Society's Child

Does the United States have a culture of bullying?

Katy Waldman
Slate
Sat, 16 Nov 2013 12:42 UTC

Does the United States have a culture of bullying? That was the thesis of an article by the New Republic's Chris Wallace that came out Tuesday. Following in the footsteps of Dave Zirin, who argued last week in the Nation that the NFL's pernicious "man code" reflected a broader American weakness for "sexism, violence against women...and physical domination of others," Wallace examines how the "power politics of the locker room" unfold across the country. "There exists a rush to dominance, a pattern of bullying," he writes, "in every walk of life...The hardest part about watching a football game for me now (aside from knowing now the real toll of the carnage-as-entertainment) is seeing its reflection in the world that brackets it."

Wallace was reacting to the high-profile NFL fiasco in which a white player for the Miami Dolphins, Richie Incognito, bullied a black teammate, Jonathan Martin, to the point of hospitalization. When Martin first reported the abuse, he was widely dismissed and insulted for tattling like a kid. What he'd done by going to the authorities - instead of taking his tormentor "to fist city" - was break the masculinity code. He failed to "step up and be a man," according to Tennessee running back Chris Johnson. "I think Jonathan Martin is a weak person," added an NFL personnel worker (who bravely insisted on anonymity). "There's no other way to put it, other than him being soft."

Occupy Grassy Knoll: 50 years is enough!

Occupythegrassyknoll.org
Sat, 16 Nov 2013 10:50 UTC

Dealey Plaza is a public park and a designated National Historical Site that has been open to the public over the five decades since President Kennedy was assassinated there. It was meant to encourage visitors to seek and discuss their own history and this critical event. In 1964, Penn Jones, a newspaper editor and early critic of the Warren Commission's official version of the assassination, began to hold an annual Moment of Silence on the Grassy Knoll (North Pergola) lest we forget the injustice or let the case remain unsolved. At his request, the Coalition on Political Assassinations (COPA) has continued the tradition since his illness and death in the 1990s.

COPA has sought a permit since 2010 for our annual Moment of Silence this 50th anniversary year. We also speak truth to power about the assassination of President Kennedy, who was behind his murder and why he was killed to put others in power in the United States in an un-Constitutional coup.

Judge to sentence U.S. border cops who made smugglers eat pot

Brad Poole
Reuters
Tue, 12 Nov 2013 10:45 UTC

Two U.S. Border Patrol agents who forced four suspected drug smugglers to chew marijuana and flee shoeless into the Arizona desert on a chilly November night are due to be sentenced on Tuesday for violating the men's civil rights.

A jury convicted Dario Castillo, 25, and Ramon Zuniga, 31, in April of depriving the Mexican men, all of whom were in the U.S. illegally, of civil rights in the incident in the borderland deserts of southern Arizona.

The 2008 incident began when a Border Patrol agent mounted on horseback discovered a group of men sleeping in a dry stream bed in the desert, which straddles a key corridor for Mexican traffickers smuggling drugs and illegally ferrying immigrants into the United States.

Castillo and Zuniga were about to end their shift after midnight, according to testimony, when they got a call for assistance from the horse patrol. They responded, but the group of about 20 suspected smugglers scattered into the night when the agents arrived.

Four U.S. Marines die in accident at Camp Pendleton in California

Marty Graham
Reuters
Wed, 13 Nov 2013 10:39 UTC

Four U.S. Marines were killed on Wednesday in an accident while clearing a training area used as an artillery and aerial bombing range at Camp Pendleton in Southern California, a military spokesman said.

NBC News reported the Marines were killed when unexploded ordnance unexpectedly detonated, but the spokesman could not immediately confirm that, saying only the Marines had been clearing the area.

Marines spokesman Lieutenant Ryan Finnegan said the clearance operation would have involved anything necessary to keep the range free of obstructions, which could include disposing of ordnance. But he could not say they were handling ordnance when the accident occurred.

The cause of the accident, which happened on Wednesday morning at the Zulu Impact Area in the interior part of the base, was under investigation.

Cop Patrick Tuter indicted for killing Michael Allen, firing 41 shots at unarmed suspect

Jonathan Vankin
Opposing Views
Wed, 13 Nov 2013 10:27 UTC

For only the second time in 17 years, a Dallas County grand jury has indicted a police officer for wrongly killing a suspect in the line of duty. Patrick Tuter is being held on an unusually high $100,000 bail after his indictment for manslaughter in the death of 25-year-old Michael Vincent Allen on Aug. 31 of last year.

Prosecutors said they did not consider the fired Garland police officer a threat to flee, and were prepared to let bail go as low as $10,000. But Judge Lena Levario said that in her view, Tuter (pictured) posed a threat to public safety and needed to be locked up. Typical bail in manslaughter cases is about $25,000, the Dallas Morning News reported.

If he makes bail, Tuter is not allowed to hold any job that requires him to use a weapon.

From the facts of the case, Tuter appears not only trigger-happy, but also an inaccurate shot. He is accused of killing Allen, who was unarmed, after a half-hour chase during which speeds hit 100 mph along a North Dallas freeway, ending up with Allen cornered in cul-de-sac in Mesquite.

According to one eyewitness to the shooting, Allen's white GMC pick-up truck was trapped between two cop cars. That's when Tuter, according to a witness, shouted for Allen to get out of the truck but then, without waiting more than a few seconds, opened fire.

Teen shot and killed defending grandmother

Jonathon Hand
Democrat & Chronicle
Tue, 12 Nov 2013 10:19 UTC

© CARLOS ORTIZ
Pearl Williams talks about her grandson TySean Williams, a 15-year-old honor student who was shot and killed Nov. 6 at her Adams Street home when she opened the door.

TySean was the city's 33rd homicide so far this year; a shooting on Hazelwood Terrace became the 34th Tuesday morning.

Williams, who said she was grateful for both the arrests and the petition, said her grandson on Wednesday had participated in MasterMinds, an academic competition for high school students, before she picked him up to take him to church, which they attended every week. They'd been home about an hour when they heard a knock at their door about 9 p.m.

"The door was unlocked and I heard the knock. I saw the bottom lock start to shake. I said 'Who is it?' and I tried to lock it, then they pushed the door and I was pushing back and I said 'Oh god, oh god, help me, help me, oh god,' and there was two of them and one of me.

"The one with the gun got his hand through the door and pointed the gun at me, that's when my baby ran out of his room and he pushed the guy with the gun into my cabinet, and he pushed him so hard I thought I heard a crack, but when TySean turned around to see if I was okay the guy kind of got his composure ... and he pushed TySean into my stove and he got his gun and he went 'bang, bang, bang' and he shot him. And he pushed the door again and shot him again."

Ohio delays inmate's execution over organ donation

Julie Carr
Associated Press
Sat, 16 Nov 2013 10:14 UTC

Ohio's governor delayed the execution of a condemned child killer to consider the inmate's unprecedented organ donation request, acknowledging that it's "uncharted territory" but expressing hope that the man might help save a life before losing his own.

Ronald Phillips, 40, was scheduled to be put to death Thursday with a lethal injection of a two-drug combination not yet tried in the U.S., but Gov. John Kasich issued a stay of execution Wednesday. The execution date has been rescheduled for July 2.

"I realize this is a bit of uncharted territory for Ohio, but if another life can be saved by his willingness to donate his organs and tissues then we should allow for that to happen," Kasich said in a statement. He said he wanted to allow time for medical experts to study whether Phillips could donate non-vital organs, such as a kidney, before being executed.

Phillips, who was sentenced for raping and killing his girlfriend's 3-year-old girl in Akron in 1993, asked this week to donate a kidney to his mother and his heart to his sister. His attorney said it was an attempt to do good, not a delay tactic.

Tina Turner formally 'relinquishes' U.S. citizenship

Al Kamen
Washington Post
Tue, 12 Nov 2013 10:09 UTC

This item just in via an "activity" report from the U.S. Embassy in Bern, Switzerland, headlined "Soul Legend Relinquishes U.S. Citizenship."

"Long-time Swiss resident Tina Turner" was in the embassy Oct. 24 to sign her "Statement of Voluntary Relinquishment of U.S. Citizenship under Section 349 (a)(1) of the INA" - the Immigration and Naturalization Act.

Turner, who turns 74 in a couple weeks, retired from the concert stage in 2009. She had an abusive, 14-year marriage to Ike Turner (they divorced in 1976), with whom she recorded Jessie Hill's classic "Ooh Poo Pah Doo," and John Fogerty's "Proud Mary."

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. on JFK's legacy: "Virtually everybody in the world recognizes that America under the Kennedys' leadership was America at its best"

Piers Morgan
CNN
Wed, 13 Nov 2013 08:32 UTC

As the world looks to honor John. F. Kennedy's life and memory with the upcoming 50th anniversary of his death (November 22nd,) on Tuesday evening "Piers Morgan Live" sought perspective from the former president's nephew, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr..

"I think one of the greatest legacies of President Kennedy was that sort of altered view of the United States that, you know, that we were a force for good, that we understood that corporate domination at home was the partner of imperialism and truculence abroad," he told Piers Morgan. "We had to win over the world by our example, by living up to our ideals, by perfecting the union and not by force of arms and that we were going to be remembered, which was what President Kennedy used to say."

Joining the host from Los Angeles on the eve of CNN's special documentary entitled "The Assassination of JFK (1963)," Kennedy, Jr. offered additional insight on one of the most polarizing and charismatic figures in American history:

"...his pursuit for peace, his pursuit of civil rights and justice at home is something that... even if the press tries to deny it or historians [downplay it]... is something that at that time, and for a generation afterwards, virtually everybody in the world recognized [as being] America at its best."

Toronto mayor Rob Ford's insane rants sparks ridicule

Huffington Post
Fri, 15 Nov 2013 00:00 UTC

Rob Ford is famous.

Jon Stewart devoted more than six minutes to the Toronto mayor Thursday night, ending with utter disbelief at Ford's oral-sex-related rant.

"WHAT, WHAT, WHAT, WHAT, WHAT, WHAAAAAT?!?" Stewart howled. "Somewhere in a basement through his tears Anthony Weiner is going 'What the f***?' "

But Stewart wasn't the only comedian to mock Ford Thursday.

David Letterman devoted his Top 10 list to the mayor's long pause when asked if he had purchased drugs during the last two years. Ford eventually answered yes.

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Biden the child-killer. Think of the children, vaxxers, think of the children.

hobnyeba

Thanks, all, for great comments and links. Lots to think about.

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Society's Child

Does the United States have a culture of bullying?

Occupy Grassy Knoll: 50 years is enough!

Judge to sentence U.S. border cops who made smugglers eat pot

Four U.S. Marines die in accident at Camp Pendleton in California

Cop Patrick Tuter indicted for killing Michael Allen, firing 41 shots at unarmed suspect

Teen shot and killed defending grandmother

Ohio delays inmate's execution over organ donation

Tina Turner formally 'relinquishes' U.S. citizenship

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. on JFK's legacy: "Virtually everybody in the world recognizes that America under the Kennedys' leadership was America at its best"

Toronto mayor Rob Ford's insane rants sparks ridicule

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