Amerika, a pictorial study

Here's a scene from Saturday's protest in Salt Lake City.

If this is how Amerika's storm-trooper cops treat a 67-year-old leukemia patient who walks with a cane, how the hell do you think your average able-bodied black man gets treated by police in the 'hood?

The old guy's crime? He was taking pictures when the cops swooped in to "dominate the battlespace."

“I thought they were just coming down the street and all of a sudden they came charging at me,” he told KTVX television. “Ten minutes before the armored vehicles showed up that’s when I got there,” said Tobin. “When I went down there to take pictures there was no mob scene. It was just a bunch of people standing around taking pictures. I was at the end.”

Afterwards, Tobin says a group of people then came to his aid trying to call an ambulance, but one couldn’t get through.

“They stayed with me,” he said. “Bandaged up some of my cuts on my arms.”

Frustrated, Tobin went home. The next morning, he says he received a call from Salt Lake City Police Chief Mike Brown.

“He said that’s not the way the police are supposed to act, and he was going to look into it with internal affairs and the review board, and take action,” said Tobin. “I told him whatever you’re going to do is fine with me.”

Tobin, who has Leukemia, has a visible scratch on his head from his fall.

“My shoulder still hurts a little bit,” he said. “My rib on the back is still sore, but the main problem is my knee.”

If given the chance, Tobin shares what he would tell the officer who knocked him down.

“I’d just say, I hope you don’t do it again.”

I DON'T KNOW exactly at what point your average cop in the United States became your average Nazi storm trooper, but here we are. In the last 10 days, we have heard -- and seen -- story after story after story after story of ordinary, peaceful folk being brutalized by "(fill in the blank's) finest" while "boogaloo bois," vandals, looters and arsonists run amok as America recoils in civil-disobedient horror at . . . well . . . the kind of crap you see here. And a lot worse.

Repeatedly, murderously worse.

But it's OK. The police chief is going to look into it. The trouble is, America's police chiefs have been "looking into it" for the last 55 goddamn years. Maybe the mayor will appoint a commission.

Or maybe not. President Caligula probably would fire off some mean tweets calling him a pussy.

IT SEEMS we live in a land where "pro-life" politicians -- like Donald Trump, "the most pro-life president ever" -- just can't satiate their blood lust, and now your average, unarmed African-American just doesn't hit the spot anymore. Now we have cops pointing weapons at the heads of toddlers.

In that case, the Long Beach, Calif., police have promised to launch a "review." Don't hold your breath.

Meantime, maybe some cops will take a knee or do a silly dance with the early shift of protesters. Hell of a great way of getting limbered up for the main event.


* * *
P.S.: Judging by his apparel, it seems that the Utah victim of wanton police brutality is a Nebraska fan. Haven't Nebraska fans suffered enough?

1977: Fly the friendly skies of United2017: Don't f*** with us, or you'll regret it

@United overbook #flight3411 and decided to force random passengers off the plane. Here's how they did it: pic.twitter.com/QfefM8X2cW

— Jayse D. Anspach (@JayseDavid) April 10, 2017

This is what happened to a paying passenger -- a physician who said he needed to get back home so he could see his patients today -- when United overbooked a flight and no one volunteered to get off the plane so four airline employees could take their places.

United CEO response to United Express Flight 3411. pic.twitter.com/rF5gNIvVd0

— United (@united) April 10, 2017

This is what United's chief executive said about it.

1977 United advertisement

NOW, I'd like to know a couple of things.

First, is there any damn horrible thing American cops won't do in the name of "just following orders"? If they had caught the glint off a pager or cellphone the doctor was carrying out of the corner of their eye, would the hired thugs law-enforcement officers have just the f*** shot him?

Second, if Corporate America marshaling law enforcement to manhandle and brutalize law-abiding, non-violent, paying customers on the whim of incompetents isn't a hallmark of a fascist state, what the hell is?

If justice is still any kind of a thing in this desiccated and decadent land, that doctor will be America's newest multimillionaire, will be clutching the scalp of United CEO Oscar Munoz, and those aviation cops will be saying hello to their new cellmate, Tiny.

Because Satan never sleeps

This is horrible.

This is sick.

This is so not safe for work.

This is so, so very wrong -- depraved. No, depraved doesn't quite cover it. There are no words strong enough to denounce what's been done here.

But it is what it is. The Omaha Police Officers Association has reposted a Facebook video from a local "thug" that basically shows how to raise your kid to be a gangsta. This is part of a grand racist plot by the Man to keep the people down and portray every black male as a public menace -- obviously!  

Somebody cap they ass!

RACISM. Hate. That must be it. What else could it be? Snark Upper Middle-Class White Hipsters Like Gawker said. And so did some African-American pundits and groups, finding that condemning some Omaha cops who illuminated the cultural cancer at the heart of the black underclass -- specifically, the criminal black underclass -- was a much better use of their time and energy than actually doing something about the cultural cancer at the heart of the black underclass.

This is because it would be hasty to assume that a diaper-clad toddler who is called a bitch, a "ho" and a pussy, is told "Fuck you!" and "Suck my dick!" then learns to parrot the same for the camera -- with an extra added middle-finger gesture thrown in -- will grow up to be highly dysfunctional, and probably criminally so. It's always hasty to assume the obvious.

Just because you're raised to be a foul-mouthed, moronic thug is no indicator that you might turn out to be a foul-mouthed, moronic thug. The "logical outcome" is a racist construct unjustly propagated by the Omaha Police Officers Association to keep the black man down.

Oh, no! We must not insist that two plus two equals four! For shame!


LISTEN, Omaha cops' hands aren't clean in the world of local race relations. That's been well documented over the years. Nevertheless, a battalion of Bull Connors could not oppress African-Americans as effectively as the toxic culture that's turned inner cities into war zones, too many men into monsters, too many fathers into vanishing acts and too many mothers into "baby mamas."

And the critical mass of deformed human beings produced by that culture already has cast aspersions upon every black male in America -- already has stereotyped a whole race long before the Omaha police union supposedly got around to it. Ignoring the asteroid that just wiped out the 'hood won't undo the smoking crater in the middle of town.

The black underclass won't magically turn into the black middle class if we just avert our gaze. You can't treat an illness if you cannot acknowledge its existence. You cannot address a problem which must not be named.

Sometimes, the obvious is what it is. And sometimes, that what we can't acknowledge is a problem may or may not ultimately be white people's historical fault is, at this point, rather beside the point.

Besides, toxic cultures aren't race-specific. If we ignore this "canary in the coal mine," we all will achieve the perfect equality that exists in oblivion. Soon.


UPDATE: Child Protective Services found the kid, found the human excrement "raising" him . . . and came down like a ton of bricks. They've taken the toddler and three other children into protective custody. 

Obviously, this is because Nebraskans are racist hicks unable to embrace the proper theology, geometry and ideology of their moral betters at Gawker Media.

No one needs to fly this badly

That's one question answered, a million or so to go.

OK. So . . . huh?

It's like this: Let me tell you about what I want to know and what I just found out. Actually, come to think of it, let me do a 180 on my approach here. That first thing about going over what I want to know isn't going to work.

To avoid taking up waaaaaaay too much of your time -- and likely the rest of my life -- I'll just tell you the question of mine just answered. Here it is:

Q. "What happens to all of the most brain-dead and morally retarded non-political, non-incarcerated pieces of human excrement in the United States of America?"

A. They all become airport screeners for the TSA.

Before today, I only suspected this was the case. Then The Daily provided the last bit of evidence that erased all doubt.

Four months after the Transportation Security Administration launched a program to help airline passengers with disabilities, a New York family found out just how little “TSA Cares.”

Traveling from New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport to Florida, the Frank family was yanked out of line as it boarded the plane in a dispute over how 7-year-old Dina had been screened. The little girl, who has cerebral palsy, walks with crutches and leg braces.

“They make our lives completely difficult,” said her father, Dr. Joshua Frank, a Long Island pediatrician. “She’s not a threat to national security.”

Flying is always difficult for the family, but this week was particularly dreadful, Frank and his wife, Marcy, said.

With her crutches and orthotics, Dina cannot walk through metal detectors and instead is patted down by security agents. The girl, who is also developmentally disabled, is often frightened by the procedure, her father said.

Marcy Frank usually asks the agents to introduce themselves to her daughter, but those on duty on Monday were exceptionally aggressive, Joshua Frank said, and he began to videotape them with his iPhone.

“And the woman started screaming at me and cursing me and threatening me,” he said.

Eventually, a supervisor decided it was sufficient to inspect Dina’s crutches and allowed the family to leave for the gate.

They were there for an hour before the agents reappeared with a manager to tell them that proper protocol had not been followed, and that Dina had to be screened after all, the Franks said. After initially offering to pat her down at the gate, they insisted she return to the security area, Joshua Frank said.

I CAN'T SAY enough bad things about those who engage in cruelty toward the old, the sick, the disabled . . . and children.

When you have someone engaging in cavalier cruelty toward a disabled child, you have someone who deserves a beating. Right there. Right now.

When you have someone doing that in the name of the federal government -- and when putting a decisive end to the rough manhandling of your child means you would go to a federal prison for a long time -- you have a situation that calls for administering the beating to the government that gives such goons such unfettered authority.


UNTIL that day comes -- if that day comes -- when our authoritarian security state shapes up and flies right, I don't think you need to fly that badly. Better to walk (or row . . . or swim) than to submit to being treated as if you were what those goonish TSA agents are.

College in the ruins

Xavier’s mission is to educate. Our essential activity is the interaction of students and faculty in an educational experience characterized by critical thinking and articulate expression with specific attention given to ethical issues and values.

Xavier is a Catholic institution in the Jesuit tradition, an urban university firmly rooted in the principles and conviction of the Judeo-Christian tradition and in the best ideals of American heritage.

Xavier is an educational community dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge, to the orderly discussion of issues confronting society; and, as would befit an American institution grounded in the humanities and sciences, Xavier is committed unreservedly to open and free inquiry.

-- Xavier University mission statement

The University of Cincinnati serves the people of Ohio, the nation, and the world as a premier, public, urban research university dedicated to undergraduate, graduate, and professional education, experience-based learning, and research. We are committed to excellence and diversity in our students, faculty, staff, and all of our activities. We provide an inclusive environment where innovation and freedom of intellectual inquiry flourish. Through scholarship, service, partnerships, and leadership, we create opportunity, develop educated and engaged citizens, enhance the economy and enrich our university, city, state and global community.

-- University of Cincinnati mission statement