RIP: Maya Plisetskaya

The New Neo Posted on by

[Hat tip: commenter “Alifa.”]

I just received the news that Russian dancer Maya Plisetskaya (whose full name should have been “the great Maya Plisetskaya”) has died at the age of 89 in Germany. Death appears to have come suddenly, of a massive heart attack, although she had seemed in excellent health.

You may not be familiar with the name; after all, it’s hardly a household word. That’s in part because her heyday was a long time ago, and it’s in part because as a politically suspect person (i.e. Jew, free spirit, and daughter of a man who was offed by the Gulag) she was not allowed to leave as often as she, and the dance world, would have preferred.

When I was a child I saw Plisetskaya in person on one of her rare visits, and it was a thrilling experience. That word “thrilling” is often overused, but it is a correct description of what it was like to watch her passionate performances. Most dancers are known for their feet, their extensions, and their long lines. She was known for her steely strength, her fiery personality (to match her red hair), her enormous and powerful jump, and her sinuous, otherworldly arms.

I have written many posts about Plisetskaya (this one is probably the most comprehensive). But I offer the following videos in an effort to capture just a small, small glimpse of two of her quintessential roles. Enjoy.

Pay particular attention to her solo in the last minute or so or of this one:

And this is the role in which I first saw her. I’ve previously described it this way:

my favorite role of hers by far was in an obscure and very funky old warhorse that is rarely, if ever, performed in this country. This was the ballet “Walpurgis Nacht” from the opera “Faust.” It featured revels in which Bacchantes and satyrs cavorted in what was meant, I suppose, to be an orgy (although I didn’t know it at the time).

Plisetskaya as head Bacchante wore a flaming red dress of flowing chiffon to match her flaming red hair. She seemed the very personification of lighthearted fun combined with wild and sensual abandon. Quite a heady mix for the times.

And as luck would have it, by the magic of You Tube, someone has posted part of a grainy old film of Plisetskaya performing this very dance, and so I’m able to reproduce it here and let you see at least a tiny bit of what I’m talking about. Remember that those were simpler times, and we were more easily impressed. Remember also that the film cannot even begin to give you a sense of the rare power and scope of Plisetskaya’s dancing. Remember that this film is in black and white, hardly a showcase for the vivid colors involved, and is a chopped-up excerpt from a longer work.

But, as I said, it’s all we’ve got at this point””and I, for one, was very glad to find it (note especially her leap at :56, her hops on pointe at 1:03, her languid and sensual pose at 1:10, and her hurling herself at her partner at 2:14-2:18):

There was no one like her. There never will be. RIP, Maya Plisetskaya.

Ulanova, the ballerina next door

The New Neo Posted on by

I saw the Russian dancer Galina Ulanova perform in person when I was very little, not long before her retirement at the age of fifty. She remains unique among all the dancers I’ve ever seen in person or in video.

Ulanova was not especially beautiful. Nor were her body proportions unusual—no swanlike neck, no long slender limbs, no highly arched feet, and although she was thin her ribcage was a trifle thick. And in the style of her times, she had no freakily high, gymnastic extensions. Nothing in her technique stood out: neither her flexibility nor her jump nor anything else. Everything about her body and her physical skills were somehow average—average, that is, for an excellent ballet dancer.

But technique wasn’t what made Ulanova great, for very very great she was. Very. She was a great actress, but her acting was of an unusual delicacy, although she also had that Russian drama and even, at times, schmaltz. But she never crossed the line into caricature, somehow, always remaining exceptionally natural and fluid. When Ulanova danced, you saw a very real person, and you believed her as that person.

For that reason she was not a great Odette, the Swan Queen, although she danced the role. Not for her was the transformation into the inhuman or the semi-human. The human was her domain, and not even princesses or queens. Her greatest roles were Juliet, and the innocent peasant girl Giselle who is betrayed by her lover Albrecht, a nobleman disguised as a peasant for the day. Giselle discovers his perfidy when Hilarion, a peasant lad who is in (unreciprocated) love with her, reveals it in several ways, most vividly by blowing Albrecht’s horn and calling forth a group of other nobles who proceed to bow to Albrecht and among whom he then takes his place.

Giselle, who despite being a peasant is fragile and delicate (this is a Romantic ballet, after all) with a weak heart, proceeds to go mad with grief. She relives the dance she and Albrecht had done earlier that day, originally a dance of joy but now transformed into one of sorrow and pain. It includes the playful daisy game of “he loves me, he loves me not” that has come to take on a terrible irony.

First, let’s look briefly at the dance they do earlier in the day. This clip is from a movie made when Ulanova was 46, practically geriatric in ballet terms. She is dancing the role of a very young girl, happily in love for the first time. Unfortunately, embedding is disabled for the movie clips, but just clink on this link. A good spot to start watching is at 4:21, and you need only watch for a minute to get the flavor of the dance (including the daisy part), although you’re certainly welcome to watch as much as you care to.

Now compare to Giselle’s “mad” scene from the same movie. Click on the link and start watching at minute 1:32, when Hilarion blows the horn that begins the denouement. Ulanova, in Giselle’s traditional Wedgewood-blue bodice, stands with her back to the camera at that point; that is her mother who is embracing and trying to comfort her. As for Albrecht, he’s still got the black vest and the little black shorts on. Back in those days (this was 1956), tights on men were considered too risque for the Russian ballet stage, and so they had to wear those itty-bitty bloomers. The woman in the elegant white dress whose hand he kisses is his real betrothed, who knows nothing of what he’s done to Giselle (who is his fake betrothed; he has proposed to her, too, earlier in the day). And the necklace that Giselle flings off after becoming aware of his betrayal had been given to her earlier in the day by that same women when Giselle had told her that she, too, was engaged to be married (of course, neither woman knew at the time they were engaged to the same lucky guy).

Enjoy. I think you’ll see what I mean about Ulanova.

Here’s the scene beginning a bit later:

One of Ulanova’s greatest achievements was the fact that she was unafraid of looking ungraceful when the dramatic demands of the part called for it. Sometimes she even deliberately came perilously close to awkward. She was not so concerned with always presenting a pretty picture even in grief.

For example, compare to another Russian Giselle, Bessmertnova. She’s a great dancer as well, but not as great to me in this role because she always remains mannered. You are always aware that she’s “dancing”:

Here’s an even more recent Russian dancer (I suggest you start at minute 1:08):

Those performances by fellow Russians are all considered great, but see how much they resemble each other (and many other dancers as well). Ulanova? Absolutely unique.

Speaking of unique—here is Ulanova at 86, coaching, and playing “show, don’t tell”:

Here is one of Ulanova’s most famous moments, Juliet’s run to Friar Laurence’s cell. Running isn’t easy for ballet dancers; they tend to look very mannered. Ulanova is the best runner in the ballet world, IMHO. It’s a long video, and if you want to cut to the chase (as it were) go to minute 4:23 for the run:

Lessons on change and activism

The New Neo Posted on by

Here’s an extremely interesting segment from “This American Life” about how change—political change and change in general—occurs [hat tip: Vanderleun].

I’ve studied change. I’ve observed it. I’ve experienced it. I’ve tried to effect it, but haven’t we all? Therapists, teachers, clergymen, friends, politicians, hairdressers, parents (and even spouses, and not just by divorce but by coercion, persuasion, ultimatum, complaint, reward, and anything else we can think of even though we’re told the effort is probably doomed).

The American Life piece contains a possible blueprint for a political activist plan for the right (commenter “Eric,” are you there?), based on what the left did in California re gay marriage and abortion. Edifying.

[NOTE: Slightly related—what does it mean to be a neocon? In my opinion, Powers is incorrect (neocons are not necessarily for military solutions, and people who are for military solutions are not necessarily neocons). But she is articulating a common use of the word “neocon.” See the category “neocon” on the right sidebar for links to my articles on the subject.]

Princess TBA is born

The New Neo Posted on by

You may not care about it, but this news makes me happy:

Kate Middleton looks better a few hours after giving birth than 99.9999% of the people in the world at their most gussed-up moments. Of course, it helps to have a staff, but most of us would need more than a staff to even come close.

He’s no slouch, either.

Freddie Gray’s cause of death

The New Neo Posted on by

I have been trying to find some very specific information on what the medical report on Freddie Gray actually said. But other than that there was a neck fracture, that he had a head injury that may have been caused by contact with a bolt on a rear door of the van, and that his death was ruled a homicide, there’s not much. And I’m having trouble finding anything even remotely like an official quote from a medical examiner’s report even on those things. The information we have appears to be based on a combination of leaks about the examiner’s report, some early statements by Gray’s family about his condition, and the prosecutor’s statements that do not appear to include quotes from the examiner’s report.

So what did Gray actually die from in the strictly medical sense? A neck injury? Or a head injury supposedly from the bolt? Or a neck injury caused by the same blow that caused the head injury? He was in the hospital for about a week after the incident; was he in a coma? Was life support withdrawn? It would really be helpful to know the details, but we know even fewer of them than we did at this point in the Michael Brown case, and note that much of what we knew or thought we knew back then in the Brown case was wrong and later corrected. Will that also happen in this case?

Prosecutor Mosby has asserted the following in her statement:

—that the medical examiner has determined “that Mr. Gray’s death was a homicide”
—that “Mr. Gray suffered a severe and critical neck injury as a result of being handcuffed, shackled by his feet and unrestrained inside of the BPD wagon.’
—that while in the van during an encounter with the driver and another police officer, Gray “requested help and indicated that he could not breathe.” Gray also asked for a medic, but the officers “officers assessed Mr. Gray’s condition” and did not “render or request medical assistance.” Absent from her statement is any indication of what they observed Gray’s physical condition to be at that point. Other than their reports on it, the medical examiner would have no way to know.
—that “Despite Mr. Gray’s obvious and recognized need for medical assistance” at the point, there was a further delay to pick up another suspect. Again, Mosby does not say what that obvious and recognized need was, other than that Gray requested it (something prisoners often do). While it is certainly possible that Mosty has that information and that it implicates the officers and indicates negligence, she has not described what it is other than Gray’s request.
—later when more police officers are involved, Gray is seen “unresponsive on the floor of the wagon.” At this point medical aid still is not obtained for him. This seems the first time we get a picture of something more than a man complaining: we have an “unresponsive” person who may or may not be unconscious, but it seems to clearly be a medical problem that needed attending (especially if “unresponsive” “unconscious”).
—right after dropping off the other suspect they had picked up, they took a closer look at Gray and found he:

…was no longer breathing at all. A medic was finally called to the scene where upon arrival, the medic determined Mr. Gray was now in cardiac arrest and was critically and severely injured.

Mr. Gray was rushed to the University of Maryland Shock Trauma where he underwent surgery. On April 19, 2015, Mr. Gray succumbed to his injuries and was pronounced dead. The manner of death deemed homicide by the Maryland Medical Examiner is believed to be the result of a fatal injury that occurred while Mr. Gray was unrestrained by a seatbelt in the custody of the Baltimore Police Department wagon.

That is the sum total of the information revealed by Mosby as to Freddie Gray’s cause of death.

New information (to me, anyway) was that he had gone into cardiac arrest in the van. And yet he must have been resuscitated afterward, because he lived another week or so, albeit perhaps on life support. Early reports were that Gray’s family had indicated he was on life support and had suffered a spinal injury, but Mosby does not address those issues, and I have not found any word from an official source about his medical condition at the time.

In what way did Gray’s spinal injury contribute to his cause of death? Did it cause cessation of breathing, which then led to a cardiac arrest? Was there brain damage? Could the cardiac arrest have been from another cause? Was he ever conscious after being found in that state? What did the toxicology report say, since depression of breathing can also be caused by drug ingestion?

Perhaps most importantly of all, how could the medical examiner say at this point that Gray’s death was a homicide, absent a gunshot wound to a vital organ or signs of something like strangulation or a massive head injury caused by a blow to the head delivered by a person? Even if the examiner has correctly determined that Gray’s head wound and/or neck injury was the proximate cause of death, and that the injury was likely to have occurred in the van and even that it was caused by Gray’s head hitting the back of the van, how would the examinier know how that injury came to occur given that, although there was no evidence of a vehicular accident or even the speculated “rough ride,” the injury could have been self-inflicted or the result of an unintentional jolt to the van (a large pothole, for example)? How could a medical examiner be the one making the determination that a failure to belt Gray in was evidence of a homicide, which would seem to be a legal, not a medical, judgment?

Perhaps the medical examiner said there was a suspicion or a possibility of homicide. I would think that could be enough for probable cause, or at least further investigation. But the prosecutor didn’t state it that way, and we don’t know.

In summary, the entire matter seems extremely unclear at this point.

Andrew Branca on the charges in the Freddie Gray case

The New Neo Posted on by

Andrew Branca is a lawyer I highly respect who writes at the blog Legal Insurrection (full disclosure: I write there at times, too). He did yeoman’s service in blogging about the Zimmerman and Ferguson cases, as well as many others, and he’s always worth reading.

Here’s his take on the sparse evidence offered so far to support the charges in the Freddie Gray case.

[ADDENDUM:Branca has another fine post here. The topic this time is the legality or illegality of Freddie Gray’s knife and therefore of his arrest. The prosecutor has asserted that the knife was legal in Maryland, but Branca argues that it may have been illegal in the city of Baltimore, which has its own municipal laws (as New York City does, which I mentioned previously here).

What’s more, police are not required to ascertain for certain that a crime has occurred when they arrest someone. It’s enough that they have a reasonable suspicion that it has:

In the Gray instance, the arresting officer may in fact have been mistaken about whether a spring-assisted knife falls within the statutory prohibition on possession of a switchblade, or on whether Gray’s possession of the knife while (presumably) on probation was an offense subject to arrest.

But unless he actually knew or reasonably should have known either of those possibilities to be the case, legally-speaking probable cause for the arrest existed, and the arrest itself was not a crime.

Again, if the officer were mistaken the arrest may be defective for purposes of further prosecution. But this does not mean that an officer is limited to making an arrest only in circumstances where criminal conduct is a legal and moral certainty.

A society in which this were required, or permitted would be, I expect, a society that most Americans would find an unpleasant place to live.

Thus, even if it turns out that the knife was legal and that Freddie Gray were legally permitted to possess the knife under the circumstances, if the police officer reasonably believed that either of these were offenses subject to arrest, and neither knew or should have known that this belief was incorrect at the time of the arrest, then there existed probable cause for the arrest, and the arrest itself is entirely lawful from the context of that officer’s conduct.

That is the law as I understand it, as well.

See also this.]

My brain made me do it!

The New Neo Posted on by

Everyone who diets knows how hard it can be. Here’s another discovery that, if true, shows one of the many reasons why:

He explains that these [specialized AGRP] neurons read circulating signals in the blood to detect when an animal has started to lose weight. The neurons then increase their activity and, in turn, release neurotransmitters that increase appetite. “We showed that the neurons transmit a signal with negative valence that is shut off by nutritive food,” he states. “And this is likely important for learning what satisfies hunger when an animal is losing weight. Therefore, these neurons are part of a motivational system to force an animal to satisfy its physiological needs.” So part of the motivation for seeking food is to simply shut these neurons off.

…“Through a mechanism that is not currently well understood, your body defends a narrow range of body weight,” adds Sternson. “So if you fall below this range, these neurons are instrumental in fighting that process.”

You can fight it for a while. But that can set up a struggle so intense that sooner or later the dieter succumbs to the siren call of the AGRPs.

And please, please, please, let’s not reawaken the old Paleo/Atkins/Taubes arguments that engulf every diet thread I’ve ever started. See, for example, this and this, if you want to stroll down memory lane.

Prosecutors will charge police in Freddie Gray case

The New Neo Posted on by

The Baltimore prosecutor has made a decision:

State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby, the chief prosecutor for Baltimore, announced this morning that her office has also found probable cause to pursue criminal charges in connection to the case.

Five of the six police officers are now in custody, Baltimore mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake confirmed this afternoon.

Mosby announced a series of charges now facing the six police officers involved in putting Gray in custody and transporting him in the police wagon on the morning of April 12. The charges vary for each individual, but include several counts of manslaughter, second-degree assault, misconduct in office, and false imprisonment among others. The most serious charge she listed was second-degree depraved heart murder, which only one officer faces.

“Depraved-heart murder” (a term I’d never heard before) is defined as an unintentional killing with “extreme indifference to the value of human life.” The article also mentions that, according to the prosecutor:

…the decision to take Gray into custody in the first place was unwarranted because the knife that he had is allowed under Baltimore laws. While the knife was able to fold, it was not a switchblade.

What’s the difference between a folding knife and a switchblade?:

It is important to remember that the natural position of the switchblade knife is OPEN, it is held closed only by the locking mechanism.

On the other hand, the natural position of the spring assisted opening knife is CLOSED. There is no pressure being exerted upon the blade, and there is no button to push…

Performance wise, there is very little (if any) difference in the opening speed of a switchblade and a spring assisted knife. However, the differences in the way they are made make the spring assisted knives legal in all 50 U.S. states (They are not legal in the 5 boroughs of New York City…)

On reading this article by attorney Andrew Branca at Legal Insurrection, I conclude that this fact would be relevant to the decision to take Gray into custody. Branca writes [you have to read Branca’s entire article to learn what a “Terry stop” is, but it describes the SCOTUS rule that established the basis for what’s called a “stop” by police]:

In the context of Freddie Gray, we’ve already seen that the Constitutional basis for a Terry stop was present.

Upon making the Terry stop, the police report that they frisked Gray, and felt the presence of a folding knife in his pocket.

Upon securing the pocket knife, they observed that it was of a type unlawful to possess in Baltimore, and thus contraband.

The discovery of Gray in possession of contraband forms the probable cause for charging Gray’s with the relevant crime and effecting his arrest.

But since the blade in question was apparently not contraband (and the police could be presumed to know the difference between the two types of blades), that is what would make the arrest illegal.

Note that none of the charges involves deliberate murder.

My prediction, for what it’s worth, is that police officers will be found guilty of some sort of negligence (some of them or at least one of them) based on putting Gray in the van without belting him and failing to respond to his strong assertions that he was injured. And my guess is that the cop who is charged with second-degree depraved heart murder was either the one who put him in the van and didn’t belt him in, or the driver (this indicates it’s the driver, but I haven’t seen that reported anywhere else).

Seat belts are extremely important in assuring that the person in the van is protected, both from any sort of jostling or accident, and even from him/herself. So the failure to belt was arguably negligent even if it turns out that somehow Freddie Gray caused his own neck injury by his own actions. As for the seat belt directive, there’s this (which would not necessarily exonerate the officers, either, but which might possibly go towards the issue of their state of mind):

But the president of the Baltimore police union noted that the policy mandating seat belts took effect April 3 and was e-mailed to officers as part of a package of five policy changes on April 9, three days before Gray was arrested.

Gene Ryan, the police union president, said many officers aren’t reading the new policies ”” updated to meet new national standards ”” because they think they’re the same rules they already know, with cosmetic changes. The updates are supposed to be read out during pre-shift meetings.

The previous policy was written in 1997, when the department used smaller, boxier wagons that officers called “ice cream trucks.” They originally had a metal bar that prisoners had to hold during the ride. Seat belts were added later, but the policy made their use discretionary.

Further questions I’d like answered: was it common or uncommon prior to that to not belt in a prisoner, and are there any benign reasons for failing to do so? Or would it always be due to negligence and/or malign intent?

The only new facts in today’s announcement (other than the fact that they will be charged) is the nature of the knife and its legality. As for the rest, it had already seemed clear quite some time ago that there was at the very least probable cause to charge for the failure to belt and the failure to get timely medical help.

One thing I can pretty much predict: whatever the outcome, there are many people who will not be satisfied. If the police are not found guilty, or if just one is found guilty, or if they are not found guilty of a serious enough crime, there will be further unrest. Some people will be upset if they’re not found guilty of first degree murder—but since they’re not even being charged with that, it’s pretty much guaranteed that they won’t be found guilty of it.

Another thing: I would imagine that the AG may step in and investigate whether this is a racially motivated crime, and that (whatever the finding on that) use it as a stepping stone to investigate the entire police department. But as soon as I typed that sentence, I realized that it may already have been done. Sure enough, the DOJ had already announced on April 21 that they were opening a probe. And strangely enough (or perhaps not so strangely), the Balimore PD has already been under the thumb of the DOJ in what’s called a “collaborative review” ever since last October.

Davis detailed the plans to work with city leaders and outside consultants in the next 30 months to curb future abuses by police officers.

Policing consultants, working with federal officials, plan to start interviewing community members, elected leaders, officers and union officials within weeks. They plan to ride with officers and examine the culture, practices, policies, supervision and oversight in the department.

Davis said federal officials would be “very blunt” in identifying deficiencies and holding officials accountable to rebuild the trust with residents.

I guess they hadn’t gotten very far yet.

The big picture here is that relations between police and the people in the city of Baltimore seem to have been bad for a long, long time. It may have been spiraling out of control in an ever-ascending loop in high crime areas, in which the more angry the residents became the more defensive and angry the police became, and the more defensive and angry the police became the more angry the residents became, and everyone ended up feeling endangered, angry, and justified in their anger. This doesn’t seem to be primarily a racism issue, either, since all the city officials seem to be black and the community is majority black as well.

[NOTE: I can’t find any reliable information that indicates the race of the officers who were charged, although I’ve read unofficial reports that they are all white.]

[UPDATE: According to this article, at least two of the charged officers appear to be black.]

Police brutality and race

The New Neo Posted on by

The following was written by David Simon, who so far as I can tell is a not just a liberal but a leftist. He’s lived in Baltimore for a long, long time, used to be a police reporter for The Baltimore Sun, and is “creator, executive producer and head writer of the HBO television series ‘The Wire.’”

Simon believes that Baltimore’s policing problem got much worse with the intensification of the drug war, which he thinks is a function of class, as he explains in the following. But his leftist boilerplate is not why I’m highlighting what he says; it is because of some of his observations about the behavior of black police officers in Baltimore:

When Ed [former homicide detective Ed Burns] and I reported “The Corner,” [a book they wrote together in 1997 about an inner-city neighborhood in Baltimore] it became clear that the most brutal cops in our sector of the Western District were black. The guys who would really kick your ass without thinking twice were black officers. If I had to guess and put a name on it, I’d say that at some point, the drug war was as much a function of class and social control as it was of racism. I think the two agendas are inextricably linked, and where one picks up and the other ends is hard to say. But when you have African-American officers beating the dog-piss out of people they’re supposed to be policing, and there isn’t a white guy in the equation on a street level, it’s pretty remarkable. But in some ways they were empowered. Back then, even before the advent of cell phones and digital cameras ”” which have been transforming in terms of documenting police violence ”” back then, you were much more vulnerable if you were white and you wanted to wail on somebody. You take out your nightstick and you’re white and you start hitting somebody, it has a completely different dynamic than if you were a black officer. It was simply safer to be brutal if you were black, and I didn’t know quite what to do with that fact other than report it. It was as disturbing a dynamic as I could imagine. Something had been removed from the equation that gave white officers ”” however brutal they wanted to be, or however brutal they thought the moment required ”” it gave them pause before pulling out a nightstick and going at it. Some African American officers seemed to feel no such pause…

What the drug war did, though, was make this all a function of social control. This was simply about keeping the poor down, and that war footing has been an excuse for everybody to operate outside the realm of procedure and law.

Simon goes on to say this:

The drug war began it, certainly, but the stake through the heart of police procedure in Baltimore was Martin O’Malley. He destroyed police work in some real respects. Whatever was left of it when he took over the police department, if there were two bricks together that were the suggestion of an edifice that you could have called meaningful police work, he found a way to pull them apart.

Simon goes on to explain how it was done. It’s way too long to quote here; just go there and read if you’re interested.

I have no way to know the truth or falsehood of Simon’s description; I certainly don’t have my finger on the pulse of the Baltimore PD. But let’s just say it’s true, for the sake of argument. If so, what would that indicate about the ability of liberal Democratic administrations to deal with inner-city crime fairly and effectively? Not much. Martin O’Malley is, of course, a liberal Democrat and one of Hillary Clinton’s biggest Democratic challengers. Simon says this about that:

…hey, if [O’Malley is] the Democratic nominee, I’m going to end up voting for him. It’s not personal and I admire some of his other stances on the death penalty and gay rights.

So despite Simon’s excoriation of O’Malley’s approach to crime (Simon goes on and on about it at great length), there’s no way Simon is going to defect from the party and vote for a Republican, any Republican. That’s just the way it is.

The following part of Simon’s essay seems particularly confused. It’s the moment where his recitation of the leftist line comes up against his actual observations, and he doesn’t see the contradiction between the two:

I’d say that at some point, the drug war was as much a function of class and social control as it was of racism. I think the two agendas are inextricably linked…

He never defines “class” or “social control,” but the behavior of the black officers he has just described as being so brutal in the service of the drug war (more brutal even than the white officers) clearly undercuts the idea that race has much (or anything) to do with this. Nor (at least when last I checked) are police officers, black or white, members of some privileged class in the economic sense. It’s not unusual for them to have come up on the mean streets that are the same ones (or similar to) the ones they patrol, and while their pay is decent and therefore certainly above poverty level (it tends to average in the 50K range), that isn’t particularly high in this day and age, especially considering the risks they take. If he’s thinking that this is a class war, it would have to be between the working class and those at or below poverty level, a division which seems to me to be a function more of work ethic than anything else. You don’t get a lot of rich privileged kids becoming cops.

As for “social control”—well, isn’t that the goal of police work? I’m stumped by that one. How can you have law and order without some method of controlling people’s behavior in order to discourage and/or punish lawlessness?

I don’t doubt that there are many corrupt police. But Democratic administrations certainly don’t prevent or reduce that corruption—as Simon has no doubt noticed himself. Much of it is inherent in the job—the temptations are fierce, the push towards cynicism intense, and the opportunities rife. That has little to do with race and everything to do with human nature.

But hey, vote Democrat and it will all be better.

[NOTE: One more thing—the following passage of Simon’s leapt out at me, as well:

Two things get your ass kicked faster than anything: one is making a cop run. If he catches you, you’re 18 years old, you’ve got fucking Nikes, he’s got cop shoes, he’s wearing a utility belt, if you fucking run and he catches you, you’re gonna take some lumps. That’s always been part of the code. Rodney King could’ve quoted that much of it to you.

That’s typical of Simon’s language and his “I’m a tough and realistic guy with tough and realistic talk who’s willing to tell it like it is” stance. But what is he actually saying? That King was beaten because he ran? But it didn’t happen that way at all. King didn’t “run,” he led the cops on a fairly lengthy and dangerous high-speed car chase, and then he actively resisted arrest by charging them. The famous videotape only showed the aftermath; earlier parts were withheld from the public and came out later, at the trial. I guess Simon didn’t get the memo.

Here’s more on the King case. See also this. King was speeding and drunk when the police first tried to pull him over, and he later admitted that he led them on the chase because he knew a drunk driving conviction would be a violation of his parole for a previous robbery conviction. Here’s the sort of chase it was. It started on the freeway, but then:

…continued through residential surface streets, at speeds ranging from 55 to 80 miles per hour. By this point, several police cars and a police helicopter had joined the pursuit. After approximately eight miles, officers cornered King in his car at the corner of Foothill Boulevard and Osborne Street.

I wonder what Simon thought the police should have done with a guy who was very drunk and driving hazardously before the chase began. Was it too classist and too socially controlling of them to pursue him and then try to arrest him, which involved subduing him? What if he had killed someone with his car that night? And what does Simon think should be done with people who are addicted to drugs and/or alcohol, like King?

King always seemed to me like a man whose primary problem was his addiction to alcohol and drugs, and his propensity for bad behavior when under the influence of either or both. The remainder of his life played it out (including his repeated failures with rehab programs):

King continued to get into trouble after the 1991 incident. On August 21, 1993, he crashed his car into a block wall in downtown Los Angeles. He was convicted of driving under the influence of alcohol, fined, entered an alcohol rehabilitation program and was placed on probation. In July 1995, he was arrested by Alhambra police after hitting his wife with his car and knocking her to the ground. He was sentenced to 90 days in jail after being convicted of hit and run. King invested a portion of his settlement in a record label, Straight Alta-Pazz Records, which went under. On August 27, 2003, King was arrested again for speeding and running a red light while under the influence of alcohol. He failed to yield to police officers and slammed his vehicle into a house, breaking his pelvis…

In May 2008, King checked into the Pasadena Recovery Center in Pasadena, California…

In 2009, King and other Celebrity Rehab alumni appeared as panel speakers to a new group of addicts at the Pasadena Recovery Center, marking 11 months of sobriety for him.

…On March 3, 2011, the 20th anniversary of the beating, the LAPD stopped King for driving erratically and issued him a citation for driving with an expired license. This arrest led to his February 2012 misdemeanor conviction for reckless driving…

On June 17, 2012, King’s fiancée Cynthia Kelly found him lying at the bottom of his swimming pool…On August 23, 2012, King’s autopsy results were released, stating he died of accidental drowning, and alcohol, cocaine, marijuana, and PCP found in his system were contributing factors. “The effects of the drugs and alcohol, combined with the subject’s heart condition, probably precipitated a cardiac arrhythmia and the subject, thus incapacitated, was unable to save himself and drowned.”

It’s a sad story, and one that has often been distorted by activists in order to make political points.]

The Globe joins in on the Clinton Foundation’s irregularities

The New Neo Posted on by

The Boston Globe is every bit as liberal a paper as the New York Times, and both of them are offering a fair amount of criticism of the Clinton Foundation’s suspicious slip-ups.

From the Globe:

An unprecedented ethics promise that played a pivotal role in helping Hillary Rodham Clinton win confirmation as secretary of state, soothing senators’ concerns about conflicts of interests with Clinton family charities, was uniformly bypassed by the biggest of the philanthropies involved.

The Clinton Health Access Initiative never submitted information on any foreign donations to State Department lawyers for review during Clinton’s tenure from 2009 to 2013, Maura Daley, the organization’s spokeswoman, acknowledged to the Globe this week. She said the charity deemed it unnecessary, except in one case that she described as an “oversight.”

During that time, grants from foreign governments increased by tens of millions of dollars to the Boston-based organization.

I continue to think that this criticism by the liberal press has a twofold purpose: the first is to try to get a candidate who is more to the left (leading example is Massachusetts’ own, Elizabeth Warren) to challenge Hillary and win the nomination and the election.

The second motivation is that if that fails to happen and Hillary wins the nomination, the news will have been thoroughly aired already—and the narrative controlled and shaped by the liberal press rather than conservatives—and by then most people will be yawning at it the way they are at the Benghazi story.

Update on the Freddie Gray case

The New Neo Posted on by

The Baltimore police have delivered a report to a prosecutor that contains the following new information: “The police van carrying Gray to the station made a previously undisclosed stop that was captured on a ‘privately owned camera.'” That’s all we know about it, so we don’t know whether this will end up being vital information in determining what really happened or not.

In addition, “five of the six officers gave statements to investigators the day Gray was injured, and as recently as a week ago, the stop was not part of the official timeline, suggesting investigators learned of it later.”

In other Gray-related news, The Baltimore Sun reports that Gray doesn’t seem to have had a pre-existing car accident or previous neck injury.

And this from Munir Bahar (who sounds like an unusually sensible man):

…[F]ounder of the 300 Men March movement that aims to act as a “neutral force” between police and the rioters amid the protests in Baltimore, [Bahar] slammed the “professional agitators and protesters” from out of town who he said are wreaking havoc on his city…

“When this happened to Freddie Gray, this was sort of an invite for people to come into this community [and say], ”˜Let’s set up shop, and now this is going to be the new national post where we’re going to air all of our frustrations for everything wrong with our country and the government,’” Bahar remarked.

Yes, there are many people on the left who would like cities to go up in flames, and who are willing to devote some energy to making that happen.