As of this writing, O.j. Simpson is on his way home to Florida after posting $125K in bail in Las Vegas. I saw the accusers on CNN and I've got to admit their case is flimsy at best. I believed from the start O.J. was being set up and the person who did it isn't even being tried for a thing!
I saw this post over at Salon.com and was overjoyed:
"Former cop here
And those cops were oafs. They may or may not get away with their unprofessional, excessive behavior, depending on the quality of the investigation, but they handled that situation with a level of incompetence one would usually only expect from a Bush political appointee.
Setting aside for a moment the question of whether the kid should have been taken down in the first place (I think he should have been allowed to rant, myself), skillful, well-trained police officers have methods for dealing with unruly individuals, not the least of which is basic diplomacy..
There is absolutely no reason why that situation should have devolved the way it did except that the officers involved didn't know what they were doing and overreacted. In my former department, that level of incompetence wouldn't be tolerated.
-- Bukk63"
The world needs more active police officers like him. Thank God for this voice of sanity.
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — A University of Florida student was Tasered and arrested Monday when he attempted to speak at a forum with U.S. Sen. John Kerry during a question and answer session, university officials said.
Andrew Meyer, 21, asked Kerry why he did not contest the 2004 presidential election, which he lost to President Bush, and why there had been no moves to impeach Bush.
"He apparently asked several questions — he went on for quite awhile — then he was asked to stop," university spokesman Steve Orlando said. "He had used his allotted time. His microphone was cut off then he became upset."
While as many as four police officers tried to remove Meyer from the forum, he yelled for help and asked "What did I do?" Minutes after Meyer started speaking, he was Tasered.
Meyer was charged with resisting an officer and disturbing the peace, according to Alachua County jail records. No bond had been set. Meyer was scheduled to appear in court Tuesday morning, a jail official said.
Orlando said university police would conduct an internal investigation on the incident.
"The police department does have a standard procedure for when they use force, including when they use a Taser," Orlando said. "That is what the internal investigation would address — whether the proper procedures were followed, whether the officers acted appropriately."
The event was sponsored by the UF student government speaker's bureau, according to a news release. A telephone message left at the speaker's bureau office was not immediately returned Monday evening.
It was not known if Meyer had an attorney.
But the bottom line is that -- if you look at the video -- Andrew wasn't even making a big fuss. He may have been asking uncomfortable questions, but that was it. That's supposed to be America. For the UF police to do what they did was totally nuts. Plus, their own internal review's not going to turn up anything.
Between this action and the way Capital Police treated the minster at last week's Petraus hearing , one has to ask what's going on with the kind of people law enforcement's bring in. They seem to lack proper judgement on when and why to use force, and thus bring shame on the very police departments they're suppose to bring respect to.
We must demand a higher standard. Now.
I also totally disagree with Michelle Makin's take on this, as it seems she's knee-jerk into defending anyone in a uniform just because they're in a uniform. Michelle' s not using her intellect by adopting this lazy thinking, rubber-stamp approach to the analysis of any controversial action in American culture. Her take also shows the limits of dogma, where people are so blinded they can't see injustice before them.
Makin's obviously not aware that college police are developing a pattern of over-the-top behavior, but fortunately Salon.com's got a collection of videos showing this travesty of the American legal system.
Senator John Kerry comes off looking bad. He tells the newspapers he didn't see what happened, and yet on the video we can hear him talking as this is going on and referring to the question. This kind of behavior is why John Kerry lost the election -- he's afraid to take a stand and defend basic American rights because he wants to look good for the cameras. Can't have that hair messed up when you're taking a stand, right Senator Kerry?
And to think I supported him for President in 2004.
Profootballtalk.com and The New York Times report today that several NFL Coaches and executives are working to gang-up on New York Jets Head Coach Eric Mangini for blowing the whistle on New England Coach Bill Belichek for telling NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell that the Pats vidoed defensive signals from opposing teams, a violation of NFL rules.
Mangini didn’t just flip on Belichick, costing his former mentor a celebrated image that has been reflected in a shelf-full of Lombardi Trophies, as well as a $500,000 fine and a prime draft pick. He did more. He also humiliated the respected Patriots owner and league power player Robert K. Kraft.
That sin has left Mangini toxic to some team executives. After all, would you trust him? Is there anyone — a player, assistant, general manager, owner or mascot — that he wouldn’t betray in a pinch?
Mike Florio of Profootballtalk.com reports:
The reality, however, is that Mangini has likely learned his lesson, and that he knows that he has pulled the trigger on a one-shot pistol. But this doesn't change the fact that no NFL executive could justify taking the risk that Mangini might offer up a sequel.
Meanwhile, Mangini might have problems keeping the job he currently has. As one league insider opined on Tuesday:
"The biggest issue that Mangini faces is that his team absolutely stinks. One of the problems with being a surprise team is that you can't surprise anyone anymore. They won't win more than six games this year. The Ravens tried to hand the game to the Jets after dominating for three quarters and the Jets refused to take it. The offensive line is awful, the defensive line is terrible, the running back is old, the wideouts drop passes, and the secondary is beat up. The Patriots will win that division by five or six games, easy. That, more than anything, is going to put heat on Mangini."
Wait. That's not right. It points to the observation that some NFL execs may have actually known that New England was cheating and kept quiet; indeed, if Mangini himself knew this, and talked, then how many other people knew? It doesn't make the NFL look good at all, and with these latest headlines, sends up more smoke, implying there's a fire burning somewhere in the league.
This matter of punishing Mangini as whistle-blower also opens another question -- at least in my mind. Why does the NFL allow a double-standard to exist, where players transgressions are blurted out to the public with abandon, and there's no threat of backlash by NFL team execs, but when it comes to the matter of an NFL coach like Bill Belichek, this invisible protective shield is thrown up?
It's not right. The Commissioner should release a statement warning the league's execs of punishment if such statements are made in the future. I personally dislike this aspect of how the NFL functions. Yes, Bill Belichek's a great coach, and while he should not have done what he did, and his overall record is somewhat tainted, he's got three Super Bowl trophies, and that didn't come just from hard-to-get videos.
But look at the facts -- the Pats have won some very close games in Super Bowl history. It's fair to ask if the video practice was used prior to each Super Bowl the Pats were in under Belichek. I'm not saying take his awards away, but the way they were gotten is under scrutiny.
That process of investigation must begin. But meanwhile, leave Eric Mangini alone. I'm certain he got tired of being well-prepared for New England only to have his hat handed to him by a too-well-prepared Patriots team, and knowing how they got ready to play, and what they did during the game steamed him.
I recently took my trusty Sony camcorder to visit my Mom in Fayetteville, GA and in the process ask some of the locals two questions: first, what they thought of the 2008 Presidential Race, and second who they planned to vote for. I received some interesting responses.
Now, it must be reported that I did not go up to every person I encountered. I randomly picked my spots and let's face it, most people will not speak before a camera. Yeah, someone may give this great opinion but the minute I say "Hey, can I get that on camera?" they will say "No, not on camera." The very act of coaxing them is so time consuming that I'd rather not be bothered. But then there are people who do speak, and they offer a great opening to be interviewed.
Also, I knew I was going to make a five-minute video -- ok, almost six -- and so didn't focus on talking to a lot of people. I wanted to have full unedited responses, and that's what I got.
I also didn't try to get some kind of ethnic balance. To be frank, Fayetteville, GA offers a pretty fair variety of people. The 2000 census, which really reflects the mid-1990s when you think about it, is just plain wrong about Fayetteville, Georgia in 2007. This Atlanta suburb is now seemlingly half-African American, if not majority Black. Regardless, my experience confirms my assertion that our American Census and the country's overall perception of itself on a regional basis is way out of whack with reality.
The true picture I get is of an America more diverse and mixed in thought and in human color than we are led to think by the mainstream media, which itself needs an overhaul because it's so behind the times in how it covers American Culture -- fact is replaced by bias dressed as fact all too often.
But I digress.
What I learned in my little bitty video survey is that people have made of their minds -- sort of. The responses you hear all come with the causionary sentence "For now", or "At this time." Which means they could switch or shift for some unknown reasons.
To me this is shaping up as the most volitile and unpredictable election in American History. I think Bill Kristol nailed it when he said the 2008 Presidential Race will break all the rules. There are so many elements that are a part of today's culture that were not even evident in 2004, when President Bush was reelected -- YouTube, cell-phone-only-homes, to name a few of them. Plus, the standard methods of surveying our society's preferences doens't even capture this, and yet the results are reported on CNN and other news networks and without introspection.
Wow.
This is the election where America will learn how wrong it is about itself.
Ok. I've tried to avoid the O.J. Simpson matter because I thought it would go away and the Las Vegas law authorities would figure that it was a set-up -- it has all the signs of that. But they've not done so, thus, I'm going to weigh in.
My view is that O.J. was set up by some totally loser characters that are involved in selling sports items of value, and who most likely stole the items from O.J. What really is bothersome is that the Las Vegas District Attorney's not really intelligent enough to see this matter for what it is, and avoid heaping on silly charges, but that's what's going on.
On top of that, many media outlets, including CNN, feel it's the story to cover -- at first I disagreed, but the actions of the Las Vegas District Attorney's Office have caused me to think this is now a story. O.J.'s past is being used against him without the actual admission of the Las Vegas authorities. It makes me wonder if there's really such a thing as justice in a post 9/11 America.
Now, the other person at fault in this whole deal is O.J, but it's not for any one of the 10 felony charges he's been hit with. It's for not calling the FBI if he thought there was a problem, and for hanging around the wrong people. Post the murder issue, it's hard to understand why O.J. would allow himself to wade back into the cesspool of public opinion, which is like mob rule in O.J.'s case.
I don't know what got into his head that he had to do an interview on that aspect of his past, as opposed to, say, his exploits as a record-setting running back with USC and in the NFL. It seems like spritually wading into those waters led to this punishment -- I do belive it's a weird act of God O.J.'s dealing with. Regardless of his guilt or innocence he should have left the whole matter alone.
Now, he's got a new set of issues. But if he believes and prays, he will prevail. I don't think he did anything wrong -- but I do think he's being thrown into a spritual test.
I agree with "A Girl In Shorts" -- I'm rooting for O.J. And since we both are, it blows all to hell the equally racist main stream media bent on asking if there's a racial divide -- the answer's no.
For some reason - and she's shown here doing it -- Senator Hillary Clinton passed on signing an autograph, saying, why don't I just shake your hand? And then proceeds, seemingly a bit piturbed over the whole deal, but still shaking hands. I've got to say that this is in direct contrast to Senator Obama, who signs books and papers given to him, though not on the spot. What the campaign does is instruct people to give them the books and they give them back after his walk.
