Cane Corso Dogs Kill Livonia Jogger

I have a dog. She's a German Shepherd. She's about average size for a female German Shepherd, weighing in at around 72lbs or so, but she is still extremely aggressive, protective and selfish of what she thinks of as her territory and pack. She's big enough to make unwanted solicitors go away which is fine by me. It's highly unlikely she is anywhere near as dangerous as she thinks she is. But she still has a high prey drive and loves to chase smaller creatures. She becomes agitated when someone she does not know approaches me or other humans she's accepted as part of her pack. And though my dog is smart for a dog, the smartest dog is still downright dumb compared to a human. So, with all that said I never ever ever let my dog run free off leash outside of my fenced backyard. And since she's figured out how to open the gate, I still have to keep an eye on her if she's in the back yard. The world is full of dangers, whether it be other dogs, trigger happy police or other armed people "standing their ground", cars, kids, etc. For both my dog's safety and my own it's best if she's on the leash and I do all the thinking for both of us. Because otherwise if she's off leash and trying to figure out the world on her own, each of us could get into a lot of trouble. A dog, even a midsize animal like a Shepherd, can under certain circumstances be quite dangerous. Responsible dog owners know this and take steps to ensure everyone's safety. But irresponsible dog owners don't take the proper steps to do that, whether it be training, control of the animal, or even better making sure that they have the correct animal for their needs. This is what happened in Michigan recently.

You don't have to be licensed to purchase any sort of dog. You can be a responsible management consultant who keeps his dog on leash and obeys the relevant laws and codes. Or you can be an illegal immigrant couple who let their dogs run free off leash throughout the neighborhood scaring people, biting them and finally killing a person. Mr. Qualgiata and Mrs. Lucaj are now facing second degree murder charges because their two Cane Corso dogs killed a Livonia jogger while he was jogging past their home.

The Metamora couple whose dogs killed a jogger last week are in the U.S. illegally and were facing imminent deportation at the time of the attack. Valbona Lucaj, 44, got into the country from Albania in January 1997 after bribing an immigration officer into granting her asylum, according to federal court filings. Her Italian husband, Sebastiano Quagliata, 45, arrived a month earlier as a tourist and never left. The two are potentially facing involuntary manslaughter charges after their Cane Corso dogs attacked and killed Craig Sytsma, 46, of Livonia on July 23 as he jogged past their home on a rural Metamora Township road. Lapeer County prosecutors are expected to announce a decision on criminal charges this week. It is unclear what, if any impact, their citizenship status will have on possible prosecution. The couple have been fighting deportation for years since immigration officials discovered that Lucaj had paid $3,000 to an immigration officer in New York to grant her asylum. That asylum was then granted to Quagliata because he was her spouse. LINK

Now there is plenty of blame to go around. If the federal government had been doing its job in a prompt and efficient manner these two lowlifes would have been kicked out of my country a long time ago. But also if the local and state agencies, ie. the prosecutors, had been doing their job the dogs would have been seized and destroyed and/or the couple would have been arrested before this final tragedy took place. I am actually less concerned with their immigration status than with a pattern of behavior that shows the couple simply didn't care what their dogs did. This fatal mauling was not the first time that the dogs had attacked humans. And in the neighborhood the couple was apparently well known for letting their dogs run free. If you don't give a dog something to do and a sense that you are the one in charge, the dog will make up its own job. And it may even start to think that it is in charge. This is a horrible thing to have happen. And with an animal which possesses the size and aggression of a Cane Corso it's akin to leaving a loaded gun out around a child.  LINK

I don't jog as much as I used to because of knee issues. But I still go for pretty long walks with my dog in the subdivision or the woods/farmland which are behind it. Dogs being dogs there is plenty of barking and raised hackles when we encounter other dogs. But there's only been two occasions in the decade or so that I've had my dog that we've been attacked by other dogs. In one of those cases the other dog stopped short and ran when my dog went into full beast mode. In the other incident I applied my boot to a place on the other dog's anatomy where I thought it would do the most good. I had words with the owner in the second situation and did indeed file a complaint with the authorities. But neither of those two dogs which attacked us were Cane Corsos. If you are unarmed and are attacked by such animals there's not going to be too much that you can do. You are going to get bit. You may not survive. 

So although I have a gooey soft heart for animals in general and canids in particular it's critical that the Cane Corsos involved in this attack be destroyed. It's not their fault but all the same they have demonstrated that they are too dangerous to be allowed to live. The behavior patterns they've shown prove that they will continue to harass and attack passers-by. And as far as the owners, I think that second-degree murder charges are exactly the appropriate charges. If found guilty they could get up to life in prison. I am not at all bothered by that. I just wish that everyone, local, state and federal, had paid more attention to the situation before it reached this point. Having a dog is a responsibility. You must be in control of the animal at all times. If you can't do that and/or are deep down scared of the dog then don't get it.

Thoughts?

Is 2nd degree murder the correct charge here?

Is there a problem with off leash dogs in your community?

Movie Reviews: Hercules, Sabotage, Transcendence

Hercules
directed by Brett Rattner

While this graphic novel adapted film starring Dwayne Johnson was better than the other Hercules movie that recently appeared (you shouldn’t see that film unless you are trying to kill your brain cells) it wasn't quite a must see film for a few reasons. This film is still under the spell of Zack Snyder’s 300. I am too but does that mean I want to see it made over and over again by every single director? Probably not. Also 300 had a well deserved “R” rating. Because it’s aiming for the family crowd, Hercules has a “PG-13” rating. It has a few iffy scenes but despite war and death this is not a supremely graphic film. Second, maybe we just live in a cynical age but the mythical Hercules was a great tragic hero of supernatural origins. As the half-human son of Zeus, king of gods and men, Hercules attracted special hatred from Zeus’ sister-wife, the goddess Hera. It didn't help matters that Hercules' mother gave him the name "Glory of Hera" to try to mollify the goddess. Hera was not mollified. Hera tried to murder Hercules in his cradle. She later drove him to a fit of madness during which he murdered his wife and children. In repentance Hercules performed the 12 labors. Hercules once impregnated 50 women in a single night. Hercules was the ancestor of the Spartans. Eventually Hercules was killed by his jealous wife who was either wrongly convinced Hercules was having an affair, trying to prevent Hercules from having an affair, or manipulated into doing so accidentally by an enemy, depending on which myth you prefer. The human Hercules died. The demigod Hercules ascended to Olympus. 

But this film has few supernatural elements. Almost every myth is revealed as people exaggerating, lying or simply being mistaken about key events. Unlike the movie King Arthur, which also showed a grittier deglamorized version of a central Western myth, Hercules suffers from this approach. There’s a resulting loss of majesty which limits the film. Dwayne Johnson is literally larger than life. Why not give him a film that measures up?  

Still, Johnson impresses as the film doesn’t require him to do much more than strut around, drop some boasts, glower at his enemies and of course engage in the physical stunts which he made famous as “The Rock”. He takes his role very seriously. I suppose this is an example of color blind casting as the Black/Samoan Johnson plays the European Greek hero Hercules but it really wasn’t that jarring given Johnson's appearance. Russian model Irina Shayk, who could probably pass for Brazilian or Black/Biracial , has a brief role as Hercules’ doomed wife. She can smell what the Hercules is cooking!

The film opens some time after Hercules has completed his 12 labors. He’s a mercenary who leads a small band of brothers (and one sister). He claims to fight for money but we all know that anyone who says that doubtless has a hidden core of decency. Some say that the orphaned Hercules must be the son of Zeus to have done all that he’s accomplished. This is what his hype man, charioteer and nephew Iolaus (Reece Ritchie) is always telling people. Amphiaraus (Ian McShane) is the older world weary adviser who claims to be a seer. Atalanta (Ingrid Berdal) is the woman archer in the form fitting leather bustier. Heh-heh. Autolycus (Rufus Sewell) is the savvy #2. And Tydeus (Aksel Hennie) is the wild man who thinks he’s a wolf. He doesn't speak but is thoroughly devoted to Hercules. Princess Ergenia (Rebecca Ferguson in clothing that is a little less form fitting but more diaphanous) seeks out Hercules and his group. The Princess wants to hire the mercenaries to lead and train the armies of her father King Cotys (John Hurt) to protect Thrace against the depredations of the evil warlord Rhesus (Tobias Santelmann). People say Rhesus has centaurs and magic.

Hercules agrees to work for King Cotys. Hercules comes to take a paternal liking to Ergenia’s son and heir to the throne while Ergenia may have an earthier interest in Hercules (her husband is dead). And the King is as pleased as punch to have the grand hero Hercules helping to lead his men to (hopeful) victory. There are plenty of twists and turns, most of which are predictable. Hercules might be the strongest of men but no one ever said he was the smartest. Joseph Fiennes has a small role as someone from Hercules' past. I liked the idea that it takes more than weapons and equipment to make an army and more than beating up people to make a hero. The film features a pretty exciting setpiece attack on a shieldwall. This film was a worthwhile entry in the whole swords and sandals genre which I enjoy ever so much but it wasn’t an A+ submission. I would give it a solid B. Not everything needs to be Braveheart, 300, or LOTR. Johnson’s charisma and extreme dedication to diet and exercise shine through but there's not much more to this film. It's fun though and maybe sometimes that's all you need from a summer film. So enjoy if battles, derring do and feats of strength are your thing. TRAILER

Sabotage
directed by David Ayer

If you send your dog to hunt a wolf what happens if the dog decides on second thought it would rather be a wolf? You've got a serious problem if that happens. After all, unlike the wolf, the dog knows all your bad habits and weak spots. You actually trust the dog which is something a bad dog might be able to use to its advantage. Sabotage raises that question but the film doesn't really give us a classic cat and mouse game between the good guy gone bad and the real good guy who has noticed some anomalies and is closing in fast. It tries to do that for a short period of time but inexplicably drops that approach. As a result it's difficult to identify with any of the protagonists, even if you think you know who the "good" guy is. Or at least it was difficult for me to cheer anyone on. YMMV. Everything is ambiguous. David Ayer also wrote Training Day and directed End of Watch. You can see some of the same themes that Ayer used in those films used in this one but for some reason they seem muddled here.

John Breacher (Schwarzenegger) is a legendary DEA commander who commands a DEA strike force team. They are described as undercover agents but only one of them is ever seen in a true undercover role. And with one exception they don't seem to be in the business of arresting people either. No, they're really paramilitary Special Forces type operators. They kill people. And they're good at it. Generally speaking the characters all run together and you don't get a chance to make too many individual distinctions among them. So their names aren't really that important. There's big white guy, even bigger white guy, serious white guy, crazy white guy, intelligent white guy, smooth black guy, crazy white girl, etc. Each of them have nicknames like Sugar, Grinder, Monster, Tripod, etc. They all seem to have an excess of testosterone, including the sole woman. For example Lizzy (Mirielle Enos), tells a team member who is not her husband that she can outfight and outf*** him. This is banter. Maybe. The team, including Lizzy, also spends a lot of its down time in bars and strip joints where boasting, excessive drinking and fights -with other people- are normal behavior. These are bada$$es who might have adapted a bit too well to their violent milieu. Although they squabble and harass each other they all have trust and something approaching love for Breacher. It's a family and he's their Daddy.

The team gets an assignment to raid a drug house which has tremendous amount of money hidden within. Lizzy is undercover and lets the team in. After wasting the bad guys and losing one of their own the team steals some of the money (about $10 million) and destroys the rest of the cash (significantly more than $10 million). It's initially unclear as to whether they are doing this for themselves or for higher ups. What is clear is that when they go to retrieve the stolen liberated cash it's gone. More disturbingly the DEA bosses somehow know that money was taken from the larger stash. They even roughly know the amount. Apparently this theft was unauthorized. Breacher and his team are separated and grilled. No one admits to anything, Breacher is placed on restricted desk duty while his team is suspended. Eventually the suspension is lifted. The team's internal trust and competence is badly damaged. Before Breacher can get it fully restored one of the team members dies in what appears to be a grisly accident. This accident attracts the attention of hardnosed homicide investigators Brentwood (Olivia Williams) and Jackson (Harold Perrineau). Other team members start to die in spectacularly gruesome violent ways. Obviously someone is hunting them. Is it the DEA? Is it the Mexican Cartels who want their money back? Who can they trust? This is basically an updated version of Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None but without the Old World panache.

I thought that Williams and Enos should have switched roles. Williams has the tough lady look and sound down much more than the slight Enos. Enos took an over the top approach that I didn't find all that convincing, though it was somewhat entertaining. This is a very graphically violent movie. There are a lot of shootouts. Whoever is killing the team members not only knows what they were doing but intended to inflict the maximum amount of pain and humiliation. The camera lingers over a few killings. Generally speaking I like the film's look. There's a good mix of colors and settings. As mentioned it's difficult to tell who if anyone you should be rooting for. Even after one of the big reveals you might wonder if that's really the bad guy. Schwarzenegger is the name to draw viewers but this is really an ensemble movie. Other cast members include Joe Manganiello, Sam Worthington, Kevin Vance, Josh Holloway, Max Martini, and Terrence Howard. I recently read an online question asking why does Howard often sound like he's on the verge of crying when he talks in many movies. Evidently in real life Howard might indeed have a reason to shed a few tears. Heh-heh. All in all this was a mediocre/decent action movie. The ending was semi-satisfactory. It's just that getting there didn't make a lot of sense to me.  TRAILER





Transcendence
directed by Wally Pfister

This movie was thoroughly bad. Disappointing. Frustrating. Irritating. Just all around bad. It was so bad that it actually amazes me that when the director, producers, writers and studio execs reviewed the finished product that they actually thought releasing this film unchanged was a good idea. It seems as if someone would have raised his hand and said "Guys, we might need to reshoot this and rewrite that." Then again, jobs are hard to come by these days. At work I've kept my mouth shut sometimes when I shouldn't have done so. But I like to think I'd speak up if my department was about to produce something that was equally as bad as Transcendence. I don't mean that the acting was particularly horrible or that the movie looked bad. Well then again to be kind there were some performances that were better than others. But most of the cast gave it the old college try. And the film's look and associated special effects were ok. No what I didn't care for in this film was the story and the pacing. If you read the Stephen King book or saw the film Pet Sematary, you will remember the quote and tagline "Sometimes dead is better". Well that quote succinctly summed up the message in Pet Sematary and should have been obvious to everyone in Transcendence but especially the remarkably solipsistic scientist Evelyn Caster (Rebecca Hall).This woman got on my nerves so much that I wanted to yell at the screen. She was a walking example of the stereotype "I don't care what my man does as long as he's nice to me". Long after everyone involved can see the danger and is literally heading for the hills, Evelyn is still marching along with blinders on. Love will do that I guess. 

I couldn't care less about the romance between Evelyn and her husband, scientist Dr. Will Caster (Johnny Depp). Obviously I am not among the target audience who goes gaga over Johnny Depp but that aside I thought the film placed far too much emphasis on the relationship. It was almost like a Beauty and the Beast opera. I was waiting for the singing to break out.

Dr. Will Caster is a genius cutting edge artificial intelligence researcher. He thinks that quite soon humans (that is to say him) will be able to create a sentient computer that has more brainpower than all of humanity ever has had or ever will have. Such intelligence will radically change the world and humanity, much for the better as far as the good doctor is concerned. He thinks that his AI will help slow the rise of the oceans and heal the planet. To those who think that Caster or his would be creation are playing God, Caster responds that humans have always tried to create God. Well some people who are either religious and/or wary of creating artificial intelligence are not thrilled with Caster or his ideas. One of them decides to let Caster know of this generalized displeasure by shooting him with an irradiated bullet. The gunman works for an anti-tech organization headed by Bree (Kate Mara). Will's not long for the world. But desperate to continue their work and lives together, the Casters convince friend and fellow scientist Max Waters (Paul Bettany) to upload Caster's consciousness to a quantum computer. Later, against Max's strident advice, Evelyn gives her husband's virtual identity access to the internet. Well you know what they say about absolute power and all that. Government scientist Joseph Tagger (Morgan Freeman), a mentor of both Casters, finds that he must make common cause with Bree despite the fact that she sent hit teams after him. 

The film misses some important things because it's too busy trying to be important and philosophical. Other than Evelyn and a few other characters no one shows any excitement or wonder at the fact that Will's consciousness has survived or rather transcended the death of his body and is still existing in THIS world. Sorry but that's something that would have been a big f*****g deal as our vice-President would say. That news would have gone around the world at light speed. Evelyn and virtual Will would have immediately been inundated non-stop with worldwide media coverage, government interest, terminally ill people, etc. Religions would have been rocked to their core. And so on. But the film doesn't bring any of this across. Depp basically mails in his performance. FLAT doesn't do justice to the lack of emotion shown. And as mentioned Evelyn is so freaking stupid and self-righteous that it hurt my head to watch her. If you skip this movie you won't miss much.  TRAILER

Stephen Smith, Michelle Beadle and the Ray Rice Situation: Was Stephen Smith Defending Domestic Violence?

Man got his woman to take his seed /He got the power oh she got the need/ She spends her life through pleasing up her man/She feeds him dinner or anything she can/
She cries alone at night too often/ He smokes and drinks and don't come home at all/
Only women bleed only women bleed only women bleed/
Black eyes all of the time don't spend a dime clean up this grime/And you there down on your knees begging me please come watch me bleed Only Women Bleed - Alice Cooper 
As you may have heard Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice and his then fiancee and now wife Janay Palmer got into some sort of physical altercation in an Atlantic City hotel. Unlike the one way slap and kickfest between Solange Knowles and Jay-Z the public lacks video evidence of what exactly took place but apparently whatever fight took place the new Mrs. Rice lost decisively because we do see the video of Mr. Rice dragging the unconscious Mrs. Rice by her hair and lifting her up after he apparently knocked her out. The police arrested both Rice and Palmer. Each had assault charges filed against them. Janay Palmer's charges were later dropped while Mr. Rice's charges were increased. However as a first time offender, Mr. Rice was eligible to enter into a diversion program, which will allow him to avoid jail or prison. FWIW his wife indicated that she didn't want to pursue charges. In fact at the press conference in which Rice apologized to everyone except her, she said that she regretted the role she played in the incident. Ok. I can't imagine ever becoming violent with a woman. The very idea disgusts me. It's a virtual impossibility. Work it out or walk away. I was raised in a very traditional household. However I am also disgusted by the idea of a woman spitting on me or hitting me as Mrs. Rice is reported to have done to Mr. Rice. I think that everyone should abide by a no-hands rule in interpersonal conflict. When you start a violent confrontation you don't know what the other person might consider an appropriate response to your physical aggression. I have never understood people who hit or beat a spouse or intimate and then go to sleep in the same house as the person they just assaulted. I think that's dumb. You might get some hot grits thrown on you. You might not wake up with everything still attached. You might not wake up at all. So again, no violence against either party should ever be tolerated. This is for both moral reasons and those of pure self-interest. 

So with no jail time upcoming, the only question was what would NFL commissioner Roger Goodell do. Goodell has a media image, one aided by his own pronouncements, as a tough take no prisoners type of guy, who was going to lay down the law to bad guys. Beating your wife certainly is something a bad guy would do. So many people both in and outside of the NFL were a bit taken aback when Goodell announced that Ray Rice would be suspended for two games and have pay withheld for a third game. Some people wanted a tougher sanction. Oft irritating ESPN personality Stephen Smith is paid to be opinionated and loud. So he gave his opinion about the Rice situation. However he walked into a buzzsaw of controversy when he seemingly suggested that women can be taught or advised not to inflame situations. Likely the word that caused the media storm of controversy and set off a wordy twitter battle with fellow ESPN employee Michelle Beadle was "provoke". As expected Smith had to apologize for his statements which he duly did here. It was a pretty good apology as apologies go I guess. I would guess that his bosses at ESPN made it clear that it was not helpful to the network or his continued employment at the network for anyone to think that Smith or the network condoned beating up women. If I go tell the police that I was assaulted I would be taken aback if rather than ask who did it, their first question was "Well what were you doing to cause that? We need to investigate that first sir before we go bother other decent people on your say so." So I understand that discussion of "provoking" violence likely won't be well received by anyone who was the target of said violence.

Nevertheless I feel that Smith and his detractors are talking past one another, purposely or not. If I walked up to a man larger, stronger and entirely more dangerous than myself and said insulting things about his mother, punched him or spit in his face there's a good chance that after I got out of the hospital people might ask me why I thought my actions were appropriate. And those would be fair questions. There are many people who see the NFL as the last remaining he-man woman hater's club. But I don't think that's the case. There are plenty of other situations where businesses or organizations have looked the other way when a man who brings in money behaves poorly or even arguably criminally with women. Former American Apparel CEO Dov Charney, who among other things, pleasured himself in front of a female journalist, and fashion photographer Terry Richardson, who has been accused of everything from generalized sleaziness to sexual harassment and assault, are just two examples of men not working with, in or for the NFL who somehow have managed to until recently avoid mainstream media attention, even after having done or allegedly done acts that are just as bad as what Ray Rice did. The ugly truth of the matter is that just like every other business, the NFL is looking to make money. That's the primary concern. If Charney were still making money for his company American Apparel he would still be in the big seat. And Richardson is skilled enough at what he does to still have legions of admirers and fans. And if Ray Rice rushes for 1300 yards this year, most Ravens fans won't care too much about whatever happened in that elevator. That may be sad and even immoral but it's just the way it is. So I don't think we should pretend that the NFL alone has a problem. 

Domestic violence is all over the place. It's a societal problem, not just a NFL or sports problem. Everyone should be aware of it and seek to stop it, regardless of the victim's gender. I think that is what Smith was trying to say. I think that as soon as Smith used the word "provoke" people thought about the classic stereotype of a woman cutting a man verbally and a man lashing out at her physically or for no reason at all because he's a cowardly POS. Those events still take place. I've seen a few, unfortunately. But times change. There are some quite dangerous women walking around out there. If you were the man unlucky enough to be intimate with Sadie Bell, you had better be ready to defend yourself at all times, up to and including fisticuffs or more. That's reality. 
Update********

ESPN on Tuesday announced a one-week suspension for one of its most controversial commentators, Stephen A. Smith, in the wake of his widely-criticized remarks about domestic abuse that referred to possible "provocation" by victims.

What do you think?
Is a two game suspension enough for Ray Rice?
Was Stephen Smith defending domestic violence?
Should Stephen Smith have been suspended?

Book Reviews: The Spook Who Sat by The Door

The Spook Who Sat By The Door
by Sam Greenlee

Sam Greenlee just passed away a few months ago. Sam Greenlee was an American writer who had a long career as both a military officer and overseas agent for the United States Information Agency, which worked worldwide to dispense propaganda and news favorable to U.S. interests. Greenlee witnessed (was involved in?) the 1958 Iraqi revolution. Greenlee was also a member of the Alpha Kappa Psi fraternity. He was among the first black employees for the USIA. He later apparently came to regret some of his work. Although the book "The Spook Who Sat by The Door" was not exactly autobiographical, as Greenlee was never a CIA agent, nor did he start any revolutions as far as we know, it definitely drew on and was inspired by his work experiences. The book's attacks on racism are far exceeded by a deeper disdain for black integrationists, in particular those who were petit bourgeois/middle class. Greenlee's writing drips with contempt for people who would rather go along to get along or mouth empty words about tolerance rather than stand up and take control over their own lives. The book's title is a double pun as spook is both a racial slur and a nickname for a spy. The phrase also refers to the corporate practice of hiring black people in visible positions so that a company can market itself as an equal opportunity employer. Often, however, such token hires are never afforded access to real power or promotion opportunities. The book's protagonist, Dan Freeman, is an Army veteran who takes advantage of an affirmative action program designed to produce the country's first black CIA agent.

The CIA created this program because a cynical liberal senator, concerned that his black support is dropping, verbally attacked the CIA in open committee hearings for not having any black agents.

The white General who runs the CIA is confident that no black recruit will pass the necessary physical, stress or intelligence tests. The recruits are, except for Freeman, middle class men whose primary interests are making the cover of Jet or Ebony magazine as the "first black CIA agent", making money, and chasing women, not necessarily in that order. They are generally soft, class obsessed and arrogant. They shun Freeman, who didn't go to the best school (he's a Michigan State grad) or join a fraternity. The white instructors are all hostile. Nevertheless when the dust settles, Freeman is the only man who passed. With one notable exception (his demolishing of a racist martial arts instructor), Freeman has built an aw shucks facade that is impervious to all but the most dedicated investigation. He finds that people generally see what they expect to see. And they don't expect much from him.

Freeman stays undercover. He becomes an apparently apolitical drone who's seemingly happy to spend his time copying materials and doing other simplistic demeaning work at the CIA before he leaves to work at a government funded outreach program for Chicago's disaffected youth. Most of the program employees don't care about the youth. For most people, working with underprivileged youth is something that is done to salve guilty consciences, pad resumes for future jobs, do Ph.D coursework or make money. But Freeman has other ideas. A former teen gang member himself, he reaches out to the Cobra gang. He has plans for them, plans of freedom and revolution for all black people in America. Freeman learned more than people thought he did in the CIA. Representing the two paths that Freeman could take are two women with whom he's close. There is Joy, his would be fiancee and self-made middle class striver who thinks that militants are dangerous and unrealistic. Joy wants to marry someone materially ambitious. There is a prostitute whom Freeman calls his Dahomey Queen. He exposes her to Afrocentric music and literature and tells her that she's beautiful despite her intensely West African facial features and skin tone. Although he doesn't share his real plans with either woman, Freeman finds that women can read him easier than he thinks. 

This is not a great book. Outside of Freeman, the characters are pretty flat. But it is quick reading. People who are very close to me were almost killed in the Detroit 1967 riot. So the description of the rioting in the book was if nothing else, intriguing. The lingo is dated. But the theme isn't. Anyone who has ever bit their tongue to keep a job they hate or undergone short term unpleasantness for long term goals will recognize Freeman's struggle. The book has a lot to say about how oppression warps human beings. As Freeman scoffs in a moment of openness (paraphrasing) "The oppression creates the conditions and then they use the conditions to justify the oppression!". That is a true statement and one which I will certainly use in the future.

Television Reviews: The Strain (FX), The Musketeers (BBC America)

The Strain

Vampire myths have always reflected the tensions and fears of their originating societies. Bram Stoker's Dracula gave the reader images of "perverse" (i.e. non-marital/non-missionary/non-reproductive) sex, the threat of the darker, corrupt or foreign man to the white or virtuous woman and fears of unchaste liberated women, venereal diseases and death. Death and sex are often linked because each process is critical to life. For the past 40 years with some occasional notable exceptions provided by such writers as Stephen King or Brian Lumley, or films such as 30 Days of Night, the vampire's primary media image has emphasized the sexual or romantic loner elements and played down the undead monster or alien monstrosity interpretations. Such writers as Anne Rice, Stephenie Meyer and perhaps to a lesser extent Charlaine Harris have created and inspired a large number of vampire stories that for my taste veer far too close to gothic romance stories or even soft core porn. Each person has their own likes and dislikes. I just happen to prefer the myth of a vampire as an alien/undead thing, not a bisexual goth or tortured romantic or suave antihero. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with the other renderings. It's a large world and fortunately everyone can find the sort of entertainment that they enjoy. To each his or her own. You may be familiar with the film director and producer Guillermo Del Toro and/or the writer Chuck Hogan. You may not have known that a few years ago they wrote a trilogy of vampire novels in which the vampires were light years away from pretty boy fops. These vampires are not moping around whining about immortality nor do they "sparkle" or hang around high schools experiencing puppy love with tremendously boring teen girls. These vampires are not looking for the reincarnation of their lost love. You don't want to meet these vampires in alleys, dark or otherwise. Del Toro has made that quite clear in his public comments about his new series.

The vampires are monsters. When they drink your blood it is not a metaphor or substitute for sex. Sex is not really on their agenda. Drinking your blood is their agenda. 

The first book in this trilogy was titled The Strain. I won't claim that it revolutionized horror literature or anything like that but I found it to be a welcome addition to the modern vampire genre. It injected a fair bit of real horror and fright into a style which I thought had become almost effete. I was happy to see that not only was there a FX series based on the books but that Del Toro and Hogan would be involved in writing, directing and producing. The results so far (the series just started last week) have been pretty good. If you were impressed with the physical look of the vampires in Blade 2 (directed by Del Toro) you will be pleased with The Strain's updates. An international flight from Berlin to NYC's JFK airport lands at night in the wrong section of the airport and then goes silent. No radio contact, no cell phones calls, no text messages, no nothing. All the shades are drawn except one. Because we are post 9/11 every single New York and Federal agency with even the remotest claim of authority over an event like this is jockeying to direct the response (and take credit for fixing the problem). The airport tarmac is full of government officials and bureaucrats like the late Alexander Haig who are running around telling everyone that "I'm in charge here" and strutting around engaging in baboon like displays of authority and aggression.

Somewhat implausibly(?) control is initiallly handed over to the CDC in the person of one Dr. Ephraim Goodweather (Corey Stoll) a man who is in the middle of required counseling sessions with his estranged and soon to be ex-wife Kelly (Natalie Brown). Kelly wants to divorce Eph because as head of the CDC rapid response team, Eph always puts the job first. Eph loves his wife and son but he has some issues about always having to be right. He's also a recovering alcoholic. Although he's doing his best to hold back sarcastic responses during the counseling sessions, Eph has no choice but to prove Kelly correct about his excessive job dedication when he gets paged. Along with fellow CDC worker Dr. Nora Martinez (Mia Maestro), Eph enters the plane to discover that all the passengers are dead with no apparent signs of trauma. There are some other anomalies.  This is obviously a shout out to the ship The Demeter, from the Dracula novel. Meanwhile across town death camp survivor and walking bada$$ grandpa Professor Abraham Setrakian (David Bradley aka Walder Frey from Game of Thrones) sees the news coming out of JFK and knows exactly what's happened. He also knows he won't be believed. Look for Sean Astin (Samwise from Lord of the Rings) as a CDC administrator. Unfortunately, at this stage in my life "The Strain" comes on too late (Sundays at 10 PM) for me to watch in real time. Furthering my irritation, my cable provider/FX has thoughtfully disabled the fast forward provision on its on-demand selection. So watching the premiere on a work night required me to devote a little over 95 minutes of my time. That was no good. Subsequent episodes are only a hour. So time will tell if I will watch the series during the week, wait until the weekend to watch the Sunday episode or take my brother's suggestion, join the modern era and obtain a DVR. 

Anyway, if you are into vampires, disturbingly creepy body horror, disaster films, or Del Toro creations you could do worse than to check this out Sunday nights, provided you are younger and/or don't have to be up bright and early on Monday mornings. There is explicit violence and occasional blink and you missed it nudity. The biological and scientific elements mesh seamlessly with the supernatural.

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The Musketeers

Everyone probably knows the story of The Three Musketeers, written by Alexander Dumas. It is a pretty good adventure story as such tales go. Some people may be unaware that Alexandre Dumas was a man of partial African ancestry. I wrote about his father here. Some of the younger Dumas' themes and fables were taken from stories told about his father and other black nobles of pre-revolutionary France. It is perhaps fitting then that in this new BBC America version of the story, the Musketeer Porthos, who in the book had some similarities to both Shakespeare's Falstaff and Dumas' father, has been altered to be a biracial black Frenchman, just like the elder General Dumas. I guess you could say that's both a step forward for color-blind casting and ironically for more historically accurate casting. Dunno. I like what Charles and the show writers have done with the Porthos role from what I've seen of the show to this point. 

Anyhow I am not going to detail much of the plot here because you probably already know it. The series creators take large liberties with it. I mean massive. I mean gargantuan. I mean gigantic. But for all of those changes, I think that the series still works as good entertainment. It works because although the creators change many details, add different motivations and make all sorts of other changes they still allow some basic truths to shine through. Athos (Tom Burke) is still a nobleman who is haunted by his marriage to the deadly Milady (Maime McCoy). Porthos (Howard Charles) is still a giant brawler who has fierce dedication to his comrades. Aramis (Santiago Cabrera) is still a man perched between dedication to the church and dedication to sleeping with as many women as he can. D'Artagnan (Luke Pasqualino) is still a quick tempered Gascon youth who has come to Paris (he's looking for vengeance for his murdered father instead of his fortune) and is slowly falling in love with the very married Mrs. Constance Bonacieux (Tamla Kari) And Cardinal Richelieu (Peter Capaldi) is still a ruthless, intelligent and occasionally acerbic manager and backroom dealmaker who is equally invested in increasing the glory of France and the glory of Cardinal Richelieu. The Cardinal is evil. But he's not so much actively malicious as he is willing to do anything to reach or justify his ends. He's not running around kicking puppies for fun. But if he discovers that his lover has been stepping out on him or worse, telling other men his business, he will have her murdered without thinking twice on the issue. Capaldi could probably step into the shoes of Peter Cushing or Vincent Price if he wished to do more period roles. He really is that good here. He's a true pleasure to watch.

The Musketeers and D'Artagnan are as much detectives and secret agents as they are soldiers and swordsmen. They work to maintain the authority of the state and the power of the King and Queen. They don't always like this. However they also work to prevent murder, avenge wrongdoing, stop urban renewal projects explicitly designed to drive out the poor and in one episode even prevent a would be slave trader from wreaking havoc. To an extent, some of the early episodes often play out like police procedurals as each week a different Musketeer is forced to confront a damaging secret from his past. He usually tries to keep the others out of his business but of course being Musketeers the whole "All for one and one for all" usually kicks in. The Cardinal is usually always attempting to humiliate, embarrass or otherwise dismiss the Musketeers. He even set up one of them for murder. Cardinal Richelieu sees the Musketeers as a threat to his domination of or access to the King. The Cardinal believes that the King must rule France but that he must provide sole advice and counsel to the King. Anyone who gets in the way of that purpose is a threat as far as the Cardinal is concerned. If you stay out of his way and out of his business he's not likely to bother you. Do otherwise and well you get in his bad books. Nevertheless occasionally the Cardinal and the Musketeers are compelled by events or even the King to put aside their differences for the greater good. The Cardinal is, above all, a patriot. If you like period drama, with all of the attendant costumes and settings this show is worth watching at 9 PM on Sundays.

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Arizona Inmate Executed: Can the Death Penalty be Rehabilitated?

We've discussed the problems with the death penalty before here and here and here. Another problem with the death penalty is that in part because of increasing national and worldwide moral objections to the medicalization of executions, there are shortages of the various chemicals needed to literally put a man to sleep. And obviously there is no ability to, well not in this country anyway, to test in advance the chemical cocktail used in executions. This leads to "botched" executions. That is "botched" in the sense that the condemned man (and it's usually a man) did not die either quickly or painlessly. Now while if I were related to someone who had been murdered, I'm not sure that I would be all that bothered by the person who did it having some suffering before they died, that's not what our justice system is designed to do. The State carries out sentencing in the name of the People, not as private vengeance and retribution. There are various sentences, approved by the People and their Representatives, that are supposed to deter, to punish and in some cases to rehabilitate the convicted criminal. The sentences are not supposed to visit upon the convicted criminal the same evil and horror that he doled out. In many cases that would be not only immoral but impossible. If someone has raped and killed your child most people would agree that the State's proper response should not be to send someone to the convict's house to rape and murder his child. That's retribution but it's not justice. Similarly if someone has tortured and murdered someone and been sentenced to death, is it cruel and unusual punishment if his execution is slow, drawn out and painful instead of swift, certain and painless?

PHOENIX (Reuters) - An Arizona inmate took almost two hours to die by lethal injection on Wednesday and his lawyers said he "gasped and snorted" before succumbing in the latest botched execution to raise questions about the death penalty in the United States. The execution of convicted double murderer Joseph Wood began at 1:52 p.m. at a state prison complex, and the 55-year-old was pronounced dead just shy of two hours later at 3:49 p.m., the Arizona attorney general's office said.

During that time, his lawyers filed an unsuccessful emergency appeal to multiple federal courts that sought to have the execution halted and their client given life-saving medical treatment. The appeal, which said the procedure violated his constitutional right to be executed without suffering cruel and unusual punishment, was denied by Justice Anthony Kennedy of the U.S. Supreme Court. "He gasped and struggled to breathe for about an hour and 40 minutes," said one of Wood's attorneys, Dale Baich. "Arizona appears to have joined several other states who have been responsible for an entirely preventable horror: a bungled execution. The public should hold its officials responsible."

Arizona Governor Jan Brewer expressed concern over how long the procedure took and ordered the state's Department of Corrections to conduct a full review, but said justice had been done and that the execution was lawful. "One thing is certain, however, inmate Wood died in a lawful manner and by eyewitness and medical accounts he did not suffer," the Republican governor said in a statement.

"This is in stark comparison to the gruesome, vicious suffering that he inflicted on his two victims, and the lifetime of suffering he has caused their family."

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Joseph Wood, 55 at the time of his death, carried out the double murder in August 1989 when he shot his former partner Debbie Dietz and her father Gene at their family-run car body shop in Tuscon, Arizona. Wood, who was said to have assaulted Debbie during their relationship, walked into Dietz and Sons Auto Paint and Body Shop and shot 55-year-old Gene in the chest.

Then, as a desperate Debbie tried to phone for help, Wood grabbed her round the neck. The Arizona Daily Star reports that witnesses heard him tell her "I told you I was going to do it. I love you. I have to kill you, b****" before also shooting the 29-year-old fatally in the chest. When police arrived Wood turned his gun on officers, prompting them to open fire and shoot him nine times.

LINK

So do you think that this execution in Arizona is just a case of the karmic wheel of justice doing what it's supposed to do or do we need to come up with a more humane way of executing people? Or is the very idea of humane execution an oxymoron? When you shoot and kill your girlfriend and her father if you are in Arizona there's a chance that you'll have to pay for that with your life. So maybe it is what it is? And if Wood survived being shot nine times was that pain really worse than gasping for breath during his execution? Does this make you reexamine any of your thoughts about the death penalty and its implementation? My issues with the death penalty are its arbitrariness (the overwhelming majority of murderers will never face it) and its unfairness (it's tremendously biased in terms of race, class and gender). But if the State can't kill without torturing should the death penalty be scrapped?

Thoughts?

Who's a thug: Santelli vs. Sherman

You may remember that Seattle Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman was quite excited after his team just won the NFC Championship game. Sherman was instrumental in helping his team to achieve that victory. He spoke emphatically and aggressively. He also spoke dismissively of rival football player, wide receiver Michael Crabtree of the San Francisco Forty Niners. Sherman was fined. He was also excoriated in social media and by more than a few pundits as a thug. A great many people made racist ugly comments about Sherman's intelligence, his family, his class, his race and black people in general. The people making these sorts of attacks on Sherman did not care that he was a Stanford graduate, was obtaining a Masters Degree, or most importantly had no record of criminal arrests or convictions. AFAIK no one has accused him of domestic abuse, drug sales, bar fights, child abuse, drug usage or anything else that might indicate violent or criminal tendencies. All that is public record about Sherman is that occasionally he likes to run his mouth on the football field. These public attacks on Sherman weren't just your normal attacks by conservative/racist whites. They also included people like liberal/moderate law professor Jonathan Turley. Unconscious stereotyping and unexamined bigotry cross all political lines.

You may not recall that CNBC commentator and derivatives trader Rick Santelli is also a very excitable man. He happens to lean conservative. His initial rant about the possibility of bailing out underwater homeowners is credited with helping to start Tea Party movements across the United State. Recently, as Princeton Economist and NYT opinion columnist Paul Krugman has been predicting, more financial commentators and economists are starting to notice that the very specific predictions about the economy made by conservative pundits like Santelli have simply not come true.  In fact, sometimes the exact opposite has happened. When Santelli was called out on television about his consistently incorrect financial predictions he became very agitated, aggressive and extremely loud, probably about as loud as Sherman was. But from what I can see twitter and other social media has not exploded with racist vitriol towards Santelli. There don't seem to be many people questioning his intelligence or whether he got special assistance in admission to or graduation from his alma mater. I don't seem to find too many people calling Santelli a thug or making offensive links between his ethnic background and his behavior. Santelli is not of course someone with the same national profile as Sherman but still. Talking smack may well be more of a black athlete thing than a white one but there have been more than a few white athletes who can talk smack with the best of them and aren't called thugs. Although there have been successful introverts in the career paths of both Santelli and Sherman, their chosen jobs tend to be filled with people who are confident, loud, aggressive and don't mind letting you know about how good they are.

Now anyone who knows me in real life would tell you that I am generally pretty introverted and quiet. If I get angry with someone initially it usually comes across as ice and coldness instead of heat and fire. It takes a lot before I raise my voice or start sputtering insults. That's what I've been told anyway. That's neither good not bad. It's just the way I am. Sometimes I think it would be useful to be more fiery like some people I know. But that's not me. The chances of me sounding like either Santelli or Sherman are extremely low. Outside of a few relatives or other special people I'm not overly fond of excitable, boisterous, loud people. That said, I also know that everyone is different and just because someone's personality or mode of expression is different than mine doesn't tell me anything about that person. I think that I can usually get my point across without yelling or raising my voice. Other people have much lower thresholds for increases in volume or irritation. So it goes. The problem I have with the different reactions to the Santelli/Sherman rants is that these reactions have very real impact on all black people, regardless of gender, age, or personality type. These double standards count. The white law professor and the white police officer may have very different ways of seeing the world. They may vote for diametrically opposed candidates. But if they both immediately think "thug" when they see or hear a loud black man, that could lead to things like this. An unarmed black man allegedly resists arrest and is immediately swarmed, taken down and killed. An armed white man tells the Federal government what they had better not do and is still walking free.

These double standards and perception differences around the same behavior in different people are one of the definitions of racism. They need to be identified, called out and resisted as often as possible. Not getting hired or promoted or treated equally in the workplace is more common and much less painful than getting harassed, beaten or killed by the police. But the same ugly mentality is behind both responses. It's a mentality that still sees a black person as the dangerous other, who is not to be trusted or treated the same as whites. To be called a "thug" by apparently no small number of people all a black man has to do is speak loudly. For society to even think about granting a white man that title he would actually have to go out and beat or kill someone, you know, actually meet the definition of the word. But even then that might not be enough. Sherman is not a thug.
This is a thug. See the difference?