junior's decision making, which he apparently cannot blame on the bottle.
Apparently, the United States has a major Caucasian crime problem.
I mean, get a load of these alarming statistics in an opinion piece by MSNBC political analyst Edward Wyckoff Williams, recently reprinted in the Louisiana Weekly, New Orleans' African-American newspaper:
The truth? As the largest racial group, whites commit the majority of crimes in America. In particular, whites are responsible for the vast majority of violent crimes. With respect to aggravated assault, whites led Blacks 2-1 in arrests; in forcible-rape cases, whites led all racial and ethnic groups by more than 2-1. And in larceny theft, whites led Blacks, again, more than 2-1.
Given this mathematical truth, would anyone encourage African Americans to begin shooting suspicious white males in their neighborhoods for fear that they’ll be raped, assaulted or murdered? Perhaps George Zimmerman’s defenders should answer that question. If African Americans were to act as irrationally as Zimmerman did, would any rationale suffice to avoid arrest?
(snip)
It seems that the media in general and white American society in particular prefer to focus on crime perpetrated by African Americans because it serves as a way to absolve them from the violence, prejudice and institutionalized discrimination engendered for generations against Blacks. It offers a buffer against responsibility, a way to shift blame and deflect cause and effect. But the truth, and numbers, tell a different story.
NO DOUBT about it,this"mathematical truth" certainly gives one pause.
I cannot conceive of any rationale that possibly could justify arresting any black American who did any damn thing to a dangerous Caucasian, the raw crime numbers being what they are. I mean, when you have a white population 5.74 times as large as the U.S. black population raping and committing larceny TWICE as much as blacks -- hell, getting arrested period twice as much as blacks -- I don't see how the government just doesn't lock up every last damn cracker on the probabilities alone.
Naturally, some people may be scratching their heads at what they see as a crazy and illogical notion, but that's just because their math is racist.
Oh . . . and as Walker Percy once famously wrote, "The center did not hold."
Whatever the Trayvon Martin shooting was in February, chances are it wasn't a hate crime.
Whatever the Trayvon Martin killing was that cold and rainy night, it wasn't premeditated. Prosecutors admitted that much by not filing first-degree murder charges against George Zimmerman.
But a lot of things being done in the young "martyr's" name absolutely have been premeditated. And they absolutely were hate crimes.
ONE OF the latest happened Saturday in Mobile, Ala. The story comes from WKRG television there:
According to police, Owens fussed at some kids playing basketball in the middle of Delmar Drive about 8:30 Saturday night. They say the kids left and a group of adults returned, armed with everything but the kitchen sink.
Police tell News 5 the suspects used chairs, pipes and paint cans to beat Owens.
Owens' sister, Ashley Parker, saw the attack. "It was the scariest thing I have ever witnessed." Parker says 20 people, all African American, attacked her brother on the front porch of his home, using "brass buckles, paint cans and anything they could get their hands on."
Police will only say "multiple people" are involved.
What Parker says happened next could make the fallout from the brutal beating even worse. As the attackers walked away, leaving Owen bleeding on the ground, Parker says one of them said "Now that's justice for Trayvon." Trayvon Martin is the unarmed teenager police say was shot and killed February 26 by neighborhood watch captain George Zimmerman in Sanford, Florida.
BACK IN FLORIDA this past winter, it's probably true that Zimmerman profiled Martin because of his age, gender . . . and race.
Given what's happened since that day in February -- not to mention the daily diet of violent-crime reports on TV and in the newspaper -- why do you think that might have been? It doesn't make profiling any less sad. Nor does it make profiling any less regrettable.
But it sure as hell makes it quite understandable.
In the real world, thugs don't get to complain about brutality. And unjust, violent mobs don't get to whine about injustice. That dog won't hunt.
When you can put "rapper" and "Denham Springs, La." in the same sentence, you know things just aren't going to end well.
And when the rapper in question is a fella named "O G Smoov" . . . one of whose "hits" is "Dat's My Ho" . . . released on Pure Dope Records . . . which has a music video shot with a cell phone . . . you have just arrived at the intersection of hip-hop and irony.
Not a 'Smoov' move by local rapper; arrested, faces prison time
A rapper from the Denham Springs area has been arrested after police executed a search warrant and found 454 grams of Marijuana, three doses of Alprazalom and a .25 caliber hand gun.
The search warrant was executed after the rapper, Keith Johnson, AKA 'O G Smoov' recently released a rap recording entitled "Still Smoov Till I Lose Life." The photo on the CD cover shows O G Smoov holding a handgun while kneeling over the bloodied body of another man.
Johnson, who was convicted of shooting a woman in 1991 and convicted of numerous counts of illegal drug possession charges over the last 20 years, cannot legally possess a firearm.
Keith Johnson, 39, has been charged with one count of possession of marijuana with intent to distribute, one count of possession of Alprazolam, one count of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, and one count of possession of a firearm with a controlled dangerous substance.
I'M SURE Mr. Smoov is explaining to his attorney that it's a bad rap.
With that, the world wholeheartedly agrees.
Wait . . . he means the criminal charges? Oh. Well, no, chances are he's screwed on that account.
In any event, I'll bet I know the last thing this caged bird wants to hear his cellmate singing:
I just love how principled and socially conscious today's young people are, don't you?
When faced with the senseless shooting death of a Miami teenager amid questionable circumstances, these south Florida high-school youth responded by giving the rest of us a much-needed lesson in civics. A lesson in responsibly seeking redress of societal grievances.
They peacefully and respectfully demonstrated in favor of a full and fair investigation of the death of Trayvon Martin, calling for racial harmony and enforcement of the law free of favor or prejudice. Bless their little hearts.
The youth remained orderly, looking straight ahead as they sang hymns while an angry white mob ransacked North Miami Beach Senior High School, pummeling and spitting upon many of the nonviolent teens.
OOPS.My bad. I was watching a web video of Eyes on the Prize while I was checking out the national news, and I got kind of confused.
Note to self: Contemporary TV news reports are never on 16-millimeter back-and-white film. It's all videotape or digital video now . . . and in living color.
THE FOOTAGE from Friday's teenage protest in North Miami Beach is immediately above. Again, my apologies for the mix-up.
No, it seems that during last week's protest, a mob of little barbarian hooligans decided that "justice for Trayvon" entailed ransacking a local Walgreens.
This is because, for one thing, being angry justifies anything in today's culture and, for another, rumor has it that George Zimmerman, the Sanford, Fla., neighborhood-watch guy who shot the youth last month, "liked" the drugstore chain on Facebook once. I think.
Local 10 television news got it straight from the junior lynch mob's mouths:
"I don't think they were doing it, like, to be malicious or whatever. They were just in the moment where they weren't really thinking right because they were so angry," said student Jenny Sincere.
"It showed bad character because that's not what we were out there for," student Eric On-Sang said. "A few just made us look really bad."
Some students admitted Tuesday to being part of the rampage.
"I'm not going to lie. I was one of the people that was pushing in there because I was mad," one student said.
When asked whether the incident may have hurt their cause, student Christopher Paul said, "Yeah, it kind of did, yeah. I was just angry. I don't know what the rest of them were doing. I was just trying to make a point for Trayvon. That's it."
WELL, so long as they were trying to make a point.
Back in the bad old days, not every victim of a white lynch mob was innocent.
History, rightly, has been no kinder to those who dragged a guilty black man off to the nearest lamp post or tree, put a rope around his neck and hanged him than its unblinking eye has been to those who did the same to an innocent African-American. Justice always has been more about the process -- and fairness -- than it has been about the outcome.
All earthly justice requires is that we do right, play fair and hope for the best. Ultimate justice, we must remember, is not in our hands.
Of course, history also -- unavoidably -- loves irony. That's because people so often forget their own history . . . and its lessons. Fairness is always all about us, not the other guy.
And especially not about The Other guy.
Welcome to the transformation of a movement that started out as a quest for "justice" for Trayvon Martin, a Florida teenager shot to death by a "citizens patrol" volunteer. Now it's just a photo-negative version of an old-time Southern lynch mob.
It probably is no surprise this is happening in a state long noted for its citizens' inability to work and play well with one another.
PERSONALLY, I think the neighborhood-watch guy, George Zimmerman, well might be guilty of something in the shooting of the 17-year-old. That's my judgment based on extremely incomplete information from the national press -- the same information the lynch mob for "justice" is going on. Probably more, actually.
I think the guy probably was a paranoid-type police wannabe who stereotyped a harmless kid because he looked like the unending bad news out of black America, as reported by your local Eyewitness Action NewsCenter team. I think Zimmerman decided he was Dirty Harry, got in way over his head, things got out of hand, the man with handgun panicked . . . and an innocent kid ended up dead.
I think Zimmerman could be convicted of something, but likely not premeditated murder or a "hate crime" -- a term many have thrown around recklessly. I also think, Florida being Florida, that the guy might get off scot-free.
I believe Florida just might burn before all this is over with.
Of course, my opinion is worth exactly what you paid for it. And so are those of the "Justice for Trayvon" protesters.
In our system, the only opinions that are supposed to matter are a judge's and jury's. Right now, "justice" has nothing to do with an arrest. Justice has everything to do with ensuring a full and fair investigation.
Justice likewise has nothing to do with media tripe like the NewsOne (for Black America) blurb convicting Zimmerman of first-degree murder before the man is even arrested for . . . anything. In legal terms, this is what is called "actionable."
In journalism school, this is what we learned not to do if we didn't want to get sued to Kingdom Come. All is fair in love and lynchings, however.
Just like the "Pussy Ass Cracker" shirt now being sold, according to The Smoking Gun. The one with George Zimmerman's face on it.
Then again, if you're already lynching somebody, there's not exactly any point in not being racist about it.
Meet the black boss. Same as the white boss. We'll get fooled again.
Face it: your body is confusing. But it’s important to get to know your body — where things are, how things work, and how to care for yourself — so you can make good decisions about your sexual health.
You don't need to worry about whether your breasts, penis, vulva, or any other parts of your body are normal. When it comes to our bodies, different IS normal. Here's how different our bodies can be.
The local head of Planned Parenthood no doubt was just trying to explain to the fine folks of Lubbock, Texas, that "different is normal."
I mean, if this week's allegations align with the naked truth, it wouldn't surprise anyone.
Right?
Unfortunately for Tony Thornton, the oppressive forces of ignorance -- otherwise known as Lubbock police -- were in no mood to celebrate our bodies (or their diversity) and threw him into the county lockup, alleging indecent exposure. According to the cops, the guardian of local sexual health was showing God and everybodyjust how normal was his (ahem) "body."
At 3:30 in the afternoon.
At the baseball fields in a local park.
ADMIRABLY, local television station KCBD refrained from any cracks about "bats and balls" or "bringing the wood."
The CEO and President of the Planned Parenthood Association of Lubbock has been arrested for exposing himself in public. Lubbock police say Tony Thornton, 56, was arrested just before 3:30 Monday afternoon at the baseball fields inside of Mackenzie Park.
He was arrested for indecent exposure and transported to the Lubbock County Detention Center where he remained until 11 a.m. Tuesday, when he posted a bond of $750.
According to a receptionist who answered the telephone at Planned Parenthood's office Tuesday afternoon, Thornton was out of the office for the entire day. Tuesday evening, KCBD NewsChannel 11 went to Thornton's home, but he did not answer the door.
According to Texas Penal Code 21.08, indecent exposure is committed when a suspect exposes his genitals with the intent to arouse the sexual desire of another person. It's a class B misdemeanor.
NEITHER Thornton nor Planned Parenthood's national office had any comment.
Neither was there any word on whether the accused Planned Parenthood executive would be pleading "educational outreach" or "practicing for a new teen sex-ed video."
I don't believe in torture. I am willing, however, to consider an exception to this for certain multinational bankers after watching the above WSB-TV report. Others well to my right, though, might think the real problem down in Georgia is that Fulton County sheriff's deputies are a bunch of squishy-soft socialists. For refusing to throw a 103-year-old woman and her 83-year-old daughter out of their house and onto the street after Deutsche Bank AG and JPMorgan Chase foreclosed on them, with the blessing of a local judge.
Chase, which services the loan for Deutsche Bank, took $25 billion in TARP money from the American taxpayer after investment bankers blew up the U.S. economy. And those who received much financial mercy from the American government and people showed none to two little old ladies in the dead of winter.
That is, until the TV cameras showed up, and the cops discovered that sometimes the law is no fit thing for a just man to enforce.
26At that, the servant fell down, did him homage, and said, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay you back in full.’
27Moved with compassion the master of that servant let him go and forgave him the loan.
28 When that servant had left, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a much smaller amount. He seized him and started to choke him, demanding, ‘Pay back what you owe.’
29Falling to his knees, his fellow servant begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.’
30But he refused. Instead, he had him put in prison until he paid back the debt.
31Now when his fellow servants saw what had happened, they were deeply disturbed, and went to their master and reported the whole affair.
33Should you not have had pity on your fellow servant, as I had pity on you?’
34Then in anger his master handed him over to the torturers until he should pay back the whole debt.
35So will my heavenly Father do to you, unless each of you forgives his brother from his heart.”
WATERBOARDING:It's not just for Muslim "enemy combatants."
I wonder whether the present crop of publicly God-fearing Republican presidential candidates -- some of whom are chomping at the bit to torture somebody . . . anybody -- are willing to go there with the very folks the Bible says have it coming. Their pals the bankers. Something tells me the answer is no.
Dear Sigmund, I hope you will forgive me for going all Jung on you here, but I think these Black Friday ads for the Target discount chain somehow are an expression of one facet of Western civilization's collective unconscious, which, I am happy to report to you, seems to be linked somehow to your observation of our death drive -- our Thanatos syndrome, as it were.
I say these are an expression of our collective unconscious -- again, apologies for the Jungian theorizing -- because they seemingly are presented quite unwittingly by Madison Avenue as an inducement to self-annihilation. Ironically, they urge us into mortal consumerist combat with one another by exposing to us our unified (violent?) subconscious (a super Id, perhaps?) under the guise of humor. Look at what I mean here.
THE ACTRESS in these television commercials urges us on toward consumerist combat -- literal combat, given the statistical probability based upon years of observational data -- thus bringing us closer psychically and physically to the obliteration we unconsciously crave, in the service of wholly materialist objectives which at best serve only as a temporary distraction to our collective sense of alienation and despair.
I sense this may somehow be related to the Oedipus complex, though I am unsure of this.
FINALLY, as the Target advertisements urge us on toward unfulfilling aggression and, re: Durkheim, anomie, the TV spots simultaneously transcend the primary function and become pure metaphor for what we are as a society and what the consumerist imperative demands even more intently of us.
What I am wondering, Sigmund, is this: Do you suppose it may be that Thanatos, as it were, is one and the same as Jung's collective unconscious? Has it always been thus, or is this a new evolutionary stage that inevitably leads to extinction -- one quite random and pointless as the dinosaurs' by asteroid impact?
Can this be true, Sigmund? Alternatively, could the apparent self-destructive goal of evolution be a means of making room for the emergence of yet-higher life forms?
Hippies back in the day had a name for cops like the Tennessee highway patrolmen captured in action by an arrested reporter's still-running video camera.
That would be "fascist pigs."
You know, the kind who body-slam a working member of the media to the ground as he tries to get out of their way. The kind heard trumping up phony charges against him on the spot.
If Nashville Scene reporter Jonathan Meador was publicly intoxicated Friday night, sobriety in Tennessee must be a state so grim as to provoke unending suicidal musings.
Another round of arrests is under way at Legislative Plaza, where just after midnight some 20 Occupy Nashville protesters linked arms, awaiting arrest in violation of the Capitol's newly enacted curfew. A 10-minute warning was issued at approximately midnight, and some 60 to 75 Tennessee state troopers stood ready to enforce it.
Among those under arrest is evidently Scene reporter Jonathan Meador, who has been covering the protests. A fellow reporter asked the trooper arresting Meador if he really intended to lock up a journalist there to cover the events. According to the reporter, the trooper replied, "You want to be next?"
BENITO MUSSOLINI'S Blackshirts, no doubt, were scarcely less professionalthan this.
You have the law, and then you have a lawful society. Some of the most thuggish and lawless regimes on earth are exceedingly scrupulous in their application of "the law." I'm thinking of the Chinese troops at Tienanmen Square, for one.
ALL ACROSS America, we see the kind of law that's scrupulously enforced when it comes to a bunch of people engaging in civil disobedience to make the point -- one obvious to 99 percent of Americans -- that "s***'s f***ed up."That, by the way, was the text of my favorite protest sign ever, seen during an Occupy New Orleans march through the French Quarter week before last.
Then we have the law that's scrupulously ignored when Wall Street investment bankers blow up a nation's economy while enriching themselves to a degree far surpassing any measure of "obscene." An official wink and Gallic shrug, of course, comes only if lawmakers haven't been scrupulously bought in the service of scrupulously deregulating all manner of financial shenanigans that once were scrupulously forbidden.
But if one points that out, we have laws today (and "fascist-pig" enforcers) to deal with inconvenient truth-tellers . . . and the ones who document what they're saying.
Like "resisting arrest" and "public intoxication."
Of course, then there was the Utah one in June and some others last year. To put this recent phenomenon in sociological terms . . . WTF, dude?
