Kniss America

PEW’s News IQ Test shows: 53% of the 1K people who took quiz “correctly” identified the Republican Party as more in favor of reducing the size and scope of government. So what has the GOP done lately to demonstrate its commitment to “reducing the size and scope of government”? 

I’m in the 53%, but knew that was the answer I was supposed to give. The traditional answer. The answer PEW wanted. It showed that I know how the Republican party describes itself. It’s an answer unconcerned with political reality.

Sure both parties want to curb government spending and the Republicans are always up in arms about cutting some program somewhere —unless, of course, it’s in their district. But, the “size and scope of government,” exceeds the realm of mere fiscal allocation. Often, Republicans show far less restraint when it comes to more insidious forms of government intervention and expansion.

Take the AZ Republicans. They want to bring FCC obscenity broadcasting regulations into all public institutions, from pre-k to graduate school, with the so-called “G-Rated” bill. Not sure how legislating the language college professors use in the classroom meshes with a party ideology of “reducing the size and scope of government.”

Cut Nabokov from the syllabus. Henry Mailer too. Cut all that stuff about Kennedy’s sexcapades. No talk of rape in war.

Babysitting professors for the use of four letter words—which, upon the first use would result in a one week suspension, should the AZ bill pass. Limiting educators’ ability to address subjects—like, pornography, genocide, torture or black market economies—is clearly a means of expanding the scope of government.

Limiting free speech in such a way also demands an increase in the size of government too. Should Senate Bill 1467. ensuring all public classrooms comply with “federal standards for media broadcasts concerning obscenity, indecency and profanity,” would require adding personnel and resources—increasing the size of government bureaucracy. Maybe even appointing a Secretary of the Profane to keep everything g-rated.    

Maybe the 47% answered the question based on political reality, rather than the GOP’s theatricality. 

(Source: Pixton.com)

“A secret clique” within the Los Angeles County sheriff’s elite anti-gang unit is under investigation, according to the L.A. Times.

A “secret clique,” you say? Yes.

Known as the “Jump Out Boys,” deputies allegedly sport matching tattoos of a gun-toting skeleton, wearing a bandana emblazoned with “OSS”— for “Operation Safe Streets”—across it and holding a dead man’s poker hand (an ace and an eight). Members lucky enough to walk away from a gunfight celebrate their achievement by enhancing the skeleton, tattooing smoke above the gun, according to the Times article.

It’s a “clique,” not a gang? Let’s see what the National Institute of Justice has to say about it.

The Jump Out Boys have more than three members. At least six have been identified and are expected to be called for Internal Affairs interviews, according to the LAPD. Check. Minimum membership (more than three) is the first criteria in the National Institute of Justice’s definition of a gang. 

Two: Members identify themselves by a “common name:” Jump Out Boys. In this case, the name affirms the speed at which members exit vehicles when on the job. Check.

Three: Members adopt an “identifying sign, symbol, tattoo or other physical marking”: the skeleton tattoo, OSS insignia and the smoking gun modification. Check.

Four: Gang members, according to the NIJ, engage in criminal activity, “with the intent to enhance or preserve the association’s power, reputation or economic resources.” Check?

So what if members of the Jump Out Boys illustrate the association’s power and reputation with a smoking gun tat after a shootout? It’s not like the tattoo’s a smoking gun. Oh, wait…

If they’re a gang, the Jump Out Boys are our gang. Just like Rampart. We gave them have badges and pensions and scheduled shifts, and let them lose.

Response to “A Complex view of teen’s shooter” in today’s L.A. Times article (3/29/2012)

Trayvon Martin’s dead. George Zimmerman, 28, admits to shooting Martin, 17. The incident seems straight forward presented this way. Not so much, once you get into the details. The case has attracted national attention: Florida’s “stand your ground” law and accusations of racial profiling complicate the shooting.

Did Zimmerman shoot Martin because as Zimmerman says on his call to 911 that night, “This guy looks like he’s up to no good or he’s on drugs of something,” and afraid this made Zimmerman fear for his life? Or did Zimmerman see Martin’s race and assume he was “up to no good”?

While Zimmerman claims he feared for his life. It’s clear from the 911 call that Zimmerman initiated the altercation. When I’m afraid for my life, you know what I don’t do, follow the person who’s causing my fear. Not Zimmerman; he told the 911 operator that he was following Martin. Great plan: follow someone you claim is “up to no good.” 

Zimmerman left the grocery store—concealed Kel-Tec 9-millimeter semiautomatic tucked into his pants—when he spotted Martin up to no good. That’s when Zimmerman called the cops and began his pursuit. (I always go to the grocery with a loaded, concealed weapon in my pants. Don’t you? You might be the one up to no good when you go to the grocery store with a loaded gun.) Just calling the cops wasn’t enough for a guy who’d taken a 14-week course for Community Law Enforcement Academy. Here, in the moment outside the grocery store, Zimmerman saw an opportunity to put his training and his gun to work.

Zimmerman was cuffed and released after the shooting. He claimed he acted in self-defense. Police cited Florida’s “stand your ground” law as the reason Zimmerman was not immediately arrested for the shooting. The law provides citizens the right to respond with bodily—even deadly—force when the person fears death or great bodily harm.

Zimmerman was the initial aggressor, at least from what he said on the 911 call. Zimmerman said Martin attacked him, but only after Zimmerman confronted Martin. Initial police reports and photos show no injuries to Zimmerman.

Zimmerman put himself in a position where, perhaps, he feared for his life. But he did so by choice, not because Martin accosted him. Stand your ground isn’t a viable defense.

I’d expect to find myself slammed into a jail cell if I decided to follow someone I believed “up to no good”—strapped with a loaded semiautomatic—then confront and shoot and kill the person.

The situation, while tragic, isn’t necessarily racially motivated. It may be simply a situation where a vigilante chased down and killed an unarmed man.

Coping. That’s what Mad Men’s major players were doing since we saw them last. It appears that’s what they’re still doing. The premiere of season five show that the world’s more complicated than the ad game, romance and petty office politics. 

Race, war, feminism and technology cast a shadow over the mid 60’s that even the spin doctors of Sterling, Cooper, Draper, Price can’t sell as rose colored.

The show opens with Madison Avenue ad execs dropping water bombs on the heads of civil rights protesters. Not so subtle. As the episode unfolds it’s populated with subtle moments that expose the churning racial tension of the time and the banality of everyday racism. 

While race has been on the fringes in various episodes, feminism been in the picture from the beginning. In Joan, Peggy and even Betty, but it hasn’t been as bold or as sexy as it is when Megan Draper’s center stage at Don’s 40th birthday party. Surprise!

Don likes to hold his cards close, he likes to keep his worlds from colliding—in the George Costanza sense. Obviously he isn’t one for public displays, nor one to wear his emotions on his sleeve. The surprise party thrown by his new wife Megan tests his resolve.

Her gift—a sexy little 60s shimmy that would’ve made the network censors of that era cancel the show—goes over well with the crowd, but not in the we’re laughing with you way. Don smiles bashfully for the crowd. When the party’s over he’s cold, incensed. With all her assets on display, Megan’s dance—while not a striptease—stripped Don of his control, leaving him humiliated. 

The new Mrs. Draper is liberated in a way Don doesn’t understand. He’s dabbled with such dames—the pot-smoking Village bohemian, the hippie teacher. But, despite all his philandering he’s self-loathing and more of a conventional than his brash attitude implies. 

Riddle me this: how do U.S. forces “accidently” burn Qurans? Can they not read?

President Obama apologized on Thursday in a three-page letter to Afghan President Hamid Karzai, “for the inappropriate and inadvertent mishandling of religious materials.” Perhaps he should also apologize to the American people for an education system that produces soldiers incapable of reading the cover of a book that’s pretty important in the land surrounding U.S. military bases in Afghanistan. You’d think the least the military could do is teach the soldiers to match the letters.

Karzai’s pissed. The Taliban’s pissed. They want justice. So do I, but I also want justice for the American education system, justice for a country whose soldiers either cant’ read a book title or are too ignorant or insolent to care.

What does Karazi expect to happen to the soldiers responsible for burning Qurans along with other Islamic religious materials Monday at Bagram? Early reports say the soldiers were just following orders. That excuse alone gives more credence to the troops illiterate status – if they’d read just a little they’d probably know the last group who used the “just following orders” excuse, didn’t really do that well in the court of public opinion or the international court. 

Does Karazi expect the soldiers will be identified? Reprimanded? Tossed out of the service? Not likely. Do I expect education reform so fewer illiterate soldiers invade countries where they can’t even recognize a string of five letters? Do I expect fewer people to die due to ignorance or arrogance? I’m better off expecting a severance package.