Ben Stein Summons the Ghosts of the Southern Strategy

Fox News business analyst / actor and commercial pitchman Ben Stein made headlines earlier this week when he uncorked some rather bizarre views on the shooting of unarmed teenager Michael Brown by Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson.

During an interview  with Newsmax's Steve Malzberg on Tuesday, Stein made the absurd suggestion that Brown's shooting was justified because (...drum roll please...) Brown was "armed with his incredibly strong scary self".

Aside from the wacky assertion that Brown's body was in itself, a deadly weapon, Stein further embarrassed himself by suggesting that Brown, a teenager with no record who was preparing to start college, could be considered armed because of (in Stein's view) his resemblance to former heavyweight boxers "Sonny Liston and Cassius Clay." Really.

Aside from the fact that Liston  had a lengthy criminal rap sheet and also worked as a part-time mafia enforcer and strike breaker during his boxing career and Cassius Clay changed his name to Muhammed Ali 39 years ago back in 1975 when he converted to Islam - Stein's attempt to compare a teenager of Brown's stature and age to two different grown men who were world-class heavyweight boxers says more about Stein than it does Michael Brown.

Now I take particular offense at the monumental stupidity of his words because I myself am a large black guy. I'm 6'7", go to the gym regularly and probably tip the scales at 260 or 265.

Say I'm walking down the street on the way to the store minding my own business, by Stein's bizarre quasi-racist logic, a trigger-happy police officer would be totally justified in shooting me and killing me simply because from his perspective, I look big and "scary."

Bear in mind I'm a college-educated, tax-paying, law-abiding American; I own a cat, like to write, watch Netflix and drive a Honda. To Stein, and others of his Fox News-ish mind-set; having darker skin and being tall makes me "scary." How sad. How utterly trite.

Obviously deep-thinking, simple analysis and open-mindedness are NOT traits commonly found amongst the perpetually-terrified Fox News audience Stein has sunk to pandering to in order to earn a paycheck.

The thing is, Stein isn't stupid or senile. He graduated from Columbia and Yale Law School. His recent dimwitted comments simply tap into the undercurrent of bigotry that runs deep in the veins of this relatively young country of ours; and obviously within the recesses of his own mind as well.

To try and make some sense of Stein's senseless comments, it might help to remember that he was a lawyer and speech writer for Richard Nixon; he's also a Nixon apologist who believes Nixon got a raw deal. The collective brain trust that got that man elected to the White House eagerly embraced and employed the notorious "Southern Strategy".

The basis of the Southern Strategy was simple - tap into the deep-seated bigotry and internalized prejudices of white voters in order to use fear and ignorance to manipulate them into voting for Republican candidates.

So from that perspective, Steins statements do make sense. He dredged up racist bullshit to frighten people for a living for one of the most corrupt politicians of the 20th century; why not use it now to try and smear the character of a dead teenager who can't defend himself? 

So is it really all that surprising that he went on television to suggest that Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson was justified in shooting an unarmed teenager with no criminal record because his skin was dark and he was physically bigger than average? No, not really.

Stein may be a lawyer and an economist, but his signature low-key droll delivery and bemused demeanor belies a man haunted by internalized fears.

Ben Stein dwells in a house where the ghosts of the Southern Strategy still reside.

Ezell Ford, 25, Unarmed and Killed by the LAPD - Is Our Society Devolving?

Ezell Ford, 25, killed on August 11th

Is being an unarmed black man grounds for immediate execution without even being charged or arrested? It's starting to look like there are a lot of police officers in America who think that way.

An article published last Sunday on the DailyKos Website suggests that local and state police as well as Federal authorities including the FBI intentionally do NOT track and analyze statistics on how often police shoot and kill unarmed black Americans.

Think about that for a moment. Take a few minutes to click the link above and read the article, it's pretty disturbing.

Ezell Ford's death on August 11th at the hands of LAPD gang enforcement officers Sharlton Wampler and Antonio Villegas fits right into a trend that's been far too common this summer.

The 25-year-old African-American citizen was walking along a street, was confronted by police, exchanged words, and was beaten before being shot and killed; he was unarmed at the time.

His death is further complicated by the fact that he was mentally ill.

To make matters even worse for his family, friends and the outraged members of the South Los Angeles community where he lived, the LAPD held off releasing the names of Wampler and Villegas for over two weeks while the department conducted what they termed a "threat assessment" to determine that the two veteran police officer's lives would not be endangered.

Which is interesting considering that (according to eye witness testimony) the two officers initiated the confrontation, exited their patrol car, chased Ford into a corner area, then savagely beat him before shooting him multiple times while he was laying on the ground.

Too bad the two officers didn't stop and conduct a "threat assessment" before they got out of their vehicle, beat then shot and killed this young man; he might still be alive if they'd bothered to do so.

According to an article on ThinkProgress.org by Nicole Flatow, members of Ford's family say that local LAPD officers knew he was mentally ill; and they insist that because of his mental illness he was a loner who had absolutely nothing to do with gangs.

So why was he killed? And what about the autopsy results of his death? According to Flatow, the LA Times reports that:

"Police have also placed a security hold on Ford’s autopsy to prevent coroner’s officials from publicly releasing information about Ford’s wounds,”

A "security hold" on the truth? Did Ezell Ford's death impact national security?

Remember the death of Ford came just a week after LAPD officers stopped 37 year-old  Omar Abrego for driving erratically in the same area of South Los Angeles. When Abrego jumped out of the car and fled on foot, officers caught him but according to police reports Abrego managed to suffer a "laceration" while in custody inside the police car. According to the LA Times, Abrego had a severe concussion and multiple facial and body contusions - so essentially he was beaten to death for erratic driving and trying to evade capture.

The callousness and rapidity with which some police officers around this nation seem to resort to deadly force when confronting black and Hispanic men is deeply disturbing. As if the mere sight of dark skin on a male body triggers some kind of internal fear-attack reaction that instantly renders the concept of innocent until proven guilty meaningless in the minds of some police officers.

It's interesting that if Jihadists or people the United States labels "Muslim extremists" stop innocent people on the streets of countries thousands of miles away and execute them with guns, our politicians profess moral outrage and demand we spend billions of dollars to ship American servicemen and women overseas with American equipment and arms to kill in the name of restoring "Democracy" and "the rule of law".

But right here on the streets of our own country in places like Ferguson, Missouri or Staten Island, New York, or Los Angeles, California we've got police officers doing the same thing - and they call it law enforcement.

In the case of Ezell Ford, Michael Brown or Eric Garner, the podiums on the Senate or House floor are strangely silent. Maybe the moral outrage just depends on who you're killing.

Is that an indicator of an evolved society?

Tall Airline Passengers Strike Back With the 'Knee Defender'

The harsh reality of airline travel for people over  6'3" (Photo - Core77.com)

Being a rather moody nostalgic sort, I enjoy this time of year as the days begin to shorten, the nights get cooler and America begins the transition from summer to fall.

Autumn is my favorite season and even though the Fall Equinox officially begins on September 22nd, with college football kicking off and school starting, it really starts next Tuesday.

As one of those lucky enough to be working the Saturday of Labor Day weekend, I am relieved of the stress of scrambling to get on a crowded highway or get to an airport or train station.

Even though there are no travel plans on my schedule, I thought this story about a device called the 'Knee Defender' might be interesting to anyone traveling this weekend.

It's been getting a lot of media traction over the past few days after an AP article posted on Monday about a recent United Airlines flight that was forced to divert and land when two passengers got into a beef because a man used his Knee Defender to prevent a woman in front of him from reclining her seat.  

The 'Knee Defender' is a simple device anyone can purchase for $21.95. It's basically two molded plastic clamps that you attach to the bars of the slide tray in front of you. When locked in place, they prevent the passenger in front of you from reclining their seat back and cramping your knees.

I first read about this device in a NY Times article by Damon Darlin last night.

But according to a blog posted on the industrial design Website Core77 back on February 21, 2013 the Knee Defender has been around since 1993. As we all know the comfort and "wow factor" of airline travel has given way to less leg room and more cramped cabin conditions as airlines put profits over passenger comfort.

Overbooked flights, charges for checked baggage and fees for aisle seats and exit row seats (really?) make airplane cabins even tighter spaces than they already are. As a guy who is 6'"7 tall, let me tell you the mere idea of flying in economy literally fills me with anxiety.

Maybe that's why I don't travel that much, I don't know. I love Amtrak with the ample leg room and easy ability to get up and take a stroll to the snack car, but these days the airline industry sees travelers as components of profit rather than human beings - I'm surprised you don't have to swipe your credit card to use the bathrooms on a plane.

If you want to dive deeper into the economic realities and harsh truths of why airline manufacturers and airline companies don't offer more leg room on flights, you should check out Arianne Cohen's "The Tall Book". It's a fascinating study of the realities of being a tall person in a society that generally doesn't design things like car seats and airplane seats to accommodate tall people.

The countless people who have walked up to me and gushed how great it must be to be tall have no idea what it's like to fly economy from Newark International to LAX.

Anyway good luck if you're flying this weekend and drive safe if your taking a road trip. As for me, I'm for the guy on that United flight who used his Knee Defender to defend his right to what little room he does have. Kudos to Ira Goldman, the inventor of the Knee Defender.

It's a pretty sad state of the airline industry today (and what kind of priority they put on passenger comfort) that such a device even exists, but If I do decide to fly in the near future, I'll go online and buy a Knee Defender and just take my chances of getting into a dispute with another passenger.

It's a small price to pay not to be cramped, stiff and uncomfortable for the duration of a flight that truly does cost "an arm and a leg".

Ferguson Police Officer Justin Cosma Unmasked by Huff Po - Officer Dan Page Suspended After Pushing CNN's Don Lemon

1st Amendment Foe & Child Wrangler Officer Justin Cosma-(Photo/Huffington Post)

The harassment, assault and arrests of journalists by police for simply being present to cover the Ferguson protests was pretty disturbing. 

So kudos to the Huffington Post for publicly identifying and naming Justin Cosma, the Ferguson police officer seen confronting and arresting Huffington Post reporter Ryan Reilly and Washington Post reporter Wesley Lowery the night of Wednesday August 13th.

While a number of journalists from different media outlets were videotaped or photographed being tear-gassed by members of law enforcement, no incident (aside from Michael Brown's shooting) garnered more attention than the arrests of Reilly and Lowery.

They were both just sitting in a McDonald's charging their cell phones and discussing the protests when heavily-armed police (led by Cosma) wearing tactical SWAT gear with their names and badge numbers intentionally concealed walked in, ordered everyone out of the restaurant and demanded ID's from both reporters.

The reporters subsequent assault (Lowery, an African-American, was slammed against a glass wall and a soda fountain) and arrests quickly made global headlines and they were soon released after the story blew up on Twitter. 

Today's Huff-Po story also reveals that Justin Cosma is also the subject of an ongoing lawsuit that stems from a 2010 incident when he was with the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office in which he and an officer named Richard Carter allegedly confronted a 12-year-old boy who was at the end of his driveway getting the mail out of his family's mailbox.

The shirtless 12-year-old was eventually hogtied by Cosma and Carter after the incident escalated, leading to injuries to the child and a pending lawsuit filed in Missouri Federal Court in 2012. It says a lot about officer Cosma.

But it also paints a pretty disturbing picture of the types of officers in Ferguson and St. Louis whose recent behavior is tarnishing the reputations of the members of law enforcement who treat people with respect and operate within the confines of the law.

Kudos to CNN too. Have you heard about St. Louis County officer Dan Page who pushed CNN anchor Don Lemon on live TV? Turns out Page is a right-wing Birther, and his bizarre misogynist, homophobic, racists rants got him suspended after they were released on video and shown to his superiors by CNN.

I watched some of the video highlights of Page's rants and he's a cultural dinosaur with a death-fetish and a huge chip on his shoulder who's mind has been warped by hate. The idea that this man carries a gun and a badge is troubling and makes a mockery of the image of a trained law enforcement professional.
 
The positive thing is that mainstream media outlets like Huffington Post and CNN are starting to use their considerable influence and reach to show men like Cosma and Page for who they are; deeply disturbed individuals prone to violence and using their badge as a shield for their hate and behavior that is simply inexcusable for anyone charged with enforcing the law in a modern society.



 





   

Kajieme Powell Died For Two Stolen Sodas and a Danish

Believe me, I'd like nothing better than to use my Friday off to post a quirky tongue-and-cheek blog about the latest examples of Republican stupidity; and there are many.

Texas (surprise!) Republican Congressman Louie Gohmert's absurd dimwitted theory that President Obama can't protect the nation from ISIS militants because US foreign policy is being guided by "Muslim brothers" is a blog unto itself.

But the release of the cell phone video of the recent shooting death of Kajieme Powell by St. Louis police officers warrants discussion.

The news the other day that St. Louis PD officers had shot and killed another African-American man in the midst of the massive ongoing protests against the police shooting of Michael Brown almost defied belief.

If you're reading this blog, like me you heard the mainstream media quickly repeat the initial police narrative offered by the police chief at a press conference that Powell had shoplifted from a local store, was seen acting "erratic" outside the store and that a woman (allegedly) reported he was wielding a knife; which the police said he supposedly thrust at officers in a threatening manner.

But the validity of that narrative has been totally called into question with the release on Wednesday of cell phone video of Powell walking around outside the store, his confrontation with police when they arrived at the scene and his subsequent shooting.

So you decide for yourself, if you haven't seen it you need to watch this. This is a shorter version that shows the actual shooting of Powell and the subsequent reaction of bystanders and police.  Don't worry, it's far enough away that you can't see blood or anything like that, but you can clearly hear Powell dare the police to shoot him and the number of shots fired. It's not gruesome.

There's a much longer version that the shows the initial scene as the man who shot the cell phone video walked up because he heard there was a guy who stole a couple sodas and was walking around acting crazy. At first the man shooting the video is amused. You can see Powell walking around outside the store sort of talking to himself. Is he acting "erratic"? Yes. But people are just walking by or standing there watching him. The clerk from the store is just standing there looking at him.

Powell had placed the two cans of soda on the sidewalk and was just walking around them. After taking the sodas he went in and grabbed a danish or a honeybun too. But watch for yourself. Powell clearly has some sort of mental issue going on, maybe he's on something, I don't know. But he does not have a gun and he was NOT wielding a knife. And does not look threatening.

But then he walks up the street about fifty feet and a St. Louis police car pulls up. Watch what happens after that - and listen to the reaction of the bystanders in the background. Look closely, do you see Powell raise his hand and thrust a knife at the two officers?

Does it look like the officer's lives are endangered to the point where they need to pump 12 bullets into him? They were shooting him after he was on the ground; and then put handcuffs on him after he was dead. Is that the kind of nation we've become? Who's training the St. Louis Police Department?

Are two cans of soda and a danish really worth a man's life?

What About Bob?

Fair & balanced?

Let's say someone walked up and told you that one of the leading attorneys handling the Michael Brown case was a man whose father, brother, uncle, cousin and mother all worked for the St. Louis Police Department.

You'd figure that's who trigger-happy Ferguson Police officer Darren Wilson selected as his defense attorney right? You'd be wrong.

The man described above is the county prosecutor in charge of trying the case against Wilson and his name is Bob McCulloch (pictured left). The idea of this man leading the prosecution of one of the most explosive cases of the use of excessive police force (and bad judgment) in Missouri history already has protesters and members of the Ferguson community up in arms.

As of 11:09pm ET, 53,791 signatures have been collected on a MoveOn.org petition started by Jamilah Nasheed, a Missouri State Senator. The petition calls on McCulloch to recuse himself and the county prosecutor's office from the case and instead have a special independent Federal prosecutor handle the case.

I truly regret that McCulloch's father (a St. Louis policeman) was killed by a black man in 1964 when McCulloch was 12, but I would hope that he has sense enough to recognize that his deep family ties to the St. Louis PD and failure to bring charges back in 2000 against two white policemen who fired 20 shots into a parked car killing two unarmed African-American suspects in a drug operation (in a press conference McCulloch later called them "bums"...) represents a conflict of interest that should be fairly obvious to all.

Speaking of people doing stupid shit with guns, I'm getting pretty fed up with individuals who feel compelled to flaunt their 2nd Amendment rights by carrying loaded weapons around openly in public places like grocery stores.

Seriously, WTF is this guy thinking?

There's a new petition up on the Everytown.org Website calling on Kroger's, the largest grocery store chain in the nation to protect it's customers by banning people from carrying loaded weapons around in their stores.

You can sign it here! The petition is addressed to W. Rodney McMullen the CEO and Michael Ellis, president/COO of Kroger's.

 Other stores like Target, Chipotle and Starbucks have already listened to concerned citizens across the nation in the wake of the 74 (yes, 74) school shootings that have taken place since Sandy Hook.

Disparities in Justice in America - A Renewed Discussion

One nation, two justice systems? (Image courtesy - twitter@DerrickJaxn)

If anything positive can come about as result of the senseless death of Michael Brown at the hands of an overzealous police officer, it's a renewed national dialog on the disparities that exist within America's justice system.

The community outrage over the shooting and the subsequent street protests, riots and the accompanying police reaction that have captivated the nation didn't just materialize out of nowhere.

As a well-written article published in the New York Times yesterday  pointed out, the reaction in Ferguson stems from long-simmering tensions that result in large part from patterns in housing discrimination, sharp disparities in community policing and the unequal application of the law based on economics and race.

As officials from the Department of Justice prepare to undertake an independent Federal autopsy on the body of Michael Brown, egregious examples of excessive use of police force against unarmed people of color remind us that this is the 21st century and the color of your skin can often determine how a policeman will treat you.

Michael Brown was jaywalking, he was shot and killed by a Ferguson police officer.

Back on July 1st a homeless grandmother named Marlene Pinnock was walking along a highway in Los Angeles in broad daylight on her way to find a place to sleep when a California Highway Patrol officer confronted her, threw her to the ground and savagely beat her in the head with a closed, gloved fist.

Fifteen days later Eric Garner was standing on the street in Staten Island, New York where he lived selling loose cigarettes when members of the NYPD confronted him, a bystander videotaped one of the officers restricting Garner's airway with an illegal choke hold while other officers piled on top of him - Garner was pronounced dead a short time later.

These are just a few examples of violent police responses to very low-level infractions that happened in broad daylight. In each case there were witnesses who saw what happened. (How many incidents happen across America at night when there are no witnesses?)

The disparities in the application of the law impact all of us, regardless of race, ethnicity, nationality or religion. The statistics are startling. According to StopMassIncareration.net, the United States has 5% of the world's population but 25% of the world's prison population - 60% of those prisoners are black or Latino. (Give or take a few percentage points, blacks make up about 12.1% of the total US population).

A joint research project released in 2012 by the Pew Center on the States and Vera Institute's Center on Sentencing and Corrections and Cost-Benefit Analysis Unit calculated the annual cost to American taxpayers for running the US prison system was a staggering $39 billion. States on average spend 2.8 times more per prisoner than they do pupils; math that only leads to a perpetuation of the system of mass incarceration in this country - an industry unto itself that lobbies for more prison construction.

Remember it's not just a cost measured in tax dollars alone. We're talking about the creation of a massive underclass of convicted felons and ex-prisoners (many of who were imprisoned for low-level drug offenses) who re-enter society barred from voting and taking part in the civic process of electing people to represent them, face barriers and discrimination in the hiring process, lack of access to health care and are relegated to a permanent 2nd class status that leaves them on the fringes of society.

The issue of disparity stretches way beyond the prism of race; it's goes to the very heart of the US justice system and the definition of who we are as a nation. Remember the "Affluenza" case of wealthy Texas teenager Ethan Couch?

It was a big story last December when Texas District Judge Jean Boyd sentenced the then-sixteen year-old Couch to probation after he slammed into a disabled vehicle while legally drunk. He killed the driver of the parked vehicle and three people (a mother and daughter and a youth pastor) who'd stopped to help her; he also paralyzed one the passengers in his truck and seriously injured another.

Judge Boyd's bizarre reasoning was that Couch had grown up so insulated from personal responsibility as a result of being so spoiled by his parent's immense wealth - so he couldn't be held legally responsible for his actions. We all know where a poor sixteen-year-old in Couch's shoes would've ended up.    

Responsibility lies at the heart of the Michael Brown case in Ferguson. The details of the autopsy reports and the conclusion of the investigations into the shooting will tell us more about whether or not Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson will be insulated from personal responsibility for his actions.

Maybe it will also give us some insight into exactly what that blindfold covering the eyes of the symbol of justice in America (with her sword and scales) is blinding her to.

Questions Cast Shadows Over An Uneasy Peace In Ferguson

An unarmed protester in Ferguson on Monday (Photo - AP)

While tension has eased to a degree after Missouri Governor Jay Nixon tasked Captain Ronald S. Johnson (a highly-respected and seasoned African-American law enforcement officer, who grew up in the St. Louis area) to head up a contingent of Missouri Highway Patrol personnel to take over primary responsibility in Ferguson, the truth is only beginning to unfold.
 
Even as Ferguson police finally identified Darren Wilson as the officer who fatally shot and killed Michael Brown last Saturday, numerous questions remain about the heavy-handed response from local law enforcement over the past five days.

At the same time police released the name of the officer, they also released inconclusive surveillance video from a convenience store allegedly showing Michael Brown getting into some kind of dispute with a store clerk shortly before he was gunned down in the street by officer Wilson just after 12pm last Saturday.

The Ferguson police department's efforts to portray Michael Brown as a thief, when no proof exists that he committed a crime, run contrary to normal legal procedures. Video, or any other kind of evidence needs to be tagged and logged as such then presented in a courtroom in front of a grand jury or judge; not leaked at a press conference in an effort to attempt to justify a police officer's killing of an unarmed person with no prior criminal record.

The idea that Brown was killed because he was a suspect in a robbery doesn't wash. Brown was never charged with theft, and officer Wilson had no idea he was even a suspect in the alleged convenience store theft when he stopped the 18-year-old and confronted him and a friend on the street for Walking While Black jaywalking - or as the Ferguson police are now calling it, "obstructing traffic".

If the police want to suggest that Michael Brown robbed a convenience store of some cigars two days before he was to begin college, then they need to prove it in a court of law. Executing someone then introducing slipshod evidence of a crime outside of a court of law is more characteristic of corrupt Third World police thuggery; not a trained modern police force in a large American community.

Besides, sketchy video and unproven allegations in no way absolves a police officer of killing an unarmed human being in the street; or the totally over the top way in which the police have responded to a community rightfully outraged over the killing and the journalists sent there to cover the story.

Oh and speaking of the First Amendment to the Constitution, as has been widely reported over the past couple days, on Wednesday night around 8pm several unidentified members of a county SWAT team arrested and assaulted two reporters who were sitting in a McDonald's re-charging their mobile devices and discussing the unfolding events in Ferguson they were sent there to cover.

Wesley Lowery of the Washington Post and Ryan Reilly a reporter for the Huffington Post were eating inside the McDonald's when police entered, cleared the restaurant and demanded ID from both reporters. When the reporters questioned the police about why they had to show them ID and further angered the heavily-armed police by having the gall to ask why weapons were being pointed at two reporters eating at McDonald's - they were cuffed, arrested and taken to jail.

I saw Lowery interviewed live on CNN on Thursday, he said the police officers pushed him against a soda fountain when he didn't move fast enough to put his things back in his bag and also slammed him against a glass door or wall. Lowery also spoke of seeing other reporters he knew personally being shot at with rubber bullets and tear gas canisters by police on Tuesday evening.

Both reporters were later released on the orders of the Ferguson police chief without being charged or with any kind of paperwork documenting their arrest; again, totally sketchy police procedure.

Antonio French, the local alderman who's been Tweeting live pictures, video and reports from the scene of the protests in Ferguson, was arrested by police as well when he got out of his vehicle.

Last night in a story about local St. Louis clergy men and women peacefully protesting the killing of Michael Brown, ThinkProgress.org reported that "a local pastor was shot in the abdomen while peacefully chanting 'Jesus, Jesus, Jesus'." Her name was Renita Lamkin according to a story on the Website of the Huffington Post.

Personally I'm disappointed with the amount of time it took state and Federal government officials to step up and take the lead in Ferguson. Governor Jay Nixon was practically invisible until Thursday.

It's clear that residents of the Ferguson community and Americans around the nation outraged by this tragedy won't be satisfied until a thorough independent investigation of the Ferguson police department is undertaken by the Justice Department and, or the FBI.

Attorney General Eric Holder personally called the parents of Michael Brown to promise just that, so let's hope he carries through on that. I'm pretty confident the pressure that's being generated by citizens on social media will make sure that happens. The mainstream media coverage on television, in print and on the Web doesn't quite adequately show the explosion of interest and attention this case has generated

Twitter has proved to be an amazing source of information and a gauge of how deeply people from all backgrounds, races, nationalities and faiths have been affected by this case. The tragic death of Michael Brown has become much bigger than the city of Ferguson; as evidenced not only by the public statement of support (and warning to police) issued by the shadowy hacker collective known as Anonymous, but in all the different ways in which it's affecting everyday discourse and revealing things about who we are as a nation.

Online petitions, protests in cities around the nation, responses (or the lack thereof...) by politicians and in normal everyday exchanges between people in person and online. Yesterday after work I stopped by my local tavern for a beer and was chatting with a couple regulars about the unfolding case. One of them, "Robby", is a white guy I've been friendly with and known for a couple years.

He's about 48 and is employed by a small college in NJ in the office of physical plant and works with his hands doing contract work like drywall installation - that kind of thing. After I made a remark about the case, he looked at me and said he'd heard that the officer (Darren Wilson, who hadn't been publicly named at the time) was in a hospital being treated for facial lacerations he'd suffered after Michael Brown attacked him in his police car.

Now I didn't really respond directly to "Robby" about that because mixing alcohol and personal politics in a bar can be a pretty volatile combination; and frankly it sounded to me like the distorted kind of BS you hear from Fox News. ("Robby" doesn't know anything about the kinds of topics I blog about as Culturegeist. )

So when got home and Googled that "facial laceration" story, I read a CBS report stating that the Ferguson police chief stated that officer Wilson (removed from duty since the incident on August 9th) "had been hit" in the face and was treated at a hospital and that his face was "swollen" on one side.

That's pretty far from a facial laceration and the way "Robby" said it to me quietly suggested that he was of the opinion that officer Wilson was only defending himself from Michael Brown. And that's okay, this is America and he's entitled to an opinion too. 

But I'm not buying that line of reasoning. It just sounds too much like George Zimmerman's defense after he shot and killed Trayvon Martin. Obviously the two cases are different, but Zimmerman, like Wilson was in a vehicle following a young, unarmed African-American male who was walking; not engaged in something illegal.

Wilson, like Zimmerman, was the one who initiated the contact with Michael Brown - because he was walking in the street. Remember, at the time, Wilson had no idea Brown was a suspect in a robbery.

To him (Wilson, who was in a police car) Brown was just a black kid walking in the street. It's the initial perception that Wilson (or Zimmerman) had in his mind before the incident began that cuts to the root of this problem - and that perception issue is something that "Robby" just doesn't seem to understand.

Welcome Home Walgreens! Corporate Inversion Gone Wild

The logo that almost became a punchline

Forgive me for being a bit late to the 'Welcome Back Walgreens' party but the travesty of police excess down in Ferguson, MO has had me all riled up for the past few days.

Since the Ferguson police chief announced he won't be releasing the name of the trigger-happy "Officer Who Shall Not Be Named" because of fears for his safety (really??) and the autopsy results on poor Michael Brown's body haven't been released either, the corporate side of our cultural landscape deserves some attention.

While they never actually left the good ole' U.S of A, just the idea that a corporate behemoth (market capitalization of $59.46 billion) like Walgreens would relocate their official headquarters to the UK or Switzerland to take advantage of lower corporate tax rates ignited a virtual firestorm of protest on social media.

Change.org, MoveOn.org, People For the American Way and various consumer activists groups are just some of the groups that banded together to organize online petitions, e-mail blasts, consumer education/outreach and other efforts to rally people to the cause of corporations paying their fair share - eventually prompting some finger-pointing and sharp comments from a number of politicians including the President.

The growing inequality in this nation is a big part of what motivated people to respond to this issue; the idea that corporations can take any action they want to increase their profit margins, even when it comes at the expense of the American people and the good of the country. But what got people so riled up about Walgreens in particular for doing the ole' tax two-step?

After all, remember Apple is notorious for dodging billions in US taxes by basing their corporation overseas through a complex labyrinth of tax shelters in places like Ireland; even though some of those overseas addresses have no actual employees and are essentially run by Apple's brain trust from Cupertino, California. Maybe we all like our iPhones, iPads and iTunes too much to get too indignant over Apple's mind-numbing tax chicanery.

Walgreens isn't the only American corporation to claim they aren't actually based in America.  According to data compiled by the House Ways and Means Committee, in the past decade 47 different US corporations have relocated overseas to avoid paying their fair share of taxes by using a maneuver called 'Corporate Inversion'. It's pretty sketchy any way you look at it.

That term has become more familiar to regular common folk like me in the wake of Walgreens thwarted attempt to cut their tax bill. While corporate inversion sounds like some kind of strange sex act from a cheeky David E. Kelly television drama, it's basically a fancy description of a complex tax avoidance scheme that is perfectly legal. (It was illegal for Eric Garner to sell loose cigarettes in Staten Island, but legal for a company to use an overseas PO box to sidestep the IRS? Hmm...)

The informative DontMessWithTaxes Website defines corporate inversion as: "...a tax domicile maneuver where a United States company buys a foreign subsidiary and then declares that its U.S facilities are owned by the subsidiary. The result is lower or NO taxes to Uncle Sam."

Walgreens had planned their corporate inversion carefully with the $15.26 billion purchase of a large British pharmacy chain called Alliance Boots. With the purchase, they could have based themselves in the UK to take advantage of the more favorable tax rate. (Plus I'm willing to bet Walgreens could capitalize the $15.26 billion purchase cost on their taxes so it would be considered a capital expense, saving them even more in taxes...) 

But there was something distinctly un-American about the whole affair. Walgreens was founded over a century ago here in the U.S. They're based in Deerfield, Illinois. Their own logo reads, "The pharmacy America trusts"!  A company whose products are shipped in American trucks on American highways subsidized, built and maintained by American taxes.  Or on American trains on American rails subsidized and maintained in large part by American tax payers or through fees indirectly charged to consumers by railroads. The people waiting at Walgreens drive-thru pharmacies to get prescriptions filled are Americans for the most part.

The social media backlash was swift and in the end Walgreens CEO Greg Wasson wasn't taking any chances; especially not in an election year. We all saw how Mitt Romeny's overseas tax shelter chicanery played out with the American people during the 2012 Presidential elections; call it what you want, it was generally regarded as cheating, plain and simple.   

Walgreens will remain an American company because it is an American company. If Walgreens' customers have to pay their fair share of taxes, Walgreens should too. That doesn't make Apple or the 46 other U.S. corporations that use corporate inversion to duck billions in taxes right; but it does put Walgreens on the right side of the argument. And you can't put a price on that.

Perhaps the most valuable lesson in this whole affair is the power wielded by everyday folks simply raising their voices on an issue until they were heard. Social media tools may have been the mechanism, or the medium by which this goal was accomplished - but it was the voice of average people that forced the change. That's what real Democracy is all about.  

Mike Brown - Another Unarmed African-American Shot & Killed By Police

Mike Brown

How many more of these blog entries am I going to have to do? The shooting of 18-year-old Mike Brown by police in the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson on Saturday is now a global story and the details are all too familiar.

An African-American teenage male visiting his grandmother for the summer, a kid who graduated from high school and was preparing to start college today was stopped by a police officer simply for walking down the street with a friend. Now he's dead.

While local television news stations covered this story from the start, national news outlets were somewhat slow to pick up on the significance of the case, even if it was a weekend and the story was really breaking on a Sunday.

This is a case where Twitter and social media were actually way ahead of most national media outlets; witnesses who lived in the area and were at the scene of the crime were Tweeting live updates. Including Antonio French, the alderman of the 21st ward in St. Louis. Some of it was chilling.

People in the community are obviously demanding accountability as far as the still-unnamed officer is concerned, but I agree with the comments of St. Louis County police chief Jon Belmar that protesters need to show patience while a careful investigation of the officer's actions takes place. Even still there glaring differences between accounts given by witnesses and Ferguson police statements of what happened.
 
Several eyewitnesses claim a police car stopped Brown and a friend as they were walking along the street. The cop allegedly ordered them to get on the sidewalk (we know what a serious public menace jaywalking can be...), some words were exchanged and the cop pulled his weapon. Brown backed away from the car and raised his hands over his head to show he had no weapon and the policeman shot him.

Brown began to run and the cop got out and shot him again. Repeatedly. Some witnesses say ten shots were fired. Given the on-going protests police are loathe to release specific details of exactly how many times Brown was struck by bullets. The officer was whisked away from the scene as crowds from the neighborhood gathered. Initial police reports claimed officers were searching for Brown after he stole a cigarillo from a local store.

But in the wake of the incident the store owner quickly reported that Brown didn't steal anything. By the time St. Louis County police held a press conference on Sunday, they were claiming Brown physically struggled with the officer and assaulted him.

While the facts are not yet clear, the looting and hooliganism is truly a sad spectacle in the wake of the tragic death of the young man; and it overshadows the many legitimate protests taking place. It distracts attention away from the tragedy that took place. Quite a bit of television and online media coverage that has turned the focus to video clips of isolated incidents of looting taking place, fails to note that the people engaged in looting and destruction of property were a small fraction of the crowds gathered to protest the killing.

Many on social media reporting from the actual scene are claiming most of the looters aren't even from the area. It was such a shocking and outrageous excess of police force that it's still hard to get clear facts amid so much chaos and confusion in the area from people in the community justifiably angered over Brown's death. The wheels of justice are slowly starting to grind.

The FBI will bring resources to bear to conduct a more thorough investigation of the events, by now it's clear the Ferguson police are in no position to conduct an internal investigation that would be considered valid. Representatives from the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice are expected to closely monitor the investigation as well.

Obviously more information should surface once the interviews with the officer responsible for this are concluded and the medical examiner completes the autopsy report. If charges are to be filed a case must be built upon evidence, not emotion.

But the questions still lingers: when are police going to be held accountable for the callous use of excess force so often used against unarmed men and boys of color in this country? A man selling loose cigarettes on the street in Staten Island gets choked to death? A young man on the eve of college is shot multiple times for walking down the street?

Not just the police, but all Americans should hold themselves to higher standards than that. I look at the image of Mike Brown lying in the street and all I can think is this should be a better nation than that - whatever else we are, we should be better than that. 

Justice For Renisha McBride - Theodore Wafer Found Guilty of Murder

Theodore Wafer and Renisha McBride [Photo ABC News]

A court ruling last week reminds us that there are ocassional victories for the sense of humanity, decency and fair play that define what America is supposed to be about.

Back on November 15, 2013  when I blogged about 19-year-old Renisha McBride's death, I was feeling pretty pessimistic about the chances of her and her family getting justice from the court system.

The grisly shooting that took her life in the early morning hours of November 2nd, 2013 was part of a disturbing pattern that is more prevalent in the United States - an innocent and unarmed African-American with no criminal record being shot and killed by a white male on the premise of feeling "threatened".

Let's review the facts.

McBride had spent an evening doing what millions of other people do; drinking alcohol and smoking weed. She was legally intoxicated when she was involved in a single car accident in a Dearborn Heights, Michigan neighborhood.

After stumbling around in confusion for awhile, and with no power in her cell phone, at about 4:40am she walked up to 54-year-old Theodore Wafer's porch and knocked on his door to ask for help.

Wafer opened his door and shot her in the face with a shotgun through a screen door at point blank range, killing her instantly.

George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin

Just after the shooting, Wafer lied to police stating the shotgun had gone off accidentally.

He also falsely claimed McBride was trying to break into his house.

The shooting occurred in the wake of the controversy of George Zimmerman being found not guilty in the death of Trayvon Martin.


Did you hear that back in March Zimmerman was at a Central Florida gun show signing autographs and shaking hands with admirers?

Evidently smitten with the fact that he shot an innocent 14-year-old black kid walking home from the store to his father's home with a bag of Skittles and some juice, and got away with it.

McBride's death happened less than a month after a 27-year-old white North Carolina police officer named Randall Kerrick shot Jonathan Ferrell ten times and killed him.

Ferrell was an unarmed 24-year-old African-American college athlete who made the mistake of knocking on a woman's door and asking for help after a car crash.

In a panic she called 911, the cops showed up, saw Ferrell walking towards them (thinking they'd come to help him) tasered him, then promptly shot him ten times.

Jonathan Ferrell and former Charlotte-Mecklenberg
PD officer Randall Kerrick

In the context of those events, I felt like the prospects for Renisha McBride getting justice were slim, but the courts proved me wrong.

Last Thursday afternoon a jury of seven men and five women found Theodore Wafer guilty on three counts of second-degree murder, manslaughter and a felony firearms charge following nine days of harrowing testimony and two days of deliberation.


The racial implications in the McBride case are clear, but the jury's decision is much bigger than that.

In my view it sends an important message to the NRA, the Tea Party and Republican lawmakers who dangle at the end of the strings held by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) who are collectively responsible for introducing laws like 'Stand Your Ground' in Florida which allowed George Zimmerman to stalk, attack and murder unarmed teenager Trayvon Martin in February 2012.

Or the 'Shoot First' law introduced in Michigan in 2006.

Laws which have the effect of conferring upon white citizens a sense of a right to use deadly force against citizens of color under the shaky and ambiguous pretense of  "fearing for their life" - therefore sanctioning a dangerous "shoot first ask questions later" firearms policy. 

Now Florida's 'Stand Your Ground' law is not specifically written with language that suggests it's only for white people to invoke.

Ex-US Air Force Airman Michael Giles

But I use the term "white citizens" because cases like that of former USAF Airman Michael Giles (who is African-American) make clear that Florida prosecutors hold people who use a 'Stand Your Ground' defense after firing a weapon are held to totally different standards based on their race. 

Where George Zimmerman targeted, stalked, confronted and murdered Trayvon Martin and was able to convince a Florida jury he was justified because he was standing his ground, Michael Giles was punched in the back of the head and knocked to the ground during a 2010 melee at a Florida nightclub.

He took out his handgun, which he had a concealed carry permit for, and shot his attacker in the legs, injuring two bystanders with bullet fragments - the jury rejected his claim of self defense and he was found guilty of aggravated battery and sentenced to a mandatory 25 year sentence.

There's an ongoing grassroots social media campaign to get Giles, who served two tours overseas in the Middle East, freed.

But the outcome of the Renisha McBride case in Michigan makes clear that these laws do not give Theodore Wafer or any other citizen free license to kill innocent people with guns - especially when their lives are not actually threatened.

I think it also makes clear that Michigan wants to carefully distinguish itself from states like Florida, who's absurd 'Stand Your Ground' law is so abstract as to encourage mentally unbalanced people like George Zimmerman or Michael Dunn to commit murder - or Georgia where the state recently passed laws allowing people to carry loaded handguns into bars or even churches.

The jury decision in the McBride case reminds us that we are a nation of laws.

It won't bring back Renisha McBride's life, but if it serves as a warning for trigger-happy gun owners to think twice before shooting a human being and call 911 instead, perhaps it gives her death meaning and her family and friends some measure of solace knowing that the loss of her life could very well save someone else's.

I think the essence of the case boils down to a simple quote from the parents of Renisha McBride, as her father said after the court verdict, "That could have been anybody's kid."    

Is Media Outrage Over Domestic Violence Proportionate to the Perception of the Perpetrator?

NRA general counsel Robert J. Dowlut (center)

After recently reading Dave Gilson's disturbing must-read story on MotherJones.com about how NRA general counsel Robert J. Dowlut was set free from prison on a legal technicality after evidence showed he shot and killed his ex-girlfriend's mother Anna Marie Yocum in 1963, I've been thinking about how the media treats men who commit violent acts against women.

Media coverage of preseason NFL training camps has evolved significantly from when I played professional football to the point that there's a near constant stream of live TV coverage of the goings-on in all 32 teams' camps. Because NFL training camps consist largely of repetitive drills, different positions off practicing separate from one another and players driving or walking back and forth between practice and their dorms, ESPN's coverage includes a lot of commentary, speculation and opinion to keep the audience interested.
 
Earlier this year many were understandably outraged after disturbing video surfaced of Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice dragging his unconscious then-fiance Janay Palmer out of an elevator in an Atlantic City casino in February just minutes after they had allegedly gotten into some kind of physical altercation with each other. The NFL suspended him for two games and fined him $58,000 for violating the League's player code of conduct standards.

Last week I watched the coverage of Rice's press conference as he publicly apologized for the incident. Many of his teammates attended to show support for him, and Rice's now-wife, the victim in the incident and mother of his child, was also in attendance.

Personally I was raised to believe that hitting other people was wrong and that no man should ever raise his hands to a woman in violence or anger. Even if I do think Rice was wrong (and I certainly do) it's not my place to judge him, rather my focus is on how the media covers the incident.

There are many people who feel Rice got off with a slap on the wrist. During ESPN's live televised training camp coverage last week, a number of women who write for the espnW.com Website (which provides analysis, coverage and commentary of women's sports) expressed views shared by many people that the NFL's disciplinary measures taken against Ray Rice were inadequate.

As many including Jon Stewart have noted, an NFL player will get a stiffer penalty for testing positive for smoking pot than he will for assaulting a woman. Just look at Cleveland Browns' wide receiver Josh Gordon who is facing a suspension for the entire 2014 season for testing positive for weed.

On Friday August 1st Kate Fagan posted a piece on espnW.com entitled 'Roger Goodell Still Doesn't Get It'  that I think raises some pretty important issues and questions related to the severity of Rice's punishment and what level of responsibility the NFL has to take a more aggressive stance against domestic violence against women.

Fagan was pretty tough on the NFL and commissioner Roger Goodell but as she pointed out in her article, while the NFL does hold break-out sessions for new players during annual it's rookie symposium that teach respect for self and others and why domestic abuse is wrong; for those players who are prone to domestic abuse, that behavior is already ingrained by the time they are 20 or 21 years old.

Should the NFL do more? As a former player to me the answer is yes. The NFL is highly influential when it comes to shaping the mindset of the millions of young boys and men who spend countless hours watching football games on television, being saturated by the TV,  digital and print advertising that surrounds it and being exposed to the off-the-field lives of the players.

As a piece by Marisa Guthrie in the July 25th issue of Hollywood Reporter points out, the NFL dominates professional sports in terms of television deals. The League takes in $6 billion a year in broadcast revenue from ESPN, Fox, CBS, NBC, Direct TV and digital broadcast deals with Verizon and Microsoft; it also takes in $1.07 billion from ad revenue.

All those numbers mean the NFL has almost unmatched exposure to the young boys whose minds
could be shaped to understand that domestic violence is wrong. But that being said, I can't help but look back at all the coverage and commentary surrounding outrage over Rice not facing more serious charges for assaulting his wife and wonder why I don't see more media commentary and outrage over how the NRA's top lawyer got off for murdering his then-girlfriend's mother.

To be perfectly frank, on television I see a lot of white female reporters and writers justifiably expressing indignation over the behavior of African-American men like Ray Rice, or back in May of this year, the Carolina Panthers' defensive end Greg Hardy who faced two misdemeanors for domestic violence against his girlfriend of eight months. 

But what about Robert Dowlut? This is a man who as the NRA's top legal gun has been responsible for opposing bans on handguns in violence-plagued cities like Chicago and Washington, DC where simply banning people from owning handguns could save a lot of lives and injuries. Just ask the 82 people shot in Chicago over an 84 hour period over the July 4th holiday.

Isn't 82 people being shot considered domestic violence? If we look at Ray Rice and Robert Dowlut side by side, who do you think has had a bigger impact on domestic violence in America?

A black 27 year-old football player who hit his wife in a casino while they were both drunk?

Or a white NRA lawyer who went to his former girlfriend's mother's home back on the night of April 15, 1963 and shot her at close range (once in the chest and twice in the back as she tried to get away) with a Webley Mark VI .45 caliber handgun, was tried and convicted, got out of prison on a technicality then spent most of his 68 years helping the NRA to oppose reasonable laws banning handguns? 

As Dave Gilson's recent well-researched article on MotherJones.com points out, Anna Marie Yocum was a 36 year-old waitress and single mother of a 16 year-old daughter when she was shot and murdered by Robert Dowlut in her small South Bend, Indiana apartment - just after he'd shot and wounded a pawnshop employee during a robbery.

Shooting and killing your girlfriend's mother because you don't like her qualifies as domestic violence in my book, I certainly haven't seen a flood of live TV coverage from indignant reporters showing up at NRA headquarters or in front of Robert Dowlut's house. The op-eds on Ray Rice are still coming though, even though his wife Janay Palmer is alive and well, she filed no charges against him and Rice has committed to speaking out against domestic violence in the future.

Did all these reporters who are justifiably outraged over domestic abuse miss the Robert Dowlut story? Or does a young African-American professional athlete who hit his wife simply make an easier target than a respected wealthy white NRA lawyer who shot a woman and got away with murder?

Domestic violence is wrong regardless of the color or race of the perpetrator or victim - it'd be nice to see the media be colorblind about the level of their indignation, whoever committed the crime.
 

'The Harlem Hellfighters' - Max Brooks' New Graphic Novel Honors the All-Black 369th Infantry Regiment; Heroes of WWI

It's hardly surprising that the progeny of immense creative talents like writer/director Mel Brooks and Academy and Tony Award-winning actress Anne Bancroft would have a talented child - and writer Max Brooks has certainly proven himself to be that and much more.

Earlier today I listened to a fascinating interview with Brooks on Radiotimes on WHYY; first broadcast back in April of this year. While he's known for his four successful zombie books including 'World War Z', host Marty Moss-Coane was interviewing him about his recent graphic novel, 'The Harlem Hellfighters'.

It's based on the infamous 369th Infantry Regiment, a unit comprised entirely of African-Americans and Afro-Puerto Ricans from New York City that fought with distinction first in World War I, and later in World War II.

Inspired by a favorite college history teacher, Brooks spent years trying to pitch Hollywood film studios and producers the story about the heroic battlefield feats of The Harlem Hellfighters and the deep-seated prejudice they faced from the hierarchy of US Army and politicians who saw their costly victories against the Germans and celebrity in France as a serious threat to Jim Crow.

But no one wanted to touch the project. Determined to tell the story the right way, Brooks partnered with talented African-American illustrator Caanan White who did the pencils/illustration for successful science-fiction comics such as 'Ptolis' for Marvel and 'Uber' for Avatar. Together they created a vivid example of historical fiction (some of the characters are fictional amalgams) that drew rave reviews and brought the larger than life true story to a generation of readers not very familiar with the history of WWI.

With August marking the 100th anniversary of the start of 'The War to End All Wars', the media landscape will soon be dotted with a range of programming, documentaries and specials that re-examine the causes, events and impact of WWI; and Hollywood is taking notice as well.  

With the release of Brooks' and White's graphic novel to excellent reviews, and a recent slate of highly successful films focusing on the real and fictional struggles of African-American protagonists, ('The Help', '42', 'The Butler', '12 Years a Slave') in March, Sony purchased the film rights to the graphic novel before it was even published.

Brooks revealed in the interview that actor Will Smith expressed interest in starring in the film and as we all know, he's brought home some serious bacon for Sony. Since 1992, he's made over a billion and half dollars for Sony, $1,587,280,979 to be exact. His total lifetime gross for all his films is over $2.7 billion.

My point there is not to wave Will Smith's flag, he certainly doesn't need me or anyone else to do that. (I would sneak in that 'After Earth' may have gotten disastrous critical reviews for it's Scientology-laced plot, poor on-screen chemistry between him and his son and lukewarm direction from M. Knight Shyamalan, but it still made over $60 million).

My point is that attaching Will Smith to the project means 'The Harlem Hellfighters' will get the budget, marketing and distribution this true story of American heroes deserves. Smith will also attract other A-List talent to what should be regarded as one of the most important war films in recent memory.

If Spielberg's 'Saving Private Ryan' brought together an all-star cast for a fictional story of WWII, the incredible true story of the Harlem Hellfighters deserves no less a talented a cast (or director); one worthy of the sacrifices made and bravery shown by those men on and off the battlefield.

I for one look forward to the premiere. In the meantime I ordered a copy of Brooks' and White's graphic novel for myself from Amazon; and I'll be checking the mailbox.