Another elephant in the room

[ed-rex.livejournal.com]

To serve and protect? The arrest of Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and
The real elephant in the corner

I moved to Toronto from Sudbury, Ontario, when I was 14 and, despite the fact Toronto was a city nearly 20 times the size of Sudbury, it took more than two years before anything happened to make me feel unsafe in the metropolis.

And it wasn't an angry drunk or a gang of teen-age boys that frightened me, but a pair of policemen on the muscle.

I was 16 years old when my friend Vern and I decided to form a band — well, a duet, with Vern on guitar while I banged away at a tambourine and croaked out lyrics as best as my pubescent throat would allow. With a week of practising under our belts we made our début in front of the Eaton Centre and were successful enough that we spent many nights that summer playing Neil Young and Dylan and Beatles songs for spare change.

We were white kids, but we were kids and we both had hair flowing past our shoulders. Being stopped by the police while walking home was a regular, and tiresome, occurrence. Still, we were smart enough to be polite and to answer any and all questions, no matter that we muttered "Pigs!" as soon as they were out of ear-shot. To their faces, they were always "officer".

One night we were stopped three times. The third was in the alley just behind Vern's house and that pair were cops with attitude. I am still convinced they would have happily taken us down to Cherry Beach for a private working-over had we uttered even a single disrespectful syllable. Even without it, Vern and I both sensed that these two wanted us to say something — anything — to give them an excuse.

As I said, we were bright boys and we were very polite, but even so, it felt like a touch-and-go situation until another cruiser pulled up and two officers who had stopped us maybe a half-hour before told our hostile pair, "It's okay, we checked them out earlier." After a tense, six-way moment of indecision, officers Cruisin' and Bruisin' brusquely told us to be on our way.

( And what in the world does this have to do with Henry Gates? Read on! )

Shouting down the opposition, literally

[kinvore.livejournal.com]

So during the Congressional recess many Democrats have started town hall meetings in order to bring their case for health care reform to their constituents. But not so fast, organizations like Freedomworks have organized agitators to disrupt these meetings.

Apparently going so far as to bus in "protesters" from other states, these astroturf organizers have so far managed to disrupt the meetings. By doing so they are infringing on the free speech of others by not allowing them to voice their opinions. I guess if you have no intelligent point to debate from your only recourse is to shout down those you don't agree with.

So what can be done about this? I say start by requiring a state ID before being allowed into these meetings, that'll keep out those who are bused in. I have nothing against police escorting disruptive people out of these meetings, either (where's an overzealous cop when you need one?).

If you're not going to allow others to have their say then you have no business in these meetings to begin with.

Interesting:

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

http://news.ino.com/headlines/?newsid=20090803010234

So various groups are appealing to the leader of the Democratic People's Republic of the Congo (which is neither democratic, nor of the people, nor a republic) to free a human rights activist.

Thoughts?

Given this post is about something that has absolutely nothing to do with Obama, Iran, Ann Coulter, or North Korea, I predict six replies......

WTG Bill!

[kinvore.livejournal.com]

I guess sometimes diplomacy works. Take THAT, naysayers!

Bill Clinton secures release of American journalists

Can any conservatives/Clinton haters just once give Bill some credit here and say he did a good thing? Please?

Please, turn me in!

[merig00.livejournal.com]

The Obamanation is asking you to turn in anyone spreading "disinformation" about Obama's policies.

There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care. These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation. Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov.

Is White House taking over snopes.com now? What are they going to do with all the information they'll get on that mail box.

Topic Dujour! Free Speech or Hate Speech?

[lordtwinkie.livejournal.com]

This poster apparently has been popping up all over LA, like so.



Now its gone "viral" as the kids say, some are calling it racist, others are wondering if the Joker really is a socialist or is he secretly a Libertarian. Seriously look at the google news search

Heres some quotes from one article.

State Rep. Darryl Rouson, D-St. Petersburg, promptly denounced the image as hurtful and inflammatory to several news outlets... 'If there had never been a period of time in this country when African-Americans in order to be funny played Stepin Fetchit type roles in greasepaint, and members of the majority population had not used such caricatures to make a people feel inferior or as buffoons, then maybe some folks could look at it for some pure artistic humor,'"

..."Because of the president being who he is, being an African-American, it becomes a little more offensive," said Hillsborough County Commissioner Tom Scott. "It's disrespectful, inflammatory and insulting."

The incident underscored the new and uncertain territory of criticizing or satirizing an African-American president. Perceptions can vary widely.

"The only thing missing is a noose," LA Weekly said in denouncing the Obama Joker poster...

Rouson said the image would have been less offensive if it had shown Obama being burned in effigy, the way Presidents Clinton or Bush were at times. When asked if that wouldn't look like a lynching, though, Rouson agreed it probably would be at least as inflammatory.

"There is so much pride in our President Obama and our election and what he stood for, maybe we are being very sensitive about it,'' Rouson said. "I wish that people would attack policies rather than politicians."...

Wtf is this crap though, a lot of people are pissed off, don't you people know what free speech is? Makes me afraid to think that some of these people wouldn't mind a new set of Alien and Sedition acts.

also wasn't bush free game what makes Obama so special?



also this

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