Fathoming A Mortality Table

 So I was listening to the President's Town Hall last night when I heard a statistic and said to my wife incredulously "Is that right?"

I like to think of myself as semi-informed for a parent of two toddlers with a j-o-b and a two hour commute.

But did the POTUS just say that the leading cause of death for black males aged 18-34 is homicide?

http://www.cdc.gov/men/lcod/2013/blackmales2013.pdf

Pivot

There’s a pivotal line from a BB King CD, Live In Cook County Jail where he is telling a story to the crowd about changing a man and says that 

“you can’t raise him over again.” 

Well I can’t go back in time and get new parents and get different parenting. But when my wife holds up a mirror and reflects my nurture history right back at me, I do think about changing my behavior. But, it ends there. I feel that I can, to some extent, change the output, the behavior, but I can’t, don’t have the power to change, my feelings. I can’t I can’t I can’t. Won’t implies some sort of effort and control and I feel like I have none over my feelings, as it pertains to my marriage and my relationship with my wife. This lack of, this inability, to feel differently comes from my parents and the parenting I received, viewed. If my wife is correct and I am angry and cold, from where does this derive? Insecurity? People get the same external input but have different feelings about the input. I wish I could change my feelings. Or do I? Are my feelings not valid because they cause turbulence? Why is turbulence the measure of validity? My nurture is pivotal indeed. But pivot to where?

Like A Critter In An Attic At Midnight

The gas poured out. He struck the match and everything went aflame. The fire burned hot enough to melt the bones. He wanted to cover up his deed but he uncovered his soul; laid it bare to his conscience. His conscience scritched like a critter in an attic at midnight, gnawing at woods, souls, hearts, and minds. His naked soul was pelted with images of char and sounds of wail. The guilt washed over him like blood, encasing him with no chance of escape…or innocence. Though the state would never know, though his parents would never know, he would know and this knowledge would be his prison till he stopped breathing.

Escape Is Not An Option

I heard an interview on the commute in this morning with Jason Mark, editor of the environmental quarterly Earth Island Journal, about his 12/9/14 op ed in the New York Times entitled What ‘Interstellar’ and ‘Snowpiercer’ Got Wrong.

The op ed piece is here.

The gist of the article and the interview is that it is dangerous to bank on an escape from our environmental misdeeds a la worm holes or moon/mars colonies and that Hollyweird movies may be enabling the escape idea with movies like Interstellar. 

Take in this paragraph from the op ed:

Movies, of course, are based on the promise of escape. Illusions are fun, until they slide into delusion. A scant 536 people have slipped the surly bonds of Earth. Which means we won’t squish the human race through a wormhole anytime soon, nor establish a colony out among the stars for anyone but a lucky, stranded few. Escape is not an option, at least not in a time frame relevant to our current environmental predicament.

Mr. Mark said in the radio interview: “culture is powerful,” intimating that these cli-fi movies could be doing harm to our ultimate plan for dealing with our climate if we start to believe these movies and think we can escape to Mars.

Now go a little bit deeper, where it is colder and darker. At bottom, in the Heideggarian sense of the term, what this all boils down to is salvation. Culture is indeed powerful and the majority of the culture promises salvation, knows how to get it, knows you need it, knows you want it…salvation. Be it from a dystopic earth or a polar ice cap melted water world or from mortality itself, salvation can be yours.

But, in the words of Mark, “escape is not an option.”

There is no salvation, no escape from your own most possibility that cannot be outstripped.  

What if our powerful culture recognized this truth and lived accordingly, authentically?

Maybe that would be heaven on earth.

Both Ways

What does it mean when the Dallas Police Chief says:

"We don’t feel much support most days. Let’s not make today most days. Please. We need your support to be able to protect you from men like these who carried out this tragic, tragic event.”

What kind of support? Moral support? Why would you need moral support when you get paid to do this job, when you chose to do this PROfession over others?


And should locals not trained in emergencies be assisting you during tragic events? They don't know what to do and ignorance during emergencies would undoubtedly make things worse. I stayed at a holiday inn express last night but you really don't want me performing your emergency vasectomy.

No, what the chief is de facto referring to is that he and the police department don't feel liked by the community.


I do not doubt that it is hard to do your job when you don't feel liked. I do not doubt it is hard to do your job when people are apathetic to your job duties.

What does being liked, disliked, or even ignored have to do with completing your job duties?   

In the end, after all the emotions calm and the news cycle plays it out, doesn't it go both ways?

So Dallas Police Chief David Brown, I ask you, don't you think it goes both ways?

Do you think, David, that the citizens of Ferguson could have been "liked" by their Police Department?

https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/opa/press-releases/attachments/2015/03/04/ferguson_police_department_report.pdf

6

III.

FERGUSON LAW ENFORCEMENT EFFORTS ARE FOCUSED ON GENERATING REVENUE

9

IV.

FERGUSON LAW ENFORCE MENT PRACTICES VIOLATE THE LAW AND UNDERMINE COMMUNITY TRUST, ESPECIALLY AMONG AFRICAN AMERICANS

1.

FPD Engages in a Pattern of Unconstitutional Stops and Arrests in Violation of the Fourth Amendment

16

2.

FPD Engages in a Pattern of First Amendment Violations

24

3.

FPD Engages in a Pattern of Excessive Force in Violation of the Fourth Amendment

54

C.

Ferguson Law Enforcement Practices Disproportionately Harm Ferguson’s African-American Residents and Are Driven in Part by Racial Bias

62

1.

Ferguson’s Law Enforcement Actions Impose a Disparate Impact on African Americans that Violates Federal Law

63

2.

Ferguson’s Law Enforcement Practices Are Motivated in Part byDiscriminatory Intent in Violation of the Fourteenth Amendment and Other Federal Laws

D.

Ferguson Law Enforcement Practices Erode Community Trust, Especially Among Ferguson’s African-American Residents, and Make Policing Less Effective, More Difficult, and Less Safe

79

1.

Ferguson’s Unlawful Police and Court Practices Have Led to Distrust and Resentment Among Many in Ferguson

79

2.

FPD’s Exercise of Discretion, Even When Lawful, Often Undermines Community Trust and Public Safety

81

3.

FPD’s Failure to Respond to Complaints of Officer Misconduct Further Erodes Community Trust

82

4.

FPD’s Lack of Community Engagement Increases the Likelihood of Discriminatory Policing and Damages Public Trust

88

Neophyte In Nawlins and other assorted Musings

It’s been a while since I have blogged for you. It’s been a while since I thought blog could be a verb, and the past tense blogged is just off the hook yo!

A lot has happened.

Visited the Big Easy. For the uninitiated the big easy is a gigantic easy quiz. Think a big life size check from the Price Is Right but instead of date, pay to the order of and all that, it is just a bunch of easy true/false questions like Water is Wet T F or Water Boils at a temperature of microwave oven T F or Donald Trump’s Hair is Real... Opossum T F. I kid, I visited New Orleans. And let me tell you, after two hours into your trip, when you see a woman place a 4 month-old baby onto a bar so that she can do two shots, you know you are in for a good time. Oh, did I forget to mention that I wasn’t in a bar but in a shopping mall? Yes, they live differently in New Orleans my friends. I just flew back from New Orleans and boy is my liver tired. Yes a hedonistic delight down there, once you whip out your machete and cut through the humidity only to find that once you get indoors, you need a parka because it is freezing in most establishments, which accounts for the gumbo, etouffee sales numbers, which coupled with the day round/week long/month entirety/year round drinking, accounts for the obesity. But I had a great time and ate a bunch of stuff I can’t pronounce like remoulade and drank a bunch of stuff I can’t remember, like remoulade. Hell, I even got to run around the Mercedes Benz Superdome (because we all know about the strong german contingent in Nawlins’ and the goose stepping at Mardi Gras) at 6:30am for a 5k without one single local yelling who dat!

(Geography note: The Mississippi River basically spans New Orleans to Canada.)

M-I-S-S-I-S-S-I-P-P-I - why do I feel like I need to pee, or do I just miss peeing? Weird. 

It was basically a moral imperative, even for this moral nihilist, to get beignets.

This is a shot of The Spotted Cat bar and Jamey St. Pierre & The Honeycreepers. They were a really soulful group and very tight, despite the fact that it was 3pm on a blistering, humid sunday afternoon. This to me, in my total New Orleans neophyte-ness, symbolizes New Orleans.

Read Bill Bryson’s The Life and Times of The Thunderbolt Kid. I don’t think I have devoured a book this way since Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom. I know, too much fiber devouring whole books like this. While not a child of the 60’s and not from Iowa, I found the book incredibly funny and did not mind the strange looks from the other hotel pool inhabitants as my laughs interrupted their imbibing. I also marveled out how Bryson could deftly place some historical stats to better give you a sense of the 60’s; especially the atomic age and the testing that occurred after WWII. 

Behold: the power of adjectives.

Speaking of WWII, New Orleans also houses the WWII museum. The museum is huge and it is actually rather hard to get through and feel like you learned a lot; this is because they theme the areas and try to make it feel like you are in the jungle via overhead trees and ambient nature noises or in a bombed out Germany with uneven flooring and dilapidated décor to match – which in the end just cramps things a bit too much on a crowded day. Ah but the saving grace of the museum is the Beyond All Boundaries movie. A really neat movie experience that, because you are seated and not pressed along through installments, feel like you are wiser on the other end. But but but, this is not, I repeat, not, a museum for kids. There is very graphic video at points throughout which include persons burned alive and shot in the back. Not for kids. 

Visitors could don the outfit for their own iconic shots. The kid before me said the shirt stunk. He was right.