Oakland Mehserle Trial/Oscar Grant

As the jury weighs the evidence against former BART policeman Johannes Mehserle, in the killing of Oscar Grant, Oakland is on high alert. Many store owners in downtown have boarded up their windows, as they anticipate violent public reaction to the impending LA County Court verdict.

Mehserle could be found guilty of 2nd degree murder, voluntary/involuntary manslaughter, or acquitted. The differences between these charges mean nothing and everything to angry people in both Oakland and LA. Many want a murder conviction, regardless of the law. Others feel the same way, for acquittal.

Let's look at the charges. Second degree murder takes away the premeditation of first degree murder (a charge disallowed by the judge), while acknowledging intent to kill, minus reasonable “heat of passion”. Voluntary manslaughter requires intent to kill with malice aforethought, but with some mitigating circumstance that reduce culpability (responsibility). Involuntary manslaughter requires no intent to kill, but rather reckless or negligent behavior that leads to death.

I suspect that jury deliberation will be between 2nd degree murder and voluntary manslaughter. Their decision will pivot on whether Mehserle’s action was influenced to the point of “heat of passion”, resulting in weapon confusion. I further suspect that he was confused, but not impassioned. Grant’s actions, while lying on his stomach, would not seem to rise to life threatening, or even taser inducing, as reflected in the behavior of the other officers subduing Grant. Involuntary is off the table, as officers are trained to only fire their weapons in life threatening circumstances.

This leaves 2nd degree murder as the best charge, except for one thing. Juries are loath to charge police officers as such, due to the inherent dangerous nature of police work. Call it the benefit-of-the-doubt effect. So, I expect a voluntary manslaughter conviction. I also expect marching and protest, but little violence in Oakland, where community organizers have worked to portray lawlessness as counter-productive to the community. The initial riots were due as much to OPD incompetence – dispersing (halting) organized assembly and protest – as they were due to violent reaction to the killing.

LA is a different story – cross your fingers people.

James C. Collier

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Technorati Tags: Oakland Mehserle Trial/Oscar Grant, BART, Protest, Murder, Riots, Acting White

Ghana Suffers Futbol’s Folly

At the risk of having the whole sporting world mad at me, I will make some newbie-World-Cup-fan observations about football/soccer. My preface – I am only an end-of-season grid-iron football fan, as antics of US players are just too annoying for me, so perhaps age has thinned my skin. My focus here is on the rules, drama, and cheating, and how futbol reflects the world stage. I claim no providence, and I‘m sure some life-long futbol fans will set me straight, no problem.

My wide-angle lens observes that the Africans and upper Europeans play a similar rule-based game, while lower Euros and Latinos, play trick-the-ref, and see futbol as a way to break into soap drama (All My Children). Between faking mortal wounds and claims of innocence drenched in bloodstained-guilt, I think I’m watching Kobe and Paul Pierce. And don’t get me started on certain religious members making the sign of the cross after, and/or, before they have tripped their opponent onto his face. I suppose this is done with the foot of God – God’s hand is a different topic.

Early on, I dismissed the correlation between a country’s adherence to the rule of law and their on-field behavior, as it did not explain the good behavior of the Africans. However, upon inspection, all the African teams, save Algeria, have outrageously expensive Euro-coaches who, I would expect, threaten to yank players immediately if they fall into smarmy field antics, which would embarrass the paler folks back home. So the rule of law does apply.

Moving on, how can one referee be expected to keep track of all these guys running around on such a big-ass playing field? The players wait for the lone ref’s distraction to safely get in the first opposing pop, hoping that he sees the retaliation and whips out the red card. I pulled this crap on my sister everyday of my early childhood, until mom and dad teamed up and busted my scrawny ass.

The killer for me is the out-and-out cheating. The handballs, by way of flailing arms, to trade a sure-thing goal for a penalty kick. WTH! Ghana got severely robbed by Uruguay. That was not the hand of God that stopped that ball, but rather the cheating hand of Luis Suarez. Granted, the rules worked as designed, but Uruguay shamelessly exploited a gaping loop-hole to send Ghana packing. Somewhere above God is saying, “leave me and my hands out of it”! In futbol, cheaters can and do prosper.

OK all you futbol fans, let me have it (English preferred or Pontiff (pseudo-sanitized) Latin).

James C. Collier

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Technorati Tags: Ghana Suffers Futbol’s Folly, World Cup, South Africa, Handball, Rule of Law, Acting White

Survival of Who? What? WHAT!!!!

First of all, Darwin was right, for the most part the fit survive very well. Following this, those who are most fit survive the best (sometimes too well). Alternately, the less fit struggle, and the least fit do not make it - often tragically. Now at times, the fit can be accused of facilitating the demise of the less fit, due to their aggressive self-pursuits, but I am noticing more situations like the one pictured, where the least fit exit largely of their own volition.

Yesterday afternoon, as I drove past a middle school, the loitering summer school enrollees brought forth a great example of what I mean. As I approached, I spotted a beefy Black pre-teen kid lift a struggling, but laughing, Latino kid as if he were a sack of spuds, only to throw the kid into my driving lane. Yep, you heard me - smack dab in front of my approaching 5,000lb auto. I stopped abruptly, wherein dumb Black kid retrieves the still laughing dumb Latino kid, only to toss him into the center lane of traffic, in front of another car. SOB!

While preparing for his third toss, I yell for them to get out of the street, which only gets me called all sorts of names I won’t repeat (by both). I then exit my car toward the kids, who are still blocking traffic with their ‘throw my buddy Hector into traffic’ game, I am now so mad that I can only think about which arm to rip from its socket first. Thankfully, the kids back down and move to the sidewalk. I drive on home, needing a vodka to calm me down.

So what did I learn, you ask? In sum, people, especially kids, are stupid and many will expire, slowly or in a flash, by their own doing. Too bad, I say, but I can’t do anything about it. I need to just chill to the inevitable fact that I am going to see folks do some amazingly dumb shit that threatens to get them killed or maimed. I also learned that letting them suffer or die, from a safe, comfortable, budget-minded distance, has nothing to do with my ethnicity, racism, class-ism, my compassion, or my humanity. It’s just the smart thing to do.

James C. Collier

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Technorati Tags: Survival of Who? What? WHAT!!!!, Darwin, Survival of the Fittest, Juveniles, Acting Black, Acting White

Understanding Menthol Lies From Lorillard/Newports

Menthol cigarette maker Lorillard, provider of the popular Newports brand, just put up a website (here) claiming that menthol cigarettes are no worse for smokers than regular cigarettes. They say this despite the fact that the original and leading reason for menthol's popularity, straight for the mouths of smokers, is that it 'cools' the throat from the uncomfortable heat of sucking down burning tobacco gases, unlike non-menthol cigarettes.

Tobacco companies are the best liars on the planet. What makes them so good is that their lies sound like the truth, except for some small subtlety, usually one word. In the case of Lorillard's website the word is "best".

Lorillard states, "The science is clear and compelling. The best available scientific evidence demonstrates that menthol cigarettes have the same health effects as non-menthol cigarettes. Menthol neither causes people to smoke, nor deters them from quitting. A menthol cigarette is just another cigarette — and should be treated no differently. Menthol cigarettes simply give adult smokers a taste choice."

The word best, in "best available" really means "best in our biased judgment" and allows them to eliminate any data that is contrary to their desire to tout menthol as having the same health effect as other cigarettes. "Same health effect" means that it kills you no differently than other cigarettes. The strategic use of 'best' allows Lorillard room to portray menthol as safe, while the company benefits from a toxic product with its own built-in subterfuge, in that it hides an unpleasant symptom (heat) of a proven-deadly interaction.

Lorillard is directly appealing to millions of menthol smokers with this campaign, most of them Black. So this is just my small little way of saying Lorillard executives are some serious f#$$!!! scumbags.

James C. Collier

P.S. See recent post on Blacks and Menthol (here).

P.S.S. Internal RJR "Smoking Gun" Report on Blacks and Menthol Cigarette Market (1979) (here).

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Technorati Tags: Understanding Menthol Lies From Lorillard/Newports, Cigarettes, Smoking, COPD, Racism, Acting White

Paying Folks to Help Themselves

On the heels of talking about paying elementary students for grades (here), the NY Times article (here) on paying patients to take their medicine definitely grabbed my attention. I was also curious that the Times showcased this bizarre conundrum using Chiquita Parker (pictured), a Black twenty-five year old single mother with lupus. This was no accident. First we are considering paying Black kids to work harder in school and now wer'e studying paying Black adults, among others, to take better care of their health? Can paying Black people not to commit crimes be very far? Yet the Times never directly addresses this, rather they only imply it, and then move on. I hate covert racial plays.

If this is not a uniquely Black problem, then Chiquita should not have been the feature. If it is a significant Black thing, the author/editors should show some proof of this, and then get along with the straight story, including the aspects related to ethnicity. Be it racism, or painful truths about disparity, or general evolutionary malaise, we need to hear the truth for once.

The closest the Times comes to calling out the implication is to say that some of the studies have ranged across income levels. What? Experimenting on rewarding developing minds was one thing, but paying adults to coax them away from their pathologies has serious implications. Are we edging toward acceptance that some groups cannot seek the positive for its inherent value, but rather must be bribed away from non-advancing behavior? If this is what research is really telling us, then we need to stop the BS. Are we opening up new employment opportunities, that of not being a drain on society?

Let’s be clear, these studies have a place. But their importance is lost if they are not reported upon honestly. I have long held that if someone invented a free pill that made a person smarter and better looking, with no side-effects, no more than one-third of people would seek the benefit, rather than continue their current less-advantaged status. This is simply human nature. Humanity has progressed, not because of its greatness, but rather despite its failings.

Getting right down to it, with Chiquita and her ethnicity featured but not discussed, I see a bunch of arrogant liberal racist academics, who believe they can identify and fix Black group pathologies with Pavlovesque-clever short-cuts. They are saying Blacks cannot make it in the regular world, so they will create a fake one with twisted rules, because this is what good White folks do. These people are just as racist as the Klan – it’s just that their sheets hang out of sight, in twisted liberal academic closets.

James C. Collier

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Technorati Tags: Paying Folks to Help Themselves, Drugs, Responsibility, Disparity, Racism, Acting White

Manute Bol: 1962-2010

A giant among men.

James C. Collier

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Technorati Tags: Manute Bol: 1962-2010, Sudanese, NBA Basketball, Humanitarian, Dinka, Acting White

Engaging The Seattle Police - Part II

This young lady clearly did not see the Chris Rock video on engaging the police. (here). As for the policeman's action, I cannot judge the jaywalking stop (or slow-walking?), but it looks like Mr. Law was about to get a can of whup-ass from the second Black girl, so he needed to do something quick. I say a punch to the kisser is better than a heart-stopping tase, but that's just me. Unless the handbook says the face is off-limits, it sure got her attention. Can't we all just get along!

James C. Collier

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Technorati Tags: Engaging The Seattle Police - Part II, Chris Rock, Seattle, Arrest, Jaywalking, Acting White