I like food, but I don't think I'm a foodie. I watch Top Chef and that's it. What can I say? I like Tom Colicchio. But I could never be a chef, because it appears to be an essential part of a chef's repertoire to be able to use eggs in a variety of ways and serve scallops. I hate eggs -- can't stand the smell of cooked eggs, although I can bake with 'em and use raw eggs with no problem -- and I think I'm allergic for scallops, so how would I know if what I was cooking was safe for human consumption.
Even so, I'm fascinated by what the contestants do on TC. They come up with ingredients that I've never heard of, much less considered mixing to make a fabulous dish. And to be as knowledgeable about so many different cuisines is tantamount to algebra to me. I sit in awe of these chefs.
That being said, I don't like being told what to eat or how to enjoy it. Take meat, for example. I used to know a guy who was disdainful of anyone who would eat meat cooked above medium raw. That meant he was disdainful of me. I'm sorry, but I was given opposable thumbs for a reason. I don't hunt my food on the open plain, I don't eat it immediately after killing it and I use utensils not only to be civilized but because my food is too hot to handle with my bare hands.
That this isn't considered haute cuisine doesn't bother me in the slightest. I can't think of any French foods I really like, so trying to imitate the way they approach food is really irrelevant for me. Raw meat, or tartar, as some like to call it, doesn't appeal to me in the least. I like my meat cooked. My girl likes her meat really cooked, in part to make sure whatever living organisms are still in the meat but shouldn't be are killed. I'm not into carbonized meats either, but I'm a heck of a lot closer in my appreciation for medium well-done steaks than raw or medium raw steaks. Karen likes her bacon very crisp. I like mine rubbery, or so she says.
I also don't care for sour cream on potatoes. This is something that mean people enjoy, but I don't. Likewise, these same people will put sour cream on things like tacos and nachos. I detest corrupting perfectly fine tacos and nachos with sour cream or, worse yet, guacamole. I don't give a darn how healthy avocados are: I hate them. The only thing I like about avocados is their color. After that, they make me gag.
Admittedly, I have a lot of weird food pairings where I like one thing but not another thing of which they're made. To wit: Banana nut bread. I hate the stuff. I love bread and I like bananas and nuts perfectly fine, but I can't stand banana nut bread. I don't know why this is. But I don't like banana nut bread.
Similarly, the thought of eating bread pudding is disgusting to me. Again, I love bread and pudding's fine, but wet bread is horrible. In Chicago, Italian beef sandwiches are traditionally dipped in juice. When I'd order mine, I'd tell them to leave it as dry as the Sahara desert. Nothing, besides eggs, is more gross than wet bread. But I'm not going to eat Italian beef dipped in juice just because everyone else is doing it. At the same time, I'm not eating bread pudding.
Those who insist on pairing wines with food are beyond me. If I like a particular kind of wine, I don't care if it's red or white (actually, I do; I don't drink white wine if I can avoid it) and will drink it with whatever I'm eating. Not only that, don't ask me about hints of this or aromas of that that one can find in the wine. If it tastes good to me, that's all I care about. The notion of going to all that trouble to get the right wine with a particular meal is just too much fuss for me.
And when it comes to dessert, I could care less about how it looks. In fact, if it looks too pretty, I won't eat it. The same goes for presentation of main courses too, I suppose. Food is food, not art.
To paraphrase a saying about beauty, taste is on the tongue of the eater. As with my music, I know what I like and I like what I know. I'm not adventurous when I eat, and I'm not snobbish. I'm just steak and potatoes.
(c) 2015 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles
Monday, April 13, 2015
Friday, April 10, 2015
The Race to Judgment
With the recent shooting by a police officer in North Charleston, South Carolina, of a fleeing, unarmed black man, everyone -- including me, this time -- has already convicted the police officer of crimes ranging from murder -- I say second degree, because I don't see any premeditation given the dash-cam footage that was released -- to a hate crime -- no way; the cop just lost it. Some are sensibly urging patience, which is something I typically do, because in most instances, we don't have video of the incident on which to base our opinions. This time, I think there's very little doubt what happened or what should happen to Officer Slager.
That being said, we've had an awful lot of incidents recently and going back twenty years or more where a rush to judgment took place, only to have it turn out that the judgment was wholly incorrect. Perhaps it's worthwhile to take a stroll down memory lane and revisit some of those incidents where a national outcry was heard only to have the outcry prove to be wrong because what was reported was incorrect.
(That last statement should be a cautionary one for people Bad reporting has, more often than not, led us into these problems. When bad reporting slants a story one way, inevitably those who seek not to solve the problem but profit from it use the reports to push their agenda as if they'd just gotten the tablets from God Himself. Careless and rushed journalism pervades almost every one of these stories.)
Tawana Brawley rape allegation: Largely championed by that noted race baiter Al Sharpton, it turned out later that that Ms. Brawley invented the story to avoid getting whupped by her mother for being out late. Nevertheless, Sharpton and Louis Farrakhan both led protests demanding justice for a black woman raped by a white man. Even Bill Cosby stepped forward to help the unfortunate Ms Brawley (insert joke here). The rape never happened.
Duke lacrosse gang rape: Frat boys are easy targets, usually because they do such stupid and insensitive things that it makes them easy targets. Rich frat boys are even better targets. Rich student athletes are in the same class. Or so thought Crystal Mangum. Ms. Mangum went after the Duke men's lacrosse team, claiming she'd been hired to strip for them at a party and was later raped. The prosecuting attorney, Michael Nifong, was so intent on making a name for himself that he corrupted the investigative process. Nifong was later disbarred. Jesse Jackson, never one to shy away from the bright light, declared that he would pay Ms. Mangum's college tuition no matter if she'd invented the story. Apparently, Ms. Mangum never took the reverend up on his offer, because a couple of years ago she was convicted of second degree murder and was sentenced to a minimum of fourteen years in prison. The lacrosse players did realize $30M from various entities involved in the case.
Trayvon Martin: Shot by neighborhood watcher and police officer wannabe George Zimmerman, called by the press a white man of Hispanic descent, it was readily reported that Martin was shot dead in cold blood. Martin was portrayed as an innocent kid who was preyed upon by the racist Zimmerman. It turned out that Martin wasn't as chaste as the driven snow as portrayed by the MSM, and a jury agreed that Zimmerman was innocent. Or at least he wasn't found guilty. In any event, much of the MSM was trying to inflate this beyond what it really was: A very tragic mistake.
UVA frat house gang rape/Rolling Stone: Anxious to get a big scoop, a reporter very carelessly developed a story that wasn't edited very well about a woman gang raped at a frat party. It caused a big splash, with women's groups virtually marching on Charlottesville with pitchforks and cudgels. Not surprisingly, it turns out there was virtually no evidence of the incident beyond the woman's story. The article was picked apart by fellow journalists as well as students who were at the party in questions but never interviewed. As with the Duke lacrosse players, this fraternity is probably going to receive a very large sum of money with a lot of zeros involved, because the fraternity sued Rolling Stone for its shoddy but salacious story.
Michael Brown: Many innocent storeowners in Ferguson, Missouri, were put out of business because of the race baiting aided by breathless news reports that a white cop had gunned down an unarmed black teenager. Conveniently left out of the initial reports were the facts that the 6'4" Brown had recently knocked over a convenient store, where he shoved an older and much smaller store owner; that he'd charged the officer, Darren Wilson; that eyewitness accounts were less than reliable; and that forensic evidence vindicated virtually every point of Officer Wilson's story. Nevertheless, Ferguson burned, Officer Wilson resigned and moved away and the Justice Department launched an expensive but ultimately futile inquiry to see whether Officer Wilson had violated Brown's rights.
In each of those cases, there was no reliable video of the incident. In the Walter Scott shooting, we have pretty clear evidence of what happened. I expect that Officer Slager will go away for a long time, although being a cop, his time in prison may not last long.
Unless there is incontrovertible evidence of an incident, the rush to judgment ought to be delayed. Largely, this rush to judgment is fueled by the MSM, which is oftentimes more concerned about being first with a story instead of being accurate. At the same time, the MSM acts this way because we the public hang on every report as if it was announcing the Second Coming. Most often, these are simply tragic and unfortunate cases where people acted injudiciously or even stupidly. The results of those actions are bad enough. They don't need to be compounded by our collective stupidity.
(c) 2015 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles
That being said, we've had an awful lot of incidents recently and going back twenty years or more where a rush to judgment took place, only to have it turn out that the judgment was wholly incorrect. Perhaps it's worthwhile to take a stroll down memory lane and revisit some of those incidents where a national outcry was heard only to have the outcry prove to be wrong because what was reported was incorrect.
(That last statement should be a cautionary one for people Bad reporting has, more often than not, led us into these problems. When bad reporting slants a story one way, inevitably those who seek not to solve the problem but profit from it use the reports to push their agenda as if they'd just gotten the tablets from God Himself. Careless and rushed journalism pervades almost every one of these stories.)
Tawana Brawley rape allegation: Largely championed by that noted race baiter Al Sharpton, it turned out later that that Ms. Brawley invented the story to avoid getting whupped by her mother for being out late. Nevertheless, Sharpton and Louis Farrakhan both led protests demanding justice for a black woman raped by a white man. Even Bill Cosby stepped forward to help the unfortunate Ms Brawley (insert joke here). The rape never happened.
Duke lacrosse gang rape: Frat boys are easy targets, usually because they do such stupid and insensitive things that it makes them easy targets. Rich frat boys are even better targets. Rich student athletes are in the same class. Or so thought Crystal Mangum. Ms. Mangum went after the Duke men's lacrosse team, claiming she'd been hired to strip for them at a party and was later raped. The prosecuting attorney, Michael Nifong, was so intent on making a name for himself that he corrupted the investigative process. Nifong was later disbarred. Jesse Jackson, never one to shy away from the bright light, declared that he would pay Ms. Mangum's college tuition no matter if she'd invented the story. Apparently, Ms. Mangum never took the reverend up on his offer, because a couple of years ago she was convicted of second degree murder and was sentenced to a minimum of fourteen years in prison. The lacrosse players did realize $30M from various entities involved in the case.
Trayvon Martin: Shot by neighborhood watcher and police officer wannabe George Zimmerman, called by the press a white man of Hispanic descent, it was readily reported that Martin was shot dead in cold blood. Martin was portrayed as an innocent kid who was preyed upon by the racist Zimmerman. It turned out that Martin wasn't as chaste as the driven snow as portrayed by the MSM, and a jury agreed that Zimmerman was innocent. Or at least he wasn't found guilty. In any event, much of the MSM was trying to inflate this beyond what it really was: A very tragic mistake.
UVA frat house gang rape/Rolling Stone: Anxious to get a big scoop, a reporter very carelessly developed a story that wasn't edited very well about a woman gang raped at a frat party. It caused a big splash, with women's groups virtually marching on Charlottesville with pitchforks and cudgels. Not surprisingly, it turns out there was virtually no evidence of the incident beyond the woman's story. The article was picked apart by fellow journalists as well as students who were at the party in questions but never interviewed. As with the Duke lacrosse players, this fraternity is probably going to receive a very large sum of money with a lot of zeros involved, because the fraternity sued Rolling Stone for its shoddy but salacious story.
Michael Brown: Many innocent storeowners in Ferguson, Missouri, were put out of business because of the race baiting aided by breathless news reports that a white cop had gunned down an unarmed black teenager. Conveniently left out of the initial reports were the facts that the 6'4" Brown had recently knocked over a convenient store, where he shoved an older and much smaller store owner; that he'd charged the officer, Darren Wilson; that eyewitness accounts were less than reliable; and that forensic evidence vindicated virtually every point of Officer Wilson's story. Nevertheless, Ferguson burned, Officer Wilson resigned and moved away and the Justice Department launched an expensive but ultimately futile inquiry to see whether Officer Wilson had violated Brown's rights.
In each of those cases, there was no reliable video of the incident. In the Walter Scott shooting, we have pretty clear evidence of what happened. I expect that Officer Slager will go away for a long time, although being a cop, his time in prison may not last long.
Unless there is incontrovertible evidence of an incident, the rush to judgment ought to be delayed. Largely, this rush to judgment is fueled by the MSM, which is oftentimes more concerned about being first with a story instead of being accurate. At the same time, the MSM acts this way because we the public hang on every report as if it was announcing the Second Coming. Most often, these are simply tragic and unfortunate cases where people acted injudiciously or even stupidly. The results of those actions are bad enough. They don't need to be compounded by our collective stupidity.
(c) 2015 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles
Wednesday, April 8, 2015
Police Brutality
I've ragged on blacks for making too much about racism when it comes to shooting deaths at the hands of police. I'm not backing away from that. To suggest that every police office in nation is plagued with rampant racism is simply wrong. That being said, the police have a problem in that when confronted with blacks they believe have committed crimes or have had traffic violations, all too often excessive force is used that leads to grievous injury at best and death at worst. This past weekend another senseless death was caused by an overzealous and probably criminal cop. All too often, Barney Fife's who in high school were picked on feel their oats now that they have a badge and a gun and go well beyond what is needed to serve and protect.
To reiterate: The Michael Brown shooting was justified, in my opinion. However, I don't believe that excessive force in these instances was justified:
Rodney King
Eric Garner
Floyd Dent
Dillon Taylor
Walter Scott
Not one of these incidents required the excessive use of force used by the police. Should the decedents have complied more readily with the officers' demands? In hindsight, assuredly. But what each of them was doing did not justify the use of force which, in the case of Michael Brown, was justified. Make no mistake: Being a police officer is a dangerous and oftentimes thankless job. But that doesn't mean that they have an unfettered right to use this type of force.
What's more, in both the Floyd Dent and Walter Scott cases, there may have been police tampering with evidence, trying to plant items that would justify their use of excessive force.
Cretins like these have no business being police officers. Yes, the vast majority of cops are good and restrained. But examples like these sully the public's perception of police officers and, in the case of blacks, make them resistant to officers' orders or generally make the public wary of police officers.
Do I think the Justice Department needs to become involved? Possibly. Internal affairs departments do a good job, usually, but that's after the fact. Preventive measures need to be taken to weed out the Barney Fifes so that more such incidents are reduced and then eliminated.
Cops are supposed to serve and protect. They are not supposed to divide and murder.
(c) The Truxton Spangler Chronicles
To reiterate: The Michael Brown shooting was justified, in my opinion. However, I don't believe that excessive force in these instances was justified:
Rodney King
Eric Garner
Floyd Dent
Dillon Taylor
Walter Scott
Not one of these incidents required the excessive use of force used by the police. Should the decedents have complied more readily with the officers' demands? In hindsight, assuredly. But what each of them was doing did not justify the use of force which, in the case of Michael Brown, was justified. Make no mistake: Being a police officer is a dangerous and oftentimes thankless job. But that doesn't mean that they have an unfettered right to use this type of force.
What's more, in both the Floyd Dent and Walter Scott cases, there may have been police tampering with evidence, trying to plant items that would justify their use of excessive force.
Cretins like these have no business being police officers. Yes, the vast majority of cops are good and restrained. But examples like these sully the public's perception of police officers and, in the case of blacks, make them resistant to officers' orders or generally make the public wary of police officers.
Do I think the Justice Department needs to become involved? Possibly. Internal affairs departments do a good job, usually, but that's after the fact. Preventive measures need to be taken to weed out the Barney Fifes so that more such incidents are reduced and then eliminated.
Cops are supposed to serve and protect. They are not supposed to divide and murder.
(c) The Truxton Spangler Chronicles
Bergdahl
I've held off on the Bowe Bergdahl issue for many reasons. I have my own opinion -- I think he was at least a deserter -- but I decided that until more facts were in, any comment on my part would be premature. It would appear that I undershot the mark. Besides being a deserted, he may also have been a traitor. We'll see what the court martial determines.
That he left his post is undeniable. It's not like he was captured in combat. The facts are pretty well known: Bergdahl left his weapon and other gear at the base. He sent some stuff home. Then he walked to find Afghans in some weird attempt, so he claims, to resolve geopolitical matters far above his pay grade. Six men died indirectly trying to find him.
He was in captivity for five years. It is said that he was tortured. That may well be true. But unlike a soldier or Marine taken on the field of battle, Bergdahl almost enlisted for this, deluded that he was some peace emissary who was going to rectify all that was wrong in Afghanistan.
The administration made a horrible miscalculation, even at first blush. It traded him for five high ranking Taliban commanders. Only Mike Ditka's made a worse trade in recent memory. The thinking, so it was said, is that we don't leave Americans behind. Largely, that's true. Even at the Chosin Reservoir the Marines brought out the bodies of their dead comrades in arctic conditions while under enemy fire along a narrow defile in the mountains. But this was different.
Apparently, from new reports, it is being leaked that Bergdahl tried to get in touch with elements of the Russian mob in Uzbekistan, among other things. More evidence supports the notion that besides being a deserter, Bergdahl may well have been a traitor. Ironically, some of what is known about Bergdahl is coming from the sensitive materials leaked by Edward Snowden. What's more, this information was collected by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service over the five years of Bergdahls' captivity. That means that the White House, or elements within the White House, had to have known at a bare minimum that Bergdahl was, in terms of public relations, kryptonite. Yet it trotted out its piñata who declared that Bergdahl served with honor and distinction. This after Jay Carney, the disingenuous former White House spokesperson, uttered the same false words about Bergdahl. And all the while, since 2009, the White House had to know that there were questions about Bergdahl's service that called into question those encomiums.
It's becoming more and more apparent that the administration used Bergdahl as a political pawn to boost his ratings with the American public while at the same time to keep a campaign promise to shut down Guantánamo by releasing five Taliban incarcerated there. The Rose Garden ceremony at which the President made the announcement, flanked by Bergdahl's very relieved parents, was a photo opportunity that wasn't warranted. The trade itself foreshadowed the now equally questionable Iran nuclear deal which, as more details emerge, seem to indicate that the optimism with which the administration announced this deal was misplaced, what with the Iranians publishing wildly differing details about the agreement.
The disrespect the Bergdahl fanfare shows for our men and women in uniform who are doing their jobs correctly is mindboggling. That this administration touts a deserter over men who have given their lives for this country, making political hay while ignoring the dishonor with which Bergdahl served while allowing the VA mess to continue, not awarding Purple Hearts to those injured in the Ft. Hood shootings and cutting benefits to veterans is an affront to all for which this country stands. It would be one thing if the administration truly didn't know about Bergdahl's service, but it is readily apparent that, like so many of the scandals that have plagued this administration, it turned a blind eye to it so that it could pat itself on the back publicly. It should be ashamed of itself.
The truly sad part about this is that should the court martial result in a conviction for Bergdahl, the President could very well rub salt in the wound and pardon him in one of his final acts before he leaves the White House. There would be no political ramifications for him at that point.
Just watch it happen.
(c) 2015 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles
That he left his post is undeniable. It's not like he was captured in combat. The facts are pretty well known: Bergdahl left his weapon and other gear at the base. He sent some stuff home. Then he walked to find Afghans in some weird attempt, so he claims, to resolve geopolitical matters far above his pay grade. Six men died indirectly trying to find him.
He was in captivity for five years. It is said that he was tortured. That may well be true. But unlike a soldier or Marine taken on the field of battle, Bergdahl almost enlisted for this, deluded that he was some peace emissary who was going to rectify all that was wrong in Afghanistan.
The administration made a horrible miscalculation, even at first blush. It traded him for five high ranking Taliban commanders. Only Mike Ditka's made a worse trade in recent memory. The thinking, so it was said, is that we don't leave Americans behind. Largely, that's true. Even at the Chosin Reservoir the Marines brought out the bodies of their dead comrades in arctic conditions while under enemy fire along a narrow defile in the mountains. But this was different.
Apparently, from new reports, it is being leaked that Bergdahl tried to get in touch with elements of the Russian mob in Uzbekistan, among other things. More evidence supports the notion that besides being a deserter, Bergdahl may well have been a traitor. Ironically, some of what is known about Bergdahl is coming from the sensitive materials leaked by Edward Snowden. What's more, this information was collected by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service over the five years of Bergdahls' captivity. That means that the White House, or elements within the White House, had to have known at a bare minimum that Bergdahl was, in terms of public relations, kryptonite. Yet it trotted out its piñata who declared that Bergdahl served with honor and distinction. This after Jay Carney, the disingenuous former White House spokesperson, uttered the same false words about Bergdahl. And all the while, since 2009, the White House had to know that there were questions about Bergdahl's service that called into question those encomiums.
It's becoming more and more apparent that the administration used Bergdahl as a political pawn to boost his ratings with the American public while at the same time to keep a campaign promise to shut down Guantánamo by releasing five Taliban incarcerated there. The Rose Garden ceremony at which the President made the announcement, flanked by Bergdahl's very relieved parents, was a photo opportunity that wasn't warranted. The trade itself foreshadowed the now equally questionable Iran nuclear deal which, as more details emerge, seem to indicate that the optimism with which the administration announced this deal was misplaced, what with the Iranians publishing wildly differing details about the agreement.
The disrespect the Bergdahl fanfare shows for our men and women in uniform who are doing their jobs correctly is mindboggling. That this administration touts a deserter over men who have given their lives for this country, making political hay while ignoring the dishonor with which Bergdahl served while allowing the VA mess to continue, not awarding Purple Hearts to those injured in the Ft. Hood shootings and cutting benefits to veterans is an affront to all for which this country stands. It would be one thing if the administration truly didn't know about Bergdahl's service, but it is readily apparent that, like so many of the scandals that have plagued this administration, it turned a blind eye to it so that it could pat itself on the back publicly. It should be ashamed of itself.
The truly sad part about this is that should the court martial result in a conviction for Bergdahl, the President could very well rub salt in the wound and pardon him in one of his final acts before he leaves the White House. There would be no political ramifications for him at that point.
Just watch it happen.
(c) 2015 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles
Monday, April 6, 2015
Race, Hate Crimes and Double Standards
In the wake of the Michael Brown and Eric Garner deaths at the hands of police, there was a groundswell of anti-police and anti-white hysteria that manifested, and continued to manifest, itself in the form of protests with the cries of Hands Up, Don't Shoot; I Can't Breathe; and Black Lives Matter. Recently, at least one of these -- Hands Up, Don't Shoot -- was proven to be predicated on a lie, but that hasn't stopped activists who now protest against innocent white people in restaurants or deranged people from shooting cops dead while they sit in their patrol cars.
Make no mistake: I believe there was a miscarriage of justice when the grand jury refused to indict the overzealous police officer who choked Eric Garner to death. Because grand jury testimony is not published, we'll never know what happened exactly. But the video evidence suggests that at a bare minimum, a jury should have heard this case.
In the case of Michael Brown, the forensic evidence proved that Officer Darren Wilson did not use excessive force and was justified in shooting the 6'4" nineteen-year-old who had just committed a robbery within hours of his death. As unfortunate as that was, it was perfectly defensible.
Less defensible than the shooting was the reaction by the MSM who only fanned the flames of fears of racist cops run amok and the Justice Department's Eric Holder flying to Ferguson, Missouri, to investigate, allegedly, the racist situation that existed there that engendered the shooting in the first place. Meekly, quietly, months after the incident and after scores of businesses were looted and trashed and two police officers were murdered in cold blood in New York City, Justice said that there would be no indictment against Officer Wilson, who subsequently quit his job and move away.
The drumbeat continues: Blacks are oppressed, whites oppress. There is no variation on this theme, as it has been sanctified by the MSM and the heightened rhetoric from the White House, Congress and the Department of Justice, not to mention such leading civil rights acolytes such as Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson. Because whites (not all whites, but whites in general) were once slaveholders, necessarily all whites have racist tendencies -- just ask that leading sociologist Chris Rock about our duty to accept responsibility for slavery -- and blacks are always the oppressed, never the oppressor.
To mitigate this, the theory of hate crimes arose a couple of decades ago. Not only was it directed at acts committed with racial motives, but also ones with homophobic or ethnic ones as well. The funny thing about hate crime legislation, however, is that it specified no particular group that could be assessed with a hate crime violation. All that was necessary, allegedly, is that racial, ethnic or sexual preference discrimination be the motivation to cause an aggravated charge of hate crime in addition to the murder, rape, assault and battery that was the underpinning for the charge.
Yet that's not what happens in reality. Where there seem to be clear reasons to elevate a charge to a hate crime involving a black suspect, officials inevitably say they saw no reason for the elevated charge. That's odd, because there seem to be plenty of instances where blacks commit crimes against white people simply because the victims are white which, reading the plain meaning of the hate crime statute, would almost invite the greater charge. Part of the problem is that the MSM and Justice can't seem to find any evidence of racially-motivated crimes involving black suspects. It's as if blacks can't possibly be motivated by hatred when committing crimes.
The saddest part about this is that the majority of the examples I'm about to list I found on Facebook. Yep, for all those lefties out there who think that I get my misinformation from Fox News -- Faux News to them -- I routinely am left gobsmacked by stuff I find on Facebook, a site founded by that noted liberal Mark Zuckerberg. So let's consider some of these salient examples for readers to decide whether hate crime charges would have been advisable:
2013, Christopher Lane: Mr. Lane was an Aussie exchange student playing baseball on scholarship for a small college in Oklahoma. While out jogging one day, he was shot and killed by three youths, two black, one Latino, who said initially that they did it because they were bored. It later came out that the Twitter account of one of the murderers held tweets that indicated that he hated white people, had knocked out five whites after the Trayvon Martin verdict and that 90% of white people are nasty, that he hated them. No hate charges filed.
2013, Staff Sergeant David Dunlap and Whitney Butler: Mr. Dunlap was shot in the back of his head when he came home to investigate when the house alarm went off. As his pregnant wife looked over his body, she too was shot in the back of the head. Her unborn child died as well. The killer got life in prison but is eligible for parole because he was seventeen-years-old at the time of the murders. Why he had to kill them from behind instead of simply fleeing raises serious questions as to intent. No hate charges filed.
2008, Jan Pawel Pietrzak and Quiana Jenkins Pietrzak: The biracial couple was killed execution style after the Marine husband was bound and gagged and forced to watch his wife be sexually assaulted. Although the murderers stated that the motive was mere robbery, Nigger lover was painted on the walls of the crime scene. When the Marine's mother wrote the White House asking why her son and daughter-in-law inspired such hatred and loathing, the White House issued a form letter of condolence. Only after that letter was made public did the White House issue an apology. Despite the obvious evidence of a crime motivated by racial hatred, no hate crimes were charged.
2015, James Stuhlman and pet: Three black youths got bored playing basketball, so they decided to rob someone. Mr. Stuhlman happened along at the wrong time and place and, when he pleaded for his life, they shot him dead. No hate crime charges were filed.
2015, Unknown victim: A white man minding his own business on a subway when an unknown black man asked him about the Michael Brown case. After saying he hadn't given it much thought, he was savagely beaten. The beating was filmed on a cellphone by another passenger. Security footage was used to identify the thug, who was charged with assault and battery, but no hate crime.
2014, Dillon Taylor: An unarmed white teen was shot by a black cop in Utah. The investigation continues, but at this point, there is no reason to believe that Mr. Dillon did anything threatening to the officer. There is even body-cam footage of the incident. Yet the MSM and the Justice Department see no reason to report this story or investigate the incident.
There are probably more such incidents out there of which I'm unaware. I mention the Dillon Tyler case only because of the reverse similarities with the Michael Brown case and the comparatively little national attention to it that's been paid. By no means am I suggesting that it was a hate crime; but the lack of attention is eyeopening. If Michael Brown's death warranted national attention due to the circumstances, so did Mr. Dillon's death. Yet the MSM and the Justice Department remain silent.
The point is that American lives matter, not just black ones or white ones. And just as whites can commit crimes out of racial hatred, so can blacks. This notion that only whites are racist or motivated by racial hatred is absurd. Blacks are human and subject to the same prejudices as whites. To act otherwise is itself racist, not to mention unfair.
The laws is supposed to be colorblind. In Mr. Obama's America, that's untrue.
(c) 2015 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles
Sunday, March 29, 2015
Defeating Islamofascism
There is much hand-wringing about the appropriate strategy to defeating Islamofascism. This isn't surprising, on the one hand, because the people running this country don't listen to those who know how to wage war. Political considerations overshadow the sane suggestions made by the military men because polls might lessen the popularity of the POTUS or the Democrats might lose seats in Congress if they vote in favor of continuing a very necessary war.
It's not that we don't have the wherewithal to defeat the terrorists. Militarily, we are the strongest the world has ever known. Our technology is the best. We are experienced at war, having been at work almost continuously since 1941, with very few breaks. What we lack, however, is perspective and will -- or at least our leaders do.
Years ago I watched Pork Chop Hill, a movie starring Gregory Peck about a particular ridge in the Korean War that was of little consequence strategically. While the bombs and bullets whistled overhead, the negotiators in Panmunjom were shown trying to get a deal with their Communist counterparts. For whatever reason, I remember a particular sequence where one American negotiator is fuming about the intransigence from the Communists and the other negotiator explains to him that this wasn't a battle about land, but about will and patience. The Communists wanted to see how long the Americans would fight over that meaningless hill to determine what other concessions they could wring from the Americans, so they continued trying to take Pork Chop hill no matter what the cost in blood and treasure, because its true value was measured in political capital.
This was brought home to me last week as I finished The Korean War written by the excellent British military historian Max Hastings. In his summary chapter about the war, Mr. Hastings wrote:
Senior Chinese soldiers -- if not their leader -- emerged from Korea having absorbed the central, critical reason lesson for future Asian conflicts: that they must never face a Western army on its own terms. They must seek to fight when Western resources and technology count for least. They could exploit the West's greatest single weakness: the impatience of democracies. It had proved difficult for the United States and her allies to maintain public tolerance and support for the Korean War for three years. Apathy and exasperation with a national effort which was yielding no evident result became apparent in the American electorate long before the armistice....The message the Communists surely absorbed: never again should they provide the West with so unclouded and comprehensible a reason to resist, and time must always be against the democracies in arms.
Asymmetrical warfare is the terrorists only advantage. Given the tremendous advantages in hardware the democracies enjoy, it would be madness for the Islamofascists to meet them in a set-piece battle unless they were only interested in propaganda battle. IED's, beheadings, burnings, hostage taking, hitting soft targets -- these are the only ways they can hope to level the playing field so that they can arrive at the result they want. In the meantime, our leaders seem to think that conventional means will bring the terrorists to heel, forgetting the old saw that our military has to be ready to fight the next war, not the last one.
Underlying all of this is the will of the American people to eliminate the threat of ISIS, Al Qaeda, Boko Haram and the Taliban any way we can. The MSM says we're war weary. This feeds into the terrorists' strategy and emboldens them.
It's easy for me, someone who never served, to recommend that we bring all our military weight to bear on the Islamofascists. I have no sons who could be killed in the war. But if this country is going to regain its primacy in the world, if we are going to be feared such that no one will trifle with us, we have to be willing to pay any price to defeat those who would do us harm. Patience is key. We have to be willing to bear the burdens that come with a war, because this is a war of survival. Like the Communists some sixty years ago, the Islamofascists are counting on our impatience to be our weakness. Once they sense that we are no longer willing to fight, they'll extend their advantage. Like the Communists, this is an ideological war the Islamofascists are fighting. Territory and possessions are secondary to their ultimate goal. They won't be bought off. They must be exterminated.
I fear, however, that the political will is lacking. Given that this administration believes that a deserter served with honor and distinction, I doubt it will agree with the military on how to fight this war. I doubt it even recognizes the nature of the fight. It wants to use distant means to fight the war and not put men on the ground to confront the threat. Instead, it allows unarmed Americans to be slaughtered. What's troubling is that most Americans either don't care or can't get their Congressman to oppose the policies in place. I have no doubt that, unlike the unpopular war in Iraq, most Americans would not oppose a fight with ISIS and its cohorts.
To be a great nation again we must confront evil and extirpate it. As someone very wise once said to me, it's a privilege to be born free but an obligation to die free.
I don't intend on dying at the hands of Islamofascists unless it's in defense of this country.
(c) 2015 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles
It's not that we don't have the wherewithal to defeat the terrorists. Militarily, we are the strongest the world has ever known. Our technology is the best. We are experienced at war, having been at work almost continuously since 1941, with very few breaks. What we lack, however, is perspective and will -- or at least our leaders do.
Years ago I watched Pork Chop Hill, a movie starring Gregory Peck about a particular ridge in the Korean War that was of little consequence strategically. While the bombs and bullets whistled overhead, the negotiators in Panmunjom were shown trying to get a deal with their Communist counterparts. For whatever reason, I remember a particular sequence where one American negotiator is fuming about the intransigence from the Communists and the other negotiator explains to him that this wasn't a battle about land, but about will and patience. The Communists wanted to see how long the Americans would fight over that meaningless hill to determine what other concessions they could wring from the Americans, so they continued trying to take Pork Chop hill no matter what the cost in blood and treasure, because its true value was measured in political capital.
This was brought home to me last week as I finished The Korean War written by the excellent British military historian Max Hastings. In his summary chapter about the war, Mr. Hastings wrote:
Senior Chinese soldiers -- if not their leader -- emerged from Korea having absorbed the central, critical reason lesson for future Asian conflicts: that they must never face a Western army on its own terms. They must seek to fight when Western resources and technology count for least. They could exploit the West's greatest single weakness: the impatience of democracies. It had proved difficult for the United States and her allies to maintain public tolerance and support for the Korean War for three years. Apathy and exasperation with a national effort which was yielding no evident result became apparent in the American electorate long before the armistice....The message the Communists surely absorbed: never again should they provide the West with so unclouded and comprehensible a reason to resist, and time must always be against the democracies in arms.
Asymmetrical warfare is the terrorists only advantage. Given the tremendous advantages in hardware the democracies enjoy, it would be madness for the Islamofascists to meet them in a set-piece battle unless they were only interested in propaganda battle. IED's, beheadings, burnings, hostage taking, hitting soft targets -- these are the only ways they can hope to level the playing field so that they can arrive at the result they want. In the meantime, our leaders seem to think that conventional means will bring the terrorists to heel, forgetting the old saw that our military has to be ready to fight the next war, not the last one.
Underlying all of this is the will of the American people to eliminate the threat of ISIS, Al Qaeda, Boko Haram and the Taliban any way we can. The MSM says we're war weary. This feeds into the terrorists' strategy and emboldens them.
It's easy for me, someone who never served, to recommend that we bring all our military weight to bear on the Islamofascists. I have no sons who could be killed in the war. But if this country is going to regain its primacy in the world, if we are going to be feared such that no one will trifle with us, we have to be willing to pay any price to defeat those who would do us harm. Patience is key. We have to be willing to bear the burdens that come with a war, because this is a war of survival. Like the Communists some sixty years ago, the Islamofascists are counting on our impatience to be our weakness. Once they sense that we are no longer willing to fight, they'll extend their advantage. Like the Communists, this is an ideological war the Islamofascists are fighting. Territory and possessions are secondary to their ultimate goal. They won't be bought off. They must be exterminated.
I fear, however, that the political will is lacking. Given that this administration believes that a deserter served with honor and distinction, I doubt it will agree with the military on how to fight this war. I doubt it even recognizes the nature of the fight. It wants to use distant means to fight the war and not put men on the ground to confront the threat. Instead, it allows unarmed Americans to be slaughtered. What's troubling is that most Americans either don't care or can't get their Congressman to oppose the policies in place. I have no doubt that, unlike the unpopular war in Iraq, most Americans would not oppose a fight with ISIS and its cohorts.
To be a great nation again we must confront evil and extirpate it. As someone very wise once said to me, it's a privilege to be born free but an obligation to die free.
I don't intend on dying at the hands of Islamofascists unless it's in defense of this country.
(c) 2015 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles
Tuesday, March 24, 2015
Random Entertainment
Lately, I've been pondering some things about general entertainment. Since there are too many disparate thoughts for a single blogpost, I'm going to go with random entertainment musings:
-- Just what was Blondie rapping about in its song Rapture? Were they on drugs when they wrote it?
-- It's interesting that an American rap artist who enjoys the freedom to express herself freely and dress in scanty clothing while she performs would lash out at the country and white people, many of whom probably pay a pretty good penny for her trash.
-- Tom Bergeron is probably the funniest, quickest and nicest host of any show on television.
-- On the flipside, Alex Trebek is annoying in the extreme, especially when it comes to pronouncing foreign words, most notably when they're French.
-- I'd heard the Rolling Stones' son Sympathy for the Devil for years, but it wasn't until recently that I actually listened to the words. Interesting.
-- I wonder if this Paul McCartney dude's career has taken off now thanks to his collaboration with Kanye and Rihanna.
-- Horatio Saenz is an idiot. For him to suggest that conservatism controlled Saturday Night Live at any point or even exerted superior control to ridicule liberal politicians much to his chagrin is laughable.
-- If I didn't watch Ultimate Survival on the National Geographic channel, I never would have known what a bublick was. And even though I've now seen it, I still don't believe it.
-- It escapes me how anyone can determine who the best singer on The Voice is past a certain point. There are so many good singers it seems insane to me to try to pick out the best one.
-- Why on earth would women interested in a career in broadcast journalism shoot pin-up shots and have them displayed on the internet? If one is going into entertainment, perhaps, but what is it with these women on Fox News have Vargas-like pin-up photos in various stages of undress? I thought they were paid for delivering and opining on the news.
-- Karen doesn't agree with me, but did The Following inspire any of ISIS' brutality?
-- For a crowd as socially conscious and allegedly cosmopolitan as is Hollywood, one would think that it would have learned to pronounce Alejandro Iñárritu's name by now. Then again, if it never learned to pronounce the comparatively easier Oscar de la Renta's name properly, why would it learn to pronounce Iñárritu's?
-- Did Kevin Bacon make the egg industry wait to hire him as a pitch man, or did it never occur to the industry to approach him until now. Then again, why didn't the bacon industry approach him years ago, or did he reject their overtures?
-- For the life of me, I don't know why I like Grimm so much -- but I do.
-- Karen and I have heard a lot of jabs directed at Nickleback recently, but neither of us is in on the joke. I'm not huge Nickleback fan, so what's the deal?
-- Since when was Bobbi Christina considered a singer?
-- Sadly, Lara Logan's back in the hospital due to complications arising from the savage sexual assault perpetrated on her a couple of years ago in Cairo. I wonder if CBS feels bad at all for putting her on suspension awhile ago, knowing that perhaps she returned from the assault too quickly.
-- The View, The Talk, The Chew, The Five, Outnumbered, The Real. One of these shows has no white people on it. Can you guess which one?
-- I think Wicked Tuna jumped thetuna, um, shark, a season ago.
-- One has to admit that Titus Welliver is one heck of a name.
-- The Amazing Race is still one of the best reality game shows on television. If nothing else, I get to see places that I'll never get to visit in person.
-- Piers Morgan, John Oliver, James Corden, Craig Ferguson, Hilary Farr -- did we lose the Revolutionary War?
(c) 2015 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles
-- Just what was Blondie rapping about in its song Rapture? Were they on drugs when they wrote it?
-- It's interesting that an American rap artist who enjoys the freedom to express herself freely and dress in scanty clothing while she performs would lash out at the country and white people, many of whom probably pay a pretty good penny for her trash.
-- Tom Bergeron is probably the funniest, quickest and nicest host of any show on television.
-- On the flipside, Alex Trebek is annoying in the extreme, especially when it comes to pronouncing foreign words, most notably when they're French.
-- I'd heard the Rolling Stones' son Sympathy for the Devil for years, but it wasn't until recently that I actually listened to the words. Interesting.
-- I wonder if this Paul McCartney dude's career has taken off now thanks to his collaboration with Kanye and Rihanna.
-- Horatio Saenz is an idiot. For him to suggest that conservatism controlled Saturday Night Live at any point or even exerted superior control to ridicule liberal politicians much to his chagrin is laughable.
-- If I didn't watch Ultimate Survival on the National Geographic channel, I never would have known what a bublick was. And even though I've now seen it, I still don't believe it.
-- It escapes me how anyone can determine who the best singer on The Voice is past a certain point. There are so many good singers it seems insane to me to try to pick out the best one.
-- Why on earth would women interested in a career in broadcast journalism shoot pin-up shots and have them displayed on the internet? If one is going into entertainment, perhaps, but what is it with these women on Fox News have Vargas-like pin-up photos in various stages of undress? I thought they were paid for delivering and opining on the news.
-- Karen doesn't agree with me, but did The Following inspire any of ISIS' brutality?
-- For a crowd as socially conscious and allegedly cosmopolitan as is Hollywood, one would think that it would have learned to pronounce Alejandro Iñárritu's name by now. Then again, if it never learned to pronounce the comparatively easier Oscar de la Renta's name properly, why would it learn to pronounce Iñárritu's?
-- Did Kevin Bacon make the egg industry wait to hire him as a pitch man, or did it never occur to the industry to approach him until now. Then again, why didn't the bacon industry approach him years ago, or did he reject their overtures?
-- For the life of me, I don't know why I like Grimm so much -- but I do.
-- Karen and I have heard a lot of jabs directed at Nickleback recently, but neither of us is in on the joke. I'm not huge Nickleback fan, so what's the deal?
-- Since when was Bobbi Christina considered a singer?
-- Sadly, Lara Logan's back in the hospital due to complications arising from the savage sexual assault perpetrated on her a couple of years ago in Cairo. I wonder if CBS feels bad at all for putting her on suspension awhile ago, knowing that perhaps she returned from the assault too quickly.
-- The View, The Talk, The Chew, The Five, Outnumbered, The Real. One of these shows has no white people on it. Can you guess which one?
-- I think Wicked Tuna jumped the
-- One has to admit that Titus Welliver is one heck of a name.
-- The Amazing Race is still one of the best reality game shows on television. If nothing else, I get to see places that I'll never get to visit in person.
-- Piers Morgan, John Oliver, James Corden, Craig Ferguson, Hilary Farr -- did we lose the Revolutionary War?
(c) 2015 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles
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