Charlottesville Milepost
It’s time to raise our voices.
Alleged Cop-Killer Captured Alive
Scott Michael Greene is still alive. Which is odd if we believe what we are told about policing, danger, and fear.
Matt Tinoco: LAPD Honors 25 Officers For Not Using Deadly Force
[T]he Preservation of Life medal is reserved for officers who chose not to use deadly force in situations where lethally discharging a firearm could, according to department policy, been justified.
Linky Friday #165: Blood, Guts, & Money
This week! Economics, Violence, Gender, Cities, Entertainment, and History!
Questioning the Bad-Apple View of Policing
There is considerable evidence that the issues with policing in the US are not constrained to a few bad apples.
Why Do You Care About Free Speech?
It’s suddenly very fashionable to be a strident advocate of free speech, without giving a lot of thought into why free speech is worthy of advocacy. Burt Likko dares to offer five reasons, which surely won’t be controversial at all.
The Santa Barbara Shooting
A horrific event at Burt Likko’s alma mater leaves him meditating on whether the modern age has somehow magnified and distorted the difficult-enough trials of youthful sexual frustration.
Lessons From Bar Fight Litigation
By special request: Burt Likko reflects on a dozen or so not-particularly-glamorous cases from early in his career.
A Terrible Starting Point
From today’s Boston Herald (via memeorandum): The Tsarnaev family, including the suspected terrorists and their parents, benefited from more than $100,000 in taxpayer-funded assistance — a bonanza ranging from cash and food stamps to Section 8 housing from 2002 to 2012, the Herald has learned. It’ll be a hard press to find a better example of…
Considering Violence, Rape, and how we Interpret Media
When IO released their new Hitman: Absolution trailer last week it made a lot of people angry. Rhetorical guns blazing, they took to their respective forums and articulated their disgust. For those who don’t know, Hitman is a videogame series self-evidently based on stealth and shooter gameplay. Players maneuver the main character, Agent 47, through different…
U.C. Davis Investigation…
…confirms common sense about that atrocious pepper spray incident last fall. Added touches: the cops acted against orders; they were untrained and unauthorized to use the spray; and — what else? — a sex panic. Figures that anything this fished up would just have to involve a sex panic too. From the report: “On balance,…
Talking About The Talk
I admit, I was taken aback when I first heard about “The Talk”. I mean, I suppose I knew that this phenomenon probably existed in a plurality or maybe even a majority of cases… but it never occurred to me that this was something that, yes, all African-American parents talked about with their kids. I…
22 Years Later
~by Jonathan McLeod I was 13. I couldn’t fathom that my sister’s life could be worth any less than mine. I would never have thought that the girls I knew and loved, friends like Kim and Andrea and Mandy, should be erased, simply because they were girls. I never would have thought a man would…
Don’t Take Your Guns to Town
Scott’s long and deeply-felt reflection on American gun culture is worth reading in full, and I certainly understand why an outsider would find our collective infatuation with things that go ‘boom’ baffling or even dangerous. As a card-carrying coastal elite, I also suspect my views on personal firearms are closer to Scott’s than to most…
Guns don’t kill people, but far-right extremists do
With rifle-toting protesters showing up at various rallies and town halls around the country, there’s been a lot of worry – mostly on part of liberals – that these demonstrations could erupt into serious violence. I happen to think that there is real cause for worry, especially considering the borderline eliminationist rhetoric coming out of…
not nearly enough
From hilzoy: “I am strongly pro-choice, but I think it is perfectly possible to be opposed to abortion on principled grounds, and I think that it would be an enormous mistake to conflate all people who are opposed to abortions with either Dr. Tiller’s killer or the likes of Operation Rescue. That said, large elements…
