For a while, Freddie Gray’s death was the talk of every blog and every political talk show and every newspaper. It wasn’t even that long ago; you probably remember the furor.
Now that the political purposes of the incident have been served, you don’t hear much about the trials of the officers, do you? That’s because they are not going well for the prosecution.
However, the blog Legal Insurrection covers these trials in depth, courtesy of the intrepid Andrew Branca. Here’s today’s installment, but you can find them all if you go here and start scrolling down.
I could not possibly improve on Branca’s reportage, so I won’t even try. Please note that five of the six accused officers are also suing prosecutor Mosby for assorted violations such as defamation, invasion of privacy, malicious prosecution, false arrest, and violation of the Maryland declaration of rights.
Some days when I go to my computer to see the news I feel a strong sense of dread and weariness.
Today’s one of those days. The Orlando massacre has had the highly predictable result of exposing the fault lines in American politics—the myriad ways in which such events are hyped, sometimes distorted, and always used by each side to push certain agendas. I happen to agree far more with the agenda of the right than that of the left, but it doesn’t change the sadness and frustration I feel when I see the point we’ve come to.
Perhaps I’m bathing the past in the rosy glow of nostalgia, but I don’t remember it being that way in my youth. The disagreements were relatively mild, the sense of “we”-ness strong. Even as recently as 9/11 there was a brief return to that feeling, even though it was illusory. Since then, despite that little pause, it’s only grown worse.
So please forgive me if today I don’t go on and on about the specific issues that are being revealed moment by moment about Orlando. The gun control efforts (see this and this). The shooter’s two wives’ stories (see this and this). The back-and-forth between Trump and Obama, and Trump and Clinton (see these).
One thing I will remark on is how some of the survivors of the shooting managed to live. Many, of course, were able to escape by running away. But for the ones who were trapped in the room with the shooter, their stories are harrowing. They seem mostly to have a similar theme, which is that of surviving by playing dead.
Playing dead is a passive rather than an active tactic, but in the nightmare situation of facing a shooter and being unarmed yourself and taken completely by surprise, it can work for a few people. And even though it would seem at first as though it’s not especially heroic, it actually requires a remarkable amount of self-control and a certain form of bravery, even though it’s not the conventional type of bravery. Continue reading →
Russian government hackers penetrated the computer network of the Democratic National Committee and gained access to the entire database of opposition research on GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump, according to committee officials and security experts who responded to the breach.
The intruders so thoroughly compromised the DNC’s system that they also were able to read all email and chat traffic, said DNC officials and the security experts.
It’s heartbreaking to look at the photos of all these young people murdered by terrorist Omar Mateen. As I was doing so, however, I couldn’t help but notice that the vast majority of the victims seemed to be Latino, a fact I hadn’t seen previously remarked on. Putting that together with the fact that it was “Latin night” at the club makes me wonder whether that night was chosen because the terrorist not only wanted to kill gay people but also had it in for Latinos, and decided to make the killings a twofer. This does not dilute the fact that his motivation was Islamic terrorism; I will take his own word for that when he pledged allegiance to ISIS.
But that doesn’t mean he couldn’t have had multiple goals; terrorism doesn’t have to be determined by one thing only, and although Islamic terrorists are jihadis first and foremost, they are also human beings with a history and an agenda that can include other motives. Some in the Latino community in Orlando (30% of the general population but 90% of the Orlando victims) have spoken up (albeit hesitantly and gingerly) about the possible Latino angle:
“We’ve never really been, at least in recent history, the target of a terrorist attack,” she said. “Not to speculate that this was an attack on the Latino community, but to have been impacted to this magnitude, I don’t think we’ve ever seen that.”
Colon, like some other Latino leaders, complained that the media has so far largely painted the shootings as an attack on the gay community.
“Although .”‰.”‰. the overwhelming majority of the victims were Hispanic, that’s been largely omitted from the narrative,” Colon said. “Yes, we stand in solidarity with the LGBT community and are not here to point fingers. But the fact that it’s not stressed and not emphasized in central Florida .”‰.”‰. it’s really difficult.”
Here’s a clue as to the makeup of this community:
At least some of the victims appeared to be Puerto Ricans, who make up the largest segment of the Latino population here. The Puerto Rican community has been booming, due in part to an economic crisis that has spawned the greatest exodus of people from Puerto Rico in 50 years.
And of course Puerto Ricans can come and go as they please, since they are citizens.
The article ends with a quote from a Latino leader promoting solidarity with Muslims, and speaking out against Donald Trump. But I wonder if that’s as common a feeling as it was a few days ago, before the shooting; I certainly doubt it. I would imagine some Latinos are even considering supporting Trump as a result, although I have no idea how many might react this way.
And then there’s the news that the terrorist Mateen might have been gay, or fighting against being gay, or something of the sort. It’s unclear whether this was the case or not, but if so it only adds a psychological underlay to his main agenda, which was set by groups such as ISIS and the attitude of Islam towards homosexuality. This seems obvious—and yet, to those people determined to make it about Christianity (yes, you heard that right, Christianity), this is a golden opportunity to twist the narrative in the more preferred direction:
Democrats…since Sunday…have focused on every possible thing besides the shooter’s overt radical Islam motivation, including guns, Christianity (seriously), and now … “he was gay!”
The logic, such as it is, goes like this: Omar Mateen was probably gay, and obviously a repressed, closeted gay man, and obviously that’s because of Christians refusing to make cakes and therefore this wasn’t ISIS-related…
But even if you were to argue that it was strictly repressed homosexuality were the real culprit here, it’s still beyond the scale of absurd to blame Christians and religious freedom laws. Why would you think he was more impressed by and under the influence of gay marriage debates than he was by the preaching from the pulpit of his own faith? The words weekly told to him with the weight of God behind them in his own place of worship? From his own faith leader? From his own parents and community. Even if you granted that societal or social pressure to be straight turned him into a monster, that society and social circle was Islamic in nature, not Christian. It was fellow Muslims, not Christians, preaching to his ears and beseeching his eyes skyward. Not to God of the Bible but Allah of the Quran.
It’s a ridiculous argument, and it comes from a place of cowardice and hate. The American left hates the Christian faith and they hate those who subscribe to it.
The worst thing Christians say about gay people is “hate the sin but love the sinner,” and of course many oppose gay marriage. That’s a far cry from hating gay people and certainly a very far cry from advocating their murder. That doesn’t mean that some individual people who profess to be Christian don’t do more hating than that, but it’s not part of Christianity and they aren’t being christian when they do it. Islam and sharia law have a very different attitude, and since Mateen was Muslim and professed his allegiance to a well-known Islamic terrorist group, there is every reason to see Islam as the genesis for his actions.
Simply put, killing gay people is not a fringe thing in Islam; it is rooted in Muslim sharia law. That doesn’t mean every Muslim you meet believes it should be done, and certainly most are not going around carrying it out. But it is folly to believe that sharia law was not the impetus for Mateen’s actions in Orlando:
The inspiration for Muslims to brutalize and mass murder gay people does not come from ISIS. It is deeply rooted in Islamic law, affirmed by many of Islam’s most renowned scholars. This is why, wherever sharia is the law, homosexuals are persecuted and killed.
There is, quite simply, no comparison to Christianity in the modern age. Anyone who makes it is desperate to ignore or to negate the truth.
For fun, I watched the Tony Awards last night—which is the only way to keep up with Broadway shows nowadays without taking out a loan.
About the entertainment at the Tonys I have two things to say. The first is that—although I know that the dancers in the wedding scene from “Fiddler” (the present revival) are not really poor Jewish guys from the shtetl, and I know they are all the most polished dancers Broadway money can buy—when they dance with such socko, sell-it, over-the-top Broadway pizzazz, they’re missing the tone and style of the thing. I saw the original production many times, and although the dancers were excellent and of course far better than could be found in any little village way back when, they still preserved a sort of charm and modesty that seemed far more believable and authentic.
But Broadway shows were very very different back then, and in my opinion far better. I can even remember, dinosaur that I am, when the stage wasn’t miked. That wasn’t so completely great because it meant that even a little tyke like me with good hearing would lose some of the words. But that problem was compensated for because what the audience did hear didn’t have that fake quality. These days if I do go to a Broadway show I can close my eyes and believe I’m listening to the recording. That’s not the sound quality I’m looking for in a live show, but I may be in the minority on that.
Second thing I want to mention is that the play “Hamilton”—which I expected to be a travesty—actually looked quite interesting and doesn’t make a mockery of history, as I thought it might.
Now for the important stuff—the women’s fashions. They were very very odd. There was an overabundance of all-over-floral print gowns. It’s not something you ordinarily see, but I guess it must be au courant this year and everybody got the word.
It’s very hard to wear all those flowers, even for beautiful young women. It’s easy to look too much like upholstery or wallpaper. I chose just one of the most sedate examples of the genre, one of the least overpowering. But here she looks like a little girl or a preteen going to a dance:
On to the next one; no flowers here. It’s Cate Blanchett, known for unusual dresses: “I dreamed I went to the Tonys in my Maidenform bra—and a piece of one skirt sewn to a piece of another skirt sewn to a piece of another skirt sewn to an old tablecloth”:
Next—it must be awfully embarrassing to have forgetten to sew those underarm seams. Then again, it probably cuts down on the sweating. And it must be almost as embarrassing as to have had the top made several sizes too small. And yes, I’m well aware it’s purposeful. But unlike most dresses that emphasize the décolletage, this one looks to me like the top of the dress (or maybe jumpsuit?) is too small and she just can’t button it. But she looks defiant:
This is one of the few dresses from the evening that I like. A lot. It reminds me of the night sky:
And here’s a throwback to old-style movie glamor:
I think the above dress is actually a very specific reference to this iconic dress worn by Anita Ekberg in “La Dolce Vita,” 1960:
As to this one—what is happening here? What is happening here? Actually, what isn’t happening here. There’s way too much going on—with the wide diagonal stripes; the drape, the pleats, and the train; and in particular that convoluted stuff that snakes up and down on the bodice:
As for this one, I don’t quite know what to say. A schoolgirl whose mother let her dress herself this morning, with disastrous consequences? She’s even standing like a very young schoolgirl. I think there’s something here I’m not understanding. I think it may be a Japanese thing:
Party officials stressed to The London Times that Maduro’s distribution system has “broken down and that conditions are ripe for civil war.” He hoped the system would end the long lines “and black marketeers at state-subsidised supermarkets.” Riots have exploded in these areas:
“What is striking is that the riots ”” sometimes half a dozen a day in the capital ”” are in working-class slums far from the middle-class areas where support for the opposition has traditionally been strongest. The opposition, which controls congress, is trying to push through a referendum to remove Mr Maduro but that will take time and hungry people are more concerned about procuring food.”
These economic conditions are an absolute outrage in a country that had everything going for it just a few decades ago.
I wonder, though, what the rioters think is the cause, and what the remedy. They were susceptible to the pie-in-the-sky promises of socialism before. Do they still remain susceptible, and do they just think that Maduro isn’t a very good practitioner of socialism? Or do they blame the entire mess on the socialist system of government itself? And what do they want to replace it?
It’s an old old story: the left refuses to name this enemy. Either they can’t even say the word “terrorist,” or they certainly can’t use any modifier that implies that Islam has anything to do with it.
And Obama, as a man of the left, follows suit.
In the wake of a large and deadly attack such as the one in Orlando, where it is clear that the perpetrator was an Islamic (or Islamicist, or radical Islamic) terrorist, it is glaringly apparent that Obama is refusing to call the attack what it is. And this is a weakness that Donald Trump is determined to exploit, and rightly so.
Does it matter what we call them? Obviously, both Obama and Trump—coming from opposite sides of the question—agree on the fact that it does matter, or this rhetorical battle wouldn’t be going on. By using the words he uses, Trump wants to signal his resolve to oppose Islamic terrorism, as well as opposition to PC leftist language. What does Obama want to signal? Deference to the Muslim community, emphasis on his underlying policy goal of increased gun control, and minimization of the hugely increased threat from ISIS that occurred on his watch while he poo-pooed it.
The always-intelligent Richard Fernandez has this to say about it:
The administration has a security model that is not really working. FBI are looking for ordinary criminals and “hate mongers” and, armed with these descriptions, keep letting the usual suspects go because they don’t fit the bill. Yet time and again they come back as a surprise. Maybe the greatest trick Islamic terrorism ever pulled was convincing Obama it didn’t exist.
The photo that goes with the article has the caption “Can’t solve a problem you can’t define.” That’s probably true, but I don’t think that Islamic terrorism “convinced Obama it didn’t exist.” Perhaps Fernandez is being sarcastic there, and he doesn’t really think Obama is convinced of that either, but at any rate I believe that Obama—and certainly the FBI—know full well that it exists and that it is here. Obama doesn’t want to admit it for the reasons I’ve stated above. And the FBI and other agencies are somewhat hamstrung by the guidelines laid done from the top, plus a very real dilemma involving how proactive they can be and still preserve our liberties.
I doubt that most of the people who work for the FBI would refuse to name the enemy if left to their own devices. And I doubt they are unaware of the danger of radicalized Muslim jihadis in our midst. But what are they to do if a person has engaged in “mere” associations, and “mere words,” and if they have to be careful to protect that person’s civil rights (especially for US citizens such as the Orlando perpetrator)? Marco Rubio (remember him?) hit the nail on the head about this when speaking of the Orlando massacre:
There are two parts to the problem of jihadis in the US. The first is the nomenclature; what we call people is not just semantics, it signifies the way we are looking at the issue and the way we will approach it. The second is what we will actually do about it. If you remember the Patriot Act that was passed in the wake of 9/11, it brought up the dilemmas inherent in that second part—the action part—dilemmas we’ve been fighting over ever since.
Barack Obama has been deficient in both regards, speech and action. Donald Trump seems to be doing okay with the first part, but is somewhat vague on the second. Rubio, in my opinion, is grappling more intelligently with both parts, but he is not in line to be president. Hillary Clinton, Trump’s opponent, seems to be following the basic Obama playbook, which does not inspire confidence.
One other fact about the Orlando massacre is that, unlike other terrorist attacks on our soil, it targeted a very specific group: gay people. This is a group that has been allied much more with the Democrats and the left than it has with the right, but the left doesn’t seem all that energized to protect them, and that has not gone unnoticed:
Oh sure, all year I’ve been playing the “Bernie or Hillary?” game with all the other default-Democrats in my social and professional circles. But this is no longer some kind of game. Our lives are on the line. Although I voted for Hillary in the primary, I now cringe inwardly with shame and embarrassment at having done so, and in November I will vote for Trump.
Why? Yes, I know that Trump is an a**hole, Trump is a clown, Trump is a motormouth buffoon. You don’t have to convince me of that. But he’s also the only person saying anything about putting the brakes on Islamic extremism, and in light of what happened last night in Orlando, suddenly that is the only issue that really matters when it comes to the health, well-being and safety of the queer community.
Ted Cruz—another man who wanted to be president—has astutely called out the left on this:
If you’re a Democratic politician and you really want to stand for LGBT, show real courage and stand up against the vicious ideology that has targeted our fellow Americans for murder,” he said.
They won’t meet the challenge, despite paying lip service to the LGBT community.
Last night’s vicious attack at a gay nightclub in Orlando has resulted in the highest death toll ever in a US mass murder, and the largest death toll in a terrorist attack on US soil since 9/11.
Those are not records you want to see broken.
As usual with these attacks, we don’t know the full story yet, and some of the facts I’m going to summarize in this post will probably ultimately be found incorrect. But so far the event seems to have followed the template of other attacks of the last few years:
The shooter was Omar Mateen, a Florida resident. Like so many recent terrorist perpetrators, he was a young man who had been born in the West (New York in this case) of immigrant parents (Afghanistan in this case).
And like so many others, he also was already on law enforcement’s radar screen:
The senior law enforcement source reports that Mateen became a person of interest in 2013 and again in 2014. The Federal Bureau of Investigation at one point opened an investigation into Mateen but subsequently closed the case when it produced nothing that appeared to warrant further investigation.
“He’s a known quantity,” the source said. “He’s been on the radar before.”
Depending on whether Mateen had direct ties to a terrorist group (there’s no evidence of that so far), we may be looking at another “known wolf” perpetrator, like so many before him. We don’t know much about what triggered that earlier investigation, but authorities can’t detain people on the mere suspicion that they might commit a crime in the future, and there are so many people like Mateen that I doubt they have the resources to track them further in the absence of huge red flags (or even, perhaps, in the presence of them).
Mateen seems to have been violent in the sense of abusing his former wife, who alleges that he beat her during their 2009-2011 marriage. She also has said that “he was not very religious” and that he “seemed like a normal human being.”
If it’s “normal” to beat your wife, that is. And of course, “not very religious” is not the same as “not religious at all”—nor does “not very religious in 2011” mean “not very religious in 2016.” The religion in question here is Islam. And since Mateen was shot dead by police (or he killed himself while under police fire; it’s not completely clear which), all that we will learn about his motives will come from family and friends/acquaintances, and whatever information he may have left behind on his computer and elsewhere.
His father (who has apologized) has said that Mateen was angered by “the sight of two men kissing” and that the attack “has nothing to do with religion.” That latter is very difficult to believe, particularly since “FBI Agent Ron Hopper told reporters Mateen may have had leanings toward Islamic extremism.” I’m not sure what that “may have” is based on, but my guess is that it’s based on something more than idle speculation.
Put it all together and you get a probable scenario: anti-gay attack by home-grown Islamic terrorist “known wolf.”
Mateen has another characteristic that makes him even more disturbing, although it’s quite disturbing enough already: he had “a valid firearms license in Florida and worked as a security guard at a facility for juvenile delinquents.” It sounds as though both things were still current, despite the FBI investigation.
As you might imagine, the scene in the nightclub was one of horror and chaos. The shooter also took some people hostage for a while. There’s little doubt that even more people would have been killed had the SWAT team not intervened.
And there’s also little doubt that various political groups will make use of this incident to further their own agenda. The left is probably very disappointed that, instead of being an anti-gay extremist on the right, the perpetrator was a Muslim. This does not fit their preferred narrative, but it’s not a surprise, given the attitude of Islam and most Muslim countries towards homosexuality. And of course, somehow this will be fit into a gun-control template (it already has, actually).
You can find many more articles and blog posts on the attack here.
To the victims and their families: RIP and condolences.
[NOTE: Some news reports are giving a death toll of 50, some 53.]
When I was a child there were a lot of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers movies shown on TV. I probably saw all of them (some, many many times), and I loved them.
Most of these movies displayed Astaire and Rogers as a sophisticated duo. Her ball gowns were part of the attraction—talk about Hollywood glamour! So many to choose from, but the ostrich feather gown might just be the most famous of all (best seen in motion):
Her “Swing Time” dress was deceptively simple, but showcased her fabulous body. Most women need a lot more assistance than Rogers did, front or back:
Last but not least, this:
But as much as I loved the glam, my favorite movie was an atypical one, “Follow the Fleet,” in which they played more ordinary folk (albeit excellent dancers, of course!). For me, there was just something about it—her shiny bell-bottomed costumes, his sailor suit, and particularly the semi-humorous, cocky choreography. Astaire and Hermes Pan (the creators of all the dances) never repeated themselves, and that’s what kept it ever-fresh. And Rogers not only kept up with the steps, but she infused them with a light grace and flair that made them seem not only improvised on the spot but the most wonderful of fun (songs: Irving Berlin):
According to Astaire, when they were first teamed together in Flying Down to Rio, “Ginger had never danced with a partner before. She faked it an awful lot. She couldn’t tap and she couldn’t do this and that … but Ginger had style and talent and improved as she went along. She got so that after a while everyone else who danced with me looked wrong.
Astaire was a great great dancer, Ginger a very very good one. But she complemented him so well, with her own special joie de vivre, that everyone else did look wrong.
I’ve been online for about 20 years, and it’s a huge part of my life these days.
It started small, as many habits do. I wanted to look up information on the nerve injuries I had, and the internet provided me (for the very first time, actually) with a way to do that as well as support groups for people who shared same the physical difficulties. I was elated; what a find! It was extraordinarily helpful in making me feel much less alone.
Another thing that attracted me right away was the internet’s ability to conjure up favorite literary excerpts. My son—who in 1995 already knew at least something about the internet and about me—showed me a trick he knew would strike a deep and resonant bell. “Just give me a line from a poem you like,” he said temptingly. When I responded, he typed in my answer and—lo and behold! Like magic, the entire poem appeared.
That was it for me; I was hooked. What a wondrous tool!
And so it has been. But early on—very early on—I discovered there was a dark side, a side that didn’t surprise me. Pornography, one of the oldest attractions and preoccupations of humankind, is probably the single most numerous topic online, and not all of it is of the mainstream type, to say the least. For a while, it was hard to block that sort of thing from your computer—it kept popping up unsolicited.
And it didn’t take too long for me to encounter trolls—in fact, one of my very first online experiences (a discussion board for nerve injuries) was to watch the predations of a vicious troll who initially masqueraded as a soothing avuncular type and who ended up messing heavily with the minds of vulnerable people.
Not long after that, I realized that anti-Semitism was also rife online. The internet gives this old hatred with a long pedigree new and sturdy legs. Do a search for some topic connected with the Holocaust, for example, and pretty quickly you would encounter the Holocaust deniers and websites devoted to spreading anti-Semitic lies about all manner of Jewish things and all points of Jewish history. These sites are slick, numerous, and wide-reaching, and I have little doubt that they have increased the number of anti-Semitic people in the world who are firmly convinced that they are privy to the truth about Jews.
Which brings us to the current campaign season, and the modern spread of anti-Semitism. I only heard of the following for the first time yesterday, via commenter OM (see this), but I noticed that today there’s a NY Times article about it:
The Anti-Defamation League added a new symbol this week to Hate on Display, its database of prominent white supremacist imagery. It’s called the “echo,” and it is used online to call attention to Jewish names in the news.
The symbol originated in 2014 on an anti-Semitic podcast, “The Daily Shoah,” which applied a novelty sound effect to Jewish names that made them echo ominously.
That practice then spread to blogs and Twitter, where the podcast’s creators and fans created a visual translation of the echo sound effect by placing three sets of parentheses around a Jewish name, like (((Cohen))) or (((Goldberg)))…
This is how a hate symbol rises in 2016: A podcast sound effect becomes a Twitter meme and a browser extension before it finally slithers into the physical world.
The “echo” is the first officially recognized symbol to emerge from the “alt-right,” a movement of white-and-proud extremists who are as obsessed with cultural memes as they are with white nationalism. They play fast and loose with white supremacist iconography, remixing it with pop culture and the sardonic tone of internet subculture. Their regressive message, cloaked in an ultramodern skin, is being spread online to a new generation of race warriors.
Of course, the alt-right is not solely composed of anti-Semites and white supremicists (nor, or course, are the ranks of Trump supporters). But it is folly to ignore the fact that there is a sizable proportion of the alt-right that does fit that description. Many people have an image of white supremicist anti-Semites as a bunch of inarticulate thugs, unsophisticated and not all that bright. Untrue; plenty of them are very knowledgeable about human behavior, just as they were in Nazi Germany. They may prey on the unsophisticated sometimes, but this is a polished, clever group that is especially internet-savvy.
They are also characterized by the left as being of “the right.” But they are not actually of the right—that’s why they call themselves the “alt-right.” They want to displace and then replace the current right by growing their own power and influence.
