The libertarian or traditionalist conservative would say that this is a white man's country that a man ought to have the right to do as he pleases with his own property. Although that is indeed an important value there are other values and goals which society has decided are equally important or even more important than the right to control your own property in every aspect. One of those values is anti-discrimination.
There are limits on how the state or even private entities can treat you based on immutable characteristics such as your race, age, sex, nationality and occasionally even religion or sexuality or sexual identity. The law has been trending that way for at least the past seventy years or so. Why? Because there are unfortunately a lot of people who, given half a chance, would indeed discriminate against their fellow Americans or others based on some or all of the traits I just mentioned. One such man is Iraq war vet and former shady used car dealer, James Prater, a Mason, Michigan resident who has decided to put his house up for sale. There's just one caveat. Mr. Prater doesn't want to sell to anyone who is not a true blue American. Apparently he has a special dislike for people of Middle Eastern or South Asian descent. But rather than leave it up to the individual to figure out if they were sufficiently non-Middle Eastern/South Asian Prater decided to make it easy for everyone by stating "No foreigners". Nice and simple.
Sometimes ideas are better in the concept phase then they are in the execution and delivery phase. It happens. No big deal. You can't necessarily figure out ahead of time how everyone will react and respond to your idea, particularly if you are trying to sell something. Everyone has different initial reactions to ideas and visual displays. If you are a member of the Eastern Michigan Hurons football team posing for a poster touting your upcoming fall schedule you probably want to channel the pride and fury of such former EMU (and NFL) football players such as John Banaszak, Charlie Batch, Vashone Adams, T.J. Laing, and Darius Jackson among others. You want to impress and excite with your passion and strength. You want to get everyone fired up for the season! You want people to come see you do your thing on the field as you layeth the smackdown on your opponents.
Well.
Detroit
directed by Kathyrn Bigelow
The 1967 Detroit riot or rebellion started less than a mile from where I would later grow up. In separate incidents during this time both of my parents were shot at by police, soldiers and/or rioters. My mother, a paternal uncle and my paternal grandfather were nearly killed by police shooting at the car my grandfather was driving while he was trying to get my mother safely home. A bullet missed my mother and left a scar on my uncle's shin. Another paternal aunt would later regale me with stories of the National Guardsmen/Army troops riding in armored vehicles shouting racial slurs at black teens and threatening to shoot them. And of course many older uncles and second cousins would from time to time over the years mention the repressive and disgusting behavior of the police back in what I came to think of as the bad old days. I mention all this to say that although I wasn't on the scene or even yet thought of when the riot took place I feel as if I had a very personal stake in what was going on. Some of the buildings that were part of my panorama growing up were the same buildings that were seen on the newsreels of the events in 1967. People died in part so that I could walk freely in my city and succeed to the best of my God given abilities instead of being assaulted by police or trapped in a dead end racially segregated job. So I was intrigued to see what a strong talented director like Bigelow would do with this story. Would she mess it up? Would she get down to the nitty gritty? Would she confirm ugly stereotypes about whites working with "black" stories and themes?
Unfortunately I would have to say that as a storyteller Bigelow missed the boat here. Technically the movie is superb. The camera work, lighting, cinematography, settings and look of the film are all top notch, with one or two minor complaints I'll mention in a moment. Bigelow is a master (mistress?) of her craft and shows it here. But the narrative is too sharply focused on the incidents at the Algiers Motel. The Algiers Motel (which has since been torn down) was a place that was a sort of no-tell motel. People often went there to commit adultery. Some prostitutes worked that area.
In a decision which didn't attract much attention outside of Chicago, perhaps because people don't think it will make that much difference, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and the Chicago School Board recently changed the law regarding high school graduation. Starting in 2020 in order to receive a high school diploma, a student not only must successfully complete the coursework but also demonstrate to the school's satisfaction that he or she has a plan for post-graduation success. Approved plans include college admission, military admission, a job or an apprentice program. In other words the government must approve of your plans post-high school. If the government doesn't approve then you don't get your diploma.
THE JOB of K-12 education traditionally has been considered complete when students walk across the stage to get their diploma. That is about to change in Chicago with an ambitious, and controversial, initiative requiring public school students to have a post-graduation plan to earn a diploma. Chicago leaders are right to make official what long has been recognized — the need for more than a high school diploma to succeed in today’s economy — and, more importantly, to accept responsibility for helping students meet that challenge.
Starting in 2020, under a plan championed by Mayor Rahm Emanuel (D) and unanimously approved by the school board, diplomas will be tied to students devising post-secondary plans. High school seniors must show they’ve been accepted into college, or the military, or into a trade or “gap-year” program, or have secured a job. The idea is to raise expectations and thus produce better outcomes for students.
As you may have heard the creators and show runners of HBO's smash hit series Game of Thrones, David Benioff and D.B Weiss, have decided to create and produce another show for HBO. Tentatively titled Confederate this show will imagine a modern day world in which the slave owning South won the Civil War as well as subsequent conflicts with the North. Slavery is still legal in the South but not the North. A black husband and wife couple, Malcolm and Nichelle Spellman, will also write for and produce the show. No scripts have yet been created. No storyline or theme has been divulged. And that is all anyone who is not named David Benioff, D.B Weiss, Malcolm or Nichelle Spellman, or who is not within the small group of HBO executives who greenlit the show or who is not married to or related to the show creators knows about Confederate at this time.
Though the proposed show Confederate hasn't been viewed by a single mumbling soul many people immediately came out against the show. These reasons ranged from personal taste to fears that it would embolden the right-wing to concerns that whites would mess up the story to worries that it would by definition bolster lies about black inferiority to somewhat presumptuous fears that the American populace just didn't need to see this to accusations of cultural appropriation, imperialism and race-pimping/concern trolling.
The Last Mile
by David Baldacci
This book is second in a series but you shouldn't let that put you off from reading it first. I picked it up on sale. I was happy that I did. I didn't feel as if there was anything I missed by not reading the previous story. The Last Mile was a stand alone book. There was just enough description and backstory given to get the reader up to speed. The book is also atypical in that the protagonist is a severely out of shape middle aged man. He's trying to get back into a fit condition but it's a challenge. If this book is ever made into a film Hollywood shouldn't cast the normal type of leading man as the protagonist. The book was a little more than 400 pages but it rarely dragged. Baldacci pulls the reader in with meaningful action and brain teasers. Some of the characters are a little bit more strongly drawn than the others, but the villains are delicious.
Amos Decker is a genius bruiser. A former college football star at Ohio State, Decker made to the NFL for all of one game before he was knocked silly and knocked out of the league.The hit left him with some mild brain damage which fortunately for Decker was expressed in increased abilities in both deductive and inductive reasoning, an inability to ever forget anything down to the smallest detail (hyperthymesia), and the tendency to think in colors (synesthesia) when faced with certain emotional stimuli. All of these things made Decker a perfect fit for post NFL jobs as a police detective and later private detective. Decker's family has been murdered. It's not easy for him to make new friends although I think that Decker was blunt, socially inept and generally tactless even before his tragedy. As some people seek solace in alcohol or drugs, Decker patches his emotional wounds with food, the starchier and sweeter the better.
I'm pretty particular about some things. I know that we all have immune systems for a reason, as I once explained to an even more germophobic relative, but all the same I'd rather not test my immune system needlessly. Unless we're intimate you can keep your germs and bacteria to yourself, thank you very much!! I don't need them. I don't want them. I can't use them. I can't win with them. If a grocery clerk coughs or sneezes while they are ringing up my order I may at least give some thought to getting another item which doesn't have any bonus phlegm on it. I'm much better than I used to be about this sort of thing, believe me. Life is short. Nobody gets out clean.That said though there is a difference between relaxing standards which are too high and letting go of standards all together and permitting someone else to deliberately befoul your environment. The first may be a choice but the second is surrender. I heard about this story on the morning commute and could not believe it.
A Colorado landlord who was caught on home surveillance cameras having sex in his tenants' bed pleaded guilty to trespassing last week. Carlos Quijada-Lara was filmed breaking in to the $1,100-a-month apartment of married couple Logan Pierce and Mikaela DiGiulio in Colorado Springs last November to have sex on their bed with another man. He was unaware that the couple had installed a surveillance camera in their bedroom which recorded the romp.
