Category Archives: current events

iowa nice

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Here’s the thing—I like Iowa. I really do. I was born here. It’s true that I’ve spent most of my life living elsewhere, but I’ve always had affection for the state and its people. Iowa is an odd place—not at all the way it’s portrayed in the news and entertainment media. But then, how many places are?

However, Iowa is afflicted by the Iowa Caucus—which has traditionally been the first contest of the U.S. presidential race. That means every four years presidential candidates swarm Iowa like spawning salmon. It also means every four years we have to endure the news media talking about Iowa like the entire state is comprised of ultra-religious corn-fed, cretinous hicks.

We certainly have some of those—but they’re not the majority. They’re not even a significant segment of the population. They’re just noisy and annoying, like those locusts that crawl out of the soil every thirteen years and make life miserable for a bit.

But overall, that’s just not Iowa. So I was delighted to see the following video become something of a hit on YouTube and elsewhere.

I like it. But he had to leave a lot out. Like the fact that the very first case heard by the Iowa Supreme Court was In Re the Matter of Ralph. Ralph was a slave owned by a man in Missouri. The Iowa court ruled that the moment Ralph set foot on Iowa territory, he became a free man. This was 1839—that’s 22 years before the U.S. Civil War.

And he didn’t mention that one of the U.S. Supreme Court’s most important free speech rulings was a result of Iowa high school students protesting the war in Viet Nam. In 1965 a group of students wore black armbands to school. They were abused by pro-war students (who were in the majority in 1965), insulted by their teachers, and expelled for refusing to remove their armbands. After their expulsion ended, they returned…without the armbands, but dressed entirely in black clothing.The Supreme Court ruled that students (and teachers too) do not “shed their constitutional rights at the school house gate.”

Which reminds me—Iowa is almost always at the top of the list when states are ranked by literacy. Nearly 70% of all Iowans own a library card. Iowans read a lot—and they’re not just reading the Bible.

I could go on. I could mention, for example, that when same-sex marriage came before the Iowa Supreme court, the judges ruled unanimously that it was unconstitutional to deny members of the same sex the right to marry. That’s right…unanimously. The fact is, Iowa is a pretty liberal state. Most Iowans are pretty open-minded. And they really are, for the most part, nice. Seriously. If you drive down the road and wave to the stranger in the oncoming car, they’ll wave back. And smile. It’s a little weird until you get used to it.

I’m in Iowa again, and it seems I’ll be here for the foreseeable future. But this is the first time in my life I haven’t felt a compelling need to be someplace else. I think I’ve grown into Iowa.

Addendum: Let’s not get carried away by the fact that Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney received the most support from Iowa Republican Caucus voters. There are more than 2,100,000 registered voters in Iowa, about evenly split among Democrats, Republicans and Independents (with a slight edge to Democrats). Santorum and Romney each received around thirty thousand votes out of a voter population of more than two million. It doesn’t mean Iowans are generally supportive of either of them.

the socialist whore of my heart

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Elizabeth Warren. I’ve been smitten with her since some point in 2009, when I heard her give a radio interview about the importance of creating a Financial Product Safety Commission. I have to confess, I didn’t give a rat’s ass about any Financial Product Safety Commission, but I was immensely impressed with her passion for protecting the financial interests of ordinary people. There’s something powerfully attractive about the intellectual ferocity of her advocacy.

Since then, I’ve sort of followed her career. I was disappointed when President Obama failed to appoint her to head the Financial Product Safety Commission, but I was delighted when she decided to run for Senate (oh, to live in Massachusetts).

A couple days ago, she was speaking to voters at a VFW hall in Brockton. A man in the audience—apparently a supporter of the Tea Party movement—interrupted her with a question about the Occupy Wall Street folks. Warren gave a brief answer, saying in effect she supported the protests against Wall Street. At that point the man said, “If you’re the intellectual creator of that so-called party, you’re a socialist whore.”

There are so many things sad and pathetic and profoundly wrong taking place in this scene. An unemployed person is standing up for the institutions that have damaged him financially. He’s insulting a person who has spent much of her adult life advocating for people just like him. He’s not actually disagreeing with her; he’s not addressing her position at all. He’s just casting sexualized insults at her. He’s not saying “I think you’re mistaken,” or “Your reasoning is flawed” or even “You don’t understand the situation.” He’s calling her a whore.

You have to feel sort of sorry for the guy. He’s been warped by political and economic forces he doesn’t understand. But mostly you have to admire Elizabeth Warren, who had the decency to give the man a chance to speak his mind, then after being insulted, turned with unflappable practicality to the audience and said “We have work to do.”

There’s a 17th century Irish love poem that goes like this:

Of all the Girls that are so smart
There’s none like pretty SALLY,
She is the Darling of my Heart,
And she lives in our Alley.

Elizabeth Warren is the socialist whore of my heart. And she’s trying to get us out of the alley.

are you fucking kidding me?

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I’m stupid enough to spend part of this morning watching highlights (if you can call them that) of the GOP debate last night. They took a video question from a gay soldier serving in Iraq, the question being would the candidates re-institute the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy.

Two things struck me. First, the audience booed. The actually booed a person who volunteered to serve his country–a person who is on active duty and serving in Iraq. Are you fucking kidding me? You don’t have to agree with a person’s beliefs or how that person lives his or her life to respect the fact that they’ve chosen to serve the nation in a low-paying job that offers not much more than a chance to get killed in some foreign country. Can you imagine the response if a Democratic audience booed an active duty member of the military?

Second, the question was answered by Rick Santorum. He complained that by allowing gay men and lesbians to serve openly in the military, the government was granting them “a special privilege.” A special privilege? Are you fucking kidding me? How is being allowed to serve in the military a special privilege? Were the people in the audience–the ones who booed–being denied the special privilege of putting on a military uniform and serving in Iraq? If so, we surely ought to make that privilege available to them.

Who the hell are these people? The ones who boo an active duty soldier, the ones who shout out that a person without health insurance should be allowed to die, the ones who cheer for the death penalty? How did they lose all their compassion? What’s made them so selfish and self-centered?

And what’s most desperately sad is they undoubtedly consider themselves to be patriots.

no room for error

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Last night the governments of two States executed convicted criminals. Texas executed a man who was clearly guilty of the crime; Georgia executed a man who may not have been guilty. Both executions, though, were perfectly legal.

And that’s the problem. It’s absurdly easy to convict a person of a capital crime because it’s absurdly easy to convict a person of any crime. Even though the U.S. Constitution provides accused criminals with a number of safeguards, the fact is those safeguards have been gradually eroded over time—eroded by the courts, eroded by politicians who want to appear tough on crime, eroded by the 24 hour news cycle which feeds off conflict and fear, and eroded by the popular entertainment media that promotes the illusion that lots of criminals are released because of ‘technicalities.’

Our justice system—which is actually a pretty good system—is grounded in the notion of the presumption of innocence. Jurors are to assume the accused is innocent; it’s up to the State to prove they’re guilty, and to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt. But research shows that most jurors (and, in fact, most citizens) tend to believe a person who has been brought to trial is probably guilty of something. That tendency is exacerbated in capital cases because of death qualified juries.

It’s a little-known fact that the process of jury selection in death penalty cases is slightly different than in regular cases. To sit on a death penalty case, a juror has to believe death is an appropriate punishment for some crimes. There’s a certain logic to that; the argument is that a person who opposes the death penalty would be less likely to vote for a conviction. But that same logic applies in the reverse; research demonstrates that a person who believes in the death penalty is generally more likely to vote for conviction.

So a defendant in a capital case is facing a jury that is more likely to convict. From that point on, the cards are stacked against him.

Yes, there is the lengthy appeals process—but what most people don’t realize is that appeals only address points of law, not points of fact. The original jury are the triers of fact; the appelate courts are triers of law. Innocence or guilt are no longer an issue; the only issue argued in the appeals process is this: were the rules of evidence and the dictates of the law followed during the trial? If the answer is yes, then the trial is considered fair—even if the verdict turns out to have been incorrect. It’s not about the verdict; it’s about the process.

It appears in the case of Troy Davis, the letter of the law was followed. The jury, given the evidence they received, reached a fair verdict. The fact that the evidence was flawed or faulty is irrelevant to the appeal process.

It wasn’t always this easy to conduct a legal execution. Proponents of the death penalty often cite the Bible as support—and it’s true, there are any number of crimes in the Old Testament that are punishable by death (including, by the way, adultery and breaking the Sabbath and persistent disobedience to one’s parents). But in practice, it was incredibly hard to impose the death penalty. In order to sentence a person to death a majority of a Sanhedrin (23 men selected for their wisdom and sagacity) had to vote in favor of it. There had to be two direct witnesses to the crime; those witnesses couldn’t be related to each other or to the accused (or the victim); the witnesses had to be men—and men known to the community for their virtue; both witnesses had to be able to see each other at the time of the crime; and both witnesses had to warn the offender that he was committing a capital crime.

In effect, it was almost impossible to condemn a person to death under the way the laws of the Old Testament were practiced. The reason for that was simple. They believed that to take a life as punishment was the prerogative of their God, and to usurp that prerogative was to dishonor God.

I don’t believe in God. But I believe they had the right idea. I don’t think the government ought to be in the business of killing its own citizens, BUT if the State elects to do that, then there ought to be no room for error.

terrorism works

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I’m a criminologist by training, though I haven’t been actively studying it for the last four or five years. Like most folks, my initial response to the horrific events in Oslo and Utroya was almost purely emotional–shock, horror, some anger, a free-floating sense of unreality.

But good training always asserts itself and after a while I found myself paying attention to how individual people and the news media were responding to the event. Almost immediately people, including professional journalists, were speculating the attacks were the work of Islamic terrorists. They’d phrase it carefully, with comments like “This has the trademark signatures of Islamic terrorism” or “It could be some other group responsible, but the coordinated nature of the attacks suggests the perpetrator studied the tactics of Islamic terrorism.” The implication was always there–even if the bombing and shooting weren’t being done by Islamic terrorists, Islamic terrorists were still indirectly responsible for them.

I looked at the opinions voiced on FreeRepublic.com, one of the most vitriolic right wing conservative websites and found comments like these:

“Western Europe has but two choices: 1. Boxcars, or…2. Burqhas.”

“We’re fighting this war on terrorism the wrong way. Instead of us just reacting to the threats and spending trillions of dollars in the process, what we need to do is that every time there’s a terrorist bombing we should select a Muslim city, at random, and bomb a few square blocks…”

“May the soulless Muslim terrorists who did this, and who attacked innocent young people at a camp on an island, be caught promptly and dealt with swiftly, preferably without a trial”

When it became clear the perpetrator was a white Christian right-wing extremist, the people at FreeRepublic shifted their response:

“This would be a dream come true for MSM and the Democrat buddies.”

“I bet my bottom dollar, either the guy was schizophrenic/mentally ill or is linked to the Muzziggers.”

“I more than suspect it is a plant. Conservatives do not slaughter innocent children for any purpose. But a lib, a socialist deviant, would slaughter children while proclaiming to be a conservative in order to bring down conservatism.”

When they thought the perpetrator might be a Muslim, he was representative of the entire religion…but when he turned out to be a white Christian conservative, he became either a liberal stooge or a lone nut case. But surely, it would be irresponsible for people to think he could be representative of all white Christian conservatives.

What’s alarming is that what was being said on FreeRepublic.com was more extreme than what was said by mainstream news media, but they were making the same basic point: it’s either Muslims or somebody inspired by Muslims or a lone nut.

Here’s a true thing: the European Union’s “Terrorism Situation and Trend Report, 2010” reported that in 2009 there were “294 failed, foiled, or successfully executed attacks” in six European countries. How many of those 294 were perpetrated by Muslims or Islamic terrorists?

One.

This isn’t to suggest that Islamic terrorists groups aren’t a threat–of course they are. But it’s important to keep that threat in perspective. Islamic extremists didn’t invent terrorism; it doesn’t belong to them. Those alleged ‘trademark signatures’ aren’t even trademark signatures. Coordinated attacks have been used by terrorists (and, for that matter, by military organizations) for centuries. The vehicle bomb? An anarchist opposed to capitalism packed explosives in a horse-drawn cart and and set it off on Wall Street in 1920–killed nearly 40, wounded around 400. And the first known motor vehicle bomb was detonated in 1927 by a white conservative Christian man in Bath, Michigan angry about taxes.

And guess what. It was a coordinated attack–the alleged signature of Islamic terrorists. Andrew Kehoe set off a firebomb at his house. While the authorities were fighting that fire, he detonated a bomb he’d planted in the local elementary school. When the police and firefighters and parents rushed to the school, Kehoe drove up in his car–which was packed with nails, metal tools, bits of steel machinery, anything that could act as shrapnel–and detonated the explosive. The butcher’s bill was 45 dead (38 of whom were children) and several dozen wounded. What was it somebody said on FreeRepublic.com? Conservatives do not slaughter innocent children for any purpose?

Terrorism doesn’t belong to any one group. It’s a tactic that’s been embraced by extremists of all stripes. And as shown by the responses in FreeRepublic.com, it’s a tactic that works. Those people have been thoroughly terrorized.

untethered

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I’ve been distracted all day by the horrific events that took place in Norway yesterday. All those young people gunned down–it exceeds my capacity to comprehend, and it leaves me feeling rather lost.

Much of my professional life was spent dealing with criminal and deviant behavior–some of which was directed at young people. A delusional woman who killed her child by putting her in an oven; a man crazy on drugs who laid his young son across his lap and stabbed him repeatedly–then turned him over and did it again; a serial pedophile who bought, sold and traded young boys and girls, some of whom I believe he murdered.

It’s not possible for me to forgive crimes like that, but on some intellectual level I could generally comprehend the reasoning behind the behavior And there was always some sort of reasoning, even if it was skewed crazily out of proportion. I didn’t often comprehend how a person could act on that reasoning–but knowing the reasoning existed allowed me to deal with the person.

But what happened in Norway–the methodical killing of young people that went on and on for close to ninety minutes–who can understand the reasoning behind that? Maybe I’m just unwilling to make the attempt, I don’t know. Either way, it’s left me feeling untethered in the universe.

just like in the movies

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Had this been a film script, it would have been embarrassing. The ‘plucky never-say-die Americans’ has been the tritest of movie tropes for at least half a century. And yet yesterday the U.S. Women’s Soccer team turned it into reality.

They played 55 minutes with only ten players against Brazil’s eleven. At times it seemed as if Brazil had twelve players, counting the Australian referee who made several questionable calls–most of which went against the U.S. The most egregious call rescinded a brilliant penalty-kick save by Hope Solo (and c’mon, a goalkeeper named Hope Solo? Impossible outside of a film script), giving Brazil a second chance at the PK, which they naturally completed. At the end of regulation time the score was tied 1-1, sending the match into mandatory extended time. At the end of the extended time the U.S. was down 2-1, and the match would have been lost.

But in the best movie tradition, a Brazilian player had faked an injury to run out the clock. Had she faked it better, Brazil would have won. But the moment she was carried off the pitch on a stretcher, she leaped to her feet and ran to the sideline to be returned to the game. It was such a blatant ruse that she was given a yellow card and three minutes of stoppage time was added.

Two minutes and twenty seconds into the stoppage time, the U.S. scored the tying goal. And who scored? Only the scrappy team captain who’d been in scoring slump, of course. That’s how it’s done on the big screen. The tie meant the match would be decided by penalty kicks. The U.S. team succeeded in each PK. Brazil, however, had one rejected. By Hope Solo. Just like in the movies.