Meta - the new arrival at Crab Media.... Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

New template and formatting to follow.

Blogospheric Analysis of June 28th Democratic Debate Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

Check out the analyses of media-credentialed blogs in attendance Republic of T, Pam's House Blend, Jack & Jill Politics and Oliver Willis regarding the June 28th All-American Democratic Forum conducted at Howard University.

Kenny Burns' Contender Sheet Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

I like Kenny Burns' approach to tracking the "contenders", both because I like politics and I like boxing. Some days I feel ashamed sometimes about liking politics and boxing, especially since I am supposed to be a peace-loving liberal. But it would be dishonest for me to deny that every time I have gone to a night of Ballroom Boxing, I have absolutely loved it.

Kenny has an excellent point about black elected officials in Annapolis having been slighted by the 55-odd percent of the Democratic Party in Maryland that is Caucasian/White taking black voting, organizational and candidacy power for granted. The Democratic Party at the state level is a strange hodge-podge of forces, demographics, etc. In a country less obsessively committed to a first-past-the-post party and voting system, it would be likely that Delegate Emmett Burns, Senator Jamie Raskin and Senate President Mike Miller would be in different political parties, though perhaps in coalition. But if Black voters grow disenchanted with the Democratic Party at the state level, we can see Bob Ehrlich winning by two points in 2010. (Yes, I am saying he's running again, money down says he cannot lay off the State Circle crackpipe, especially if he gets a chance to injure Martin O'Malley in the process.)

$60,000 iPhone? Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

You read it right.

Sounds like a terminal case of Affluenza.

Meta: The Crab Does A Happy Dance.... Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

I am probably happier than I should be about getting a new - meaning used and cheap - BlackBerry to replace the one with the clickwheel gone to pot. The clickwheel controlled two services for which I was paying retail: internet access and out-going email. Now I can communicate like an obnoxious yuppie in form rather than an obnoxious blogger in substance. More mundanely, I look forward to being able to make remote posts to CMW on the train again as well as respond more efficiently to incoming email.

Next week will be a light week for me. I have off on Wednesday and Friday, though Friday will be taken up largely with errand running, of a sort. But Monday, Tuesday and Thursday, I will be getting out of work at 5:30 rather than 7 PM. For most people this is not a big deal but it means I will get to see my kids every evening, if briefly, for the next nine days.

During the extra time, I will be working to move the ball forward on a number of Crab Media projects that need upgrading and cleaning up. The Attorney and Blogger pages need serious work, especially the latter. I will be setting up a page with an RSS feed from Mrs. Crab's blog that will address autism. I have a couple of ideas for Crab's Lab. And I have in mind a potential "killer app" that will draw some new readers not specifically to CMW but to Crab Media. Hint: it will criticize lawyers, so I am reasonably sure that I have got MBA's David Kyle as a likely reader.

Say No to Celine, Hillary: Volumes 4 and 5 Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

Billie Holiday's "Ain't Nobody's Business"



Audra McDonald brings an operatic timbre to this song, but nobody sang "Ain't It The Truth" like Lena Horne. Its humanist lyrics caused Lena Horne's performance to be cut from Cabin in the Sky, though the fact that she sang it while in the bathtub in 1943 probably contributed more.



In my view, we need more "Ain't Nobody's Business" and "Ain't It The Truth" from public servants, both in the literal meanings of the titles and in their performers' examples of dignity and grace.

Supreme Court Upholds Resale Price Floor Maintenance Agreements Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

The U.S. Supreme Court today upheld a minimum resale price maintenance agreement between a manufacturer and a retailer, overturning a precedent almost as old as the Sherman Antitrust Act itself. The Washington Post has a brief article on the case and Maryland Conservatarian (to whom HAT TIP) offers his comments as well.
Click Here or at Permalink to Read More...

Kindly bear with the following discussion which is both oversimplified and yet annoyingly nitpicking nonetheless.

The Sherman Act prohibits "contracts, combinations and conspiracies in restraint of trade." Horizontal commercial restraints between competitors (e.g. price fixing between Coke and Pepsi) generally bear much nastier scrutiny than vertical restraints (e.g. price maintenance for Coca-Cola Classic between Coke and Wal-Mart, hypothetically speaking.) Many vertical restraints are acceptable if they meet the "rule of reason" i.e. appear to have more benefit than harm upon specific analysis. However, resale price maintenance has not been among those "rule of reason" restraints but rather a "per se" violation.

When you hear of a "manufacturer's suggested retail price," that's what it is. The manufacturer "suggests" a retail price to the retailer. The retailer need not follow it. However, most manufacturers will automatically cut off or otherwise sanction a retailer who fails to follow the suggestion. This instance is NOT a retail price maintenance agreement. Why? There is no agreement. What the manufacturer CANNOT (or could not, before today) do is to AGREE with a retailer to maintain a price at a certain level in exchange for continued product supply. In other words, unilateral suggestion, unilateral retaliation, no "chatting." Usually, the retailer also gets told that calling up the manufacturer to discuss or clarify the policy is also a violation of the suggested retail price in itself, resulting in a cut-off. Why? Because you don't want clarification, understanding, agreement. That's an antitrust disaster.

There also other prices called "manufacturer's advertised prices," which retailers must respect in order to get advertisement subsidies by the manufacturers for local media, etc. This is an example of a "rule of reason" restraint; acceptable if not unreasonable, however defined.

What the Court appears to have done is to treat MSRPs more like MAPs. I look forward to reading the opinion and dissent; certainly the opinion or its relevant holding will become a major topic of discussion in the antitrust document processing work that I do.

Some will ask why the courts were ever concerned about something relatively obscure like this, why something minor like whether someone pays too much for a fancy leather coat was really an issue, to cite Maryland Conservatarian's point. Within antitrust law, there is a spectrum of "theories" about the law. The "conservative" approach advocated by Robert Bork and others looks at antitrust law as being fundamentally about economic demand, supply and price levels, i.e. a "micro-economic" or "buyer protection" view. In this view, restraints other than hard-core horizontal price-fixing is the core of what antitrust law should prohibit. The more "liberal" approach derives from the concerns of Senator Sherman himself, who warned on the Senate floor of the threat of "the socialist, the communist and the nihilist" were corporate power and consolidation not reined in. This is a "macro-economic" or "ultra-economic" view, in the sense of going "beyond" economics to the protection of society as a whole.

I look forward to learning more about this case, starting with reading the actual opinion and dissent.

Kevin Dayhoff: What's Wrong With This Picture? Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

Kevin meant his question rhetorically, I suspect, regarding the fairly widely circulated photo of Rosie O'Donnell's four-year-old child wearing an unusual hat and a (presumably toy plastic) bullet belt. But I will try to answer it at face value. Out of my overcaution on copyright and to encourage you to visit that fine gentleman's site, I would urge you to go check out Kevin's brief post and then check back below the fold.
Click Here or at Permalink to Read More...

1. For me, the first concern is the blank expression on the kid's face. As the father of a four-year-old, I would look first to make sure the poor kid did not have a fever.

2. Guns are not for four-year-olds and neither are bullet belts, even plastic ones. It represents the inculcation of the evil adult habits of violent homicide on a child far too young to participate in that act. It has negative aesthetic value, i.e. sucks.

3. A bullet belt is more likely to be worn by someone shooting at a U.S. military serviceman than by that serviceman. Furthermore, the hat that Vivi is wearing is suggestive of the hats that some Muslim men wear. It has negative patriotic value.

4. Ms. O'Donnell has been a loud opponent of individual firearms ownership (while employing armed guards herself at times.) Accordingly, seeing her kid playing with or being adorned with fake paramilitary ammunition as a gag just seems tasteless (i.e. negative philosophic value or "sucks" as an idea, not just an image.)

I would ask Crablaw readers for their suggestions as to a catchy label or "tag" to describe the sorts of reckless or depravedly indifferent public idiocy perpetrated by the famous and the prominent in the media. I don't refer here to Phil Donohue walking out into the audience with his fly undone, but to pretentious or asinine acts done deliberately in public by the people that paparazzi chase. What's a good term? Idiot-wood? Celebricile? The generic "aggressively stupid" works fairly well but the special people who can get a giant bowl of all-blue M&M's sent to their dressing room at 4 AM deserve their own special term. Any suggestions?

Letter to the Sun Editor re: Flamingo and Jim Crow Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

Baltimore Sun, June 28, 2007:

Segregation is also Ocean City's legacy

The Sun's article on the heyday of Ocean City's Flamingo Hotel in the 1950s and 1960s failed to note that the families who lodged there during Ocean City's Jim Crow decades were all white ("Families flock to Flamingo," June 24).

Ocean City's "Motel Row" and the boardwalk itself enforced strict policies against the presence of black Americans.

For many years - until Congress passed and enforced anti-discrimination laws - only one hotel in Ocean City, "Henry's Colored Hotel," served black visitors.

Many Sun readers would want to know that black residents of Baltimore, Washington, Philadelphia and the Lower Eastern Shore were unable to lodge at the Flamingo or enjoy the boardwalk for many decades.

That fact is part of the "family atmosphere" of Ocean City, to some extent, even to this day - among Maryland black families who have not forgotten this history.

Bruce Godfrey
Reisterstown

Maryland Conservatarian on Diversity and Cultural Integration Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

In general, I am substantially more pro-immigration and pro-multiculturalism than is fellow Maryland Blogger Alliance member Maryland Conservatarian. But he argues well for his perspective on his recent piece citing noted sociologist Robert Putnam on issues of cultural integration of immigrants and others.

I think his piece is at its strongest when he notes that among the U.S. institutions that have integrated racially most successfully are the military and Southern evangelical churches. The latter is particularly noteworthy in that the Southern Baptist Convention was formed as a white church for resistance against northern white abolitionist Baptists, and remained a substantially all-white denomination for over a century. But my wife reports that her SBC church in Reisterstown is probably about 15-20% African-American, reflecting crudely the rough demographics of Reisterstown and the surrounding zip codes. This is not to say that the Southern Baptist Convention as a whole or at the church level identifies specifically as evangelical or that even most evangelicals in the South are Southern Baptist, though that denomination is very strongly represented there.

Meanwhile, while the current President of the very liberal Unitarian Universalist Association is African-American, the overwhelming bulk of the various UUA churches' membership is liberal, educated Euro-Americans. There are no UUA churches in West Baltimore, or East Baltimore. But there are two very large, prominent UUA churches in Bethesda, each about 2.5-3 times as large as the sole UUA church within Baltimore City's limits. Bethesda has about 15% of the population of Baltimore, maybe 25% if you count the small towns immediately adjacent. But Bethesda's chock full of white liberals who live mostly near other white liberals and join mostly other white liberals at about 11:00 on Sunday morning, the most segregated hour of the week, they say. My inclination is not to pick on the UUA (to which I am largely sympathetic), but facts are facts.

BooMan Tribune on Sally Quinn's Turning on Dick Cheney Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

This is very "inside-baseball." But we liberal bloggers who have been at times so monumentally irritated at the perceived arrogance, complacency and chumminess might want to take a look at how some of the BIG "West of Rock Creek Park" players may be coming out for some metaphorical wet work against the Fourth Branch of Government, Vice President Richard Cheney.

As an aside, I think a question that needs to be asked of every presidential candidate of every party in pretty much every debate is, "how do you plan to deploy your Vice-President, if elected" and "what is your management philosophy towards delegating to a second-in-command?" Cheney organized the search process for Bush's vice presidential candidate in 2000 and wound up getting the job himself. Must have interviewed well with himself.

Republic of T to Cover June 28th Democratic Presidential Debate Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

I am looking forward to Maryland's Terrance Heath's reporting on the Democratic Presidential debate at Howard University this Thursday the 28th. Terrance has been media-credentialed to report on the debate along with about 20 other bloggers. Way to go, Terrance!

WaPo: Pants Suit Plaintiff Roy Pearson Loses Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

Marc Fisher of the Washington Post, June 26, 2007:

The Chungs, who seemed bewildered and shocked throughout the two-day trial, were obviously relieved by Judge Judith Bartnoff's decision that Pearson's reading of the D.C. consumer protection law was absurd. Jin and Soo Chung could finally laugh about the pants. They offered assurances that the immigrant couple will indeed stay in this country despite the financial and emotional trauma of a legal odyssey that left them at the mercy of one wildly dissatisfied customer. And, astonishingly, the Chungs told me that if Pearson was to show up in their store once more, they would take care of his garments.

Click Here or at Permalink to Read More...

But despite their legal victory, the Chungs still face devastating losses. Their attorneys' fees are well north of $100,000, said Christopher Manning, who handled their case at a reduced rate. Business has suffered; Pearson papered nearby telephone polls with fliers asking residents to come forth with complaints about the shop. And Manning's law partner, Melinda Sossamon, said that even if Bartnoff eventually orders Pearson to pay the Chungs' legal bills, there's hardly a chance that the family will see any money because Pearson has few, if any, assets.

As an attorney, one is trained to exercise discretion and prudence in public comment on cases and regarding litigants and judges. Numerous hortatory and mandatory ethics rules urge caution. But the time for caution is passed. It's time for Roy Pearson to change careers and be stripped of his permit. No single act in recent memory has brought greater disgrace on the entire U.S. Bar and legal system than his eight figure suit over a pair of pants. In my mind, this was worse than many acts for which disbarment is justified in most jurisdictions.

While I suspect that the Chungs' law firm in this case will reduce its final fee in this case and will garner a massive amount of good will for its work, the Chungs are indeed in a bit of a bind. Pearson has used the judicial system in an apparent attempt to wreck their business' community good will. The idea of seeking out other plaintiffs for a mass tort/contract action against a small family-owned cleaners for misplaced pants or other service is just unspeakable. Maybe chasing this family business out of DC in the first place was the goal; that's speculation on my part, not knowledge. Certainly the goal of an eight figure lawsuit against Custom Cleaners could not have been to improve the quality of dry cleaning services in Northeast DC. You don't improve a family business' service quality by suing it for eight figures. Eight figures is a fairly large ad damnum for some wrongful death cases, and only a pair of pants, if that, disappeared.

I wish the Chungs would move to Reisterstown and set up shop near me; they sound like pretty reasonable business people.

Why so many people have given this "Judge" Pearson such deference and kid-gloves cautious treatment is beyond me. He is worse than a disgrace to the Bar and the administrative bench, on which his employment is now up for review and may not be renewed. What a way to humiliate the legal profession; according to Fisher's piece, leading defense and plaintiffs' bar associations united to condemn this judge's actions. Let him join Mike Nifong in disbarment for the litigious vandalism he has inflicted on the Chungs' business and the utter disgrace he has inflicted on the name of every responsible steward of the privilege of practicing law in the District of Columbia, myself included.

You may learn more about the legal defense fund for the Chungs at http://www.customcleanersdefensefund.com/ .

HAT TIP to anyone who can come up with a link to the actual decision of Judge Bartnoff in .pdf or other format.

Podcasts: The Cool, The Smug and The Enjoyable Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

Among the pleasures of modern technology is access to great radio and lecture broadcasts more or less on command through podcasting. My work involves a range of intellectual challenges from intense problem solving and multi-lingual logic problems to less-welcome tedium and rote. To cope with the latter more easily, I download a large number of podcasts daily through subscription. The following is a meandering description of some podcasts to which I listen routinely. All are available at iTunes for free.

Click Here or at Permalink to Read More...
I enjoy Democracy Now! in part because I don't share the hard-left viewpoint of the host Amy Goodman, but her presentation is so solid that it would make you want to agree with her. High production values and provocative guests.

Germany's DW Radio's Dialogue provides a weekly English-language feature on religious and inter-cultural life in Germany. Last week's was on Turkish-German students who are organizing at the high school level for greater recognition of their rights and academic achievements. Very highly recommended.

Bill Moyers' Journal is a broadcast I want to like, but cannot. Sort of the opposite of Democracy Now!, which I don't want to agree with but occasionally do even despite myself. His broadcast is not as leftist as Democracy Now but is far more heavy-handed in tone. Today's broadcast was an undercover report about how lobbyists ... (drumroll) ... set up meetings and PR stunts to promote their clients in DC including foreign governments with human rights abuse records. This is not news, but for Bill, it seems that they just went and told him there is no Santa. Principled opposition or regulation would be a mature, if not necessarily wise or constitutional, response to lobbying excesses, not fake shock.

Dogma Free America is a simply but smartly done broadcast from a sharply secular perspective but one with humor, a few inside jokes and the participation of a local Baltimore attorney along with the host. Good guests, good if occasionally slow-moving banter, interesting world-wide tidbits of news, often about human rights abuses re: religion in the Muslim world. Well done.

Freethought Radio is a committed Christian's favorite atheist broadcast. The hosts from the Freedom from Religion Foundation reach levels of smugness in their tone and, occasionally, content that one wants to reach through the iPod and slap them. The guitar playing of the host Dan Barker may be appropriate for a children's broadcast but this 38-year-old listener gets plenty of childrens' culture already. If I hear him sing "We've got to fight the battle of church and state, or the wall will come tumbling down" to the tune of "Joshua Fought the Battle of Jericho" one more time, I might send Pat Robertson $5.00 out of sheer resentment and irritation. The show needs a "grown-ass man" version, badly. Jay Sekulow should offer them free airtime. But they do get good guests, so I put up with it.

Lexis-Nexis Legal News and the ABA Litigation Podcast are succinct professional updates, the former a oral verdict sheet and the latter a skill-set improvement resource.

I cannot praise the University Channel podcasts enough. The University Channel compiles lectures from leading universities on great topics. I heard an excellent debate (or, really, exchange of lectures) on the First Amendment's free exercise and establishment provisions from four scholars ranging from quite conservative to quite radical, but with nuance and mutual intellectual respect. Three excellent hours of listening from that one, a true delight, moderated by a sociology of religion professor I had almost 20 years ago at Princeton.

Meta: Crablaw "Don't Tread On Me Feed" Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

I have included copies of the Wingnut Feed, Moonbat Feed and newly created libertarian "Don't Tread on Me Feed" on the lower left of CMW and added the Don't Tread on Me Feed to "Feed Me Crablaw!" The Don't Tread on Me Feed includes syndicated links from Reason's Hit and Run, the Cato Institute, Radley Balko's The Agitator, Ballot Access News and Q & O blog.

Once a (modest but real) check from Google arrives in the next two weeks, I will probably upgrade my feed service to include more feeds on more pages here on different topics. The price of the new feed was the cancellation of the Crablaw's Maryland News Feed, but the need for that feed is probably lower than it once was with more Maryland bloggers connected and staying on top of more stories. I may resurrect it if I get feedback about it.

Empowerment Temple's Website Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

A few weeks ago, I put up a post about the Reverend Jamal-Harrison Bryant and Baltimore's Empowerment Temple. Per SiteMeter, that post has generated a rather large amount of traffic to Crablaw; interest in the pastor and in the Temple appear to remain strong.

Curiosity got the better of me when I examined another site discussing the Temple. Someone commented that she had never seen a church website like that of the Empowerment Temple. I am not a follower specifically of church website design, but I had to go look. I concur with the comment; it is a church website sui generis.

David Kyle on Communist chic Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

MBA member David Kyle hits the right note on this story both funny and outrageous about Cameron Diaz' Communist chic in Peru, where it doesn't go over well, due to the body count from Maoist insurgents there.

Crablaw is R-rated Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

Mingle² - Online Dating

This surprised me; apparently it was the use of the words "shoot", "hell" and "drugs." This means that no PG-rated blogs will be discussing Baltimore's crime or transit problems in the foreseeable future. Been trying to edit out the harder language so my wife will keep reading (if otherwise inclined.)

Good Post by Ace of Spades on Salman Rushdie Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

Ace of Spades assembled some good long quotes on the topic of the Islamic death threats new and renewed against author Salman Rushdie upon the occasion of his announced knighthood in Britain.

Now if you will excuse me, I need to go out to the dumpster to grab something by which to wipe the taste of "good post by Ace of Spades" out of my mouth. I know there's a diaper in there somewhere...?

Bento Box: A Marketing Concept Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

Following up from the earlier piece on bento boxes, I considered the following: would more people, particularly in rural areas, buy bento boxes if they were sold jokingly as "tackle box lunches" - both because of the shape of the box and because of the "bait" folk perception by some of certain Japanese seafood items, in the manner of more than one dumb sushi joke over the years?

Just a thought. I don't have 30 grand to test market the concept or 500 grand to implement it, anyway.

Attila: Whom Would You Invade As President? Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

The Master of All Things Idiotic has proven his skills yet again.

Go read and document the body count. Future such grenades will be labelled as "Idiolympics."

P.S. Many thanks to Attila for clueing in the clueless on how to do a screen capture and save in Windows.

Meta: Bruce Godfrey Fruitcake Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

Bruce Godfrey fruitcake

Someone took the trouble to run this search, per SiteMeter. Might not have been aimed at me; there are multiple Bruce Godfreys out there in the net, including some scientists or other academics out west. Wrong season for fruitcake literally; must have been someone hoping that someone called Bruce Godfrey (or that Bruce Godfrey called someone) a fruitcake.

Not in my "idiolect" of preferred terms of abuse. I prefer to use words like "aggressively stupid", "corrupt", "asinine" or, when I am very angry, "predatory", "theocrat" or "criminal". So someone was looking for fire aimed my (or another Bruce Godfrey's) way, not likely looking for fire I threw out. HAT TIP to Attila who probably caught the SiteMeter read first.

Baltimore Sun: Caucasian Nostalgia at Ocean City's Flamingo Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

Baltimore Sun, June 24, 2007:

Old black-and-white photos show the place back when Rose and George Brous bought it in 1963. The Flamingo Motel was a flat cinderblock rectangle, sitting on the sand. Twenty-three rooms on three floors, each with a pair of double beds and a phone - no TV - cooled only by the sea breeze.

Click Here or at Permalink to Read more...

Everything was clean, starched and dependable. Strictly no frills, save for a leggy, 6-foot-tall pink bird perched on the roof, buzzing in neon glory, a landmark that stood out even on the 15-block strip that old-timers still call "Motel Row."

But the Flamingo is still evocative of an earlier time, before Ocean City was quite so big and crowded, and folks still come for its old-fashioned charm. "The real secret, if it is a secret, is that we know our customers and treat them like friends and family," Brous says.

Let's get to the basics.

Ocean City was a segregated town for much of its history, including the history of this motel. The Flamingo was a core part of the row of hotels and motels that refused to rent to black visitors. Black tourists were not permitted on the Boardwalk, and only one hotel - the creatively named "Henry's Colored Hotel" - rented to Black visitors. Black families who made up almost a 1/3 of the Lower Shore and a large part of the markets in Washington, Baltimore and Philadelphia (and still do so to this day) could not use this icon of Ocean City; it did not exist for black people.

"Evocative of an earlier time" indeed.

This has been your "Caucasian Nostalgia for the 50s and 60s" minute. Tune in again.

Bento Box: a Cool Father's Day Gift for Me.... Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

My sweetheart got me a cool lunch box for Father's Day.Click Here or at Permalink to Read more...

No, I have not just returned to elementary school; given that Dora the Explorer, Baby Einstein and the Backyardigans seem to dominate the Godfrey household's media consumption (again, and again, and again...) I have truly never left elementary school, it would seem.

The lunch box zips shut in an insulated pack and holds five containers that conveniently hold a sliced bagel, or Chinese food, or grapes, or Asian slaw or even a supply of ranch dressing for sliced red peppers. It's awesome, and everything stays orderly. It fits snugly inside my laptop bag so I basically cannot lose it through my half-asleep carelessness on the morning train south.

Eating in is cheaper and (with good judgment) healthier than eating out, and there's no good reason why it cannot be a fine meal. It's worth it to spend some money on gear for eating in; the gear will pay for itself promptly.

The lunch box is somewhat similar to traditional Japanese bento boxes which permeate Japanese life. In Japan, it's very common to buy a bento at a rail station for any significant rail trip, more common probably than buying a hotdog or a pretzel at a U.S. baseball game. In DC, there are at least two restaurants that sell bento retail near my office; I have tried neither, in part due to allergies to some of the seafood ingredients common to some Japanese cooking and in part due to their price in DC. But this "bento" box works very well and saves money.

Hypervigilance: the Costs of Being Too Defensive Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

Frequent CMW commenter and blogger Mr. X has forwarded to me over the past few weeks a number of examples of government hypervigilance. That term is mine, not his, but I suspect that he would not disagree with that use. Frankly, there is a lot of good material either along this theme or reasonably related to it on Mr. X's own site, but I will focus here on two items that Mr. X. has forwarded, items that I put into my "IdeaPile" file as worth saving and reviewing when the world slowed down. The world has not slowed down, but the items deserve review and comment anyway.
Click Here or at Permalink to Read more...
Mr. X. forwarded this first item to me from St. Mary's County a few weeks ago. The short version of the story is that one Matthew Boyd who lived and worked in St. Mary's County got the cops showing up at his door because of a comic series that he and another comic artist produced reflecting, more or less, Matt's live as a contractor to the government. The relevant comics appear to be here (4-20), here (4-24) and here (4-30). His job fired him and the police showed up thereafter under a theory that Boyd might have been making terrorist threats. Apparently the female co-worker in 4-24 bore a resemblance to Boyd's co-worker, though Boyd's co-artist who drew that image apparently was out-of-state and did not know the worker.

In any event, according to an interview with Boyd, the police showed up at his house but were largely satisfied with Boyd's explanation, especially after they were shown Boyd's large comics collection.

I think that this incident reflects the problems of imperfect information about media subcultures. Many of the cultural miscues relating to comics probably apply to blogging as well. Because most comics and most blogs do not take major corporate advertising, they do not feel the obligation to self-censor to please the ad departments of such companies. Those who are accustomed to consuming primarily corporate media and corporate-sponsored media may react strongly to rough themes that don't make it into the plotlines of Friends. One can see a tiny example of this in the recent media censorship (they don't call it "censorship" or course, it's "practices and standards") in the objections to bring a sexual theme into an ad. Not one can apparently use sex to sell valve caps, beer and many other products, but not condoms, at least not on CBS or Fox.

Non-corporate media like blogs and comics allow a level of transgressiveness that no career-minded corporate ad executive would risk. I suspect strongly that the cops and the government contractors with whom Boyd had his negative encounter did not know about comics or artistic transgressiveness as concepts. What they knew was that they would enjoy none of the "upside"of respecting Boyd's rights, but would share heavily in the "downside" if Boyd turned out to be not an artist in an avant-garde medium and market but rather a sociopath.

Most people are uncomfortable with violent ideation or discussions thereof. It's takes an expert to guess even crudely which person mouthing off about kicking the crap out of their boss is just mouthing off to let off steam, or which will show up at the boss' house with a baseball bat. The operative word is "guess." My own hunch, totally non-expert of course, is that the person with the least sense of meaning in his life is the one most likely to strike out at others. This is a hypothesis, not a conclusion for which I have ready evidence.

I do think there is a massive difference between police coming by for a chat and requesting to speak with someone, and police doing an "Avon Calling" on the front door or bashing down the (wrong?) door with an oversized squad of officers. From a pedantic, legalistic point of view, the first is probably not a forced search if the police in fact request to enter and don't manifest an intent to use force. From a practical point of view, it would seem that police have as much legitimate ability to drop by a house door and chat as the local Girl Scout sales agents do.

Mr. X cited approvingly a 103-page report from Radley Balko of the Cato Institute regarding the use of SWAT forces in cases of ordinary drug busts and similar warrant enforcement outside of high-pressure hostage scenarios. From Mr. Balko's white paper "Overkill" (p. 16):

There are, of course, legitimate uses for both SWAT teams and forced entry. But those uses—barricades, hostage situations, and terror attacks, for example—are exceptionally rare. This study will not recommend the abolition of SWAT teams or unannounced police raids. Rather, it will critique the increasingly pervasive use of both, particularly when it comes to executing routine drug warrants, as well as the effect of an increasing presence of military equipment, training, and tactics on America’s police departments.

About 1/3 of the white paper is summaries of blown SWAT assaults resulting in unavoidable violence and/or express injustices against third parties.

Even those who support the infliction of criminal justice, replete with fines and jail, upon drug users and drug dealers must recognize that the vast majority of drug users and drug dealers are non-violent. They may be mouthy and a pain in the ass upon arrest, but neither failure to be loved by the police nor failure to love the police is or should be a crime. The tendency of legislative bodies to defer to police officers is somewhat understandable; it's a wise manager who prefers to delegate with confidence and optimism that police will be wise "delegees" of state violence power is understandable. It's just not justified; police have a self-interest in promoting the perceived need for their services, both at a macro-level (increase in budgets) and at the micro-level (OT for a given officer.) Police need not be deliberately dishonest for this to be the case.

It's the "over-copping" of the drug "war" (indeed, even calling a war) that provides the supply contraction that yields the street "sweet-spot" profits for dealers. Perversely, it provides "sweet-spot profits" in overtime and political prestige to police forces, forces that have long abandoned community policing as used effectively in Japan in favor of the 911/out call and SWAT methodology of policing in most cities, infamously in Baltimore. Police have plenty of cameras in Baltimore's neighborhoods but few or no cops in the community. So the police don't get humanized to the community, and most importantly vice versa. [HAT TIP to Mr. X for catching a sentence fragment I had intended to remove.]

Even to call it a "war" is obscene. Drug users and indeed dealers are (in most cases) fellow American citizens; unless they are violent or larcenous their street dealing should be treated as a street nuisance, comparable to selling hot dogs without a vendor's license. What "war" do we need? We need a "war" on politicians who lie and featherbed. We need a "war" on sexual violence and predation. We need a "war" on car thieves or maybe counterfeiters. Even for those wars, we don't generally need SWAT teams.

What war do we need on drugs? We need to starve drug gangs of their quasi-monopoly profits. How do we do it? By ruining the willingness of drug addicts to deal with them. How do we do that? By providing meaningful controlled access to drugs outside of their network, recharacterizing drug users and dealers not either as criminal felons or as Hitler but as "Citizens in Need of Assistance." Doing this would do to drug gangs what fuel starvation does to a jet at 30,000 feet. Of course, this would screw a lot of police out of overtime, and might lower the profits of those who sell SWAT gear. Their lobbyists will step up to keep this from happening, no doubt.

Many thanks to Mr. X for his contributions here on these topics (and many others.)

Godchecker.com Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

Check out Godchecker.com, a pantheon or perhaps a panopticon of pantheons of deities.

To me, the Baltic gods sound the spookiest and most bizarre. Today, Lithuania is among the most intensely Roman Catholic countries in Europe, a half-century of Soviet communism notwithstanding. But Lithuania was among the last countries in Europe to be Christianized. Accordingly, its native gods lived long and died hard. Even today there are worshippers of the old Lithuanian gods, some of them neo-pagans.

HAT TIP to Mr. X.

Baltimore Sun: Calls for Police Chief Hamm's Termination Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

Baltimore Sun, June 22, 2007:

City Councilman and mayoral candidate Keiffer J. Mitchell Jr. called yesterday for the resignation of Police Commissioner Leonard D. Hamm, stepping up the political battle over what has become the defining theme in this year's city elections.

Click Here or at Permalink to Read more...

"I really don't see a sense of urgency coming from the Police Department, and it starts at the top," Mitchell said. "I think it stems from a lack of direction, period. There needs to be a clear direction in terms of trying to avert what's happening out there during this crisis."

...


Mayor Sheila Dixon, who is running for re-election, denounced Mitchell's statement as a "very cheap political shot," indicating that she is evaluating Hamm, among others.

"I think one of the things that people miss is the fact this period is interim, and I'm assessing all of my department heads," said Dixon, who was appointed mayor in January after Martin O'Malley's election as governor. "Am I happy? I have concerns with every department. But right now, at this moment, the commissioner, his command staff, police officers, all of us have to step up and work to make a difference in this city."

The article goes on to quote other candidates for city-wide office. Disclosure: I am acquainted warmly through professional work with Keiffer Mitchell's (I believe) sister and acquainted more generally from law school with City Council President Stephanie Rawlings-Blake.

I don't have a basis by which to measure Chief Hamm's performance. He has almost certainly the most miserable job in the City after the City Medical Examiner (i.e. coroner.) The job seems cursed; seemingly no one can get the job, keep the job and perform the job ethically and successfully. A revolving door at the top promotes a culture of cynicism and despair about Baltimore ever being able to reduce crime down to, say, Philadelphia levels, i.e. high but not debilitating. How much of the blame for increased City violence belongs with Hamm versus State's Attorney Patricia Jessamy (a long-time target of former mayor O'Malley's wrath) or upon the City Council itself is beyond me.

I respect the idea of Councilman Mitchell setting up his "office" regularly on the corners where drug-dealing takes place. I think this is excellent both to get the Councilman more real information than he would get through his interns staffing the phone line downtown and because government should serve the entire community, including specifically drug-dealing corners. Of course, I would prefer that drug distribution be legalized, heavily regulated and through legalization taken off of the sidewalks and indoors. Drug dealers don't deal on the street because they like Baltimore's climate; they do it because they need to be both accessible to floating customers but not arrestible by the police. Dealing in a building makes you inaccessible to customers and an easier bust for the cops. There is no easy path to legalization but the drugs ruthlessly and violently chase the smuggler's profit margin. The only other remedy is to kill demand either by treating successfully 80-90% of the 50-60,000 drug addicts in the City (horribly expensive and practically beyond impossible, given relapse rates and huge other impossibilities). Hoping that the 280-300+ murder victims a year are all or mostly drug addicts and dealers, even if true, just won't cut it.

The incompatibility between basic economics and basic anti-drug politics is the core reason why coroner, Police Chief and State's Attorney will continue to be the most miserable jobs in Baltimore City.