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Labels: history Labels: gun rights, gun self-defense Labels: global warming Labels: deinstitutionalization Labels: freedom of speech, homosexuality, political correctness Labels: homosexuality Labels: crime, deinstitutionalization, gun rights Labels: decline and fall of Western civilization Labels: political correctness Labels: child sexual abuse Labels: economics Labels: global warming Labels: decline and fall of Western civilization, freedom of religion, homosexuality Labels: crime Labels: deinstitutionalization Labels: homosexuality From all that is known about the murderous spree at Ward Parkway mall, it would seem obvious that the gunman, David W. Logsdon, was deranged. At a Monday news conference, his sister, Kathy Cagg, spoke of how her brother had a long history of mental illness combined with alcohol abuse. He had been hospitalized in October as suicidal, but only for six hours. “I wish he had been given the help he truly needed,” Cagg said in front of the church she attends, the First Church of the Nazarene at 118th Street and State Line Road. Her situation goes to the heart of how difficult it can be for loved ones, friends, neighbors or co-workers to get help for people they suspect are mentally ill and potentially dangerous to others. Mental illness is rampant in America. The American Psychiatric Association says close to 20 percent of the adult and childhood population is dealing with some type of diagnosable sickness, ranging from extremely mild and treatable depression to severe psychoses. Each year, members of the Kansas City police force, trained in crisis intervention, deal with from 500 to 600 calls involving people who are mentally ill. These do not include those involving drugs or alcohol. Each year the Probate Division of the Jackson County Circuit Court adjudicates close to 1,300 involuntary civil commitments. These are people — friends, relatives, spouses — who go to court to get their loved ones put in a hospital for what is supposed to be a 96-hour evaluation because the loved ones are either a danger to themselves or others. Whereas mental health care in Kansas is comparatively well-funded — the Legislature just committed an extra $17 million to its community mental health centers — mental health care is in crisis in Missouri. “There is no guarantee that they will be kept for 96 hours,” said Jackson County Circuit Judge Kathleen Forsyth. “Doctors can let them out any time. Sadly, there is no guarantee they’ll even let them in. Many times the hospital is full up.” Sometimes, she said, patients are let out in a matter of hours. “The statutory situation is not the problem,” Forsyth said. “The courts have no problem doing what needs to be done to commit people for evaluation. The issue is how much mental health treatment is available in the community. That’s where the whole thing breaks down. “There are so many people that need help. There is a logjam in the hospital.” Labels: deinstitutionalization Labels: film reviews, freedom of speech Labels: homosexuality Labels: gun rights Labels: 2008 presidential candidates Labels: film reviews, movie reviews Labels: deinstitutionalization Labels: gun rights
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I ran for Idaho state senate in 2008--didn't win
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Who Was Bass Reeves?
I was watching something on the History Channel this morning, while enjoying my tea, and they discussed a man who was born a slave, and is believed to have been the first black U.S. deputy marshal west of the Mississippi. I did a little Googleing, and found this article:Born to slave parents in 1838 in Paris, Texas , Bass Reeves would become the first black U.S. Deputy Marshal west of the Mississippi River and one of the greatest frontier heroes in our nation’s history.
This piece, including a 1910 obituary from an Oklahoma newspaper, mentions how Reeves' devotion to duty included arresting his own son for murder, and bringing him to justice.
Owned by a man named George Reeves, a farmer and politician, Bass took the surname of his owner, like other slaves of the time. Working alongside his parents, Reeves started out as a water boy until he was old enough to become a field hand.
...
Freed” by the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 and no longer a fugitive, Reeves left Indian Territory and bought land near Van Buren, Arkansas, becoming a successful farmer and rancher. A year later, he married Nellie Jennie from Texas , and immediately began to have a family. Raising ten children on their homestead -- five girls and five boys, the family lived happily on the farm.
However, Reeve’s life as a contented farmer was about to change when Isaac C. Parker was appointed judge for the Federal Western District Court at Fort Smith, Arkansas on May 10, 1875. At the time Parker was appointed, Indian Territory had become extremely lawless as thieves, murderers, and anyone else wishing to hide from the law, took refuge in the territory that previously had no federal or state jurisdiction.
One of Parker's first official acts was to appoint U.S. Marshal James F. Fagan as head of the some 200 deputies he was then told to hire. Fagan heard of Bass Reeves' significant knowledge of the area, as well as his ability to speak several tribal languages, and soon recruited him as a U.S. Deputy.
The deputies were tasked with “cleaning up” Indian Territory and on Judge Parker’s orders, “Bring them in alive --- or dead!"
...
Though Reeves could not read or write it did not curb his effectiveness in bringing back the criminals. Before he headed out, he would have someone read him the warrants and memorize which was which. When asked to produce the warrant, he never failed to pick out the correct one.
An imposing figure, always riding on a large stallion, Reeves began to earn a reputation for his courage and success at bringing in or killing many desperadoes of the territory. Always wearing a large black hat, Reeves was usually a spiffy dresser, with his boots polished to a gleaming shine. He was known for his politeness and courteous manner. However, when the purpose served him, he was a master of disguises and often utilized aliases. Sometimes appearing as a cowboy, farmer, gunslinger, or outlaw, himself, he always wore two Colt pistols, butt forward for a fast draw. Ambidextrous, he rarely missed his mark.
Leaving Fort Smith, often with a pocketful of warrants, Reeves would often return months later herding a number of outlaws charged with crimes ranging from bootlegging to murder. Paid in fees and rewards, he would make a handsome profit, before spending a little time with his family and returning to the range once again.
Flying Pig Time
If this appeared on Fox News, I would be pleased but not completely shocked. But when John Stossel's editors at ABC allow something like this to be published on the ABC News website--well, it's time for hats with big brims to protect us from what the flying pigs are going to dropping:This past Tuesday the governor of Virginia announced he would close the loophole that allowed Seung-Hui Cho to buy the guns he used to kill 32 people -- and himself -- on the Virginia Tech campus. OK, it's a good idea to keep guns out of the hands of people who are mentally unstable. But be careful about how far the calls for gun control go, because the idea that gun control laws lower gun crime is a myth.
After the 1997 shooting of 16 kids in Dunblane, England, the United Kingdom passed one of the strictest gun-control laws in the world, banning its citizens from owning almost all types of handguns. Britain seemed to get safer by the minute, as 162,000 newly-illegal firearms were forked over to British officials by law-abiding citizens.
But this didn't decrease the amount of gun-related crime in the U.K. In fact, gun-related crime has nearly doubled in the U.K. since the ban was enacted.
Might stricter gun laws result in more gun crime? It seems counterintuitive but makes sense if we consider one simple fact: Criminals don't obey the law. Strict gun laws, like the ban in Britain, probably only affect the actions of people who wouldn't commit crimes in the first place.
England's ban didn't magically cause all British handguns to disappear. Officials estimate that more than 250,000 illegal weapons are still in circulation in the country. Without the fear of retaliation from victims who might be packing heat, criminals in possession of these weapons now have a much easier job, and the incidence of gun-related crime has risen. As the saying goes, "If guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns."
It's true that if gun control laws had been stricter in Virginia, Seung-Hui Cho would have had a more difficult time getting ahold of the weapons he used to gun down innocent students and teachers. But it's foolish to assume that stricter gun laws will prevent maniacs like Cho from committing heinous crimes. A deranged criminal will find a way to get his hands on a gun. Or a bomb.
This Came To Me In A Dream
A spectre is haunting the world -- the spectre of anthropogenic global warming. All the powers of old Europe have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this spectre: England and Germany, Social Democrats and Greens.
The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles. The largest struggle has been between those who work for a living, and those who live by taxing the workers. They have engaged in an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that sometimes results in higher taxes and inferior living conditions for the toiling masses.
In the earlier epochs of history, we find almost everywhere a complicated arrangement of society into various orders, a manifold gradation of social rank. In every case, those who live off the sweat of their brow must support those who do not. The justifications were varied: that the nobles were military protection for the peasants; that there was a divine right of kings to rule; in the twentieth century, that those who toiled must be taxed to support the less fortunate. While there were often genuine needs that taxation of the masses met, these were merely excuses for the privileged classes to maintain themselves in luxury and to keep the working classes from reaching that same level of comfort. (John Kerry, for example.)
The exploiting classes have long sought excuses to increase taxation on those who work. In the 1990s, those who toil became increasingly unwilling to continue support for a welfare system that created dependency and pathology, and the exploiting classes searched desperately for a basis upon which to erect a new system for impoverishing the workers, one that would be both new and old. The reasons would be new, and therefore not obviously false. The results would be old: the continued transfer of wealth from those who labor, preventing the bourgeois from acquiring the luxury of time that wealth provides, and which has hitherto only been enjoyed by the exploiting classes.
The exploiting classes cannot exist without constantly revolutionizing the instruments of taxation, and thereby the relations of taxation, and with them the whole relations of society. The need of a constantly expanding tax base to impoverish the bourgeois chases the exploting classes over the entire surface of the globe, looking for excuses in melting glaciers. It must build mansions everywhere, travel by private jet everywhere, establish environmental think tanks everywhere.
The exploiting class has, through its exploitation of the bourgeois, given a cosmopolitan character to taxation and government in every country. The exploiting classes of every nation have found common cause in an uncertain theory of global warming with which it frightens the most easily misled segment of the masses into destroying their own future wealth and happiness.
The exploiting class keeps more and more of the means of production, and of property, by developing new and more sophisticated methods of impoverishing those who work. It seeks to agglomerate wealth, centralize the control of production, and concentrate property in a few hands. The necessary consequence of this will be political centralization. Independent, or but loosely connected provinces, with separate interests, laws, governments, and systems of taxation, will become lumped together into one nation, with one government, one code of laws, one national class interest, one frontier, and one customs tariff.
Let the exploiting classes tremble at a workers' revolution. Those who work for a living have nothing to lose but their carbon taxes. They have a world to win.
Workers of all countries, unite!
The Right to Treatment as Blackmail
In Rouse v. Cameron (1966), the federal courts found that criminals who had been confined because they were mentally ill had a right to treatment. What are the origins of this right? I did a little digging, and found an article by Dr. Morton Birnbaum, "The Right to Treatment," American Bar Association Journal, 46[May, 1960]:499-505. Birnbaum argued that since the state governments involuntarily institutionalized mentally ill persons, and failed to provide anything more than custodial care, the courts should find that such patients had a right to treatment.
Birnbaum's argument for such a right to treatment was not based on any recognizable Constitutional provision, but simply that if this “right to treatment were to be recognized and enforced, it will be shown that the standard of treatment in public mental institutions probably will be raised....” This was a pragmatic argument; the courts should recognize this right to treatment because of the beneficial effects that it would have on psychiatric care. Birnbaum made no pretense that there was a theoretical basis for this claim, acknowledging that the courts were primarily interested in the questions of whether a patient's rights were sufficiently protected in commitment proceedings. Birnbaum openly stated that if the courts found such a right to treatment, it would act as a stick to force improved care, because the alternative was too worrisome—and that was release: To release a mentally ill person who requires further institutionalization, solely because he is not being given proper care and treatment, may endanger the health and welfare of many members of the community as well as the health and welfare of the sick person; however, it should always be remembered that the entire danger to, and from, the mentally ill that may occur by releasing them while they still require future hospitalization can be removed simply by our society treating these sick people properly. This is an important reason why the right to treatment is being advocated.
I can't argue with Birnbaum's good intentions, and I don't doubt that state governments were being cheap with spending for mental hospitals. Unfortunately, when you bluff at poker, you are taking the chance that someone will call your bluff. I am beginning to think that the deinstitutionalization movement managed to give us the worst of both worlds: increased risk to the deinstitutionalized patients and to the society.
Birnbaum didn't want patients sleeping on steam grates; he wanted the legislatures to provide more than just custodial care for those patients that could be helped. But once you Constitutionalize a public policy issue--once you claim that the Constitution mandates a certain behavior--it greatly limits the ability of a legislature to cut the sort of compromises that are required when confronting real world questions of resources.
UPDATE: Oh yes, the plaintiff in Rouse v. Cameron was hospitalized because he had been arrested on a weapons charge, and found not guilty by reason of insanity. I haven't been able to find this decision yet (at least, not online) but I get the impression that he was hospitalized for several years not simply because he was carrying a gun and 600 rounds of ammunition.
UPDATE 2: I found an article published in 1969 in Hospital and Community Psychiatry by Judge Bazelon, who wrote Rouse v. Cameron in which he echoed Birnbaum--that finding a right to treatment was a threat to force state legislatures to increase funding for mental hospitals--either they had to provide treatment to violent mental patients, or they had to release them to the streets.
Homosexuality, Free Speech: Pick One
Count on California schools, where liberals are firmly in control, to punish free speech. From WorldNetDaily, May 3, 2007:At least another 75 students have been suspended from school in California for wearing shirts that expressed their biblically-based opposition to homosexuality, and the district that, as WND reported, has been imposing the punishments, says those quotations aren't necessarily acceptable because they are from God's Word.
Freedom of speech. Homosexuality. California schools seem to be saying, "Pick one."
That's the verdict from San Juan Unified School District Superintendent Steven Enoch, according to lawyers for the Pacific Justice Institute, which is working on behalf of the students.
The suspensions were begun on April 18 when the homosexual lobby-supported "Day of Silence" was observed in public schools in California – and across the nation.
An unknown number of students but at least dozens and perhaps hundreds of students were suspended for that day when they arrived wearing T-shirts proclaiming the Bible's condemnation of homosexuality, and PJI lawyer Kevin Snider was launched into action.
Those disagreements have been resolved in one or two cases, but continue escalating in others, including at San Juan, where another 50 students were suspended on Monday for wearing the shirts, and there were reports that several dozen more were punished yesterday.
Peter Ganchenko, a deacon in a local church, reported yesterday that "approximately 25 more students have been suspended for expressing their religious beliefs on campus … at San Juan High School."
"The [San Juan] school is taking the position that if it's offensive [to anyone] you can't wear it," Snider told WND. "The school superintendent [said] just because something comes from the Bible doesn't give it carte blanche to be acceptable in schools."
The students have been wearing T-shirts proclaiming their Biblical views, he said. "They had a quote from Jesus, 'If you love me you will keep my commandments."
The students also wore shirts with other Bible verses, including 1 Corinthians 6:9-10: "Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God."
Other slogans included the quotation from the Old Testament Law that speaks of homosexuality as an "abomination," he said. But the school also allows T-shirts promoting homosexuality, too, with messages such as "I'm gay," he noted.
Supposedly Bush Is Going to Veto This Bill...
The bill is HR 1592, and while the White House is indicating that there are serious constitutionality problems with a federal bill that seeks to punish purely intrastate crimes, but Bush has turned out to be such a liberal, and the pressure from within the Republican Party "to not appear homophobic" will be so strong, that I think contacting the White House to demand a veto would be a good idea.
There are so many reasons to veto this bill:
1. The constitutional problem. As even Dale Carpenter over at Volokh Conspiracy points out, the attempt to justify federal authority over hate crimes that do not involve any interstate commerce has already been found unconstitutional in U.S. v. Morrison (which struck down the Violence Against Women Act for not actually involving interstate activity).
2. The utter dishonesty of the law, which tries to use this absurd basis for claiming federal jurisdiction:(6) Such violence substantially affects interstate commerce in many ways, including the following:
I guess by the reasoning of (E):
(A) The movement of members of targeted groups is impeded, and members of such groups are forced to move across State lines to escape the incidence or risk of such violence.
(B) Members of targeted groups are prevented from purchasing goods and services, obtaining or sustaining employment, or participating in other commercial activity.
(C) Perpetrators cross State lines to commit such violence.
(D) Channels, facilities, and instrumentalities of interstate commerce are used to facilitate the commission of such violence.
(E) Such violence is committed using articles that have traveled in interstate commerce.
Yup. Rapists often use knives, condoms, or rope that has traveled in interstate commerce. I guess we can make rape a federal crime.
Forgers use pens that have traveled in interstate commerce. I guess we can make forgery a federal crime.
People who get parking tickets are using vehicles that have traveled in interstate commerce. We can make that a federal crime, too.
Oh wait, the oxygen you breathe has at least crossed state lines--and some of it has traveled in an airliner--so that's interstate commerce! We can make everything a federal crime!
3. The fact is that a lot of hate crimes are faked. This bill not only adds homosexuality to the list, but dramatically expands the rationale for federal involvement, so a great many crimes that would be properly prosecuted under state laws now become federal--and I don't have much confidence in the integrity of federal prosecutors, especially in an area that is emotionally quite important to a lot of lawyers.
4. If there is a violence problem, prosecute these as violent crimes. If someone takes a baseball bat to a gay man (or someone he perceives as a gay man), that's aggravated assault--potentially attempted murder. If your state makes that into a serious crime (as Idaho does), you don't need additional laws. If you live somewhere like California, that regards violent crimes as only slightly worse than voting Republican, perhaps you should make violent crimes into something serious.
5. It is not clear that homosexuals suffer particularly high rates of hate crimes relative to their percentage of the population, as I pointed out here.
More On The Kansas City Shooter
This article from the May 2, 2007 Kansas City Star just makes me want to cry:David W. Logsdon lived in his next-door neighbor’s house and used her credit cards while her dead and battered body lay on the floor, evidence shows.
The lessons here:
He also apparently used a rifle from her home to launch a deadly rampage at Ward Parkway Center Sunday afternoon, just an hour and 40 minutes after police found Patricia Reed’s body.
A Social Security number etched onto the .30-caliber M1 carbine semiautomatic rifle belonged to Reed’s late husband, a World War II veteran who died in 1993, The Star confirmed Tuesday.
Logsdon apparently moved into the house after Reed’s murder because it offered all the comforts his own home did not, The Star also learned.
His home contained food for his two cats, but none for himself. Utility companies had cut his power and water.
...
His checking account was overdrawn. He owed money to creditors. The former unarmed security guard couldn’t regain that job because of warrants for property code violations.
And Jackson County this year sent him two letters threatening foreclosure if $3,369.50 in back taxes, interest and penalties remained unpaid. The second letter, sent April 2, was headed “Final notice before foreclosure filing” and set an April 30 payment deadline.
As Logsdon’s home deteriorated, and his financial resources dried up, police believe Logsdon, 51, beat Reed to death, moved into her home and began using her resources and driving her car.
Investigators think Reed had been dead at least three days by Sunday. No relatives had talked to her since April 21.
It was her stolen car that drew police attention to Logsdon at a Bannister Road gas station Sunday. Police aren’t sure why Logsdon was there, but an officer’s arrival kicked off a gunfight that left the officer and Logsdon wounded.
Logsdon sped away and launched a shooting rampage at Ward Parkway that killed two shoppers and wounded at least four others. Within minutes, a police officer killed Logsdon with two shotgun blasts as Logsdon headed toward his former employer, the Target store.
Police haven’t found a suicide note or anything to explain Logsdon’s actions.
But Logsdon’s sister said her brother left her a cryptic message Sunday asking her to take care of his cats.
Police found empty beer cans in Logsdon’s truck and Reed’s car this week. Beer cans also littered his home, police said.
Although Logsdon apparently found beer money, he had not paid his taxes or any bills for some time, police said. Police found unopened letters containing 2006 tax information in his unkempt home.
“It was filthy,” said homicide Detective David Needham.
Another detective, Alane Booth, added the home was outdated and disorganized.
“It was like walking back in time,” she said. “He had old letters and papers that were yellowed from age sitting in piles.”
The Reed and Logsdon families were longtime neighbors, but eventually most members of each family moved or died, leaving David Logsdon and Patricia Reed.
Reed had helped Logsdon over the years, even co-signing a vehicle for him, according to police. Reed’s emergency contact person had been Logsdon’s sister, police said. Logsdon had suffered from mental illness for a long time, Cagg said, but the situation worsened when their mother went into a nursing home. She had held him together, not just emotionally but also financially.
Her brother started pawning things to pay for food, Cagg said. In October 2005, he tried to get Reed to give him a gun. Instead, Reed gave him food because he had gone without meals for four days.
A concerned Reed called Cagg, who contacted police. Officers took Logsdon to a mental-health facility, where he was evaluated and released within a few hours, his sister said. The facility sent him home with a cab voucher and a list of resources.
“We just seriously need to look at our system and how we deal with people as seriously deranged as my brother,” Cagg said.
...
Police were still tracing the origins of two .22-caliber handguns Logsdon used in the gunfight with the police officer at the gas station. Based on their serial numbers, one had been manufactured in the 1950s and the other in 1965.
Though it is unclear whether Logsdon owned either gun, he had gun books and literature, dusty ammunition reloading equipment and several types of bullets in his house, police said. None matched the calibers of weapons used in the crimes.
1. It seems unlikely that any gun control law short of a complete ban on gun ownership would have made a difference on this. He stole the primary killing weapon from a neighbor who he beat to death to get it.
2. Here was a person with a long history of mental illness who was spiraling down. Family intervened as best they could, but the mental health system failed to keep him hospitalized for suicidal tendencies. A few hours for someone in this state makes absolutely no sense.
3. Much like George Hennard, who committed the Luby's Cafeteria massacre in Killeen Texas, here was a person with clearly serious mental illness problems whose increasingly severe financial problems caused by legal troubles drove him over the edge.
What a tragedy.
So It's Not Just An Act On Stage
A description of how the rapper 50 Cent's 52 room mansion is on the market:The rap artist (real name: Curtis James Jackson III) bought the 48,000-plus-square-foot house in September 2003 for $4.1 million.
Since buying the mansion, 50 Cent has reportedly spent up to $6 million renovating the house, including adding a helicopter pad.
...
Clemens, who was the listing agent on the house when it was owned by Tyson, said that he was notified a few weeks ago that another real estate agent would be handling the sale.
"I was surprised it hadn't come on the market because we were expecting it," Clemens said. "He's put a lot into it, and it's all very tasteful, except the stripper poles."
University of Communists, San Diego
This reads like a parody from The Onion, instead of a serious article from Inside Higher Education (May 3, 2007):Benjamin Balthaser and Scott Boehm, two graduate teaching assistants who have led the campaign to restore the year-long Dimensions of Culture sequence to what they say is its original form, have not been re-hired for the upcoming academic year — a circumstance all parties agree is attributable to their efforts to change the curriculum from within.
"Hegemonic assumptions"--how did they come up with a curriculum description that failed to include "running dog lackeys" in it?
The graduate students charge that the year-long course sequence designed in the early 1990s to “challenge hegemonic assumptions about race, class, gender and sexuality” has lost its coherence as the program has been watered down into “a form of uncritical patriotic education that fails to interrogate the injustice integral to the founding of the U.S. and the current state of U.S. society.”
...
“From the beginning, the program was meant to be a de-territorializing experience that would make students question mainstream assumptions. It would be a very critical approach to questions of race, class, gender and sexuality in the United States,” says Boehm, a third-year literature student....
As one of the comments about that article observed:So....the course is taught by contingent faculty — including other students? How much are they paid? What does that say about “social justice"? And since when are graduate students expert in the teaching of rhetoric, critical thinking, and academic writing?
There comes a moment when the primary function of a composition class is to teach students to write coherent essays--not "de-territorialize" students or indoctrinate them about the evils of "hegemony."
And does this course actually improve the quality of student writing, or adequately prepare students for writing in other courses? The syllabus is indeed challenging, but how many students could prepare an adequate summary of any particular reading — if they even DO the reading to begin with? And if the syllabus is pretty much unchanged from one year to the next, plagiarism must be out of control.
My wife teaches English composition at one of the local universities. She has the students read a variety of materials, and encourages lively class discussions as part of evaluating the arguments of the articles that they read. But the primary function of the class is to teach students how to write clearly and persuasively, understand and critically analyze arguments, and do research. That's her job. If these grad students want to be running indoctrination sessions (as the language used suggests), they are going to have to wait for the Revolution, when all the proletariat will attend classes after they finish their time working in the fields.
A Very Disturbing Article
Our image of the Amish is very positive. This article about how widespread child sexual abuse is in the Amish community--and how reluctant the court system is to pursue these cases on the rare occasions that the Amish community allows this abuse to become visible--will shock you.
I Was Thinking Further Ahead Than I Realized
I took the Corvette into the dealership today because the fuel tank sending unit seems to be failing again. Sometimes I start the car up and says the gas tank is completely empty. Then I restart the car, and it works. Today it seemed to be a hard failure, so I drove in. This happened once before, and I knew it was an expensive repair, because they have to drop the gas tank to get to the sending unit.
I thought that I had only bought a five year extended warranty on the car, but while pulling out the paperwork at the dealer today, I was pleased to discover that I had bought the extended warranty out to six years or 75,000 miles--so I still have warranty through September of 2008. (There is no way that I am going to run out of miles before I run out of years.)
Is This How George Soros Is Spending His Money?
A reader noticed that his local library system had a dozen copies of Perkins' Confessions of an Economic Hit Man--and the explanation from the librarian was that it was a very popular book. Two nearby library systems, he says, also had a dozen copies.
I searched Boise Public Library, and they had seven copies--it looks like one in every branch (only one of which is actually checked out).
Sonoma County Public Library system has thirteen copies--apparently one in every branch, and two in one branch. This being a county of multimillionaires, six of them are checked out.
Santa Monica Public Library: six copies for all four branches. Four copies are checked out.
Perkins' book is just wonderful and completely believable, if you read the leftist descriptions like this one. Publishers Weekly had this to say about it:He says he was trained early in his career by a glamorous older woman as one of many "economic hit men" advancing the cause of corporate hegemony. He also says he has wanted to tell his story for the last two decades, but his shadowy masters have either bought him off or threatened him until now. The story as presented is implausible to say the least, offering so few details that Perkins often seems paranoid, and the simplistic political analysis doesn’t enhance his credibility. Despite the claim that his work left him wracked with guilt, the artless prose is emotionally flat and generally comes across as a personal crisis of conscience blown up to monstrous proportions, casting Perkins as a victim not only of his own neuroses over class and money but of dark forces beyond his control. His claim to have assisted the House of Saud in strengthening its ties to American power brokers may be timely enough to attract some attention, but the yarn he spins is ultimately unconvincing, except perhaps to conspiracy buffs.
One of the reviewers on Amazon.com sounds like he really wants to believe Perkins. Because the reviewer has a Mercer Island, Washington address, he is wealthy enough to be a fierce anticapitalist multimillionaire (unless that's just because he is still living with Mommy and Daddy). But even this guy points to some serious problems with it:"Confessions" is at once too good to be true and too vague to be believed. The author apparently had a successful career supporting requests for development loans for major electric utilities projects to the various less developed countries by grossly inflating their projected economic growth. His motivation for doing so was admittedly to keep his job (his boss was fired when he provided more realistic projections) and flourish in a consulting company whose financial success was clearly dependent upon the loans being approved so that their clients could get the lucrative contracts to do the construction work. Nevertheless, Perkins attempts to make what would just be another sordid tale of Enron-style numbers spoofing into a nearly epic story of official U.S. chicanery by alleging that fraud was perpetuated at the request of the American government in order to trap the borrower nations, apparently too ignorant or corrupt to watch out for themselves, into an eternity of economic and political servitude by intentionally burdening them with debts they could not pay. Unfortunately, despite Perkins career as a self-proclaimed "economist", his book is devoid of even a single statistic backing up this claim. Instead, it rests almost solely upon the words of a mysterious "Claudia" - a woman who present herself not as a U.S. government agent, but as a consultant to Perkins's employer - who in a series of secret meetings imbued this revelation to Perkins from on high as it were, much as Gabriel dictated the Qu'ran to Mohammed. To say that this story is hard to believe is to treat it with a respect it is manifestly undeserving. Perkins's main pitch seems to be that his own apparently solid status as an establishment insider is sufficient proof of his own credibility, despite his enthusiastic admissions that made a substantial fortune exagerrating and lieing for a living. Yet Perkins is no McNamara, but a best a midlevel manager in the "corportocracy" he exposes, and his story lacks the abundant details which made true insider accounts, like Phillip Agee's "Inside the Company" so unmistakably authentic and powerful. In fact, it is precisely its quasi-fictional nature, rather like Carlos Castaneda's dubious account of his dealings with Native American shamans, which makes "Confessions" such a good read. It reads like fiction because it basically is fiction, albeit interlaced with enough true events from the author's life and recent history to give it the veneer of plausibility.
My reader asks asks if Perkins' book is being given to public libraries as part of a large scale propaganda campaign for Soros or one of the other billionaire leftists? The Soviet Union apparently did something similar during the Cold War--a way to get their ideas widely distributed, and put a lot of money into the pockets of a friendly author.
There's nothing terribly wrong with this. But it is something of a reminder that part of why the left keeps winning is that they have the money for this sort of thing. If anyone has written a detailed examination of Perkins' claims, it would be a good book to give to library systems around the country. (Feel free to do that with my book Armed America, too!)
There is one area where there might be something wrong with this: if Perkins' book is actually fiction, then it needs to be marked as such. Otherwise, it is fraud. Imagine if someone sent half a dozen copies of a book to every public library system that claimed that Bill Clinton had dozens of people murdered to hide his involvement with cocaine smuggling, child prostitution, and planning 9/11. I rather doubt that many libraries would put it on the shelf--certainly, they wouldn't put a copy in every branch.
Surprise, Surprise: Measured Global Warming on Mars
From the London Times:Mars is being hit by rapid climate change and it is happening so fast that the red planet could lose its southern ice cap, writes Jonathan Leake.
Scientists from Nasa say that Mars has warmed by about 0.5C since the 1970s. This is similar to the warming experienced on Earth over approximately the same period.
Since there is no known life on Mars it suggests rapid changes in planetary climates could be natural phenomena.
The mechanism at work on Mars appears, however, to be different from that on Earth. One of the researchers, Lori Fenton, believes variations in radiation and temperature across the surface of the Red Planet are generating strong winds.
In a paper published in the journal Nature, she suggests that such winds can stir up giant dust storms, trapping heat and raising the planet’s temperature.
Civil Unions in Oregon; Incest Prohibition Repeal Coming Next
Dale Carpenter at Volokh Conspiracy reports on Oregon legislature's passage of a civil unions bill for same-sex couples.
Just to add to the excitement, Professor Volokh discusses the emerging movement to decriminalize incest, with the Green Party in Germany backing a brother and sister who have had four children together, and Jeff Jacoby gives details on a number of suits in the U.S. attempting to decriminalize incest.
One commenter over at Volokh Conspiracy is clearly beginning to be bothered by the sight of the far end of the slippery slope which derives from the notion that anything that consenting adults do is okay:If majority-status "consent" is the only criteria for distinguishing an activity as legal, then what's stopping us from consen[s]ual gladi[a]torial contests involving lethal duels?
The claim that what consenting adults do is none of the government's business would apply equally to racial discrimination in employment, or building a machine gun in your home, or having sex with animals, or torturing animals to death for a paying crowd. I think this would make a marvelous new reality show: "Let's see how long this dog stays alive, screaming in pain, while we slowly rip its skin off its body!" A lot of things involve consenting adults that civilized societies don't considerable acceptable--but in the pursuit of making one small group feel good about themselves by mandating legalization of same-sex marriage, the intellectuals are slowly destroying the basis for rules that define civilization.
Why do I get the impression that Western Civilization is sliding back to barbarity, on the heels of its most educated members?
Just to add to the insanity, Professor Volokh mentions that one American state has a provision in its incest law that gives a special legal status to one particular religion, by exempting uncle/niece marriages from the state's law banning incestuous marriages:§ 15-1-4 Marriages of kindred allowed by Jewish religion. – The provisions of §§ 15-1-1 – 15-1-3 shall not extend to, or in any way affect, any marriage which shall be solemnized among the Jewish people, within the degrees of affinity or consanguinity allowed by their religion.
This means that members of one religion enjoy certain legal benefits that members of another religion do not. Imagine if an American state had a law on the books that said that the laws against child molestation didn't apply to Catholics. How many nanoseconds would it take for the ACLU to file suit for violating the First Amendment's guarantee against establishment of religion?
There might an argument that not writing such an exemption for Jews into the law would violate the freedom of religion clause--but even then, such a provision would have to apply to every religion or to non-religious persons to avoid establishment of religion problems.
My Mind Swirls At What This Says About the State of Texas Justice
I went over here to vote in one of those stupid online polls about whether Texas Governor Perry's proposal to abolish most of "gun-free" zones was a good idea or not.
Then I noticed this poll about another legislative proposal that just makes my brain spin:A compromise bill in Austin would allow the death penalty for child predators twice convicted of raping a child 13 or younger. Do you support allowing the death penalty for repeat child sexual abuse offenders?
What makes my mind boggle is the idea that someone who has been convicted of raping a child 13 or younger would ever be allowed outside of a prison cell.
This Guy Was At Least Recognized As Mentally Ill...
after the murder--but is waiting for space in a state mental hospital:THIBODAUX -- A Des Allemands man accused of killing his father 3 1/2 years ago has spent the last three years in the Lafourche Parish jail, waiting for room in the state hospital for the criminally insane.
This is one of those unfortunate cases where it would appear that there really is a shortage of funds being spent on space in a mental hospital. I would be curious to know if there were any attempts to get him hospitalized before the murder.
State District Judge Bruce Simpson committed Bryan Vanacor Jr. on April 14, 2004.
But the 24-year-old is among 161 people on the waiting list for the 234-bed Feliciana Forensic Facility in Jackson -- and the average stay there is more than a year, said Robert Johannessen, spokesman for Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals.
He said another 300 patients are housed in other parts of the state, many of them at Southeast Hospital in Mandeville. Both are for people either declared incompetent to stand trial because they cannot help their attorneys or found not guilty because of insanity.
Vanacor is charged with second-degree murder of 46-year-old Bryan Vanacor Sr., who was shot several times with a .45-caliber pistol in November 2003 at a campground he owned.
Deputies said at the time that the two had had an adversarial relationship for some time. A .45-cabliber handgun was found under the sofa in the younger Vanacor's camper, and he admitted shooting his father during questioning, sheriff's spokesman Larry Weidel said at the time.
His competency is reviewed every six months, and only one exam has found him competent. His next court date is scheduled for Oct. 17.
Patients stay at Feliciana or Southeast until their competency is restored or a court-ordered stay of trial ends, Johannessen said. The average stay is 411 days at Feliciana, 398 at Southeast, he said.
Doctors have tried at least four anti-psychotic medicines on Vanacor over the past 3 1/2 years.
UPDATE: Oh yeah--it turns out that the mall was a gun-free zone.
More "Ford's In Trouble" News
I mentioned a while back that Ford seemed to be hurting more than GM--and I wondered if the boycott to punish them for their active support of homosexual advocacy causes might be part of it. I can't see that Ford's offerings (including the Jaguar X-type, which caused me to salivate a bit when I drove one) are so incredibly bad relative to where they have been in the past.
This article indicates that the direction is still down, down:DETROIT (Reuters) - Ford Motor Co. (F.N: Quote, Profile , Research) said on Tuesday U.S. April vehicle sales fell 13 percent from a year earlier, hurt by a weak housing market and a cutback in fleet sales.
My general impression is that the American Family Association's Ford boycott can't be all that effective--but then again, Fords are generally low cost vehicles, and conservatives tend to be relatively low income people. Perhaps Ford's insistence of funding homosexual marriage efforts matters more to upper management than sales.
The No. 2 U.S. automaker said it sold 228,623 vehicles in the United States last month, compared with 262,722 vehicles a year earlier.
No Surprise On This
Concerning the man who went on a shooting spree in Kansas City Sunday from the May 1, 2007 Kansas City Star:
Click on the label deinstitutionalization below to read all of my blog entries on this subject.
Without an individual’s cooperation it is nearly impossible to get a loved one mental health care they may desperately need. Friends, neighbors or family members can try to initiate a 96-hour commitment. It requires at least two people to swear out affidavits and present them in probate court.
This Film Is Not Yet Rated
One of the cable channels that runs oddball documentaries had one about the MPAA's rating system with the title above. Now, I'm not entirely happy with MPAA's rating system. I've seen movies rated PG-13 for violence that seemed completely indistinguishable from other movies rated PG for violence. Roger Ebert's review of Hannibal (2001) makes a very trenchant observation about the utter inability of a movie to get an NC-17 rating for violence, no matter how gross and gratuitous, and Ebert's obvious revulsion at it:Many still alive will recall when a movie like this could not be contemplated, let alone filmed and released. So great is our sophistication that we giggle when earlier generations would have retched. The brain-eating scene is "special effects," the face-eating is shot in deep shadow and so quickly cut that you barely see the dogs having their dinner, and Julianne Moore explains in interviews that the story is a fable of good and evil (although she cautions that she "actually talked to my shrink about it").
The MPAA rating system also isn't very consistent--and after Shrek 2's transgendered trashiness, I am convinced that the rating system is utterly defective for figuring out what films are appropriate for small children.
I share the apparent concern of the filmmaker that unrealistic violence is given too low of a rating compared to realistic violence. I am concerned that at least some kids may fall into the "violence is a video game" attitude when nothing too terribly serious results from guns blazing everywhere. But there is a real danger that regular exposure to very graphic, very detailed violence may have a desensitizing effect as well.
This may not make some people happy, but I think that even relatively graphic portrayals of a couple making love (as distinguished from having sex) is far less corrosive to the 8-17 set than the repeated portrayal of extremely graphic violence--or even the repeated portrayal of unrealistic violence. But of course, Hollywood has far too much interest in something kinky, something perverse, something degrading (almost always to women), and what seems to make Hollywood happiest of all--something that combines sex and violence.
The more I watched of This Film Is Not Yet Rated, however, the more disturbed I became with the apparent major concern of the filmmaker and many of the people they interviewed, including a self-described First Amendment lawyer--that the MPAA rating system is a form of "censorship." It is nothing of the sort. Censorship is a governmental imposition, either through prior restraint or, in a rather indirect way, through punishment after the fact. The First Amendment has nothing to do with a purely private body like the MPAA. To my knowledge, even state laws that regulate what materials may be shown or sold to minors do not use the MPAA rating, but rather have rather specific definitions of what is prohibited.
As near as I can tell, the big objection--the big point of this documentary--was that the MPAA's rating system, which is from my perspective way too loose for anyone raising kids to make good decisions, is blocking the access of filmmakers to American culture. What?
If you don't want your film to have an MPAA rating, it isn't required. There are lots of art houses that will run it. If the MPAA gives it an NC-17 rating, this will limit your ability to get into a lot of theaters around the country. My only reaction is: "So?" Movies made in the 1940s and 1950s managed to address some rather significant and serious topics by the use of subtle writing. For example, the sequence in Spartacus where the slave's new master talks about how some people prefer oysters, and some prefer clams--and some prefer both--and immediately thereafter, the slave played by Tony Curtis runs away to join the slave revolt.
I'm sure that the vast majority of young people that saw Spartacus when it came out didn't get the implication of that discussion--and that's okay. There comes a moment when you can understand this, and if you don't? No big loss. But it is a reminder that even with the standards that the MPAA operated under back then, it was possible to write serious works without being graphic.
Ditto for Casablanca. There's not a bit of dialog that tells you how intimate the relationship was between Rick and Ilsa back in Paris, but the smoldering looks that Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman exchange tell you that they had gotten a bit beyond holding hands--without hammering the audience over the head about it. Subtlety--a concept that could be reintroduced into filmmaking, without the MPAA's nasty ratings monopoly being any real obstacle to the business.
Stereotypes
We all know the vicious stereotype of lesbians as grossly obese, hypermasculine sorts, right? I've worked with a few that worked overtime to fit that stereotype--including one who smoked big fat cigars, wore a motorcycle chain for a belt, and had bowling bumper stickers on her car. I've worked with one lesbian whose style gave no clues about her sexual orientation--and she was more in the closet about her gun ownership than about her lesbianism.
This news article suggests that one of the nasty stereotypes is factual:LESBIANS are twice as likely as heterosexual women to be overweight or obese, which puts them at greater risk for obesity-related health problems and death, US researchers said.
What? Now, I would agree that anyone who is focused on being bone skinny to the point of anorexia does not have a healthy body image. A few pounds too skinny or a few pounds too heavy--that is someone who isn't obsessing about their weight or appearance. That's a healthy body image. But 2.47 times more likely to be obese does not indicate "a better body image." I find it a bit more believable that the disproportionate obesity has a bit more to do with high rates of child sexual abuse of lesbians, as I have pointed out in statistics that I mentioned here, and here, and here, and here, and here, and here, and anecdotal evidence here, and here, and here.
The report, published in the American Journal of Public Health, is one of the first large studies to look at obesity among lesbians.
Ulrike Boehmer of the Boston University School of Public Health and colleagues looked at a 2002 national survey of almost 6000 women, and found that lesbians were 2.69 times more likely to be overweight and 2.47 times more likely to be obese.
“Lesbians have more than twice the odds of (being) overweight,” the authors wrote.
This would put them at a higher risk for diabetes and heart disease, among other ailments.
“Our findings indicate that lesbian sexual identity is linked to a greater prevalence of overweight and obesity,” the authors wrote in the study, released this week.
They reviewed smaller studies that have suggested a higher prevalence of obesity among lesbians and the possible reasons why.
“The results of these studies indicate that lesbian women have a better body image than do heterosexual women,” they wrote. [emphasis added]
Some women respond to child sexual abuse by building walls of fat around them, as a way to make sure that men don't ever see them as sexual objects. This is an understandable response to a traumatic situation, setting them up for a lifetime of disaster. It is also an enormous tragedy.
Why Liberal is a Dirty Word To Me
Look at this apparently serious proposal by a retired U.S. diplomat published in the Toledo, Ohio Blade for how to solve our "gun violence" problem--and note that this guy is on the editorial board of that paper and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:When people talk about doing something about guns in America, it often comes down to this: "How could America disarm even if it wanted to? There are so many guns out there."
Aren't you glad that liberals run America? Imagine if conservatives did so.
Because I have little or no power to influence the "if" part of the issue, I will stick with the "how."
...
First of all, federal or state laws would need to make it a crime punishable by a $1,000 fine and one year in prison per weapon to possess a firearm. The population would then be given three months to turn in their guns, without penalty.
Hunters would be able to deposit their hunting weapons in a centrally located arsenal, heavily guarded, from which they would be able to withdraw them each hunting season upon presentation of a valid hunting license. The weapons would be required to be redeposited at the end of the season on pain of arrest. When hunters submit a request for their weapons, federal, state, and local checks would be made to establish that they had not been convicted of a violent crime since the last time they withdrew their weapons. In the process, arsenal staff would take at least a quick look at each hunter to try to affirm that he was not obviously unhinged.
It would have to be the case that the term "hunting weapon" did not include anti-tank ordnance, assault weapons, rocket-propelled grenade launchers, or other weapons of war.
All antique or interesting non-hunting weapons would be required to be delivered to a local or regional museum, also to be under strict 24-hour-a-day guard. There they would be on display, if the owner desired, as part of an interesting exhibit of antique American weapons, as family heirlooms from proud wars past or as part of collections.
Gun dealers could continue their work, selling hunting and antique firearms. They would be required to maintain very tight inventories. Any gun sold would be delivered immediately by the dealer to the nearest arsenal or the museum, not to the buyer.
The disarmament process would begin after the initial three-month amnesty. Special squads of police would be formed and trained to carry out the work. Then, on a random basis to permit no advance warning, city blocks and stretches of suburban and rural areas would be cordoned off and searches carried out in every business, dwelling, and empty building. All firearms would be seized. The owners of weapons found in the searches would be prosecuted: $1,000 and one year in prison for each firearm.
Clearly, since such sweeps could not take place all across the country at the same time. But fairly quickly there would begin to be gun-swept, gun-free areas where there should be no firearms. If there were, those carrying them would be subject to quick confiscation and prosecution. On the streets it would be a question of stop-and-search of anyone, even grandma with her walker, with the same penalties for "carrying."
The "gun lobby" would no doubt try to head off in the courts the new laws and the actions to implement them. They might succeed in doing so, although the new approach would undoubtedly prompt new, vigorous debate on the subject. In any case, some jurisdictions would undoubtedly take the opportunity of the chronic slowness of the courts to begin implementing the new approach.
UPDATE: For those who think I am being unfair tarring this guy with the label liberal: a few years back, Steve Peace, one of the liberal Democrats in the California state legislature, introduced a bill that would provide for traffic stops to search cars for guns--and only for guns. Drugs found in the course of a search could not be used as evidence. Apparently, Peace believed that guns were such a hazard that the Bill of Rights and its protections against unreasonable search could be, and should be ignored for guns--but not for illegal drugs. How liberal of him. It wasn't fear of government out of control--just fear of government interfering with drug abuse.
If You Have a Concealed Carry Permit For Your State
You should feel obligated to be carrying at all times right now. The media attention to the Virginia Tech massacre--and now this tragedy in Kansas City--is going to put ideas into people who may have been thinking homicidal/suicidal thoughts. Protect yourself, your loved ones, and the general public.
"Condi '08" Bumper Sticker
Yup, I saw one of these today on my way to church in Boise today. I like the idea, but Condi is clearly too intelligent to be elected. Still, a Thompson/Condi ticket would be very attractive!
Movies I've Seen Recently
Shining Through (1992) with Melanie Griffith and Michael Douglas. It's a World War II spy movie (which you learn at the very beginning, so I'm not giving anything away). It was better than I was expecting. There's a bit too much modernity that creeps into a lot of movies about this period, and maybe Melanie Griffith's character is a bit too aggressive for the normal female of that time--but other than that flaw, it's a pretty entertaining, almost plausible story.
I guess part of why I found it interesting is that I worked with a guy many years ago who worked for OSS during World War II, and went into Germany. The tale he told emphasized how well he was trained and equipped (right down to authentic-looking German laundry marks on his underwear)--and not him at all. That was one of the reasons that I was prepared to believe him. People that make up stories like that usually make themselves, their courage, or their intelligence the center of the story. This guy was quite the opposite.
I, Robot is a bit more recent--one of those movies that I was mildly interested in seeing, but never got around to it. The title comes from an Isaac Asimov story, and the Three Laws of Robotics come from Asimov's robotic short stories, but the rest of the story doesn't seem to come from any Asimov story that I recall. It is, in most respects, too sophisticated and thoughtful.
I don't want to spoil the plot, but if you saw the previews you know that Will Smith plays a police homicide detective a few years in the future investigating a murder--and one perhaps committed by a robot. The rest of the story is what I imagine a Macintosh fanatic with paranoia might construct if he found out Microsoft was going into the robot business.
There is a surprisingly thoughtful set of questions posed by the movie about what constitutes a soul, free will vs. determinism, the importance of keeping the population armed, the dangers of concentrations of power, and when a single company becomes too dominant on the economy. (Sorry, Microsofties!) It also has so many twists and turns that I kept changing my mind about who the bad guy was right up to the last few minutes.
Will Smith being in it, there are a couple of subtle Christian messages scattered in the movie. At least the version that I saw on cable television was astonishingly clean. There are a few very, very subtle double entendres that small kids won't catch--just about as clean as a movie as gets made anymore that isn't animated. There is a bit of violence in it, but nothing terribly detailed or gross, since most of the violence involves robots, and robots don't bleed.
Reasons Why Wikipedia Isn't Very Trustworthy
I was looking for cases involving California's Lanterman-Petris-Short Act, and the Wikipedia article claimed that because of it, involuntary commitment was no longer possible except in criminal cases. This isn't correct--it's not even close to correct, so I updated it. But this is a really gross error. I shudder to think how many other deficiencies are contained therein. I'm not quite sure how to take full advantage of all the editing capabilities there, and I'm not sure that I can justify the time to do so, especially since someone may well come along and decide to change what I wrote. Perhaps keeping Wikipedia accurate is an attempt to fight entropy?
Perfect Logic; Bad Results
I was told some years ago that there are few involuntary mental health treatment facilities in California because the law makes it almost impossible to hold a minor against his or her will--even with parental consent. In reading In re S., 19 Cal. 3d 921; 569 P.2d 1286; 141 Cal. Rptr. 298; 1977 Cal. LEXIS 176 (1977). I can see that while that was an overstatement, it was not a huge overstatement. The California Supreme Court ruled that a minor 14 years or older was entitled to the same due process requirements as an adult under the Lanterman-Petris-Short Act--which set a very high standard for commitment.
One possibility was that you were "gravely disabled" which meant unable to obtain food, shelter, or clothing. No minor with functioning parents who cared about him or her would allow that to happen--and a parent who committed a child to a mental hospital would, under almost all imaginable circumstances, qualify as a parent who cared.
The other possible basis for commitment under Lanterman-Petris-Short was that you had been found unfit for trial for murder, or some other felony that involved actual or threatened great bodily injury to self or to others.
In short, a minor 14 to 18 with severe emotional or psychological problems who had not yet reached the stage of attempted suicide, murder, or darn close to it, could almost never be locked up against his or her will.
I now understand why so many of the facilities to help troubled California teens are outside of California. I suppose if the ACLU knew that a troubled teen was on the way to one of those facilities, they could get a judge to order that the transfer not take place, so that the child could express their liberty interest and end up far worse off ten years down the line.
California Parents should be glad that the ACLU isn't omniscient.
I notice that one of the U.S. Supreme Court precedents that this decision was based on was In Re Gault (1967). If you read that decision, which affirms the right of due process in juvenile court proceedings (rather a different situation in terms of intentions and likely results than hospitalization), you may be horrified by the initial description of this kid being sent to reform school for making an obscene phone call at 15--as the decision describes it, "the remarks or questions put to her were of the irritatingly offensive, adolescent, sex variety." (If you are under 35, you may have trouble imagining it, but far more offensive stuff is probably going to be broadcast this evening. This was a long time ago.) But read a bit deeper, and you will see that Gault had a history of minor criminal activity going back some years earlier.
What I find even more amazing about reading this decision is what it tells us about the state of America in 1964, when the police came out to arrest this kid. Can you imagine the police coming out to arrest a kid today for making an obscene phone call? It would seem that there was a shortage of really serious crimes--and I find myself suspecting that their willingness to come down hard on an obnoxious prank might have something to do with it.
Responsible Television Stations
I am still startled to see this--television stations using the "we won't run ads that are false" claim to benefit gun rights. From the April 27, 2007 Newsday:Mayor Michael Bloomberg on Friday questioned a Kansas television station's refusal to air an advertisement that is part of his antigun campaign, saying it is wrong to "censor" the spot.
If there is actually a pattern of criminals obtaining guns from gun dealers, the responsible agency is BATF. That is who licenses gun dealers. I am not happy about some of the absurd, largely technical violations that it pursues against gun dealers, as I mentioned some weeks back. Maybe they could actually use their authority to pursue those gun dealers who are intentionally transferring guns to criminals?
"I think if I were CBS I'd call this local station and say what on earth were you thinking about? You can't censor this kind of ad, if you don't agree with the opinion," Bloomberg said.
KWCH director of programming Laverne E. Goering said the CBS affiliate did not air it because the station has a responsibility to judge the truthfulness of issue advertising under its licensing requirements.
"We are doing what responsible broadcasters do," he said.
Another station in Wichita, the NBC affiliate KSN, made the same decision "because the station could not verify its claims," according to a story on its Web site.
The advertisement urges the repeal of a piece of congressional legislation preventing federal authorities from sharing gun trace data with cities and local law enforcement. It debuted during Sunday's political talk shows on NBC, ABC and CBS and later on CNN, MSNBC and Fox News Channel.
It was supposed to run in a number of congressional districts, including the home of Kansas Republican Rep. Todd Tiahrt, who authored the measure. But two stations in Wichita did not air it.
The measure known as the Tiahrt amendment is typically attached to appropriations bills each year. Bloomberg argues that it makes tracing illegal guns more difficult for law enforcement authorities, but the National Rifle Association says it protects the privacy of gun owners.
Tiahrt says it actually helps law enforcement because it keeps confidential information that could interfere with gun investigations, like the names of gun buyers, and he points to the fact that the Fraternal Order of Police sides with him. A spokesman for Tiahrt says the congressman supports some changes to the language and is working with the Bloomberg administration to accomplish that.
The spot features the Chaska, Minn., chief of police, Scott Knight, who says that the federal legislation prevents him from being able to adequately fight gun violence.
"Where are the guns coming from, who's buying them, how are they getting into my city _ the information is there," he says. "We're not allowed to have it."
KWCH said the ad is misleading because the amendment does allow law enforcement to have specific gun data for criminal investigations or prosecution.
I don't think is very common, but I know that is does happen. BATF is in a position to look at traces of guns used in crimes, and look for dealers with high rates of such guns. A high rate of criminally misused guns sold by a dealer doesn't automatically make that dealer a criminal. He may be in a high crime area, and guns stolen from lawful purchasers are being used by criminals. There are ways to determine if strawman purchases or grossly criminal transfers are taking place--and that is BATF's job.
