Today's Depressing Realization

It's becoming more probable that the seeming rise in over-aggressive police response needs to be understood in the context of Roid Rage.

David Krajicek, committing deliberate acts of Journalism over at AlterNet:

Many police agencies now focus on testing individual officers identified as possible juicers under “reasonable suspicion” or “for cause” guidelines.

I asked James Pasco, director of legislative advocacy for the 325,000-member Fraternal Order of Police, how many of the nation’s 18,000 agencies currently test officers for steroids.

“I have no idea,” he replied.

It seems nobody does. Since there is no systematic national data collection on testing and results, the number of officers disciplined each year for steroids is unknowable—a potentially important criminal justice data point that is lost down an information black hole.

--and--

“I keep seeing all of these cases where the level of anger and violence shown by officers makes no sense," Gilbertson says. "And when things don’t make sense, they don’t make sense for a reason…Maybe steroid rage is a reason so many police officers seem so angry and aggressive.”

"Suddenly" it's a not a matter of perception - it doesn't just seem like the cops are goin' a little nutty.  There's a real explanation available, and we need to start looking at these things in this new light.

And also too - lotsa cops are coming out of the US Military, where the use of Roids and HGH (et al) is one of the worst-kept secrets ever.

Sometimes, they're just random dots, but sometimes they connect up quite elegantly.

Need any more reasons we should try a little harder to stay the fuck outa the war bidness?

Wrapped In The Flag

via Wonkette:

Hooray! The spirit of McCarthyism is alive and well in Hastings, Nebraska, where for the first time in ages, the local school district has asked all its teachers to comply with a 1951 state law requiring all teachers to sign a loyalty oath. After teachers complained, the ACLU warned the district that it’s begging for a lawsuit, but the school’s attorney advised the superintendent that the law is still valid and probably should be followed. Besides, isn’t Real Americanism all about making people pledge to support democracy and freedom, whether they want to or not, and also judging whether they’re patriotic enough?

I really kinda love it when these "Conservative Capitalists" start muckin' about in things they need us to believe they understand perfectly, when the very things they say and do always point directly to the conclusion that they really don't understand jack shit - 'specially when it comes to American Democracy.

Look, guys - in your Randian Utopia of the perfect Free Market system, your "fact" that All Things Communist are bad and that All Things USAmerica Inc are glorious would be obvious because the Marketplace of Ideas would make it obvious without having to use Big Gubmint to force everybody to buy in.  Do ya kinda see the problem?

But that's not what it's about, is it?  It's that Sinclair Lewis quote about how fascism comes to America, isn't it?  A lot of us were fooled for a good long time.  I think that number may be starting to drop rapidly.  I can hope so anyway.

Messy And Uncomfortable

“No campaign, and no movement has ever prevailed by trying to stay comfortable. You’re supposed to have messy, awkward, painful moments, and get stronger by working past them. That’s what the work requires, and that’s how you get strong enough to do the work, together.” --Jay Smooth

Today's Sing-Along

hat tip = swilton (Democratic Underground)

Today's Oliver

At church last night, The Right Reverend John Oliver broke through to my heart of hearts and I felt the light of the lord shining down upon me as he lifted me up and carried away my worldly sorrows on the wings of angels.

Or maybe what I felt was one hard hand on the back of my collar as he bent me over and then went thru my pockets with the other.  Not sure - mysterious is the way of the lord, brothers and sisters.  Amen, and pass the lube.

And again - why is a weekly comedy show among the very few places we find anyone trying to do some real Journalism-ing?

And also too again - wanna know why "the legitimate press" is dying?  Watch almost anything on TV or read almost anything in any of the dead tree publications that're still around; compare it with Last Week Tonight and then tell me you're still wondering.

Get Somebody Working On This

Kelly fell flat and Rosie got after her.  And yet somehow the story became all about Rosie Perez being pressured first to make an on-air apology to Kelly Osbourne, and then more or less forced out all together.

A silly buncha baloney, and there's prob'ly way more to it than that - I think so because Bill Wolff is (or should be; or used to be) a shitload better producer than that - but mostly it was a big-time missed opportunity. Perez only heard the part of Osborne's comment that was sure to trigger a negative knee-jerk reaction. Certainly understandable, but it seems pretty obvious Osborne actually meant to show some solidarity with Latinos - in a typically clumsy and over-compensating way that privileged white librul legacy pukes have a knack for doing (been there. done that. got t-shirts, hats, key chains - all kinds of shit), but still.

Anyway, if we can figure out how to let people make the kinda mistakes Kelly Osborne and Rosie Perez made without the whole world blowing up in their faces, then maybe we can have a conversation that leads somewhere other than some fucked up twitter war or facebook feud or media spat or whatever. 

Ever notice how we never end up talking about possible solutions for any of these problems?

Gee, it's almost as if somebody is working really hard to make sure we're only allowed to choose a side and then talk shit about "those people".

So I'm not making excuses for Kelly Osbourne, and I'm not blaming Rosie for reacting the way she did, and I'm not doing any bullshit Both-Sides thing with it. I'm saying we need to take chances; we need to cut each other a little slack; and we need to try to do better.

Brother Jay:

Something To Remember

By way of an interesting piece at Yahoo Politics:

But Trumpmania may be telling us a lot less about the dominant mood in the electorate at large than we think. As one of the more astute liberal bloggers, Mother Jones’ Kevin Drum, points out, Trump has been drawing the support of less than a quarter of Republican primary voters, who in turn make up less than a quarter of the voting public.

I suck at math, but I'm OK with 'rithmetic, so even I can figure out that ¼ of ¼ = 6.25% of the total vote.

So that means Hillary will win in 2016 by whatever substantial margin our Corporate Media Manipulators allow, which will be a landslide at about 52% - 48%.

Fair Warning - watch out for the Both-Sides crap that pops out near the end.  It's mild by current standards, but it's there.

Illusory Things

Carlin said it: "...we're given the illusion of choice..."

We see 22 different names on bottles of bourbon, and 30 different names on bags of potato chips, and 18 GOP candidates running for POTUS, and and and.

How pissed are the Teabaggers gonna be when they figure out they've been punked into pimping for Big Gubmint all along?  Just kidding - this is possibly the only place you're ever likely to find "Teabaggers" and "figure out" in the same sentence, so the rubes will remain safely encased in their Igno-rama-tron®, keeping the rest of us "safe", at least in terms of not being splattered by flying body tissue when the baggers' "brains" explode.

BTW: as always, just in case anybody's trying to take what I say and turn it into a Both-Sides thing - bullshit.  There's a difference.  And if you like to pretend you're above it all - stop it; just fucking stop.  

If you like the way things are; if you prefer having everything fucked up and getting more fucked up pretty much every day, then stay home and be the asshole who could've done something about it, but made a conscious decision not to.

More Oliver

Best thing to think about right now (and why we desperately need guys like John Oliver): there's something like 450 days before the next election, which means babies will be born before November 2016 whose parents haven't even met yet.

So Here I Am Again

Enjoyed my time away from most things.  I'm pretty much all moved into the new joint now,  so if I haven't lost everybody yet, I'll just try to slide on up in here and get back to pretending I'm making some kinda headway.

Listening to a Car Talk rerun last week while I was off in search of a laundromat, I decided to steal this bit, and try to add some of my own.  It was generally about women knowing what they know and having the good sense to say "I don't know" when appropriate, while a man will just jump into it whether he knows anything or not (stoopid men).

BTW, I guess this is where you should feel free to insert your rant about Reverse Sexism or Man Bashing or Men's Rights or whatever silly shit you can think of to remove all doubt that you really are a testosterone poisoned ape-child who's so blissfully ignorant of your own egocentric arrogance and so deeply in denial of being born to Manly Privilege that you're thoroughly terrified that somebody will gain some equality of power, which means, even tho' you don't know it - or you just can't bear to admit it - that you're simply terrified somebody could start treating you exactly the same as you've been treating them.

So anyway:

The guy who can't manage not to get into a screaming match with his own family over Thanksgiving dinner is the same guy who thinks he has the perfect solutions for problems in the Middle East.

The guy who never bothers to balance his check book, and has a world of trouble with his credit card debt knows what to do about tax revenues and budget deficits and the Federal Reserve system and fiat currencies and all things economic.

There are guys who'll tell us exactly what's needed to colonize Mars because they know how to ride a bicycle.

The guy who gave up on the whole parenting thing and sent his only kid to 3 different military schools is the same guy telling us how to fix public education and the prison system.

The guy who's spent his whole life enjoying the benefits of having been born to white middle class suburban parents in the 1950s knows everything there is to know about how to get things down in the ghetto all squared away in 2015 (hint - whatever else he comes up with, you know he's gonna sneak baggy pants and hip-hop in there too).

We've been hornswoggled.  We swallowed the myth of de-mystification whole.  "They've" been telling us we can do anything - from instant breakfast to walking on the moon.  And in the time it takes for one generation to grow old, we've managed to forget the second part of "we can do anything", which is basically that we have to have some education or training or experience; or just the tiniest bit of talent or skill or knowledge - it all gives us the misguided idea that anybody can step in and do any job - teacher, cop, mayor, NASA admin, POTUS, whatever.  Here's the deal, kids: No, ya can't.  You hafta to know something first.

"We can do anything" is not the same as "anybody can do that". 

Donald Trump didn't just come outa nowhere.