Surreal

 --Orangina vintage advert, 
Bernard Villemot

 If they say,
Why, why, tell 'em that it's human nature
Why, why does he do me that way 
--Human Nature,
Michael Jackson

{This event is so absurd, pathetic, tragic and needless, 
we are going with a graphic neither black or white, 
a visual with a lot of holes,
as it is unknown whether race is a culprit.}
____________________

A day after we began our Black History month here at RAW, the November 2016 shooting of the murdered black Florida cop beater 53-year-old Edward Strother was back in the news (the shooter had been cleared by prosecutors).

It is not exactly a race story, but it is, sort of.

To wit: 53 year old Edward Strother is seen in a witness's phone footage in November (2016) whaling on Deputy Dean Bardes as he sits astride the deputy in the road. Ashad Russel, 35, happens along, strapped and possessing a concealed carry permit. Bardes, in extremis, calls to Ashad, "Shoot him! Shoot him!"

[Note: several witnesses are on the sidelines, watching and filming, but not calling 911 for assistance.]

Composed, Mr. Russel warns Strother, "Stop, or I will shoot." When Strother fails to cease beating the policeman, Russel fires three shots, killing Strother. Both the assailant and his killer were black; the policeman, white.

Following firing the shots, Mr. Russel throws the gun on the ground and walks away a la the film "High Noon", when the Sheriff throws his badge in the dirt with utter disgust for his fellows and his society.

So what prompted this absurd, violent event? Some backstory:

Both the assailant and his victim shared a job history -- both had been security guards in the Northeast; Strother in Connecticut, Bardes in New Jersey. Strother worked in the field for 22 years; Bardes left after five and became a Deputy in 2005

The only personal data on Strother are reports from his neighbors that odd and loud sounds had been reported coming from his residence late at night over the last few months.

On the day of the incident, Strother was reportedly traveling over 100 mph on Interstate 75 in Estero, Florida, when he almost struck patrolman Bardes' vehicle as the deputy was assisting in a separate incident.

News reports state that Bardes felt targeted when Strother almost hit his vehicle, and he then gave chase.

Strother pulled off on an exit ramp and as the two men approached, Strother reportedly punched Bardes, who then landed on the pavement. It was then that Strother straddled the officer and began "raining down punches" on him according to a witness, also slamming the officer's head on the pavement.

So what triggered Strother? If his 22-year history as a security guard was a fairly consistent and uneventful one, what changed to make him violently target an officer of the law?

Emergent mental illness? Drug use? Personal trauma? A combination thereof? Whatever the cause, Mr. Strothers was killed in a pathetic, tawdry and sorry event.

Liberals will cry "gun control", but the man whaling on the cop did not use a gun, nor did the cop use a gun on Mr. Strothers.

Others will cry, "It is the paramilitary police", but Deputy Bardes did nothing untoward. The only way in which this is racial would be if the assailant had targeted the white policemen for his race, alone. This is unknown.

But if that is so, then what predicated this episode of racial rage?

The media was awash in news of racial violence prior to Strother's attack. The events spooling out in Ferguson, MO, was a fairly regular presence on the evening news. Then there was Freddie Gray, the youth in Cleveland, and the Charleston church shootings, among other incidents.

Also, what predicated Mr. Strother's release from his security job? Did he retire in good standing?

My construction of events is as good as any, and until further data is revealed, my diagnosis is:

Mental illness, exacerbated by an incessantly inflammatory press. Why else would a black man beating a white cop not cease his actions when a large and younger black man is standing in front of him in a full Weaver stance shouting at him to stop?

Mr. Strother must have suffered some extreme mental duress (possibly situational, possibly resulting from an organic mental illness, possibly, a combination of the two.) He may have suffered some personal affront from either a policeman or a white person.

After several years of exposure to incessant and salacious media coverage of prior racial events involving the police, Mr. Strother became vicariously, personally involved as a Person of Color (write large).

Possibly, he was on Molly or bath salts; if performed, a toxicology report was not printed. Possibly, there was no predicating event.

In what became a sad case of death-by-cop (sort of), Mr. Strothers lost his life after deciding that policeman Bardes was his enemy and beginning his brutal assault on the officer.

I contend that the two primary culprits in this pathetic and tragic event were severe mental distress or illness on Mr. Strother's part, and a complicit media organization which exploited racial events beyond their usefulness for their gratuitous ratings hunt.

Untreated mental illness and a media circus which promises fifteen minutes of fame, dead or alive. It is a toxic but heady combination in our frontier world lived on the flashy ground of social media.

Whenever acute distress meets with mediocre capabilities, tragedy is often the result. Mr. Strother was violating the law, and Deputy Bardes had demonstrated weakness with the issue of criminal containment (he had undergone remediation after a suspect once fled his patrol car.)

We can expect more Strother's and Cho's Adam Lanza's and James Holmes, until we figure out how to identify and treat vulnerable people, and how to live sanely in a world in which the itchy trigger finger is occupied scrolling through endless media feeds, and the mind attached to that finger can be roused to an immediate and visceral violence.

Moreover, the individual now lives in a vicarious relationship to those viewed events, being installed as he is in the immediate commentary (feed) to the viewed events. If you are one of the Twitterers, your shock and rush to commentary after such predictable events is disingenuous.

In this tragic event, as in most which preceded it, mental illness is the probable primary and proximal causative factor.

A fatted and goading media is the distal one.

Post- Post Racial

--Separate but Equal?
 
Will the suffering ever end?
--Jehovah's Witness tract left on Lisa's door 

That's just the way it is
Some things will never change 
--That's Just the Way it Is,
Bruce Hornsby 

Oh, we've got to free our brothers
from their shackles yeah if we can, if we can  
--Slave, Elton John
_____________________

[We have been a little slaggerdly at RangerAgainstWar. We are sorry. Today -- and this week -- we present the equivalent of "Christmas in July" (the tchotchke buying spree that gets most Southern hearts a'thumpin): Black History Month in March.]

A question arises from the ground of our post-post modern angst: "Is God a bigot, or are people simply bigoted, using God as an excuse for their bigotry?" Or, is God simply not a part of the racial equation? {And, no, we may not pin this phenomenon on President Trump, as the existence of bigotry pre-dates his arrival on the planet, and will outrun it, as well.}

Further, is segregation hard-wired into Homo sapeins? If religion does not provide a way out, and one may not legislate away bigotry, perhaps it is a behavior with which we are stuck.

Further, if we ARE stuck with it, what then can be done to accommodate this reality and perhaps achieve a more felicitous co-existence in full recognition of its presence?

Would an honest recognition of bigotry's existence allow for a more honest exploration of the behavior? Perhaps, if all sides were to look at it and say, "Yes, here it is" with no hedging and no whitewash and denial. We might be better able to say what is we would like to do with and about it.

To wit: Ranger annually attends a United States Army Airborne Instructors reunion in Columbus, GA (home of Ft. Benning). This is a group of men which has shed blood together while fighting for our country and is demographically representative of our nation.

But they are not exactly a Band of Brothers.

Every year, the blacks segregate themselves at one end of the hall, the whites, at the other. (Ranger does not know who initiates the spread, and "white" could have easily preceded "black" in the previous sentence.) While these men spent their lives and careers as a group, they self-segregate. [N.B.: they all see themselves as members of the same elite veterans group, each year convening to achieve this "separate but equal" meeting.]

The Charleston church shooting of 2015 highlighted this reality. The church was not forced to be an all-black one, but it and so many others are. And the segregation occurs while the preachers in every church preach that we are all God's children.
Here in Gadsden county, it is estimated that there are 400+ churches serving a community of 49,000 residents. The majority of these churches are divided along the color line, with a smattering of miscegenation. There are the occasional annual events which bring together the various members of the religious community, but generally, the twain do not meet.

The county seat also has a segregated American Legion, with no white members. Down the road, there is Legion of predominately white members. The Legion is mentioned because of its unabashed allegiance to "God and country", "God" preceding country.

It may be 2017, and we may like to say we have made great racial strides, but that is not what it looks like to this observer.

Whitewashed

 

 I feel pretty
Oh so pretty
I feel pretty and witty and gay
And I pity
Any girl who isn't me today 
--Westside Story 

The Ku Klux Klan, who saw Zelig as a Jew,
that could turn himself into a Negro and an Indian,
saw him as a triple threat
--Zelig (1983)

He married me up at the First Church of Harlem.
He told me he was the brother of Duke Ellington.
--Zelig (1983)

~I'm colored, Mr. Townsend. I'm a Negro.
~Gerber, what the hell have you been doing - 
sitting under a sunlamp? 
--Watermelon Man (1970)

Who in this world is what they seem to be? 
--The Spanish Prisoner (1997)
______________________

So Rachel Dolezal, a white woman, wants to be black -- our latest tempest in a teacup. How is this relevant to RangerAgainstWar?  Just wait.

First, the obvious: another example of not telling the whole truth. Some are bemused by Dolezal's fabulation ("girl got the hair"); others, outraged at the dissimulation.

But why does it make print that a white woman chose to present as black? If former Olympian Bruce Jenner wants to now be "Caitlyn" because he identifies that way, we are meanies if we do not accept her as a woman. But we mayn't cross the color bar (white-to-black). Why is that?

The first subtext is, who could imagine a desire to be black? Whereas blacks have been "passing" for generations in order to be better situated socially, it seems untenable to them that a "privileged" white woman (all white people are privileged, right?) would want to turn the other way. (This is not to defend Dolezal, per se, who seems like a troubled individual created by a chaotic family.)

New York Times Op-Ed writer Charles Blow wrote a tortuous column opposing Ms. Dolezal because hers was "a form of one-directional privilege that simply isn’t available to a black person." This is illogical EOE thinking, in extremis. Blow even admits "[race] is a societal construct" while trying to deny this participation to Dolezal. He accuses her of linguistic somersaults, yet his piece is full of them.

A female New York Times Op-Ed writer presented a similar non-sequitur argument against Dolezal that historically one has been labeled "black" if only 1/64th black. She seemed angry that this "one drop" rule was imposed upon the black race, but she did not address why she found it unacceptable for a zero-dropped individual to choose for negritude.

--Zelig (Woody Allen) turning black at Jazz club

Why be upset? Blacks do not mind that light-complexioned blacks have "passed" as white, nor do they mind whites co-opting blackness when following rap gansta culture, even adopting the patois and the dress.  What made Dolezal's emulation so unpalatable?

White women may co-opt pieces of blackness, like Bo Derek's cornrows, but they may not fake being black, unlike blacks who may fake being white.

The second subtext is that there are only so many good EOE-type positions available to blacks, and perhaps only a limited pool of qualified applicants for them. Therefore, Dolezal the white woman is cheating a black out of his or her rightful EOE slot. It is a not-so-subtle denigration of blacks by blacks that a white person could do black better than a "real" black person.

As a black woman of power and position, Dolezal would also have entree to a rarefied pool of desirable black males for possible relationship, another thing which many black women are protective of. With one in five black males incarcerated at any given time and a matriarchal culture, relationship-worthy high level black males are at a premium, and Dolezal through her dissimulation would have access to the pick of the litter. Especially in a black culture which favors light-skinned blacks.

Dolezal's "tan and black" costume rendered all of the prizes of the Equal Opportunity system at her fingertips.

There is also the unfortunate overlay of minstrelsy, which threatened Dolezal's project as a possible grand mime. She could simply be some striving academic trying to make a name for herself in a future study by going undercover for years, unlike John Howard Griffin (Black Like Me) who could only carry on his charade for a limited time.

But by all accounts, Dolezal has been a genuine and effective advocate for black rights, and her job as President of the Seattle NAACP was not race-dependent. Dolezal's earlier claim against Howard University for reverse racism against her then-identification as a white woman opens up space for a sincere dialog, as did Edward Bakke's reverse discrimination lawsuit in 1977.

Humans tribe up, and it is that exclusionary and insular impulse which we must fight if we are to become an inclusionary world, a world in which we are all part of the human race. While the media is forcing various agendas in the name of removing exclusions -- such as affording the rights of marriage to gay couples and the inclusion of various gendered individual in the Armed forces  -- it is interesting that the racial line is being so vigorously protected.

If a person may go through religious conversions, naturalization ceremonies and gender reassignment, why is one not allowed to choose the race with which one will affiliate?

Probably, it has mostly to do with a scarcity mentality and economics. As in the film Soul Man (1986) where a white student claims for being black in order to gain college entree and tuition subsidies, blacks do not want to share this EOE windfall. It is similar to the Veterans Administration ratings system for medical treatment. Those prioritized in the upper echelons are just grateful that they are not at the bottom of the heap, and do not often fight for an equality in the treatment system for those lower down.

This is what preferential treatment hath wrought -- a mean and petty protectiveness of the succored individual's standing. Divide and conquer.

Whenever a system can get its members to participate in competitive and exclusionary behavior, there will not be the peace of a fully-functioning system.

The tie-in to RAW?:

This attitude of exclusive ownership without an honest discussion of what being black means is why racism persists in the U.S., for surely the black censure of Dolezal is racism, and racism is a form of war.

In the Middle East we see this harsh affiliation/disaffiliation playing out daily in a deadly game. If the warring members could rise above and see they are all one, with an agenda of a better life for them and their families, there would be a new day.

If divisions like race were not so contested and protected, perhaps the racial crimes we continue to witness would disappear. The guarding of race by the black community via harsh criticism of others reveals an exclusivity guaranteeing their isolation and resentment.

Unfortunately, the human animal cleaves from just as strongly as it cleaves to


NEXT: A wrap up on our general blindsightedness.

Death of the Week

 

 --We could make a series of it. "Suicide of the Week." 
Aw, hell, why limit ourselves? "Execution of the Week."
-- "Terrorist of the Week." 
--I love it. Suicides, assassinations, mad bombers,
Mafia hitmen, automobile smash-ups: "The Death Hour."
A great Sunday night show for the whole family.
It'd wipe that fuckin' Disney right off the air
--Network (1982) 

I'm robbin' people with a six-gun
I fought the law and the law won
I fought the law and the law won 
--I Fought the Law, 
Bobby Fuller Four

The thief cometh not, but for to steal,
and to kill, and to destroy:
I am come that they might have life,
and that they might have it more abundantly
--John 10:10

 Really Doctor, you must learn to govern your passions.
They will be your undoing 
--Star Trek, Spock to Dr. McCoy 
 ______________________

"So whaddya think about the latest shooting outside of Ferguson?" I was asked on Christmas Day.

"Stupid." The policeman was responding to theft in the vicinity of a Jiffy Mart, and he approaches two men in the area, one of whom turns on the cop pointing a weapon at him. Forgetting uncivil, illegal and criminal for the moment; just stupid. Are we at the "jump the shark" moment re. the racist cop meme?

The victim of this latest shooting to reach the news is Berkely, MO's Antonio Martin:

"In the 15 months since turning 17, Martin has faced several criminal charges. According to St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar, they include three assaults, an armed robbery, unlawful use of a weapon, armed criminal action and stealing." 

Why amidst the hue and cry over how "Antonio did not need to die" is no one asking the question: "Who taught Mr. Martin how to behave in his society?" It does not sound like he was starting out the gate as anyone's paragon of virtue.

I think of my experience vis-a-vis a FAMU cop who accused me of an offense I did not commit. I could have been confrontational, and maybe his itchy trigger finger might have flinched, or I might have been strong-armed and knocked to the tarmac, a victim of a cracked skull after hitting the pavement like this poor woman. I certainly wouldn't have pulled a gun (even if I'd had one.) Yes, the officer was aggressive and out of line, but alone in the parking lot was not the place to seek justice.

My experience was not even close to that of Mr. Martin's criminal aggression, but a socialized human being knows the correct way to respond to a police officer. Such a person understands that the policeman is often functioning under pressure of a developing crime-in-progress. Especially a person like Mr. Martin, for whom it seems dealing with the po-po was a fairly routine experience.

As we mentioned in yesterday's piece (To the Point), the precipitating incident in this latest racial brouhaha (the police shooting of Mr. Brown) is irrespective of any other preceding or following police action in or around Ferguson, MO, or in any other town. To use one incident (which a grand jury declined to prosecute) as indicative of some larger cabal on the part of police is disingenuous at best.

Many Southern blacks commemorate their dead young relatives by wearing their image on a T-shirt with the birth and death date. The person is often the victim of gang violence, and he or she may have been alternately an innocent victim or a perpetrator, but they are memorialized on the shirts as if martyrs. Do we now have citizens so desperate that they are willing to goad a policeman into shooting them, just to drive up the numbers and amp up hatred and dissent in the populace? If we do, then our problems far outstrip any questionable police action.

In this season it easy to be mindful of the Christian perspective. Christ was supposed to be the last martyr. Don't tell me how bad or unfair things are today; they were much worse and less fair then.

But crying "racism" is so easy. One may feel righteous and expend some lingering angst, but the cry fixes nothing, nor does it address the actual problems which we dare not speak about lest they pull a Bill Cosby on us. Inconvenient and uncomfortable truths remain just that. We have closets for such things.

Perhaps Andy Warhol was right, and we all seek our 15 minutes of fame by any means necessary. Social networking certainly makes that possible today. More likely, certain areas are simply bastions of violence, and once one incident gains the national spotlight, all future criminal incidents in which blacks come up against police are then exploited, 'til knocked off the front page by the next outrageous non-event.

Living in civilized society requires that the members be disciplined and buy into that covenant that opposes the law of the jungle. Police, who are entrusted with maintaining the law and order we often take for granted, cannot be on every corner, in every potentially-robbed Zippy Mart, therefore as citizens we must be self-policing, functioning to protect both our own interests as well as those of our neighbors. We must all be good stewards of the society, and if most of us are not on board, then that society begins to unravel.

What keeps any of us from walking off with the contents of the supply room at work or worse? There would be no Post-it Notes or pens if we all took what we wanted. Fear -- fear of loss, or ridicule, are a couple of constraints. Out in society, the presence of CCTV's on street corners is another possible deterrent. Of course, many criminals do not think they will get caught. They have a sense of entitlement and lack a sense of responsibility.

Ask most criminals about their crime and they will tell you: "I didn't do it -- I was framed." Perhaps this is why for many, the deterrent value of punishment does not work. Also, some are so far down on the social ladder that there is nothing for them to lose in the commission of their crime.

The Christmas season is a good time to reflect upon what makes a society and allows for "goodwill among men". "Santa knows when you've been naughty or nice" pretty much sums up the whole shooting match. Don't do it -- don't take your sister's toys, kill the bird, steal the cookies -- because someone will know and you will be punished, or at least, you will not receive an even greater bounty, and you will suffer the censure of your fellows. Goodwill to you serves my better interests, but it is good behavior, in any event.

What do I think of people who draw a gun on a cop or anyone? If you want to be a pirate, go to Somalia. You can be a criminal every day of what will probably be a short and pathetic life.

Or you can enjoin the project of becoming a productive and kind citizen. Be a part of the solution, and not the problem, like the slogan says. You get to choose. Nobody said it was going to be fair, but we all arrive with basically the same set of tools. 

Unfortunately, we live in the time of the Death du Jour, and the copywriters have their bigotry meme to flesh out. Every killing that involves a racial disparity will now be magnetized to the meme. Everyone so inclined may hop on the feeding frenzy at the media's trough. Of course, in reality this is nothing but petty, unexceptional criminality, often ending in meaningless death, and the cries of protest land on fallow ground because few really want to speak the truth.

Common sense need not apply.

Politically-Correct Bullies

I'm just a soul whose intentions are good,
Oh Lord, please, don't let me be misunderstood 
--Please Don't Let me Be Misunderstood, 
The Animals  

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
 Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold 
--The Second Coming, W. B. Yeats
___________________

The outrage du jour in the comminteriat is the outed racial bigotry of Los Angles Clippers owner Donald Sterling. Sterling is now doing the requisite penance on his media rounds, insisting he is no racist. 

He is doing the walk of shame because the National Basketball Association Commissioner Adam Silver has moved to force Sterling to sell his NBA franchise. This is all very understandable on one level as Silver and Sterling are both Jewish, and there is nothing that says you are an American patriot if you are Jewish like forsaking one of your brethren (or better, the State of Israel).

Surely we are not a post-racial society. The U.S. is post-Civil Rights and the enforcement of those equalizing statutes, but the law may not operate on our minds -- our preferences and perceptions. While some may feel that an Orwellian sort of mind reaming might help maters, we are not yet there. 

What about Sterling's right to privacy? "Under California law, all parties involved have to consent to the recording of private remarks. Even bigots." 

What we are is a contentious society that knows how to come out slugging. We have our petty social networking platforms on which to disgorge our bile, or in a national publication if we are a bigger dog. The silent majority doesn't participate and just wants chips and dip and to watch a ball game.

The last civil rights frontier is gay rights, and the liberals are coming out slugging, there, too -- as though the enforcement of gay marriage will make our society a more civil one. But we in the United States have a strong division between Church and State, and forcing the Church to perform a rite against its dogma is just wrong.

Of course all should be entitled to a civil union with their beloved, even objektophiles like USAF veteran Erika Eiffel. All people in committed relationship should be afforded the dignity to do so, and to enjoy the respect of their state's rights as a couple; state-recognized civil unions meet that bar.

But pugilist liberals are trying to hose down differences that do not please them, and to force acceptance of said differences. In the case of gay marriage, this would be a rupture of the protection afforded by the Church-State separation, and an enforced annihilation of Church doctrine.

This misbegotten crusading gives them a purpose, and a rationale for hiving at Starbucks amongst their fellows. But this coercion is not in line with our Constitution's First Amendment, and freedom of speech and freedom of religion. The Fifth and 14th Amendments guarantee of equal liberty is only binding on the state and state employees. Constitutionally-speaking, everyone else is free to discriminate.

And for every push, there is a push back. The result is in an even more riven society, one which is already dangerously factionalized. Amongst the latest falls was the forced resignation of Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich after it was outed that he contributed $1,000 to a group supporting heterosexual marriage (which is to say, marriage.)

As an aside: Sorry women, but your day of equality has passed. Amusing in a slightly horrific way are the advertisements over the years for various household appliances-as-gifts for the married woman ("There need be no doubt in your mind as to what to give a lady ..."). The June Cleaver-like women are beaming in their cheery half-aprons, ready to do your bidding if you'll only bestow that new chrome appliance upon them.

But wouldn't we be appalled if the woman was black, with a rag tied around her head? The above ads says, "Merry Christmas. I'll be over for breakfast!" Just like that, the house frau is expected to perform. The Equal Rights Amendment could not muster enough votes to pass in 1972, and women still earn 77 cents for every dollar that a man does.

Interestingly, Mrs. Donald Sterling is calling the NBA sexist forcing her forfeiture of her 50% share of the Los Angeles Clippers if her husband does. Her voice as the little lady is very small, and shall be a footnote to history.

Gays are on top now, and our society seems more chastened, or perhaps, more vitiated. Societies behave like metronomes or perhaps, circle games, like Yeats' widening gyre, which eventually breaks apart.

It will all be coming around again, 'til the game stops.

Quarterback Sneak

 Everything is everything,
everything is everything
What is meant to be, will be
After winter, must come spring
change it comes eventually
--Everything is Everything,
Lauryn Hill

Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher,
vanity of vanities; all is vanity
--Ecclesiastes 1:2

____________________

Subtitle: Tres-passes

Final installment on sports and ethics (first are HERE and HERE.)

We are disingenuous when we feign outrage over each new offense by a sportsman, which is to say, any celebrity. Captain Renault is earning money for playing shocked at revelations of malfeasance, but we are not.

We bestow upon these people fawning adoration, and pay them inordinately to perform their deeds in order that we may be entertained. And we do not wish to be disappointed, for when they fail we do, too. Everyone's project become just a bit tattier.

The recent Sterling and Wilson affairs reveal our desire for distraction and outrage, but not rectification. And this is not the first time ball players have run afoul of the law.

In 1999, FSU's Peter Warrick, a leading candidate for the Heisman Trophy, and teammate Laveranues Coles were arrested for stealing clothes from a Tallahasseea department store. Fifteen years ago, the nation was a little less tolerant, and Warrick did not win his Heisman, though he did go on to a successful professional career. Randy Moss is another stellar example of the criminal-athlete from FSU who nonetheless went on to a stellar professional career.

Not only is our local Heisman Trophy winner out of bounds with the law, so is the university from which he hails. It was reported this week that Florida State University is one of 50+ schools charged with Title IX violations (55 Colleges and Universities Are Under Investigation for Title IX Violations Related to Sexual Violence.)

Title IX became law in 1972 to ensure women could participate in their own college leagues, and that they would enjoy protection from harassment, institutional or otherwise. It was meant to help level the playing field for women, and now many of those women have been betrayed.

But there is nothing surprising here. Violations will continue in a program riddled with participants and enablers who feel athletes are a group apart. The rest of us are complicit in our sports hero worship. Ball players are not hereos qua moving a ball on a court.

Among the talking heads denigrating Sterling was basket baller Isiah Thomas, a "disgusting sexual offender" according to sports columnist Christine Brennan. She said a jury awarded 11.6 million to a former Knicks executive Anucha Browne Sanders back in 2007. Yet Thomas has been all over TV the last 24 hours denigrating Donald Sterling. (Thomas works for NBA.com and NBA television.)

"Someone like Isaiah Thomas is still around the NBA. And he did this awful thing, obviously terrible illegal thing, sexual harassment. How is he still around the NBA?" Pot calling the kettle black?

So we hop on the merry-go-round trumpeting our cause du jour, and our hypocrisy is complete.

The problem lies in us. We revere money, and we idolize people who have a skill in moving a ball in space. We forgo too many trespasses in the name of being entertained. And since the performers are often black men, we call it "one for affirmative action"; it is anything but.

In a world where money buys prestige, money and the desire for affiliation with the monied is sought at all costs. With money comes power, and power does what it wants.

These sexual scandals are but two rent pieces of the whole. Everything is of a piece. Why act aghast at the revelation of each new violation when the entire project is shot through with greed and vice?  We all know the score.

What is missing from the gestalt is care, respect, kindness ... all the things without a price tag, the things that earn an endeavor the title of "dignified" or "compassionate and egalitarian".

Today, we have transvalued those "traditional" values, as Nietzche anticipated. Some people are more equal than others, and "more for me" is the new mantra -- that's how the big boys play.

You can't legislate morality, specifically, the appetitive drives. Prohibition, the war on drugs and criminalization of prostitution prove that. You can criminalize the behavior, but you will not stop it. "What god do you worship?" -- that will determine your behavior and your valuations.

The Tweets continue apace.

That's about it.

No Laughing Matter

--JFK with miners in Mullen, WV, 1960 

...and when there was no meat, 
we ate fowl and when there was no fowl, 
we ate crawdad 
and when there was no crawdad 
to be found, we ate sand
 --Raising Arizona (1987)

 Well, either you're closing your eyes
To a situation you do now wish to acknowledge
Or you are not aware of the caliber
of disaster indicated 
--Ya Got Trouble, The Music Man
_________________

Since we are on sports ...

No sand for him: local Heisman Trophy winner Jameis Winston was "cited" Tuesday for shoplifting crab legs, crayfish and butter from a local Publix grocer. Don't think he got off Scott-free; no sir -- FSU has slapped him with a $30 fine, and no more baseball this season.

The media was flooded with jokes and headlines about how funny this was. Just a youth funnin' around, right? YOU try and steal some crab legs and see how funny the authorities find you.

Overheard in town: "Why he do that? Boy's hungry, he go to MAC-Donald's. He got the whole world, and he go do a fool thing like that." Well, Jameis has already beat a rape rap, and that Heisman sure do look nice on his mantle, you betcha.

Mr. Winston's theivery and Mr. Sterling's ban from basketball got me thinking about ethics. Theft and bigotry -- one is illegal, the other is bad form, for sure, perhaps revealing a corroded soul, but not a jailing offense. Yet we laugh at the first one, and censure the latter.

Mr. Sterling was a Bad Man -- Old School; racist; an adulterer ... laughable and passe, right? Except, he is not passe. He's 80 years older than a baby, who is a lot younger than you. That's a drop in time. So our disrespectful stance towards older people-as-dinos is a canard. The problem lies elsewhere, and not in Sterling's unfortunately uncool age.

Listen to some rap lyrics to understand the hatred brewing in and being fed to the the youth. Sterling may line the pockets of b-ballers with his millions, but when the commentariat decides he's done, buh-bye. And really, isn't that what capitalism is all about? Use 'em up, wring 'em out -- next. Far more Ayn Rand than Golden Rule.

Schadenfreude is an added benefit for the louche Twitterverse. But I see a vast waste of effort there.

HERE is what matters:

• This week it was reported the 80% of United States students graduate from high school, and the reports were presented as cheery. One of five students never graduates from high school, ranking the U.S. 22nd out of 27 developed countries. If you read it at Politico, you'd read a headline that was a LIE: "High school graduation rate could hit 90 percent." And pigs could grow wings.

• The Council on Foreign Relations reported in 2012: "The real scourge of the U.S. education system—and its greatest competitive weakness—is the deep and growing achievement gap between socioeconomic groups that begins early and lasts through a student's academic career."

• The New York Times fronted a dismal report this week on how West Virginia is still a sump (50 Years Into the War on Poverty, Hardship Hits Back.) Despite the attention of FDR, JFK and LBJ, the poor get poorer. Even President Obama has the time to address Sterling's offensiveness, but apparently West Virginia poverty isn't on his list.

There are more things that matter, but problems tend to be depressing, and insoluble in 140-character bits. Maybe there are just winners and losers, and the poor will always be with us.

In the Randian universe, men are idealistic and  rationally self-interested. Sterling and Wilson qualified for the latter, minus the "rationality". But what happens to a society when rationalism, idealism AND compassion are foregone?

Maybe that is the definition of uber-capitalism, as capitalism is expeditious, above all else. If CAD-CAM can replace draftsmen, that's progress. Mechanization can provide a better, cheaper object, and we like Good Buys.


But back to race (if we really care): are we ready for a discussion on race free of blame, shame, Right, Left, arrogance, posture ...

No, I didn't think so.

And the commentariat will roar with howls of execration the next time bigoted words are secretly recorded and leaked, and we will Tweet and re-Tweet and FB the latest "gotcha".

And we will feel exonerated.

Not One to Let an Opportunity Pass

All the stuff goin' on in the news,
it's just a trick to get your mind off the war.
That's all it is
--Chris Rock 

I can cast a spell 
With secrets you can't tell 
Mix a special brew 
Put fire inside of you 
But anytime you feel 
Danger or fear 
Instantly I will appear 
--I'm Every Woman, Chaka Khan 

We sing about beauty and we sing about truth 
At ten thousand dollars a show   
--The Cover of the Rolling Stone, Dr. Hook  
_________________

More on TMZ (Travyon Martin / Zimmerman) as artifact of our culture and ourselves:

President Obama said in 2012 "If I had a son, he'd look like Trayvon".  After Zimmerman's recent acquittal and subsequent liberal self-flagellation he told RollingStone.com,"Trayvon Martin could have been me 35 years ago". Ranger has a suggestion for a final bravura installment: "George Zimmerman IS me!" as he meditates upon his drone killing of 16-year-old U.S. citizen Abdulrahmen al-Awlaki. It would be momentous. The truth shall set you free, Mr. Obama, and the humility may even effect a reconciliation with your mentor, Rev. Wright.

[Addendum for those who could not understand why the Obamat - Z nexus: They are both whitish-dark-skinned men who have killed a dark person; however, Obama's kill of Abdulrahmen was premeditated, while Z's was not.]

Alas, the press continues to spin its inanity and lies. National Public Radio this week reported on the small protest at Florida's capital against the state's "Stand your Ground" law, but ended the piece stating -- incorrectly -- the law was a significant factor in the acquittal of George Zimmerman.  In fact, the law was not invoked in the case.

Next, the reliably unreliable William Saletan in his recent Slate feel-good piece "Rules for Racism", cloddishly slips in the following fabulation disguised as fact:

"Yes, Zimmerman is the one who pulled the trigger. Yes, white-on-black racism dwarfs black-on-white racism. ..."

Um, no, this is purely conjecture, and actual homicide data from FBI.gov would seem to contradict Saletan's supposition. It's a slicky boy one-two punch -- fact followed by a non-sequitur imaginary statement, but the latter gains credibility by proximity to the leading statement (ergo propter hoc).

"White-on-black racism" is an unquantifiable statistic. Racism is a felt emotion and as such, purely subjective. One could extrapolate racist intent from crime stats, but that would be pure conjecture; myriad other motives could explain the vastly larger number of violent crimes committed by blacks against whites, however, that statistic stands.

And today I note the liberals are chomping at the bit to diminish the public black-on-white murder of a white man by four blacks in an Atlanta suburb last week. The most egregious and non-sensical of the damage control articles was exemplified by this one, which blames the victim for his own situation, without any notice of the blatant hypocrisy of the title: "Joshua Chellew: Right Wing Propaganda Tool."

The rambling piece quotes Mr. Chellew's passenger as saying, "He was a good person, one of them funny, outgoing kind of people" -- just so you get the message: They were probably ignorant hicks (see the pronoun error?) and didn't know how to behave any better than getting four young black punks to kill him, no doubt as a result of their racial Sturm und Drang. He didn't know how to defuse a situation which took him from life to death in two minutes, but that'll show him for being an ignorant cracker.

So there you have it -- my disgust for the media and those who call themselves liberals, hawking their pet interests and points of view, entrenching their biases. They are worse than the neocons who at least do not deny their reactionary stance. There is nothing new or wholesome in the liberal message, just deaf, impotent rage and anger.

For all the gnashing of teeth, we are still a racist, sexist, ageist -- you name it -- bunch. We are guilty as sin, and a little penance feels good, even for the most godless among us; perhaps, by virtue of that fact. Oh, as long as they don't have to actually dirty their hands ... it is all done in the neat and tidy realm of the computer.

Believing in nothing or maintaining dissonant views, their rancor stews, running the lines of least resistance, seeking the easy fault line so it may erupt and discharge their passions for a moment. They love to slaver and congregate over their own pathos, but their rage belies their project.

The media is happily complicit with their disunity, starting little fires here and there as their denizens run hither and thither to squawk and gawk, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.


[In justification for addressing TMZ @ RAW: the war within ourselves and our society is expressed also as the war without; it is inescapable.]

Our Inner Captain Renault

--Mob Rule

 There isn't any real good reason for fighting
except self-defense 
--The Outsiders, S. E. Hinton 

I'm shocked, shocked to find
that gambling is going on in here! 
--Casablanca (1942)
 ___________________

We have been discussing the small tragedy of the Zimmerman - Martin story not because it is unusual but as the phenomenon it is: a too-common story usually ignored, but once the media hops on (for whatever self-serving reason), one for which liberal people feel compelled to pull out their inner Capt. Renault --shocked, you know? All very predictable.

We will have a few more things to say about the disingenuity surrounding the tale (=The Spectacle), but today, a look at the neighborhood watch: Good Neighbor Policy, or stateside Counterinsurgency (COIN)?

For those inclined to exploit the event, The Trayvon - Zimmerman story is one of vigilantism, and becomes an excuse to label an otherwise reasonable self-protective action (=neighborhood watch) as racism. This is an involution of the posture vis-a-vis crime which we have been encouraged to take as a nation since becoming the victims of terrorist acts, namely, one of reasonable caution and vigilance. Florida highways have state-sponsored billboards which urge citizens to be alert, and not afraid. It is a foolish entropy to encourage a naive approach to one's safety.

Vigilantism has been a part of our society since its inception, and actions like tarring and feathering loyalists served many functions, primarily identification and ostracism of The Other. Neighborhood watches are not vigilantism, for The Other is already identified qua his Otherness.

The function of the watch is to identify possible criminal behavior before the action takes place, the purpose not to punish, but to identify. When one enters such a community, one can expect to be asked about one's purpose within the gates; the residents therein have usually paid a premium to feel their safety will be enforced. When an outsider enters the perimeter, he can expect to be identified as such; this is not racism or vigilantism, though it is vigilance.

Profiling has become taboo as it has become conflated with racism, but profiling is the basis of solving most crimes. In Zimmerman's case, the community had suffered numerous robberies and criminal situations in the preceding months. Surely he was aware of the descriptions of the perpetrators in these cases, and it would be sensible to identify figures which match those descriptions and confirm their intent.

And Zimmerman is not alone. Our own President racially profiles every time he sends a Predator or Hellfire downrange in the sandy regions of the world. Mr. Obama acts as the Neighborhood watch captain of the World with every missile strike. Yet when Obama approved the strike which killed another 16-year-old United States citizen, Abdulrahmen al-Awlaki, no liberals cried crocodile tears.

In fact, no one did, despite the sad fact that our President made two kills on that day -- one of the young man, and one a direct shot through the heart of our Constitution.  The young man's grandfather recently wrote a plaintive letter published in the NYT 17 July 2013 asking "Why?",  but there will be no answer ... State secrets, you know?

As a nation, we are an easily-distractable crew. We are suffering an en masse plague of ADHD, and we get our daily feed of pap through the umbilicus that leads to the online and on screen "news" outlets.

Here is the reality on neighborhood watches: Community-based policing has always been the center of our police functions; as citizens we can and must participate in ensuring our own safety. When neighborhood members shut their doors and roll into automatically-controlled garages and don't know their neighbors, you have a community ripe for crime.

Since the events of 9-11-01, U.S. police forces have been degraded as the military and contractors have bled off personnel who now work for Counterinsurgency (COIN) and Foreign Internal Defense (FID)-sponsored programs. At the same time public safety funds have shriveled on the home front, and community-based policing has been drastically reduced.

The Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©) has come home to roost.

If we as citizens do not have the right to ensure own safety in our own neighborhoods, then we have crossed into a police state mentality. When the death of Trayvon Martin is criminalized by a witch hunt trial, what is the message? When the police are not on the scene, the safety of the streets devolves to the citizens.

One may argue til the cows come home why young black men constitute the pages of most police blotters -- hint: economics -- but nonetheless, there you have it. It is a sad fact, but if you live in a vandalized community and see a black youth appear to be scoping out residences, you have reason to suspect. The comic Chris Rock has a skit, "You can't have shit when you around niggas, you can't have shit." referring to the high burglary rates in black communities. We laugh in recognition and then walk out of the theater.

Why pretend it is not a problem?

Who Woulda Thunk It?

From today's Slate: Supreme Court Conservatives say the South is no longer racist. You learn something everyday, no?

Lemme tell ya, if there's one thing I know for sure about the South, it is that bigotry still reigns five ways from Sunday.  Do not fool yourself into thinking it is mostly racial; oh no -- far from it.  As long as "they" know their place (=untermentsch), there is a role for blacks.  Not uppity ones, mind, who have pretensions upon your dog or woman or property. Step -and-fetch-it is just fine, thanks.

The highest vitriol may be save for those of differing religions, and I don't mean the crazy Baptists at the Bethel AME down the road. No, their deepest vituperative is save for those not Christian, which includes Catholics, or, "Idolaters".  The reasons for this reserve pool of disdain is deep. But never fear that the United States lacks a sense of coherence or homogeneity; it is just done at the expense of everyone else.

(Ranger essay coming later today.)

\

Is the South Still Racist? SCOTUS Conservatives Don’t Seem To Think So

We Are Zimmerman

The “difference … between man and other forms of life”
is that man has invented what he calls
“morality’ and ‘reason’ to justify what he is doing. …”
--Patriotic Gore, Edmund Wilson

If you have the facts, argue the facts;
If you have the law, argue the law;
If you have neither, pound the table really loudly
--old lawyer's adage

The range of what we think and do
is limited by what we fail to notice.
And because we fail to notice
that we fail to notice,
there is little we can do to change;
until we notice how failing to notice
shapes our thoughts and deeds
--R.D. Laing

War is the spectacular and bloody projection
of our everyday life, is it not?
War is merely an outward expression
of our inward state,
an enlargement of our daily action
--The Causes of War, J. Krishnamurti
_________________

The U.S. serves as the neighborhood watchman of the world, proudly and without apology. We figure we are the Good Guys for trying to keep order and teach the heathens a better way. Unfortunately, since they often behave in ways antithetical to our neatly arrayed protocol and are full of tribal enmity and such, they get killed sometimes.

This neighborhood watchism of the U.S. is related to the outsized news coverage of a discrete tragic event which occurred in late February in a small town in Central Florida, a story which has quickly fired up most of the blogosphere.

We are outraged as a nation over the death of a single young black American shot by a supposedly self-appointed "neighborhood watchman." We know nothing beyond this fact, and the loud and persistent calls to bring Zimmerman to justice hinge on the following claims:

• Trayvon Martin (TM) ™ did not present a mortal threat, therefore the killing was a criminal act

• TM ™ was just a convenient target for Zimmerman's (Z) fantasy of being an American Super Hero

• Firearms are too readily used in our society

All of these are clearly articulated presumptions of a civilized society and a liberal democracy -- hard to refute on the abstract level. All life is valuable, to include that of the most heinous criminals and low-life serial killers. The U.S. is a nation of law, and no individual transcends these precepts.

If TM ™ was not a threat to Z or to anyone's life, then his shooting was not justifiable and not in accordance with our societal values. However, into the simplicity of the legality of the issue creeps the fact that we are NOT a post-racial society, and we are a violent one pretending to be otherwise.

Returning to our neighborhood watchman analogy, If TM ™ was killed illegally, then so too every Afghan, Iraqi and Pakistani whom we killed simply for being Afghan, Iraqi or Pakistani, for we just as assuredly racially-profiled them, too. It's quite simple on that level: We are hypocrites because get morally outraged over one act of supposedly inappropriate violence while supporting a national policy of inappropriate violence.

Yet we project our collective moral outrage and guilt upon Z for his willingness to apply deadly force in what we interpret as an illegal use of violence while we as a nation habitually murder the moral equivalent of TM ™ every day of the week in the Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©), and do so without any self-mortification. And without the slightest irony, we figure if we stamp him (Z) out, we can gain some sort of vindication and atone for our transgressions. We love our martyrs, and if that were to happen, we would get a two-fer in the TM ™ saga.

The U.S. was on board with invading Afghanistan and Iraq and 10 years later is still killing people who posed no lethal threat to our national or personal well-being. Yet surely the Iraqis were simply trying to buy some Skittles and iced tea (biscuits and kaffir) with rags and not hoodies on their heads, and we killed them as frivolously as Z. supposedly did a helpless, cookie-baking young man.

While the Afghanis never entered the sanctum sanctorum of our protected personal lives -- the sacred gated community -- they did enter the symbolic sanctuary of our sacred financial and business lives when their supposed charges attacked the Twin Towers in 9-11-01. As a result of that violation and intrusion, our taxes and lack of outrage have allowed the U.S. to "go Zimmerman" on tens of thousands of hadjis.

We are all Zimmerman.