Category Archives: Crime and Punishment

From Ibsen to my Modest Proposal on guns

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Whenever I get carried away on a comment response, I turn it into a post to make the most of the effort. And since I really haven’t been all that provocative the last few days, I thought I would share, more visibly, my Modest Proposal on the problem of gun violence in America.

On a previous post, Tom Fillinger complained thusly:

I find it disturbing that most of the time on this site – – anyone who disagrees with the majority perspective found on this site is an “ideologue”.

Good decisons are based on differing opinions (Peter Drucker).

So I responded as follows…

What “majority perspective,” Tom? Whatever it is, I don’t seem to share it, based on the arguments I have here with my friends on the left and on the right…

I wouldn’t go so far as to quote Ibsen’s Dr. Stockman and say, “A minority may be right; a majority is always wrong.” I really embraced that when I was 17, because the Raskolnikovian arrogance of the statement appealed to my young ego.

Still, all these years later, while I have greater respect than I did for a majority’s view (40 years will do that for you), I very often don’t share it. And even when I do agree broadly, I argue about the nuances. That’s because the finer points tend to get sanded away on the way to making an idea acceptable to a broad audience — lowest common denominator and all that.

I forget — what were we talking about? Oh yeah: Guns…

See, there’s one of those things where I can’t agree with the majority, if the majority is either the nuttier gun lovers (the ones who think more and more people should pack heat all the time) or the peaceful folk who seem to faint at the smell of gun oil.

Guns are dangerous as hell, by their nature (gun advocates say many things that make sense, but they are at their silliest when they try to deny the inherent danger imposed by the devices, a danger that all sensible weapons training is designed to minimize) — they are wonderfully engineered to combine maximum deadliness with minimum effort. (As Elvis Costello put it, “It only took my little fingers to blow you away.”) In this sense, the AK-47 is the most perfect gun (actually, a rifle) in history. For minimal effort (almost no maintenance, little upper-body strength, making it ideal for child soldiers in Africa) it puts out maximum firepower. Anyway, these qualities of modern firearms cause me to wish them to be in the possession of as few people as possible.

It’s like — back in the early 80s, I had this great, extended conversation with Al Gore, who at the time was styling himself an expert on arms control, and he borrowed my legal pad to sketch out the problem with MIRVs. The problem? They produce exponentially greater chance that a warhead — actually, many warheads — will hit targets. This increases global insecurity far more than if you have single-warhead vehicles.

Well, we exceeded critical mass on guns long ago, and I don’t think we can put that toothpaste back in the tube (hold on, maybe I can come up with one more metaphor to throw into the mix… mmmm… how about mousetraps and ping-pong balls?), which is why you don’t see me getting behind gun control efforts very much. They seem sort of futile.

The best gun-control efforts I’ve ever heard of is those where the cops buy up guns and destroy them. Because that’s the problem — too many guns exist. But those efforts are like trying to empty the ocean with a leaky bucket.

See, it’s not about law-abiding citizens having guns vs. criminals having guns. The problem is that there are too many guns. It doesn’t matter who initially buys a gun. As long as it exists, it is subject to being stolen (it’s a favorite item for burglars). The only way to keep guns out of the hands of criminals is for there to be many, many fewer guns — say, about 1% (just a wild guess, but I doubt I’m far off) of the number than exist now. Then, you’d have a true economic scarcity. The price on the street would go way up, but that would be because they were harder to obtain, and that would be a good thing.

But I see no way to get there. The political — and, yes, constitutional — barriers are way too steep. You can nibble at the problem, but how do you solve it? I have no idea.

Well, actually, I have one idea, which is not entirely original (although you don’t hear it much): Ban the sale and manufacture of ammunition. I don’t see anything in the Constitution about THAT. Then, of course, we may see the incidents of pistol-whippings go up, but shootings would eventually become a thing of the past. Anyway, a baseball bat is a better bludgeon than a gun. Ammunition is the problem. Take away ammo, and a pistol is a very awkward hammer. And since it’s a consumable, gun owners (law-abiding and criminal) would eventually run out.

Criminals — indeed, anyone who uses guns violently (and most people are shot by friends, family and acquaintances, not by the proverbial dangerous stranger, and of course the presence of guns in domestic disputes make the difference between battery and homicide) — tend to be impulsive. They’re not going to manufacture their own ammo, the way many serious sportsmen do. So this would quickly reduce, and eventually eliminate, most violent crime involving guns.

Of course, the political barrier to this idea would be just as great as the one with guns. The gun-lovers would go, “Hey! Wait a minute…” and then get really ticked at what they would perceive as an end run — we know this because, of course, I’m not the first to bring it up. But as for the Constitutional question — well, I’d love to see it tried in court, if only as an intellectual exercise.

Anyway, do you consider my position on that to be “majority?”

The inside tale of the curfew/closings deal

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As y’all may or may not know, Kathryn Fenner — who is very involved in the community in divers ways — was in the middle of a group of citizens who helped work out the compromise on Columbia’s efforts to get some modicum of control over the less savory facets of its nightlife.

We’ve had discussions here about the proposed youth curfew, and the proposal that bars close at 2 a.m., but as the discussion has progressed, I’ve sort of fallen behind on what was happening. Kathryn has not, and she has sent me all sorts of documents (which I have not found time to read) and great sources (whom I have not found time to interview), and I was feeling all guilty about it, and then it occurred to me to fall back on my default mode, after all those years as an assigning editor: Get somebody else to do it.

And since Kathryn already knew all of this stuff, why not her? Yeah, I know; it’s unconventional, and single-source, and she’s too involved, yadda-yadda. But this is NEW media, people. And I figure, this is just like an op-ed from an involved party, which gives readers deeper understanding of an issue from at least one viewpoint. I will be very glad to consider contributions from other viewpoints, but I make no promises. This is an experiment. We’ll see how it goes.

Anyway, here’s Kathryn’s version of events. (FYI, I have NOT edited it, because, well, that would be too much work and defeat the purpose of foisting it off on someone else. So this is her authentic voice, you might say. Yeah, that’s what it is…):

Making Hospitality Districts Hospitable

By Kathryn B. Fenner
Special Correspondent
Less than a year ago, police, patrons and the public at large began to notice an increase in unpleasantness in the hospitality districts, particularly Five Points, but the Vista and the area around Club Dreams across from City Hall also had issues. People were drunker; bands of teenagers too young to even enter a bar were crowding the sidewalks, intimidating people and even brandishing weapons. Bars were severely overcrowded—some holding three times more than their safe occupancy. Street crime was rampant. There were several shootings that appeared to involve minors, some of whom ran into the surrounding residential areas, and severe assaults, including one that resulted in permanent eye damage and reconstructive plastic surgery, on random bystanders that seemed to be some sort of gang initiation.
The police started a discussion to try to solve these problems. By midsummer, a task force of stakeholders was formed including bar owners; representatives from the merchants’, neighborhood and industry associations; the University of South Carolina police and student life heads; law enforcement (Columbia police and the Richland County Sheriff’s Department) and fire marshals; and city staffers, and chaired by Tom Sponseller, head of both the Midlands and state hospitality organizations. Everyone (and his brother or sister) was heard from, including the police chief from Greenville, who reported that the city’s curfew ordinance,
which applies only to the Reedy River area, had been implemented without a hitch—all parents came and got their kids, and there were few incidents because it was implemented after an extensive publicity campaign, a Myrtle Beach police representative, and former Fire Chief Bradley Anderson who did extensive research into practices employed across the country to calm hospitality districts.
The original push was to close all bars at 2 a.m. While bars could not serve liquor after 2 a.m., they could serve beer, wine and the malt beverages—including the notorious sweet, caffeinated alcoholic “energy drinks” like Four Loko (“a six-pack in a can”) that seemed to be major fuel to the drunkenness of younger patrons—until 4 a.m., except for Sundays. They never needed to actually close their doors. The bars countered that the problems were caused by the kids who had no business, literally, in the districts, and proposed a curfew. Additional issues included a toothless loitering law that had been used to stifle civil rights protests, an open container law that required the cops to establish the grain alcohol content of said open container, an over-occupancy penalty that was laughably light and applied only to whoever happened to be on the door that night, and virtually no enforcement of state liquor laws, because of a reduction in SLED agents statewide from 46 to 1.5, the nonparticipation of the Columbia police in the training that would have enabled them to enforce liquor laws, and overworked administrative law judges who perhaps did not appreciate the seriousness of the issues facing denser districts.
Police and fire marshals were often pulling double duty to work the “party nights” and were exhausted. The city courts were doing the best they could with a system of logging violations that relied on a huge book of dot-matrix paper and many handwritten entries. A record number of students at USC were transported to emergency rooms with alcohol poisoning.
A compromise was proposed that drew from the Myrtle Beach statute (bars in other South Carolina cities with dense hospitality districts tended to close at 2 a.m.). Myrtle Beach also had a blanket 2 a.m. closing unless bars obtained a permit to stay open until 4. These bars were required to show proof of liquor liability insurance, to have specified numbers of security personnel, to train staff in safe-serving practices and compliance with applicable laws and, famously, not to have wet T-shirt contests or drinking games. Failure to abide by the rules resulted in swift and certain punishment, and the bars largely policed themselves and one another. The compromise also included a curfew for children 17 and under, at 11 p.m. year round, based on police desires to be able to deal with the bulk of violators before the onslaught of bar patrons began at around 12:30. A special team of law enforcement, fire marshals, code enforcement, zoning and business license staff would be trained in the particulars of hospitality zone issues. Finally, a quality public relations campaign would be implemented regarding the curfew, sensible alcohol consumption and good personal safety practices. Additional, “optional” recommendations included a tighter open container law and stiffer penalties for over-occupancy.
The compromise package was unanimously approved by the task force and presented to City Council for approval. At this writing, the bifurcated closing ordinance has been enacted, the hospitality enforcement team is being formed and the curfew has received the first of two required readings. City Attorney Ken Gaines has raised concerns about the constitutionality of the curfew ordinance, and after City Council waived its attorney-client confidentiality rights, he opined that a federal court decision in Dallas required that certain findings of harm caused to or by juveniles be made, which findings could not be made by the Columbia police
because the data had not been collected. The American Civil Liberties Union has threatened a lawsuit if a curfew is enacted, although it has not sued Greenville.

Tom Davis has the right approach on cameras

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Sen. Tom Davis is my favorite Sanfordista, because while he believes some unlikely things with which I disagree, he at least takes a reasonable approach to things. He has a laudable willingness to engage with people with other views, and to avoid letting his ideology blind him:

BEAUFORT, SC (AP) – Beaufort Sen. Tom Davis wants a commission to study automated traffic cameras like the ones being used in Ridgeland on Interstate 95.

Ridgeland’s use of the cameras to catch speeders has prompted a senator to offer a bill to outlaw the cameras, as well as a federal lawsuit challenging the use of the cameras.

Davis wants a panel of members of state government, law enforcement and the South Carolina Bar Association to report to lawmakers by Nov. 1.

Bonneau Sen. Larry Grooms wants to ban traffic tickets based on photos and to require police to give tickets to drivers within an hour of a violation.

Ridgeland has mailed tickets to more than 8,000 drivers since last summer.

Some Beaufort County House members have offered a bill to ensure the traffic cameras are legal.

Yes, study it. While I vehemently defend the local government’s right to do this without being stepped on by the state (that subsidiarity thing again), I’d like to know more. I have my own reservations. For instance, don’t you lose a deterrent effect when the speeder is not stopped at the time of the offense (which tends to slow him down, at least for a time). Is that deterrent loss offset by the signage warning drivers of the camera’s presence? I don’t know.

But the standard should be, What works? Not vague anti-gummint ideology, or the preferences of the defense lawyers who represent speeders, or the perverse urge to frustrate local communities’ desire to govern themselves without state interference, or any of the other factors that tend to predominate in our XGR.

Everything that’s wrong with the SC Legislature

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Boys and girls, gather ’round, because you seldom see such a perfect illustration of everything that is wrong with the South Carolina Legislature.

Did you see this?

State lawmakers said Wednesday that they think the Jasper County town of Ridgeland has broken state law by using automated cameras to issue more than 8,000 tickets to speeders on Interstate 95 since August.

A state Senate subcommittee gave its approval to a bill to ban the cameras, technology that town officials say has cut down on highway deaths and reduced the risk to police officers. But senators argued the cameras could violate the rights of drivers.

The hearing was at times tense, with lawmakers raising their voices in disagreement as Ridgeland Mayor Gary Hodges defended his town’s use of the cameras.

In that one thing — lawmakers’ rush to stop this local government from doing something perfectly sensible (local governments doing sensible things just absolutely sets SC lawmakers’ teeth on edge; it’s like fingernails scraping on a blackboard to them) — you see the following fundamental dysfunctions on display:

  • Their penchant for advancing ideology over all, especially when it trumps common sense.
  • Their preference for spending time and energy on these obsessions rather than on anything having to do with the betterment of our state.
  • Their utter hypocrisy — seeing as how this is just the kind of money-saving efficiency in governmental function that they say they value.
  • Their allergy to anything that might actually reduce shortfalls in state revenue, especially if it would do so painlessly and without hurting our economy. (Look how long it took them to pass that halfway measure of a cigarette-tax increase.)
  • Their utter hatred of local governments, especially when they take the initiative to better serve their communities. If the State House were on fire, lawmakers would refuse to evacuate if it meant missing a chance to take action to further oppress and frustrate local governments. They see it as their highest purpose, apparently.

Oh, but you’ll say, they were standing up for “freedom.” Really? The freedom to do what, precisely? Speed on the highway? (And note, this system doesn’t do anything unless they’re going at least 81 mph.) This invocation of freedom is even less persuasive than when they kept rejecting a seatbelt law because of our God-given right to fly through a windshield. One could almost make an argument for that, but there is no way anyone can mount a credible argument that we have a right to break speeding laws.

I did appreciate that they made an effort to mount a justification. And maybe there were others that didn’t make it into this story. But this one did make it: “Those ticketed may not have a chance to gather evidence — GPS data showing their speed, for instance — to defend themselves if they do not learn of the ticket until it arrives in the mail.” That sounds very… lawyerly. Which is familiar. We often see lawmakers carrying water for those who defend folks who break the law (which in some cases means they are carrying water for themselves.

There was also mention of the “problem” that “tickets are issued only if a speeding vehicle is registered to one owner,” which “exempts commercial, state and fleet vehicles from enforcement.” Perhaps there was more to it than that. I hope so, because that is NOT an objection to this method. I don’t see what stops the cop from stopping the commercial vehicles the old-fashioned way. And yes, there’s a cop present. This camera deal just enables him to enforce the law without the wasteful (and often dangerous) ritual of physically chasing the speeder down.

Yes, I know about how some of y’all object to CCTV and the like. But I ask you, exactly what do you think is private, what do you think is outside the legitimate public interest, about driving down the public highway in a hurtling piece of machinery? It’s hard to imagine a more public activity or venue, or one less entitled to privacy protection — even if you do believe in the unlikely SCOTUS proposition that there is a “right to privacy” in the Constitution? This isn’t a camera in your bathroom, folks. It’s on the road — a place where, if you’re doing something you don’t want others to see, you’re definitely in the wrong place.

Now, personally, I can think of an objection to this system that makes some sense: If the speeder is unaware that he’s being caught, he’s unlikely to slow down. At least, that day. So some of the deterrent effect of enforcement is undermined. But I didn’t see that reason cited in the coverage. Maybe they made that argument. If they didn’t make that one, or one equally relevant, then this was exactly what I thought it was when I read about it this morning: Another example of the S.C. Legislature’s cultural aversion to common sense and good government.

A little ditty you can sing to take your mind off being groped

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That is, if you mind being groped.

Personally, I was struck by how nonintrusive security was on my recent flights across the ocean and back. You’d think that on an international flight to and from a country that’s as involved (as target, and as combatant) in the War on Terror as the UK, you’d see security as tough as anywhere (with the possible exception of Israel).

The only sign I saw of really heightened security during the whole trip was when we went to see Downing Street, which is totally barred off and heavily guarded, with at least one submachine gun being wielded up close and personal so that the tourists can’t miss seeing it. But at least we could see something — I couldn’t quite make out the famous door of No. 10, although I could see the famous railings in front of it (which is how I could tell that was it, and not another black door that was at a slightly more advantageous angle for viewing — perhaps the chancellor of the exchequer’s abode; I don’t know).

But, after all the talk about invasive, intrusive new TSA procedures in recent months, what we experienced was not noticeably different from any other trip I’ve taken over the last decade or so. The only hassle I remember at all was the rigmarole of having to reclaim our bags in Atlanta after getting back, and then having to recheck them for the flight to Columbia. That was highly irritating at the end of a day (actually, the worst thing was that it WASN’T yet the end of the day) when we’d already been up for 18 hours, and had just stepped off a 9-hour flight. Without that drill, we might have made our connection in spite of our flight from Heathrow having been delayed. Delta quickly got us onto another one — although our bags didn’t follow us until the next day.

But all that stuff about futuristic x-ray machines and being groped by the TSA? We didn’t encounter any of that. I was ready for it, and all prepared to shrug it off (why people get so worked up about such things I still don’t understand), but then it just … didn’t happen.

Still I can enjoy a joke as well as the next guy. So when a friend who closely follows such issues showed me the above video, I just had to share it with y’all…

Near as I can tell, this video comes courtesy of buckhowdy.com.

The only obviously stepped-up security I saw the whole trip was at the end of Downing Street, where it runs into Whitehall.

Being watched in Airstrip One

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Last night I was watching an episode of “Law & Order: UK” on BBC America, and was impressed by the extent to which the writers just expect you to keep up with the idiom, and the small differences between American and British culture and assumptions. For instance, there’s a scene in which detectives are fretting over the fact that they can’t easily retrace a suspect’s movements: He doesn’t carry a mobile, and probably doesn’t have an Oyster card. Then, a moment later, there’s a reference to CCTV.

The folks who do the show’s website are less respectful of the audience’s intelligence. The “British Terms Glossary” wastes time with “bloke” and “coppers” and “flat” and “guv.” Let’s face it, folks — if you don’t know what those mean, stick to re-runs of “Hee-Haw” (“Hey, Grandpa: What’s for supper?“) or the like. They also define “mobile,” but we know what that is too, don’t we?

The Oyster card is more subtle (and, you would think, a far more likely candidate for the online glossary than “Tube”). It’s the card you buy, and top up (do we say “top up”? I forget — but they say it a lot over there) as needed, to use the magnificent London system of public transportation. You swipe it to get through a turnstile on you way into a Tube station, and — here’s the pertinent part — you do the same to get out at your destination. Which means there exists an electronic record of your movements through the city. In the previous scene we had learned that the suspect had a fear of crowds that kept him away from the Tube. So, no Oyster card.

Of course, most people know what Closed Circuit TeleVision is. But it took me a day or so to consciously realized the implications of those signs I saw everywhere: “CCTV in operation.” (I actually had to think a minute to separate it in my mind from CATV, the old term for cable TV back in the days when it was the Community Antenna for small towns and rural communities, before it went all urban.)

What they meant, of course, is that you are under surveillance a huge proportion of the time. Yes, I know businesses here have CCTV, and footage from such cameras is often important in crime investigations. But it’s just nowhere near as ubiquitous as in London, and it doesn’t loom nearly as large in public consciousness. Watch TV news there, and it seems that every other word is CCTV, whether you’re talking the images of the crossbow robbers holding up a post office, or the images of murder victim Joanna Yeates (THE big story while we were there) picking up a couple of items at Tesco, or a routine crime at an off-licence. (Now there’s a term I had to look up — turns out “off-licence” doesn’t mean the shop is extralegal, that it lacks a license; it means it HAS a license to sell alcohol for OFF-premise consumption, as opposed to a pub. Generally, it’s what we’d call a convenience store.)

Of course, such consciousness of being watched — that those bright yellow signs — are a large part of the deterrent effect in themselves.

All of which is fine by me. As I always say, knock yourself out, Big Brother. I was conscious that some of my more libertarian friends back here in the States might have found it all creepy, but at no time in my sojourn in Airstrip One — I mean, England — did I feel the least bit put-upon or oppressed.

To me, it was part and parcel of being in a place that is very much like home, with freedom-loving people who respect the dignity of the individual, but where the politics is not plagued by the legions of radical-individualist paranoids who resist any effort at putting any sort of rational infrastructure in place. I loved the novelty of being in a place with such a dream public transit system, and where waiters and bartenders don’t mind not getting tips (or at most, don’t expect more than 10 percent) — after all, what are they worried about? They have health benefits they cannot lose. And I was very happy to pay the taxes that helped pay for it all. Some friends advised me that I could get a VAT refund on leaving the country, but there was no way I wanted that. I was happy to pay my share.

(And yes, sometimes it all goes overboard, which is why the coalition government is cutting back — AND raising taxes, remember, which they’re able to do because their conservative party doesn’t make a religion of irrational tax hatred. But on the whole, it was wonderful to be in a place where it’s assumed that one should have the Tube, and the buses (that’s “coaches” to you) and trains and parks and fantastic free museums (contributions suggested, but quite low and entirely voluntary) and a population of people who don’t fear being ruined by an unplanned sickness.

And which doesn’t mind being on Candid Camera, if it means you might catch a crossbow robber now and then.

A few thoughts on the State of the State

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Watch the full episode. See more SCETV Specials.

EDITOR’S NOTE: THERE IS A SERIOUS ERROR BELOW, WHICH I HAVE NOW CORRECTED. PLEASE SEE THE CORRECTION POST.

Been trying all day to get to Nikki Haley’s speech last night. Here are a few quick observations:

  • First, the style: Nikki is a WAY better speaker than Mark Sanford. She, at least, can read a speech that’s right in front of her (and do it in a fairly engaging way). Her predecessor could not, or would not. Every year, I’d get my copy of the speech over lunch on the day of. I’d read it, mark it up, and ask questions about it. I would have completely digested it by the time of the speech itself. Then came speech time, which I generally watched from the comfort of my office on the tube. And then I had to suffer through his hems and haws, and “I would says” and “at the end of the days,” and flat-out off-script digressions, all of them awkward, pausing to search for words, ignoring the speech in front of him. Nikki, with her teleprompter, was MUCH better. But I expected no less.
  • This is not to say that her style is without its irritating characteristics. There’s her prim, smug, I’m-the-girl-with-the-most-gold-stars-in-the-class tone that she too often affects. Watch, for instance, when she extols the blessings of having “a chief executive willing to lead the charge and make the tough decisions” — speaking, of course, of herself. I guess someone who came from the back bench to governor in a year is bound to be a bit self-congratulatory. Human nature. But she could tone it down a bit. And often, she does.
  • Do you know why she can only suggest $120 million worth of cuts toward the $719 million shortfall? Because she hasn’t suggested anything that her political base might object to. And it’s hard to come up with cuts that deep and still do that. She hit programs for those worthless, lazy poor people, of course. And when she got to the middle class, she only went after the stuff that those wicked, decadent liberals like — such as ETV. But the truth is, everybody will have reason to gripe when all the cuts are in. Because believe me, this state’s leaders will never pull an Illinois. Not that they should; I’m just assuring you that they won’t. It’s going to be cuts all the way. And that has nothing to do with Nikki Haley; that’s just the way our State House does things.
  • The ETV thing, of course, is nothing new. Back during the GOP runoff last year, I went over to tape an interview at ETV. They had already talked with Gresham Barrett for the same show. But Nikki wasn’t even calling them back. Scuttlebutt in the ETV corridors was that she didn’t want to talk to them because she was going to back Mark Sanford’s veto of their entire budget. Don’t know whether they were right, but I could see how they’d get that impression.
  • Don’t you love the way she blithely suggests that if you kill ETV (excuse me, “When you release government from the things it should not be responsible for…”), it has this miraculous effect: “you allow the private sector to be more creative and cost efficient.” Remarkable, the things these ideologues will say as though they believed them. Love or hate ETV — and I see it as what it is, one of those few things that South Carolina can point to as something it has done as well as, or better than, other parts of the country (at least in past years) — the notion that the private sector will fill the gap is laughable. You know, this private sector… (Remember when Bravo was known for high-quality arts programming. Not anymore, baby.)
  • I’m definitely with her on asking for quick confirmation of her appointees. She’s made some good picks, and they deserve the opportunity to get to work. Advise, consent, but let’s do it quickly.
  • That little nonsensical (to all but Tea Party ideologues) lecture about how federal funding is inherently a BAD thing was painful to listen to. See, the trouble with the feds sending us money to fund services is that “federal money comes strings, and with those strings come limitations.” The alternative, of course, in South Carolina is that those needs don’t get funded at all. But they’re not really needs, are they? Say that often enough, and you start to believe it. Apparently. In my book, it’s offensive nonsense to say “my cabinet will stop the practice of working the system to get increases in federal funding simply for the sake of expanding our budgets” — as if agencies have sought such funding for any other reason that to fund important services — services they are charged with providing — that the state won’t fund. But yeah, I get it: Her base believes government shouldn’t do such things anyway.
  • I love, love, love that she’s starting out asking for ending the separate election of constitutional officers. Of course, I’m disappointed that she’s only pushing to do two of them — Gov Lite and superintendent of education. But it’s a start, and maybe that’s the smart way: Isolate a couple, so lawmakers can’t hide their votes to kill them. Then do the others later. Remember what they did last time there were votes on the whole shebang? The senators swapped votes, with just enough voting against putting each constitutional change on the ballot to kill it, but each senator being able to say he voted for some (or most) of them. So in this case, maybe piecemeal is smart. And, we hope, a substantive move toward the greater accountability Nikki says she wants to foster.
  • NOTE: THIS BULLET POINT IS COMPLETELY WRONG. I MISREAD WHAT THE GOVERNOR SAID. IN FACT, I THINK WHAT SHE SAID WAS PRAISEWORTHY. I’VE WRITTEN A SEPARATE POST TO SAY SO, IN NO UNCERTAIN TERMS. How’d you like this part? “The state of South Carolina pays more than $16,000 annually to incarcerate a single prisoner. We spend more each year on a prisoner than we do on a student. Think of the savings we’ll realize if we aren’t constantly welcoming back behind bars those prisoners who finish out their initial terms.” Usually, when a politician says that, he or she is suggesting that we need to do more to make sure kids get a good education so they don’t end up in prison, which IS more expensive. Nikki says it to justify spending less than our current lowest-in-the-nation amount per prisoner. One way she’d do this? Well, we’re already spending rock-bottom per meal, so we’ll just serve fewer meals. If you think this is a great idea, there’s nothing I can say to you. Except that there is a danger to all of us in running undermanned, underguarded prisons full of starved prisoners. But let’s move on.
  • I very much like that she’s started off her tenure on the Budget and Control Board by helping it work well together. She’s right to be smug about that. I like even better that she sound MORE determined last night than she has to insisting that the board be replaced with something more answerable to the governor. For years, lawmakers were able to shrug off this reform (and cling illegitimately to executive power) by saying you just couldn’t work with that Mark Sanford (which was true, but it was still just an excuse). Now, with the cooperative tone she’s set, they can’t say that. Let’s see some action. Stay on them on this, and keep pouring on the honey — since vinegar didn’t work.
  • This morning, I saw tweets from SCRG touting her speech. But there was no getting around the fact that she did not mention their signature issue — diverting funding from public education to private schools. Good for her. That was a welcome relief from the distracting nonsense of recent years.

Finally, a bit of a digression of my own: On the day that the U.S. House engaged in one of the most offensive partisan gestures I’ve seen in many a year — their farcical “repeal” of health care reform, demonstrating yet again that these yahoos who have taken over the GOP don’t give a damn about health care in America, they just want to cock a snook at Barack Obama at every opportunity — it was just as offensive to see the governor of our state take ANY time in a 34-minute speech to say that HER Cabinet will do all it can to opt out of that same reform. Because, you know, we don’t want South Carolina reaping any benefits that might accrue. If she hadn’t done that, I might have been able to take the fact that she wants to make the lion’s share of her cuts to Medicaid. But paired with that ideological statement, there was no way to put a positive spin on the cuts to care for the poor. Together, those gestures said, “We’re not going to help these people get health care, and we won’t let anyone else do it, either.”

There was good and bad in this brief, brisk, well-delivered speech. But that one thing kind of cast a pall over it all for me. Maybe it wouldn’t have bothered me so much if not for what the House had done that day. After all, while she couched it in ideological language (which is the only way to say the things she was saying, since pragmatism doesn’t enter into such an equation), and while her 1860-flavored digression about the rights of states to resist federal initiatives was kinda creepy amid the celebrations (as opposed to mere observances) we’re seeing related to that period, was downright creepy… still, I was pleased with the respectful, nonpartisan way she described her interaction with the president. But in the end creepy is creepy. And playing ideological games with the lives of sick people is inexcusable. No, we can’t pay for everything we’d like. And no, that federal legislation is far, FAR from perfect. But it’s the only live preserver that’s been thrown, and our governor has no business trying to yank it away.

It just seems to me that we have enough challenges here in South Carolina, more than enough for the governor to say grace over. I can see NO good reason to use any of our limited time, energy or resources mixing into these national partisan fights — especially if we don’t have a better plan for accomplishing what the feds are trying to accomplish.

The president’s speech in Arizona

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Something else I hadn’t been keeping up with the last few days… I was still out of the country when the Arizona shootings happened, and the couple of days I was stuck at home because of the snow, my newspapers either didn’t come or came after I had quit looking for them.

But I know that others among you were paying rapt attention. I know Samuel Tenenbaum was. I saw him at breakfast this morning, and asked him how he did. Well, he said, he had been in mourning Saturday night, but after the president’s speech last night, he felt a lot better. (When I wondered why the shootings — once I realized that was what he was talking about — affected him so deeply, he explained that he knew “Gabby” Giffords. He said he met her at one of the Laders’ Renaissance Weekends, and that she and Inez had been on a panel together.)

Since that encounter, a couple of other folks have mentioned how awesome the president’s speech was last night. So now, as I type this, I’m listening to it. I’m going to pause now and listen to the rest of it… In the meantime, y’all can start leaving comments…

… the part I’m listening to right now, when he’s just finished his well-researched eulogy for the dead and is applauding the heroes of the day, demonstrates a superb job of connecting emotionally with his audience, with the nation. That’s impressive, and appropriate. But here’s the bit I’m waiting for:

The president directly confronted the political debate that erupted after the rampage, urging people of all beliefs not to use the tragedy to turn on one another. He did not cast blame on Republicans or Democrats, but asked people to “sharpen our instincts for empathy.”

It was one of the more powerful addresses that Mr. Obama has delivered as president, harnessing the emotion generated by the shock and loss from Saturday’s shootings to urge Americans “to expand our moral imaginations, to listen to each other more carefully” and to “remind ourselves of all the ways that our hopes and dreams are bound together.”

“At a time when our discourse has become so sharply polarized, at a time when we are far too eager to lay the blame for all that ails the world at the feet of those who think differently than we do,” he said, “it’s important for us to pause for a moment and make sure that we are talking with each other in a way that heals, not a way that wounds.”…

That, of course, is a topic near and deal to me, and few speak more eloquently about the need for civility than Barack Obama. (It’s one of the reasons we enthusiastically endorsed him in the primary in 2008.)

I’m listening to that part now… as I hear it, I’m a bit lost because I missed the back-and-forth of the last few days that prompted the president to feel like he had to urge us not to claw at each other over this. But I’ve caught snatches of it, and I can extrapolate the rest. I know how the 24/7 spin cycle, and the parties, and Twitter, and all of that work. So without fully knowing the background, I fully appreciate the message…

I particularly like his urging the nation “to rise above ugly political debates and see civic life ‘through the eyes of a child, undimmed by the cynicism or vitriol” of adults,” and his exhortation that any debate engendered by this horror be worthy of the victims. Of 9-year-old Christina Taylor Green, he said:

“I want us to live up to her expectations… I want our democracy to be as good as she imagined it.”

He urged us to make sure “that our nation lives up to our children’s expectations.” Amen to that, Mr. President. Amen to that.

Scotland Yard always gets its man, but sometimes has to let him go

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At least, that was the word earlier today, although the actual release of Julian Assange, the accused sex offender and would-be saboteur of U.S. security, has now been delayed pending a hearing.

From the NYT:

LONDON — After a week in detention facing possible extradition, Julian Assange, the founder of the WikiLeaks antisecrecy group, was ordered released on $310,000 bail by a court on Tuesday as he challenges a Swedish prosecutor’s demand that he return to Stockholm for questioning about alleged sex offenses.

However, Mr. Assange remained in custody pending a hearing on an appeal by the prosecutor, which would take place within the next 48 hours.

In granting bail, Judge Howard Riddle ordered that Mr. Assange appear again in court on Jan. 11. He also said that between then and now he must reside at Ellingham Hall, a Georgian mansion in Bungay, in eastern England, owned by Vaughan Smith, the founder of a club for journalists. Mr. Assange must spend every night at the mansion and will be electronically tagged so the police can track his movements, the judge said…

So even when he DOES walk out, it’s sort of a tag-and-release situation. Which shows the Brits haven’t lost their minds. Good to know, since I’m about to go over there. If I DO run into the guy, though, I’ll let you know.

Oh, and about those sex charges — as muddled a mess as any he-said-she-said (and she said, too) you’re likely to run across. Whatever the facts, Mr. Assange seems to fall somewhat short of a paragon (even if you believe his defense):

Speaking about the case in recent weeks, Mr. Assange has said that he had consensual relations with two young Swedish women. He said he met them during a trip to Sweden in August that he made in a bid to establish a haven for himself and WikiLeaks under Sweden’s broad laws protecting press freedoms.

The charges relate to the question of whether these encounters ceased to be consensual when a condom was no longer being used. Sweden’s request for extradition is designed to enable prosecutors to question Mr. Assange about charges of “rape, sexual molestation and unlawful coercion.”…

In a packed courtroom hearing lasting nearly an hour a week ago, Gemma Lindfield, a lawyer acting for the Swedish government, outlined some of the detailed allegations against Mr. Assange made by the Swedish women, both WikiLeaks volunteers. They involved three incidents, including one in which Mr. Assange was alleged to have had unprotected sex with one of his accusers while she was asleep.

But that’s not why we’re talking about this guy, is it?

Oh, and about the NYT’s blithe assertion that WikiLeaks is an “antisecrecy group”… I read an interesting opinion piece the other day that argued it is pretty much the opposite of being a champion of transparency — and backed up the argument fairly well:

Whatever else WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has accomplished, he’s ended the era of innocent optimism about the Web. As wiki innovator Larry Sanger put it in a message to WikiLeaks, “Speaking as Wikipedia’s co-founder, I consider you enemies of the U.S.—not just the government, but the people.”

The irony is that WikiLeaks’ use of technology to post confidential U.S. government documents will certainly result in a less free flow of information. The outrage is that this is Mr. Assange’s express intention….

Mr. Assange is misunderstood in the media and among digirati as an advocate of transparency. Instead, this battening down of the information hatches by the U.S. is precisely his goal. The reason he launched WikiLeaks is not that he’s a whistleblower—there’s no wrongdoing inherent in diplomatic cables—but because he hopes to hobble the U.S., which according to his underreported philosophy can best be done if officials lose access to a free flow of information.

In 2006, Mr. Assange wrote a pair of essays, “State and Terrorist Conspiracies” and “Conspiracy as Governance.” He sees the U.S. as an authoritarian conspiracy. “To radically shift regime behavior we must think clearly and boldly for if we have learned anything, it is that regimes do not want to be changed,” he writes. “Conspiracies take information about the world in which they operate,” he writes, and “pass it around the conspirators and then act on the result.”

His central plan is that leaks will restrict the flow of information among officials—”conspirators” in his view—making government less effective. Or, as Mr. Assange puts it, “We can marginalize a conspiracy’s ability to act by decreasing total conspiratorial power until it is no longer able to understand, and hence respond effectively to its environment. . . . An authoritarian conspiracy that cannot think efficiently cannot act to preserve itself.”

As I said earlier today to a friend over on Facebook:

Assange and his crowd are not journalists. They’re not the vaunted Fourth Estate, playing a role in stimulating political debate over a national issue. They are foreign political activists who intend to harm the security of the United States. Their goal is to shut down information-sharing among our agencies, from Defense to State to Homeland Security to CIA and so forth, so that they will be less effective. To return us to a pre-9/11 state — you know, back when one agency knew the 9/11 attackers were in the country, and another agency knew why they were dangerous, but they weren’t talking to each other. (An argument can be made on security grounds for keeping information in such silos, but it’s an argument that you can go around and around on — and Assange is not a legitimate participant in that debate.) The goal of WikiLeaks is not transparency, but the opposite — they want to shut down information-sharing.

The president in Afghanistan: Where would YOU draw the line on security?

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Following our discussion on WikiLeaks, I thought I’d pose this…

Note that President Obama just slipped unannounced into Afghanistan. This, to me, is appropriate and laudable.

But I ask you: Do you think you and I as citizens had a “right” to know in advance that he was going there? And would a Julian Assange, to your thinking, have had the “right” to tell you about it in advance?

And if you think not, then WHERE would you draw the line? I draw it here: It is up to duly constituted authorities to make such decisions about the security of official information, and not up to self-appointed individuals or organizations such as Assange or WikiLeaks. When they presume to take such decisions upon themselves, they should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of national and international law.

Would you draw it somewhere else? And if you would, in what way is that consistent with our being a nation of laws and not of men?

Now, see, THIS is a partisan smear…

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There are thousands of people at the polls right now voting for Nikki Haley in spite of all the powerful, objective reasons not to, because they think all those bad things they’ve heard are just some unfair, partisan attempt to smear her. Listen to them; that’s what they think.

That’s because they are either not paying close attention, or they truly lack the intellectual capacity to tell the difference between indisputable facts about Nikki, and a true smear campaign.

It’s a bit late, I suppose, but just for future reference, folks, here’s what it looks like when a bunch of stuff is thrown unfairly at a candidate in the hope something will stick. I got it from Phil Noble at SC New Democrats:

Two Ard arrests on Election Day

Friends,

We’re just getting word that there’s trouble on Republican candidate for lt. governor Ken Ard’s campaign today.  And it couldn’t have come at a more critical time.

After weeks of investigation, six arrest warrants have been issued for Ken Ard’s campaign manager, a Republican operative named Robert Cahaly.  Cahaly will surrender himself to SLED agents Wednesday morning on charges of making illegal robocalls against several targeted Democratic state house representatives. These sleazy Republican tactics are exactly what voters hate about politics.

This comes just hours after Ken Ard’s 20-year old son, James Ard was arrested at 6 A.M. this morning for DUI.

And as of this afternoon, Ken Ard was still on the campaign trail, asking for you to elect him to be our state’s lieutenant governor — #2 in charge.  We think the charges speak for themselves, but the WIS write-up is below.

This is what we’re up against.

But there’s still time.  The polls don’t close until 7PM, so there’s stil time for you to stand against this kind of trash politics.

Just yesterday, Ashley Cooper (Ken Ard’s Democratic opponent) talked about putting South Carolina back in the news for all the right reasons, and now this.

It’s time for a change.

Get out there and vote before 7PM today and have your voice heard!

Thanks again,

Phil

Now, I think Phil is a fine and, well, Noble fellow, and I know he’s sincere. And I have no reason to doubt his facts (even though that link he gives goes to a page that says “The page you requested is currently unavailable.” The actual link is here.)

But it’s unfair to raise those things at this time, and to say, “This is what we’re up against,” because there is no indication here that Mr. Ard himself has done anything wrong, or even that anything wrong has been done in his behalf. And he has no time to distance himself from this guilt by association.

Surely Phil would not want to suggest that no one should vote for Vincent Sheheen because one of his campaign workers was charged with DUI (months ago, giving Vincent time to fire her and let everyone see him firing her, and for the thing to be largely forgotten). Phil would consider such an assertion to be outrageously unfair. Which, until I hear something that implicates Mr. Ard in any way, is what this is.

By contrast, almost every time we’ve looked at anything that bears on the claims that Nikki Haley makes about herself — about what a wonderful accountant she is, or how passionately she believes in transparency — what we find refutes her claims, and raises fresh alarms about her suitability. That’s the kind of thing that is not only fair and relevant, but things that anyone MUST know and understand before voting.

There’s a huge difference.

I would discuss this, but I don’t have time

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The Juan Williams mess led to a long and provocative thread about normal fears and irrational prejudices, and what we should feel free to express about certain situations in modern life without getting fired for it.

And at some point, I posted the following in that thread, and it was so long I decided to make it into a separate post, even though, once I post it, I really need to move on to other stuff… Anyway, what I said was”

You know, there’s a whole conversation I’d be interested to have here about the way a healthy human brain works that takes this out of the realm of political correctness-vs.-Angry White Males, which is about as deep as we usually go.

But in the last week of an election, when I’m having trouble blogging at all, much less keeping up with all the election-related things I need to be writing about… I don’t have time to set out all my thoughts on the subject.

But to sort of give a hint…

What I’m thinking is this: There are certain things that we decry today, in the name of being a pluralistic society under the rule of law, that are really just commonsense survival strategies, things programmed into us by eons of evolution.

For instance, we sneer at people for being uneasy in certain situations — say, among a group of young males of a different culture or subculture. And we are right to sneer, to a certain extent, because we are enlightened modern people.

But, if our ancestors weren’t uneasy and ready to fight or flee in such a situation, they wouldn’t have lived to reproduce, and we wouldn’t be here. Thousands of years ago, people who felt all warm and fuzzy and wanted to celebrate multiculturalism when in the company of a bunch of guys from the rival tribe got eaten for dinner, and as a result, those people are NOT our ancestors. We inherited our genes from the edgy, suspicious, cranky people — the racists and nativists of their day.

Take that to the next level, and we recognize that such tendencies are atavistic, and that it’s actually advantageous in our modern market economy governed by liberal democracies to be at ease with folks from the other “tribes.” In fact, the more you can work constructively with people who are different, the more successful you will be at trade, etc.

So quite rightly we sneer at those who haven’t made the socio-evolutionary adjustment. They are not going to get the best mates, etc., because chicks don’t dig a guy who’s always itching for a fight. So they’re on the way out, right?

However… the world hasn’t entirely changed as much as we think it has. There are still certain dangers, and the key is to have the right senses to know when you need to be all cool and open and relaxed, and when you need to be suspicious as hell, and ready to take evasive or combative action.

This requires an even higher state of sophistication. Someone who is always suspicious of people who are different is one kind of fool. Someone who is NEVER suspicious of people who are different (and I’m thinking more of people with radically different world views — not Democrats vs. Republicans, but REALLY different — more than I am people wearing funny robes) is another kind of fool.

The key, ultimately, is not to be any kind of fool. The key is to be a thoughtful, flexible survivor who gets along great with the Middle-eastern-looking guy in the airport queue or the Spanish-speakers in the cereals aisle at Walmart, but who is ready to spring into action to deal with the Middle-eastern-looking guy in seat 13A who’s doing something weird with the smoking sole of his shoe (or the Aryan guy doing the same, but my point is that you don’t give the Arab pass in such a situation just to prove how broad-minded you are), or the Spanish-speaking guy wielding an AK-47 over a drug deal…

This may seem common sense, but there are areas in which we will see conflicts between sound common sense and our notions of rigid fairness in a liberal democracy. For instance, I submit that an intelligent person who deals with the world as it is will engage in a certain amount of profiling. I mean, what is profiling, anyway, but a gestalten summation of what you’ve learned about the world in your life, applied to present and future situations? The ability to generalize, and act upon generalizations — without overdoing it — are key life skills.

There are certain traits that put you on guard and make you particularly vigilant under particular circumstances, or you are a fool. If you’re in an airport and you see a group of 20-something Mediterranean-looking males (and young males from ANY culture always bear more watching than anyone else — sorry, guys, but y’all have a long rap sheet) unaccompanied by women or children or old men, and they’re muttering and fidgeting with something in their bags… you’re not very bright if you don’t think, “This bears watching.”

Now of course, knowing this, if I’m a terrorist organization, I’m going to break up that pattern as much as I can. (I’ll have them travel separately, wear western clothes, coach them not to seem furtive, etc. I’ll recruit middle-aged women if I can, although they generally have far too much sense.) So if you’re watching this scene, and you are intelligent, you’re bound to think, “These guys look SO suspicious that they must be innocent, because terrorists aren’t that stupid…” Well, yeah, they can be. Let me submit the evidence of the guy who set his underpants on fire… So there’s such a thing as overthinking the situation. I mean, how bright is a guy who wants to blow himself up to make a point? People who do that ALSO don’t reproduce, so evolution militates against it…

Anyway, I’d go on and on about this, and examine all the implications, and endeavor to challenge the assumptions of people of all political persuasions… but I don’t have time this week.

Hang down your head, candidate

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A piece I read in the WSJ this morning reminded me of a picture I shot with my phone while at a stoplight in Birmingham Friday. The story was about candidates with unusual names, such as Young Boozer, Krystal Ball and Isaac Hayes:

It might come as no surprise in these tumultuous times that a Young Boozer is running for Alabama state treasurer.

Young Boozer introduces himself on the stump as, “Young Boozer and yes, that’s my real name.” He says each audience is made up of three parts. The first wonders, “Is that the guy’s real name?” The second says, “‘What’s his father’s name, Old Boozer?”‘ The rest already know him.

Mr. Boozer, 61 years old, is the third consecutive Young Boozer in his family. He coined the motto, “funny name, serious leadership,” after realizing on the campaign trail the political advantage the elder Young Boozers had passed along. Previously, the Boozers were associated mostly with sports. Mr. Boozer’s father, Young Boozer, Jr., was a football star at the University of Alabama, where he faced off in the Rose Bowl against a Stanford player named Tom Collins.

“I’ve always been a Boozer,” jokes the candidate. The family name is so unusual that “once you hear it, you never forget it,” he says. Still, “I didn’t think it was funny when I was growing up because my dad was so well known.”…

I’m sorry if you can’t make out the blurry image above, but it urges people to vote for Tom Dooley for Alabama state board of education. (So yes, in Alabama, voters have the opportunity to vote for both a famous name from an iconic folk song, and Young Boozer.)

This sparked a conversation between my wife and me — one of those kinds of conversations that are rare in this era of Google. I couldn’t consult the Blackberry while driving, and so we tried to remember… we both knew about the folk song, and to the great regret of the other occupants of the car, I was able to sing four lines of it, repeatedly, before I got stuck:

Hang down your head, Tom Doo-ley.

Hang down your head and cry.

Hang down your head, Tom Dooley.

Poor boy, you’re gonna die…

Beyond that, we didn’t know much. I was thinking the song was about a man condemned some notorious, long-forgotten murder. My wife said yes, but the defendant was a doctor. I said I didn’t know about that, but I did know… and launched into my four lines again.

Well, now that Wikipedia is at hand, I can report that:

  • The song was about the 1866 murder in North Carolina of a woman named Laura Foster.
  • Tom Dula was hanged for the murder in 1868, after two trials.
  • Dula was pronounced “Dooley” in Appalachian dialect, as a result of the same linguistic quirk that led to the current pronunciation and spelling of Grand Ole Opry.
  • Several versions of the song, first sung shortly after Dula’s execution, were recorded in the first half of the 20th century. By far the most famous was by The Kingston Trio in 1958, which was a huge crossover hit and is widely credited with launching the folk boom of the early 60s.
  • At the time that hit recording came out, a Dr. Tom Dooley (Thomas Anthony Dooley III) was famous as an international humanitarian. (Since he was an American Catholic, I’m guessing my wife heard a lot about him from the nuns at school.)
  • It’s not “gonna die,” but “bound to die.”

Oh, finally — turns out the Tom Dooley running for school board is also “Dr. Tom Dooley,” according to his Web site.

And that’s all I know about Tom Dooley.

Aren’t you glad you weren’t stuck in a car with me driving for 20 hours over the weekend? I won’t even get into the thoughts I had when I saw in Memphis a sign telling me that Ned Ray McWherter’s boy is running for governor…

THAT’s why they locked her up on the Death Star

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The only surprising thing about this was that Matt Drudge seems to think it’s news:

Drudge Report

tweetdrudge Drudge Report

Princess Leia did cocaine on ‘STAR WARS’ set…http://bit.ly/9CSJRY #tcot

I sort of thought that was a given. I mean, we’re not talking about a paragon here. This is the actress we had known previously only as the nymphet who uttered that memorable (to guys, anyway) line in “Shampoo.” And then there was that tell-all book of hers. (But that was a novel, right? Right.)

I’ve got no particular reason to pass this on today, beyond the fact that it allows us to start off the week thinking about Princess Leia, which is always good.

Alternative headline: “THAT’s why Chewbacca made that weird noise…“

Sheriff Lott will NOT be running city police dept.

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Jack Kuenzie reports this on Twitter:

Council debates alternatives as proposal for police management contract goes down in flames. http://plixi.com/p/47809808

The “alternative” apparently will be to go ahead and hire a new police chief — in other words, an individual who will have a vest interest in fighting any move to merge with the county force (NOT having a chief is what created the opportunity to do something smart and new) — and then appoint a commission to study the proposal the council just turned down.

I’d call that down in flames, all right — if that’s where they end up.

This is a terribly disappointing failure on the part of the new council — a failure to signal that it is willing to be bold in pursuing workable solutions for the city’s policing problems.

On a better note, the council DID approve the curfew, although the city attorney has concerns — concerns he doesn’t want to share with the public. So whether the curfew is enacted, and enacted effectively, remains to be seen.

And as I said before, the most promising action the council could have taken to show it was serious about solving the youth gang problem would have been to put Leon Lott in charge.

But Daniel Rickenmann, the swing vote, decided against that.

Here are Jack’s Tweets on the subject:

Cola city council splits on WHEN to discuss police mgmt. contract during today’s meeting. Gergel and Plaugh want to start now. Outvoted 5-2.
about 4 hours ago via ÜberTwitter
Passed Kevin Gray on the way to city council meeting. His protest of the police plan appeared to be pretty much a solo performance.
about 3 hours ago via ÜberTwitter
5 minute break before Columbia council begins debate on police management.
about 2 hours ago via ÜberTwitter
Kevin Gray’s protest outside city hall has picked up support. At least a half dozen now objecting to sheriff oversight of CPD.
about 2 hours ago via ÜberTwitter
Council members outlining views on CPD oversight. Mayor: get this off table today.
about 1 hour ago via ÜberTwitter
Tamieka Devine now speaking. She once led effort to blend county and city cops, then switched sides. Now wants to start chief search.
about 1 hour ago via ÜberTwitter
Rickenmann: Concerned about CPD leadership, inefficiency. But wants to hire chief, work on unified service. Could mean contract plan fails.
about 1 hour ago via ÜberTwitter
Rickenmann is swing vote.
about 1 hour ago via ÜberTwitter
Gergel motion for contract.
about 1 hour ago via ÜberTwitter
Sam Davis says CPD officers “humiliated”—by contract proposal.
41 minutes ago via ÜberTwitter
Gergel’s motion provides contract for sheriff up to end of his term at $8K a year.
35 minutes ago via ÜberTwitter
This contract plan appears likely to fail, 4-3.
32 minutes ago via ÜberTwitter
Rickenmann wants to start chief search, study unified service.
30 minutes ago via ÜberTwitter
Plaugh proposes hiring “outside interim chief.”
26 minutes ago via ÜberTwitter
Council debates alternatives as proposal for police management contract goes down in flames. http://plixi.com/p/47809808
18 minutes ago via ÜberTwitter
Motion now being formed to direct city manager to begin chief search, assemble commission to study unified service.
14 minutes ago via ÜberTwitter
Pretty good chance Columbia won’t have permanent police chief until next spring or later.
1 minute ago via ÜberTwitter

The State’s Adam Beam reports that the last proposal DID pass. Here are his Tweets:

Big vote today at City Hall on the sheriff contract. One person showed up for the protest rally.

about 4 hours ago via Twitter for iPhone

At last check, council had a 4-3 majority to hire the sheriff.

about 4 hours ago via Twitter for iPhone

But Mayor Benjamin’s compromise proposal (http://j.mp/a3MrEp) has thrown a wrench in things

about 4 hours ago via Twitter for iPhone

Two of the four, Daniel Rickenmann and Leona Plaugh, said this morning they have concerns about the mayor’s proposal

about 4 hours ago via Twitter for iPhone

Benjamin said before the meeting that a consensus was forming around parts of his plan. Declined to say what parts.

about 4 hours ago via Twitter for iPhone

Not a big crowd on hand today. Most folks I’ve talked to said they believe council has already made up their mind, so why bother

about 4 hours ago via Twitter for iPhone

But council did hold six public hearings on the issue, so you can’t say council didn’t listen

about 4 hours ago via Twitter for iPhone

Now council is arguing about the order of the agenda items

about 4 hours ago via Twitter for iPhone

Belinda Gergel just tried to move the law enforcement vote from No. 13 to No. 3

about 4 hours ago via Twitter for iPhone

Mayor Benjamin made her submit it as a motion to be voted on. Failed 5-2. It’s getting tense already.

about 4 hours ago via Twitter for iPhone

Open container violations in Columbia now come with $500 fine or 30 days in jail http://j.mp/bNOyQ0

about 3 hours ago via Twitter for iPhone

Council discussing curfew ordinance, but wants to talk about it in a closed meeting

about 3 hours ago via Twitter for iPhone

City approves curfew, but questions remain http://j.mp/bbZMtW

about 3 hours ago via Twitter for iPhone

Showtime

about 2 hours ago via Twitter for iPhone

Mayor Benjamin giving opening remarks

about 2 hours ago via Twitter for iPhone

Reply Retweet

Benjamin: “I don’t believe there is a racial division.”

about 2 hours ago via Twitter for iPhone

Benjamin: “This is the kind of issue that makes no one popular.”

about 2 hours ago via Twitter for iPhone

Daniel Rickenmann says be wants to “hire somebody.” That means votes are not there for a contract with the sheriff.

about 1 hour ago via Twitter for iPhone

Someone just yelled out “Thank you Jesus” after Councilman Davis spoke against the sheriff contract

about 1 hour ago via Twitter for iPhone

Right now vote is 4-3 against the contract. No vote yet.

about 1 hour ago via Twitter for iPhone

Mayor Benjamin and Councilwoman Leona Plaugh having a sidebar. Lots of these are happening. http://twitpic.com/2t3xap

about 1 hour ago via Twitter for iPhone

Gergel wants sheriff now. Benjamin wants the sheriff now, chief in a year. Rickenmann wants a chief now but w/ a study of unified service

35 minutes ago via Twitter for iPhone

Plaugh is offering “a substitute motion to the substitute motion.”

34 minutes ago via Twitter for iPhone

This is starting to look like Inception.

33 minutes ago via Twitter for iPhone

Sheriff contract is dead, largely because of Daniel Rickenmann.

22 minutes ago via Twitter for iPhone

New motion: Hire a chief, and appoint a commission to study possibility of a unified force.

21 minutes ago via Twitter for iPhone

It appears that motion will pass.

21 minutes ago via Twitter for iPhone

Whew

21 minutes ago via Twitter for iPhone

Gergel will vote against the motion. Said commission would take responsibility away from council.

17 minutes ago via Twitter for iPhone

Motion passes 6-1. Gergel voted no.

3 minutes ago via Twitter for iPhone

And now the mass exodus from City Hall. Council still meeting though.

3 minutes ago via Twitter for iPhone

Mayor says city should have police chief by end of the year, but noted it is the city manager’s decision.

6 minutes ago via Twitter for iPhone

So who will be accountable for effectively enforcing this new curfew? I can’t tell, but it looks like no one to me.

Please give the curfew a try, Columbia council

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My youngest daughter, the dancer, was between contracts with ballet companies and spent much of the summer in New York — staying with a friend in Brooklyn, but spending most of her time in Manhattan — working at a restaurant at night, taking ballet classes and working out at a gym in the daytime.

The place she was staying was at the border of Brooklyn and Queens, and disturbingly close to Bedford-Stuyvesant on the map. She was at a disadvantage in her neighborhood not speaking Spanish (I coached her with a few phrases, but there’s only so much you can teach in brief phone conversations). She rode the subway at all hours, often alone, because of her schedule.

Of course we worried. She’s 21, and therefore technically an adult. But not to me.

This past weekend was her first full weekend back in town. She went to a party for a friend in Olympia Saturday night. After that, she went to meet one of her best friends, who works late in Five Points.

It was the first time in the last few months she felt unsafe. The young kids milling about in Five Points, some apparently in gang colors, caused her to feel something she hadn’t felt in New York — or in Charlotte living there all last year.

I had heard from Five Points business people about the growing problem of teenagers who are too young to get into the bars loitering in the streets in large numbers. I had heard, recently, that THAT was the context of the shootings that have happened in the vicinity in recent months.

This made me start to think that — while I still think closing bars at 2 a.m. is a good idea — that wasn’t the solution to the violence. A curfew for kids under 18 sounds like a better solution.

This will probably set off some of my libertarian friends here on the blog, but I don’t care. This makes sense. And kids have no business on the street late at night.

To quote from the story in The State today:

Most anyone younger than 18 would be under an 11 p.m. curfew in the city of Columbia, and adults strolling a sidewalk with an open can of beer could land in jail for a month if two proposals before City Council on Wednesday become law.

Both changes in city ordinances are being driven by a summer of youth violence in Five Points, in which two men were shot in three incidents. The violence, reportedly springing from youth gang turf wars, has cut deeply into the revenue of merchants in the busy business district, which is popular with USC students, said Scott Linaberry, president of the Five Points Association.

I urge Columbia City Council to pass this curfew tomorrow.

I also urge them to keep moving toward merging city police and Sheriff Leon Lott’s department as soon as possible. Leon was working to address the gang problem long before any other local cops would even acknowledge there was a problem.

Well, there IS a problem. And it’s gotten pretty bad. And a curfew is one common-sense tool to use in addressing some of the problems that gangs bring.

As for the open-container proposal — I don’t know what I think about that yet. I’m not as clear on exactly how that plays into the problem that we’re trying to address here. Perhaps some of you are more familiar with that than I. But the curfew seems an obvious, reasonable step to take.

RFK son leads board to settle score with Ayers; good for him

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Normally I’m not one to applaud people using positions of trust to settle personal scores, but even if that’s what you call this, in this case I’m all cheers for the Kennedys:

When retiring University of Illinois at Chicago Professor Bill Ayers co-wrote a book in 1973, it was dedicated in part to Sirhan Sirhan, Robert F. Kennedy’s assassin.

That came back to haunt Ayers on Thursday when the U. of I. board, now chaired by Kennedy’s son, considered his request for emeritus status. It was denied in a unanimous vote.

Before the vote, an emotional Chris Kennedy spoke out against granting the status to Ayers.

“I intend to vote against conferring the honorific title of our university to a man whose body of work includes a book dedicated in part to the man who murdered my father,” he said.

“There can be no place in a democracy to celebrate political assassinations or to honor those who do so.”

Later, Kennedy told the Chicago Sun-Times he and the board have not seen any signs of remorse from Ayers in the nearly 40 years since the dedication.

“There’s no evidence in any of his interviews or conversations that he regrets any of those actions — that’s a better question for him,” he told the Sun-Times…

There was a lot of back-and-forth about Ayers back during the 2008 election, you will recall. The thing I like about this personal action by Chris Kennedy is that it serves a public purpose, and of course the public good was what RFK’s memory should be about.

The public good served is that we are made to face clearly what a blackguard Ayers was, and still is (since he’s never expressed regret about what he did back in the day).

So in that sense, this isn’t personal, it’s strictly business. By the way, the “Godfather” reference here is not strictly gratuitous. Mario Puzo wrote another book called The Fourth K, which was about a latter-day member of the Kennedy family who wages unrestricted war on terrorism after his daughter is murdered by terrorists. (The whole “business-vs.-personal” theme was a big one for Puzo. He was fascinated by the idea of powerful men using their power for very personal purposes.)

In this case, Chris Kennedy found a much more gentle way to settle a family account. And good for him. And good for the board, which redeemed this act beyond the realm of personal vengeance by acting unanimously, on principle. This is the way retribution should be conducted, by the full community.

It’s not about whether it’s legal; it’s about whether such a person should be governor

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My sense is that John Barton was right when he said in The State this morning that John Rainey’s charge that Nikki Haley has violated ethics law by taking 40 grand from Wilbur Smith is without legal merit.

Barton knows about such things, and if he says that payment didn’t cross the line, he’s almost certainly right.

Which of course is beside the point.

That story, which fretted mightily over whether the law was violated or not by that deal, is yet another example of something I’ve bemoaned in the MSM for many years. “Objective” news folks, who fear exercizing judgments, obsess over whether something is legal or not to such a degree that the conversation becomes about THAT, and if in the end it’s determined it’s NOT against the law, then everyone goes “all right, then” and moves on. As though being legal made it OK.

But legal or not, it’s not OK. The issue is that the way Nikki Haley handled this shows her lack of fitness for high office.

And the ultimate issue isn’t her, but us. It’s about the decision we make.

And we have to decide whether we want someone to be our governor who, in this instance:

  • Took more than $40,000 from a business that can’t tell what she did for them, just that they wanted to retain her because she’s “very connected.”
  • Avoided disclosing that.
  • Insists that she should be elected because she champions transparency.

So I doubt that Rainey’s letter will lead to legal action against her. I doubt that she’ll have the pay a penalty the way she keeps having to do because of not paying taxes on time.

But it does serve the useful purpose of making sure voters don’t forget something they should remember.

Ya ever wonder what happens to failed ‘Idol’ contestants?

1 Reply

Well, in Canada, they just might become terrorists. At least, that’s what the Mounties say.

Above, you see the very sad performance by Pakistani immigrant Khuram Sher on “Canadian Idol” in 2008. Two years later, here’s what the authorities say about him:

OTTAWA—Canadian authorities said they found and foiled a terrorist bomb-making plot by three men here—one allegedly with links to the conflict in Afghanistan and another, a pathologist who auditioned for the TV show “Canadian Idol.”

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police arrested the trio of Canadian citizens after raids on their houses turned up schematics, videos, drawings, books and manuals for making explosives, said Serge Therriault, Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer in charge of criminal investigations.

The suspects—identified as Hiva Alizadeh, 30 years old; X-ray technician Misbahuddin Ahmed, 26, both of Ottawa; and hospital worker Khurram Syed Sher, 28, of London, Ontario—were charged Thursday with “knowingly facilitating a terrorist activity.”

“A vast quantity of terrorist literature and instructional material was seized, showing that the suspects had the intent to construct an explosive device for terrorist purposes,” said Mr. Therriault. The arrests Wednesday and Thursday “prevented the assembly of any bombs or terrorist attacks from being carried out,” he added.

The trio were working with an “ideologically inspired terrorist group” with links in Iran, Afghanistan, Dubai and Pakistan, the RCMP said. While officials would not say whether the trio had links to al Qaeda, they were driven by “violent Islamist ideology,” according to Raymond Boisvert, assistant director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, the country’s spy agency.

NOW will y’all listen to me? Reality TV is a threat to all we hold dear, I keep tellin’ ya!

The stories I’ve seen haven’t been terribly specific as to WHAT these guys were plotting, but the most diabolical thing I could imagine would be if their plan all along was to get busted, and cause this video to go viral, thereby sapping Western morale. (And look — they’ve even tricked me into furthering their plan!)

A couple or three additional points:

  • We’re seeing the continuation of a pattern (hey, with such astuteness on my part, maybe they’ll base a character on me on “Rubicon”) of terror groups using agents who will be called “homegrown” in Western media. Sure this Triple Threat (singin’, dancin’ and blowin’ stuff up) has only been in the country 5 years, but it’s long enough to become legit and evade the scrutiny of the immigration authorities.
  • Here we have another instance of Privacy Gone Mad in an Exhibitionist Age: “The spokesperson at the hospital in Ottawa where Mr. Ahmed works said he couldn’t disclose personal information due to Canadian privacy laws.” Yet we can find out WAY more than we want to know about Sher — where he’s from, how long he’s been here, his hopes, his dreams — on “Idol.” Sheesh.
  • I was just about to throw up my hands and say, “Never mind! Maybe I don’t want a Canadian-style health system!” when I read in the lede of that WSJ story that Sher was “a pathologist.” But then below, I see that he was just a “hospital worker.” Make up your mind, WSJ. And yeah, I still want a Canadian-style system. Only I want the government to forbid anyone who treats sick people to appear on “Idol.”

Greene juggernaut could be in trouble now

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Those of you — and there must be someone out there who fits this description — thought Alvin Greene was a shoo-in to unseat Jim DeMint this fall may have to re-evaluate your assessment in view of this shocker:

COLUMBIA, S.C. — Longshot U.S. Senate candidate Alvin Greene was indicted Friday on two charges, including a felony charge of showing pornography to a South Carolina college student.

A Richland County grand jury indicted Green for disseminating, procuring or promoting obscenity – a felony – as well as a misdemeanor charge of communicating obscene materials to a person without consent.

Greene, who surprised the Democratic party establishment with his primary victory, was arrested in November after authorities said he approached a student in a University of South Carolina computer lab, showed her obscene photos online, then talked about going to her dorm room.

Actually, I didn’t realize he hadn’t already been indicted. Guess I should have paid closer attention.

By the way, I saw the semi-famous Alvin Greene sign last week outside Manning on my way back from the beach. I was past it before it fully registered on me what it was. There was a little (green, of course) Greene yard sign next to it. In retrospect, I really should have turned around to go get a picture, because I sorta doubt I’m going to see many more of those.

At breakfast this morning someone wondered aloud whether there would be any confusion among voters (who we know were already pretty confused back during the primary) between Greene and the Green Party candidate.

That caused me to wonder: I wonder which of them would be harmed more by that confusion?