The Room

Posted on August 5, 2013 by greg

I like games. I love games. I love ‘play’ as a concept, and as an activity that’s absolutely fundamental and necessarily integral to a meaningful life. There’s been an element of ‘play’ in everything I’ve ever done for as long as I can remember. I’ve never held a job that didn’t allow me to include ‘play’ in some manner. Even when the job was deadly serious, there was always the potential for ‘play’ in it somewhere.

So I love games — but I’m not really a gamer. Not in the modern sense of the term. I don’t spend much time playing video games, primarily because so many of them are goal-directed. Achieve this, attain that, increase in level, gain points, compete against your friends, maximize your scoring potential, win.

Don’t get me wrong. I can be ridiculously competitive in some things, and I like winning. But for the most part, it’s not what drives me. What drives me is being immersed in the experience of the game, deeply engaged in playing it. The outcome is secondary. Or even tertiary.

I’m talking about all this because I got an email from a friend who knows how I feel about play and games. The subject line of the email: Here, look at this. And the text of the email:

I downloaded this on my phone. I fucking hate it. It’s all about observation and thinking and logic and intuition and solving puzzles and the music totally fucking creeps me out. It’s everything that makes me nuts in a game. It made me think of you. You’ll love it.

And it included a link to this teaser:

So I downloaded the game to my new phone. I think it cost me two bucks. It’s the only game app I’ve put on my phone. And my friend was right. I love it.

There’s a narrative behind it, but I really don’t care (which in itself is odd, because I’m usually all about the narrative). I’ve not finished the game yet, and I’m in no hurry to do that (well, I’m in an absolute hurry to finish only in the sense that I want to keep playing; but I’m in no hurry in that I want it to last). The experience is satisfying in the way solving any puzzle is always satisfying. But the game designers understand that solving the pleasure of solving the puzzles is enhanced by the visually rich environment and the sweet and peculiarly creepy music. It’s so good that I’m parceling the game out, which seems awfully Protestant of me — like it’s a reward for doing the things I’m actually required to do. There’s apparently something to all that ‘delayed gratification’ business.

I have no idea if I’m almost done with the game, or if I’ve just begun, or if I’m somewhere near the middle. If it ends after I’ve solved the next puzzle, I’ll be disappointed. Not by the game itself, but only because it’s over.

Now I have to make myself some lunch, log in a couple hours in reviewing my students’ homework, and then back to The Room.

gazania in a monkey’s head

Posted on August 1, 2013 by greg

So, back in May, right? I’m noodling around in the Sally (yes, I know the Salvation Army opposes marriage equality, but they still provide services to poor folks and since I live nearby, I like to stop in now and then and slip them a few bucks; I’m vocal about my support for marriage quality, but I’m not going to ace out poor folks just to get back at the Sally, and anyway same-sex marriage has been legal in Iowa for a few years now, so let’s not get sidetracked from oh lawdy it’s too late). And what do I see? A ceramic boxlike thing with a monkey’s head on it.

And I snatch it off the shelf. I know immediately, right then, I’m buying it.

“You’re buying a tissue holder with a chimpanzee’s head on it?” my friend asked. And I realize I’m not holding a boxlike thing with a monkey’s head; I’m holding a tissue holder with a chimpanzee’s head. Easy mistake to make.

“It’s not a tissue holder,” I tell her. “It’s a planter. Or it’s going to be.” She gives me that patient no-point-in-discussing-it look, which I get so often. At the checkout counter, a short woman wearing a sweater with a teddy bear holding some balloons on the front says, “Oh, I’ve always liked that tissue holder. That’ll be four dollars.”

Four bucks for a planter with a chimpanzee’s head. That’s a bargain. In fact, there are four chimpanzee faces on it. See no Evil, Hear no Evil, Speak no Evil, and a fourth face which I believe is Contemplating a Little Evil.

So since I now own a planter, I need a plant. We head off to the nearest garden center, where I wander around aimlessly, looking at a staggering array of plants, all of which are labeled with detailed information about the amount of water required, the amount of light necessary, the proper pH level, appropriate moon cycle for planting, the expected growth size of the plant, the size and color and dimension of its blooms, the Latin name of the plant, whether or not its edible and how best to prepare it, the etymology of its common name, which chapter the plant appears in Professor Snape’s Potions textbook.

I see a plant called a Gazania. It has odd, primitive-looking leaves and a name that sounds like a fictional nation in a Marx Brothers movie. I snatch it off the shelf. I know immediately, right then, I’m buying it.

It turns out you can’t actually plant a Gazania (or anything else, for that matter, in a tissue holder on account of a tissue holder doesn’t have a bottom. You need a bottom in a planter, else the plant just falls out. I figured that out my ownself. So you have to plant the Gazania in a small planter, then somehow weasel the leaves through the tissue opening. If you take your time and are careful, it can be done. It can also be done if you don’t know what the fuck you’re doing and just try shit until it works.

My friend’s friend said, “It’ll die. It needs a bigger pot. It’s got to have muttermutter sunlight. It’s supposed to be planted muttermutter.” “It’s a Gazania,” I said. “In a monkey’s head. If it lasts a week, I’ll be happy. Anything beyond that is gravy. And besides, I piss on the nation of your birth.”

I cannot abide a naysayer.

Anyway, I was happy. Stupidly and completely happy. I had a Gazania in a monkey’s head. How many folks can say that? If it died, so what? Four bucks for the monkey’s head, four bucks for the Gazania — hell, you pay more than that for a movie (I saw The Heat with Melissa McCarthy and Sandra Bullock last week — it’s hilarious, y’all should go see it; it won’t bring you as much joy as a Gazania in a monkey’s head, but very few things will, you know?).

And hey, it didn’t die. In fact, in a couple of weeks, it blossomed. Which was pretty much a shock on account of I didn’t even know it was a flower. I had a flowering Gazania in a monkey’s head. Crazy-ass, wild yellow flowers. Gaudy bastards, with a red blaze down the center of each petal.

I was over the moon.

Look at those flowers. They look like something a child would draw. A child who’s seen too much Speed Racer.

And it hasn’t stopped. It just keeps on continuing to blossom. One flower withers and dies, and another takes its place. Sometimes two takes its place. I trim off the dying flowers and this thing just keeps pushing out new flowers, like Octomom.

I swear, no power in the ‘verse can stop it.

Well, okay. I know that’s not true. I know it’ll die in the fall. Maybe. Actually, I don’t have a clue what it’ll do in the fall. But probably it’ll die, right? And that’s okay. On account of it’s been the best eight bucks I’ve ever…well, no. That’s almost certainly not true either. I’m sure I’ve spent eight bucks in lots of better ways, though I can’t think of any at the moment. Still, it was a really great eight bucks, no mistake.

Also? I may start a website MonkeyHeadGazaniasforMarriageEquality.com. And I’ll be sure to thank the Sally for giving me the idea.

my share of lightheartedness

Posted on July 29, 2013 by greg

The year was 1896, and Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy experienced two life-changing events. One was tragic; one wasn’t. First, his son, Ivan Lvovich, died. Vanichka, as he was called, was only seven years old, and Tolstoy’s last child.

Second, two months later, Tolstoy learned to ride a bicycle. He was 67 years old.

Lighthearted Leo Tolstoy

Moskovskoye Obshchestvo Lyubiteley Velosipede (the Moscow Society of Velocipede-Lovers — and no, I’m not making this up) gave Tolstoy a bicycle and offered him instruction on how to operate the machine. To everybody’s surprise, he quickly became a devoted cyclist, riding along his garden paths most mornings after writing. Tolstoy on a bike; in 1896 that was considered a major news story. Scientific American reported on it: Count Leo Tolstoy…now rides the wheel, much to the astonishment of the peasants on his estate.

One of Tolstoy’s friends was considerably less enthused. He wrote: “Tolstoy has learned to ride a bicycle. Is this not inconsistent with Christian ideals?” Tolstoy’s reply:

I feel that I am entitled to my share of lightheartedness and there is nothing wrong with enjoying one’s self simply, like a boy.

Dude was right. No doubt about it. We’re all entitled to a share of lightheartedness. And there’s nothing wrong with enjoying oneself like a boy. I do it all the time. I did it last Friday, in fact. And though I forgot to take my camera, I did take my phone — which like all modern phones, takes photographs.

What was once a lumber yard

As a camera, the Nexus 4 is a great cell phone. It’s not bad as a camera, you understand. It’s just not…well, a camera. Still, it’s good enough that when I rode by this old lumber yard on the way out of town, I had to stop and shoot the photo. It’s not that old, the lumber yard. I mean, it’s not like Tolstoy-old. But it’s semi-beat up and sort of weathered, and it’s a pretty sort of almost-yellow, so worth a photo. If I’d had my actual camera with me, I’d have ridden around the place and given it more attention. Maybe.

Here’s the thing about being an informal member of the American Midwest Society of Velocipede-Lovers: you almost always have to deal with wind. And heat, in the summer. Wind and heat can play merry hell with bicycle-riding photographer’s attitude. And that day was both hot and windy. We’re talking steady 18 mph winds with gusts up to 27mph. Riding into the wind is great exercise.

I fucking hate exercise.

Some sort of storage shed, plus a tree

I stopped occasionally to drink some water. Some serious cyclists I know always refer to this as ‘hydration.’ They hydrate themselves. I’ve actually heard them say it, right out loud. “I gotta hydrate.” Then later they re-hydrate themselves. They engage in periodic hydration management. That’s some serious business, hydration. Nothing lighthearted about it. Which is why I just pause now and then and drink some water.

I should note that Tolstoy never, not once, in all the tens of thousands of pages he wrote, ever referred to hydration. It would have astonished the peasants on his estate.

Bike trail intersection

One of the disconcerting things about riding a bicycle in the American Midwest is how abruptly town transitions into farmland. One moment you’re noodling your bike down house-lined streets, then you’re riding through old, out-dated semi-industrial areas, and suddenly without any real warning you discover you’re actually out in the country. You know…where they grow things. Like crops. Soybeans and corn and…and maybe that’s it. I don’t know. But there are massive fields full of green growing things.

And none of it blocks the wind.

There’s a lot of not much out here

On the other hand, after you’ve spent forty-five minutes riding northwest into an 18mph headwind, you can turn your bike homeward and enjoy the rare pleasures of an 18mph tailwind. You hardly have to put foot to pedal. You sit upright and the wind will blow you most of the way home.

Riding with the wind is a lot more fun than riding into it — but the fact is, just getting on a bike is enough to make you lighthearted. Tolstoy learned that. At 67 years of age, he learned it. Even after the horrorshow of his youngest child’s death, Tolstoy learned that simply by putting his bony ass on a bicycle seat, he could become lighthearted. It doesn’t change anything, of course. Riding a bike won’t actually make anything better. But it will temporarily lighten the heart. And that’s good for you.

And hey, maybe you can astonish some peasants. It’s good for them.

i got your 2nd amendment right here

Posted on July 25, 2013 by greg

Sometimes people–good people, under most circumstances–just get fed up. There’s only so much provocation a person can take. There’s only so much crap a person should have to put up with. And when you hit that limit…well, sometimes you just have to shoot somebody.

Take Margie Ramey, for example. She lives in Rogersville, Tennessee, and for some time she’s had problems with folks using her driveway to turn around. It’s her driveway, dammit, and folks ought to respect that. But did Oscar Scott of Rose Hill, Virginia and his wife and their five young children respect the sanctity of the Ramey driveway? No, they did not.

Margie Ramey

Scott and his family (the kids are between four and twelve years old) had spent the day enjoying themselves at nearby Bays Mountain Park. They got a wee bit lost and used Margie’s driveway to turn around. So she naturally opened fire on them. Hell, it was only a couple of shots, and only one of them actually hit the vehicle (pretty good shooting for a 72 year old woman sitting on her porch a hundred and fifty feet away). It’s not like anybody got hurt or anything.

Now if one of those Scott family hooligans had taken a leak on her property…well, that’d be a different story. That would be a story more like James Robert Crocker’s.

Crocker, of rural Steelville, Missouri (as opposed to urban Steelville), has also had his troubles with folks who just go and trespass on his property. Or trespass real close to his property. He lives on the Meramec River and he’s not quite clear on whether his property includes the gravel bar (which I assume is like a sandbar, only with…you know…gravel) that borders the river. And in his defense, nobody in Missouri seems quite sure where property rights end on the Meramec. If the river is navigable, then the entire river (including gravel bars that are underwater for part of the year) are open to the public.

James Robert Crocker

The friends and family of Paul Dart certainly assumed the river was navigable since they were navigating it, after a fashion. They were tubing down the river (an annual family event for the last half decade or so) when one of the group experienced the need to relieve his bladder. Rather than just let go in the river, the group beached their tubes on a gravel bar — which just happened to be the gravel bar that may or may not have belonged to James Robert Crocker.

As I understand it, Crocker couldn’t actually see the Dart party from his home…but he could hear them. And being familiar with his Constitutional rights, Crocker was not going to allow a stranger to just urinate willy-nilly on gravel that might, in some capacity, belong to him. America didn’t fight a war in Vietnam so total strangers could piss on any tiny riparian rocks they wanted to, after all. So he approached the group, 9mm pistol in hand, and demanded they put away their penises and leave.

Paul Dart stepped in between Crocker and the unfortunate man whose bladder had started the problem. So Crocker shot him in the face.

Now, granted, Paul Dart hadn’t so much as unzipped his pants, let alone urinated in anger. But Crocker didn’t care. “I just shot the one closest to me,” he told the police.

Paul Dart died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital.

See, this is the problem. When gun rights advocates say “Guns don’t kill people; people kill people” they ignore the fact that people kill people easier and more often because they have guns. Right now, Margie Ramey (who was released on bail) probably regrets she had her rifle close to hand when the Scott family used her driveway. Right now, James Robert Crocker (who didn’t get released on bail) probably regrets carrying his handgun down to the gravel bar.

But they did have easy access to their guns, and children were put in danger for the crime of using Margie Ramey’s driveway and Paul Dart was stupidly murdered because his cousin urinated on a gravel bar that James Robert Crocker wasn’t even sure he owned.

Sometimes people–good people, under most circumstances–just get fed up. When that happens and there’s a firearm nearby, somebody could die and the lives of several families are shattered. And you know what? It just isn’t worth it.

the cat vomited

Posted on July 22, 2013 by greg

You wake up. You struggle against the gravitational pull of the bed and get to your feet. You head for the coffee pot, reminding yourself that yes your damaged knees ache right now, but the pain will diminish over the next hour or so as you move about. Before you reach the coffee pot you discover the cat vomited during the night.

It’s a small thing. A truly small thing, even for the cat — who is sitting lazy-eyed in the sun by the window, completely unconcerned. It’s a small thing, but it has to be dealt with. It has to be cleaned up, which you can do as soon as the coffee has been started.

In a bit you’re sitting in front of the computer, your knees hardly ache at all, there’s a cup of Kona to one side, the cat vomit has been cleaned, the sun is shining, and you see this:

The Earth and the moon, from nearly nine billion miles away

Fifteen years, nine months, and six days ago the Cassini-Huygens satellite was hurled into space atop a Titan IV rocket. It’s mission was to study Saturn, and it’s been in orbit around that planet since 2004. But a few days ago, the satellite turned its cameras homeward.

That’s the Earth, that sparkly bit right there in the middle. The Earth and the moon, seen from 898,410,414 miles away.

When I say That’s the Earth what I mean is That’s you and me. That’s everybody we know, and everybody we’ve ever known, and everybody we’ve ever heard about or read about. Shakespeare lived on that little sparkly bit, and Dashiell Hammett. Woody Guthrie made music on that sparkly bit, and so did Mozart and Cole Porter. Pablo Picasso noodled around that sparkly bit for more than ninety years, splashing dabs of genius all over the place. Seventy-some years ago that sparkly bit was involved in a war that spanned three of its seven continents. At least five times in its life, that sparkly bit has been largely covered with ice.

Seen from a distance of nearly nine billion miles, an ice age seems like just a passing phase. World War II, just a small thing. Mozart, a blip. Picasso? Well, he had cats. And you can be sure those cats occasionally vomited, and likely Picasso had to clean it up.

the cat, from just over five feet away

This is the cat that vomited. The photo was taken about the same time Cassini-Huygens took the photo of the Earth and the moon. This cat doesn’t care about Picasso, or world wars, or ice ages, or satellites hurled nearly nine billion miles into space. This cat doesn’t even care that she vomited, not really. She doesn’t have to clean it up.

Distance gives you perspective. Proximity gives you life. We can create marvelous technological feats, we can inflict horrific depredations on our planet — but the cat will still vomit and somebody has to clean it up.

salvage & coffee

Posted on July 16, 2013 by greg

Okay, first — free wi-fi. Who doesn’t love free wi-fi? It’s free, it’s wireless, and it’s…I don’t know. Something that begins with fi. Fizzy, maybe. Doesn’t matter. It’s free and you can connect to the Intertubes, and that’s what counts.

Second, there’s a coffee shop that also serves an Italian soda, which is a lot like an egg cream. It’s not an egg cream; I’m confident they don’t use U-bet Chocolate Flavor Syrup, which is absolutely essential in the making of an egg cream. But considering this is the Midwest, it’s close enough. The basics are there: seltzer, milk or cream, flavored syrup in a chilled glass. It’s light and cool and refreshing, which is what you want in the summer. They serve coffee as well, of course.

I declare, every square inch of ceiling space is covered with light fixtures

Finally, there are three floors filled with stuff salvaged from hither and yon. Not just hither, mind you, and not just yon — hither AND yon. Chicago, St. Louis, New York, London — you get the idea. Hither. Yon.

So, to recap: free wi-fi, Italian soda (almost an egg cream) and coffee, architectural salvage. All in the same old warehouse building. It’s called West End Salvage and Coffee Shop. It’s located directly beside the 9th Street viaduct and three blocks from the County Jail. I love this place.

West End Salvage & Coffee — that’s it on the left

They don’t mind if folks just wander around and look at stuff. Hell, they encourage folks to just wander around and look at stuff. “Hey folks,” they say, “go wander around. Look at stuff.” And that’s exactly what folks do. The place is sort of a combination of a maze and a warren, so you often hear the voices of folks you can’t see, saying things like “Ooh, look at that” or “What the hell is that thing?” or “I want that — I don’t know what it is or what it does, but I want it.”

I’ve said each of those things myself.

I could totally justify buying any of these things

It’s the sort of building where you step around a massive wooden cupboard and find a stereopticon sitting on a beat-up old printer’s cabinet. Or an un-restored organ standing beside a plastic double-sink, near a crate containing a collection of large metal gears. If you’re ever in need of a tin box, this place has several dozens in sizes ranging from tiny enough to fit a pair of earrings to enormous enough to bury a rhinoceros. And chairs, lawdy these people have chairs. And mirrors. All over the fucking place, chairs and mirrors. And tables. And and and.

Yeah, that’s me under the table in the mirror that’s behind the leaded glass window

All those mirrors can be startling. You’re always catching reflections out of the corner of your eye. Your own reflection, the reflections of other people. And since the mirrors are often semi-hidden behind other stuff, those reflections can be a tad startling. You’re not always expecting to see a face peep out from under a table, or from behind a sign written in the Tibetan alphabet explaining something about goat husbandry.

There are lots of signs here. Hanging on the wall, leaning against an old sofa, standing on tables. Signs for products, instructional signs, place-name signs. Even an old sign written in bad English explaining the rules for prostitutes wanting to do business with the U.S. 8th Army stationed in Korea.

I have no idea what street loltexing might be, but apparently it must be restrained

I have no idea what street loltexing involves, but apparently it must be restrained

Some of the stuff you see has been refurbished or repurposed. Some of it’s in the process of being refurbished or repurposed (it’s not uncommon to hear the sound of power tools whining). But most of the stuff is just casually strewn about by folks with an intuitive sense of color and aesthetics. You really get the sense that somebody made a deliberate decision to arrange that blue male torso between that pair of old floodlights.

You see that same sense of unhurried thoughtfulness in design almost everywhere in the building. Almost everywhere.

Just behind the torso’s butt you can see the stairs leading up to more stuff and down to the coffee shop

Oh, there are areas where stuff is just gathered higgledy-piggledy, but there are enough instances where the arrangement is so aesthetically pleasing that it can’t be accidental.

At some point you stop saying to yourself “That would be a great photo prop.” At some point you stop asking yourself “If I owned that, where would I put it?” At some point you realize you just want to move into the building.

Okay, so it’s not all arranged with an eye toward aesthetics

I’m told that the West End Salvage & Coffee folks have a make-over show on the Home and Garden Television cable channel. You know the type of show I’m talking about. Some folks are bored with their normal old living room and want to turn it into something that’s more representative of who they are as individuals — so they hire somebody to design and furnish a room for them. One of those shows.

I haven’t seen it (though I’m a big fan of HGTV). I haven’t bothered to watch it on account of who cares? I mean, there are dozens of those shows, and West End Salvage is much too cool to be wasted on that stuff. They ought to be doing shows on the stuff they salvage — where it came from, who made it, why the salvage job has become necessary, what the salvaged thing does, and what eventually happens to it.

You guys, it’s a stereopticon, just sitting right there

I don’t know about you, but I’d definitely watch a show that told me the general history of stereopticons, and where this one was made, and by whom, and who originally bought it, and who’d buy it now, and what they intended to do with it. That would be SO much more interesting to watch than seeing some folks have their dining room re-done.

And hey, maybe have a go at some street loltexing

On the other hand, if they did a really cool show then maybe West End Salvage and Coffee would be overrun by tourists. So maybe it’s for the best. Because, c’mon — free wi-fi, something sorta kinda close to an egg cream from the coffee shop, and floors of architectural salvage? Who wants to fuck that up by having hordes of fat-walleted HGTV fanboys and girls cluttering up the place? Not me.

it starts when you’re always afraid

Posted on July 14, 2013 by greg

We tend to think dogs that snap and bite are aggressive dogs. Mean dogs. Junkyard dogs. Dominant dogs.

Let me quote Gershwin: it ain’t necessarily so. In the dog world there’s a social behavior known as ‘fear-biting.’ It happens when a shy, timid, fearful dog is placed in an unfamiliar or anxiety-producing situation — a situation it doesn’t know how to handle. The dog responds (often even to friendly behavior) by baring its teeth, by lashing out, by biting. Not out of aggression, but out of fear. It’s a panic reaction.

George Zimmerman is a fear-biter. I don’t think he followed Trayvon Martin and killed him simply because Martin was black. I think he followed Martin and killed him because Martin was black and Zimmerman was afraid. I think Zimmerman carried a firearm because he was afraid. I think his fear caused him to respond irrationally to a threat that didn’t exist. And I think there are a lot of George Zimmermans out there.

The United States has become a nation ruled by fear-biters. A lot of our social policies are grounded in fear, and much of that fear is totally unfounded. We’re afraid of terrorists, so we find ways to weasel around the law in order to round up the people we’re afraid of and lock them away forever where we can’t see them. ‘Indefinite detention’ and ‘enhanced interrogation’ are other forms of fear-biting.

We’re afraid of criminals, so we weaken the laws that protect the innocent in the hope we’ll find some security against the guilty. Mandatory minimum sentences and ‘three strikes’ laws and the undermining of Miranda warnings — all forms of fear-biting.

We’re afraid we’re going to be attacked by strangers, so we make it easier to buy guns and to carry guns and to use guns in self-defense without punishment. Concealed Carry laws and Stand Your Ground laws — it’s all fear-biting.

We’re afraid somebody is going to take our stuff, so we live in gated communities and install alarm systems and hire private security firms to patrol our neighborhoods and organize armed volunteers to wander around at night just in case a stranger in a hoodie happens to pass through — nothing but fear-biting.

Conservative politicians are afraid they’ll lose their power when white folks become a numerical minority in the U.S., so they pass laws that make it more difficult for minorities to vote and they create twisted, nightmare-shaped Congressional districts that effectively ghetto-ize minority voters. Voter ID laws and re-districting — just political fear-biting.

Men are afraid of independent women, so they pass arbitrary laws to regulate and limit a woman’s access to health-care and create an entertainment industry that relegates women to sexualized toys and support a culture that tells women to avoid being raped instead of telling men not to rape. Mandatory transvaginal ultrasound laws, ‘slut-shaming’ and hatred of feminists are forms of male fear-biting.

English as the official language — fear-biting. Marriage only between a man and a woman — fear-biting. Anger because somebody says ‘Happy holidays’ instead of ‘Merry Christmas — fear-biting. Aggression against street photographers — fear-biting.

Not all fear is irrational, but irrational fear is the parent of cruelty. And the fact is the citizens of the United States aren’t very much at risk of a terrorist attack. The vast majority of us are in no danger of being victims of violent crimes at the hands of strangers. Having ethnic, racial, or religious minorities in Congress isn’t going to result in a backlash against white Christians. And women who have control over their own reproductive nature aren’t a threat to men.

We don’t have to be afraid of people who aren’t like us. We have nothing to fear from Muslims or gay folks or people who speak another language or black folks or people taking photos in public.

What we need to be afraid of is a society of fear-biters.

abe lincoln was wrong

Posted on July 9, 2013 by greg

Two or three times a week I get asked what I think about the George Zimmerman trial. I get asked because I used to be a private detective specializing in criminal defense work, and because I’ve seen a lot of criminal trials, and because I used to teach criminology, and because I write about crime and criminal stuff. So a lot of folks think I’m going to be interested in this trial.

But I’m not.

Oh, it’s a meaty trial, to be sure. There’s lots of drama in it, and if it wasn’t real it would make great theater. We have a young kid, innocently walking from a convenience store back to the condo where his father was staying. We have an over-eager wanna-be cop acting as a community watch volunteer acting on unfounded suspicion. And once they meet up, massive strata of mistrust and class resentment and racism and social angst kick in. The kid ends up dead. Shot once in the chest at extremely close range.

It’s a compelling story. But it’s just not an interesting trial. It’s not interesting for a couple of reasons. First, we basically know all the pertinent facts that are knowable. Second, none of those facts pertain to the only legal question that matters: the question of whether George Zimmerman acted in self-defense. And even that’s not very interesting since Florida law is pretty clear on the issue.

766.13 (3) – A person who is not engaged in an unlawful activity and who is attacked in any other place where he or she has a right to be has no duty to retreat and has the right to stand his or her ground and meet force with force, including deadly force if he or she reasonably believes it is necessary to do so to prevent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another or to prevent the commission of a forcible felony.

That’s the entire case, right there. Every important legal question in the case, right there. We knew the answers to those questions even before Zimmerman was arrested. Was Zimmerman engaged in unlawful activity before the shooting? No, he wasn’t (nor was Trayvon Martin; but Martin isn’t on trial). Did Zimmerman have a legal right to be where he was? Yes, he did (and so did Martin — but, again, Martin isn’t on trial). Was Zimmerman attacked? He certainly claims he was. He obviously got punched in the nose at some point, but that’s not really probative. There are no living direct witnesses to the initial act of aggression, so Zimmerman’s claim can’t be proved or disproved. Did Zimmerman have a reasonable belief that force was necessary to prevent his death or great bodily harm? Again, he claims he believed his life was in danger. How can we possibly know what Zimmerman believed at the moment he fired the weapon?

Does it matter that Zimmerman ignored the police dispatcher who told him not to follow the young man? No, not according to the law. Does it matter that Martin was doing nothing wrong? No, not according to the law. Does it matter that Zimmerman, by following and confronting Martin, almost certainly provoked the fatal incident? No, sadly, it doesn’t, not according to Florida law.

What does matter according to Florida law is whether Zimmerman ‘reasonably’ believed he was in danger when he pulled the trigger.

Here’s something that rarely gets mentioned very often. If Trayvon Martin had somehow managed to kill George Zimmerman during that event, he could be presenting the exact same defense Zimmerman’s lawyers are presenting now. The inherent flaw in Florida’s approach to self defense is that it necessarily favors the survivor. If the survivor claims he was, at the moment the fatal act was committed, in fear for his safety — and there’s nothing that blatantly contradicts that claim — then Florida law is on his side. In effect, Florida law rewards the person who acts first and with the most lethality. It’s that simple.

It’s a terrible law. It’s incredibly stupid and irresponsible law. But it is the law in Florida. That means George Zimmerman shot and killed an unarmed teen who was minding his own business, and it was probably legal for him to do it.

Abraham Lincoln, who was a pretty fair country lawyer in his day, once said “The best way to get a bad law repealed is to enforce it strictly.” That’s great if the bad law in question is, say, a traffic law. If you’re the victim of a bad traffic law, you can contest the issue. If the bad law is a self-defense law, the only person to address the issue is the one who fired first.

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