More Notoriety
You can’t even pump your gas in this town without people interviewing you for a newspaper article (See next to last paragraph).
A YELLOW LIGHT FOR POLICE’S RACE PLAN
Experts and LI drivers say Suffolk police should proceed with caution in project to record race of those stopped for traffic violations
BY JENNIFER MALONEY
Newsday Staff Writer
July 12, 2006
Law enforcement experts and Suffolk residents reacted with skepticism yesterday to the Suffolk police department’s plan to gather data as a check against racial profiling.
The opinions came a day after Suffolk police said they are recording the race of drivers stopped on the Long Island Expressway and Sunrise Highway for routine traffic violations in an effort to document if cops are profiling residents by race. The department, which began the initiative about two months ago and will continue for the next six to 12 months, hopes the data gathered will help prove that Suffolk officers don’t give tickets more often to members of a particular race.
But many drivers interviewed yesterday objected to the method of gathering the data — and particularly to the fact that officers note the drivers’ race without consulting them.
“They’re assuming the race,” said Erica Lopez, 23, of Huntington Station. “What if I’m Italian? What if I’m black? That’s not going to get anything except some statistics that prove nothing.”
Peter Moskos, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, said the data gathered will be meaningless unless it is compared with statistics on how often different races commit traffic violations.
In New Jersey, a similar project showed that more blacks were pulled over for speeding than other races, he said. But an academic study later showed that blacks there were more likely to speed, he said.
“If it’s skewed, you need someone else to figure out if that’s justified or not, because it might be,” Moskos said.
Suffolk police spokesman Tim Motz said the department will consider “all potential statistical variables” when it analyzes the data. “It’s a very complex issue. They’re looking at everything.”
Motz did not say whether the department has access to statistics on how often different races commit traffic violations.
While many Suffolk drivers agreed yesterday that racial profiling occurs, some said gathering data on race will only exacerbate the problem.
“So they’re going to conduct racial profiling to test how much racial profiling they do?” said Shaun Richman, 27, a Queens resident who commutes to Hauppauge.
Others applauded the department’s effort. “I think it’s proactive,” said Marie Orlando, 43, of Brightwaters. “It’s not like they’re ignoring it.”
Bill O’Reilly’s Flying Circus
Four years ago, I was a guest on the “O’Reilly Factor,” part of a panel discussion on the income gap. It was a wonderfully surreal moment that, alas, I have yet to repeat. I just stumbled upon a transcript of the show. Below is a pretty funny bit that I believe is short enough that I can legally quote it.
Missing here is O’Reilly’s assertion that Cornell University is a socialist plot, “Parade” editor and DNC Treasurer Andrew Tobias inviting me to join the Democratic party, and, finally, Mr. O’Reilly brusquely ending the segment and announcing that Mel Gibson would be next after the commercials.
O’REILLY: OK, but here’s the deal. And you ought to know this, too, Shaun, is that for many years, I didn’t make any money. OK? And I lived in my younger time in a very frugal environment. OK? So I don’t believe that the government has the right, now that I’m successful, due to hard work and some luck, to come into my house and take my money and give it to other people, and they don’t even know what these people are going to do with it. That’s wrong, morally wrong.
…
RICHMAN: Are you living in poverty as a result of this 50 percent [tax rate]?
O’REILLY: Am I living in poverty? No, but what right do you or anybody else have, even in France, to take other peoples’ money and give it to somebody you don’t know? What right do you have, morally?
RICHMAN: It’s a basic system of fairness. Now when you weren’t making that money…
O’REILLY: Yes.
RICHMAN: When you were living in dire straits, wouldn’t it have been nicer to have a system where…
O’REILLY: No, I wouldn’t have taken a dime.
RICHMAN: You wouldn’t have taken a dime?
O’REILLY: No. Absolutely not.
RICHMAN: You would have died of tuberculosis?
O’REILLY: That’s right. And I wouldn’t have kids unless I could support them. That’s right, because I don’t believe in taking other peoples’ stuff and giving it to me. I won’t even take Social Security when I’m older. I’ll give it back or I’ll give it to charity. You see? That’s where you guys are wrong. You’re taking stuff, you’re making value judgments. You’re giving it to other people and you don’t know what those other people are going to do. That’s wrong. Am I wrong?
Why did they never invite me back?
My, Oh MySpace
This phenomenom of “social networking” websites certainly seems a lot odder when described by the mainstream media. To me and my friends, sites like Friendster and MySpace are harmlessly kooky ways to keep in touch and embarass each other with sarcastic tributary testimonials. They sound a lot more sinister when described by the AP in this wire story on a rash of statutory rape cases in Connecticut:
MySpace, one of several popular social networking sites, is a free service that allows people to create Web sites that can be personalized with information, pictures and movies. Searching for someone is as easy as typing the name of a high school and the photographic results are instantaneous.
…
Some teens keep their personal profiles scant, aimed only at their friends. Others describe their likes and dislikes, from the mundane to the profane, and encourage people to send them messages.“That is a perpetrator’s dream come true,” said Middletown Police Sgt. Bill McKenna.
Worse is the news that Massachusetts’ recent gay bar murderer left behind a personal MySpace profile, as did the ex-girlfriend that he murdered. Both profiles, as of this writing, live on beyond the expiration of their authors. Hers more sympathetic for her role as victim, her vain attempts to disguise advanced age, a blog posting sarcastically titled “oh..yes…plz stalk me, i love it” (someone – perhaps the murderer – was attempting to log in and steal her identity) and the worried comment written by a friend (after she was already killed) saying simply “i love you Jenn! I miss you a lot. I hope everything will be okay =/. I love you.”
My friend, Alan Amalgamated, jokes (half-jokes, really) that when fascism finally comes to America, they won’t have to torture us to get us to name names. We’ve already done that, voluntarily, on MySpace. As it is, my coworkers use MySpace to research members of the bargaining unit during organizing drives and journalists, it seems, search for the names of criminal newsmakers there before going to press.
I really don’t like MySpace. I prefer Friendster, because it’s a simpler, cleaner way to maintain a collection of profiles of friends I rarely see, and the testimonials are more thought-out and composed for posterity. It’s silly, but it’s a silliness that I control and limit.
MySpace – pawn of Rupert Murdoch – is superficial, voyeuristic, utterly commercial and totally juvenile. It aims to be a totality of interweb activity: exhibitionist instant messaging, blogarhea, rate my photo whoredom, music and video filesharing – you name it. It’s your life, youngster, complete with corporate sponsorship. For Gahd’s sake. Get the hell out, before it’s too late!
Citizen Roe
In another lifetime, Norma McCorvey was the anonymous Jane Roe who allowed herself to be used by the pro-choice movement as the plaintiff in the case that established the constitutional right to privacy and abortion, Roe vs. Wade.
In the intervening years, the radical right violated her right to privacy, tracked Ms. McCorvey down and exploited her own ambivalence over her personal tragedy and its use in national policy debate. They turned Jane Roe into a pro-lifer, as if the simple change of heart of a turncoat would invalidate the legal principles of Roe vs. Wade, and convince all women not to have abortions.
Since that “change of heart,” Ms. McCorvey has played a farcical role in the abortion debate, not unlike the titular (anti)hero of the movie, Citizen Ruth. The New York Times has dug her up one more time for an article published today, on a drug for ulcers that could also be used as a black market abortificant when the Roberts court inevitably overturns Roe Vs. Wade. Here’s what the erstwhile Roe had to say:
“When women start using these self-induced drugs, and start seeing body parts in their potty, they’re going to go bananas,” Miss McCorvey said. “And it’s going to be horrible.”
The Times did not identify any medical or scientific credentials for Ms. McCorvey, nor did it really identify her for speaking for any organization. Nope. Guess they just decided to interview a puppet for the fun of it.