Chicago Police Raid Wrong Home And Hold Naked Black Woman At Gunpoint

The Chicago Police are notorious for both brutality and for getting things wrong. When you have the legal authority to detain, arrest, hurt and even kill people getting things wrong more than a few times is not something that society can tolerate. 

I have noticed that it seems as if a disproportionate percentage of the times the police get things wrong they do so with Black people. It's rare that I read about a mistaken militarized police raid in a white and/or wealthy area. 

The city of Chicago attempted to block a local news station from airing recently obtained body camera footage of police mistakenly raiding the wrong home with guns drawn and handcuffing a distressed, naked woman.

CBS2-TV released body camera footage on Monday night of officers forcing their way into the home of Anjanette Young nearly two years ago. The 50-year-old clinical social worker, who helps victims of violence and mentors people of color going into her profession, had just finished her work shift at a hospital and was undressing in her bedroom when a group of male officers broke down her door with a battering ram.

In the disturbing Feb. 21, 2019, footage, officers appear to have their guns drawn while they yell for Young to put her hands up. She can then be seen in the video fully naked with her hands raised, looking terrified and confused (CBS2 blurred parts of the video in which Young was shown naked). One officer puts Young’s hands behind her back and handcuffs her, leaving her with no way to cover herself as police search her home.

Movie Reviews: Jailbait

Jailbait
directed by Ed Wood

I am always looking for a good film noir to watch so I decided to check this one out. It quickly became apparent that this 1954 movie wasn't a good film noir. In fact it wasn't a good film of any kind of genre. This was because as I later learned this film was both written and directed by Ed Wood. I wouldn't have watched this film if I had known Wood directed it. The crossdressing Wood became infamous not only for his fetishes but for being unquestionably the worst director to ever work in Hollywood. Hands down. Think about whatever inept writer or director comes to your mind and then realize that Wood was worse. Far worse. He's probably the worst director to ever work on this planet. 

People who have no skill, experience, or even interest in directing, camera work, acting, or writing could fly out to Hollywood tomorrow and create much better work than Wood ever did. It is difficult to express in words just how horrible this film was. I later discovered that the version I saw, bad as it was, wasn't even the worst variant. There is an edition out there where either Wood or his southern film distributors decided to insert a lengthy blackface performance by a white comedian, his wife and a minstrel band. All of this was completely unrelated to the narrative. Someone evidently thought that white people of the time, particularly in the South, would find it drop dead funny.

Landlord Removes Tenant's Door Because Of Late Rent

As the pandemic continues to rage we will see more stories like this. How many of us could lose our job or other source of income or savings and be just fine for a significant amount of time?

A Missouri woman who lost her job amid the coronavirus pandemic said this week that her landlord temporarily removed her front door after she fell two months behind on rent payments. Hannah McGee told Fox’s St. Louis affiliate station, KTVI, that she has struggled to keep up with living expenses after losing her restaurant job. 

McGee, who has lived in the same apartment in Fenton, Mo., for three years and whose mother has rented the apartment next door for over a decade, said she now owes her landlord $1,000. “He’s always been a good landlord. I guess it just took one slip up,” McGee told the outlet. “I’ve lived here without a problem, no incidents whatsoever, I’ve been on time every month, but since COVID happened, I lost my job.” 

McGee said she began using her closet doors where her front door used to be, with her 4-year-old daughter forced to stay at her grandmother’s apartment in order to stay warm. “At night it gets definitely really cold, it’s kind of unbearable without it [the door],” McGee added.

Watching Morning Television

Scanning morning television while working from home over the past nine months I learned a few things. These include:

1) I need to call the Medicare Coverage Hotline right now to make sure I'm getting everything I deserve!!

2) I must immediately buy gold because these are uncertain times.

3) Jon Taffer can solve any problem by yelling at someone until s/he does better.

4) For just 3 easy payments of $24.99 I can have the best non-stick pan ever invented.

5) I should call a local ambulance chaser law firm because they're family.

6) Apparently people who badly lost their House, Senate, or dogcatcher race are the go to political experts on every cable channel.

7) Mike Lindell is interrupting this post to give a you a special deal on MyPillow!

8) With exceptions noted, to be an anchor on Fox News a woman must prove she has an unbroken line of "Aryan" descent to at least the 1700's. Male anchors can not have an IQ over 80.

9) Special guests on cable shows must always have their library as a backdrop to emphasize what a "SERIOUS" intellectual they are.

10) The IRS is going to come get me unless I call this tax relief firm and pay them a small fee.

11) If I order right now I can get an extra 20% off!

12) Fox News is convinced that whatever bad happens in America is either Black people's fault or is not as bad as whatever Black people are doing at this exact moment. Be scared. Be very scared!!! 

Book Reviews: My Work Is Not Yet Done

My Work Is Not Yet Done
by Thomas Ligotti

I hadn't read anything by this Detroit born author though I heard good things about him. So I decided to read the 2002 titular short story/novella. It also comes packaged with two other short stories. This is probably a horror story but that's just an easy surface description. This is weird fiction. This work owes some debts to people like Poe, Dunsany, and Lovecraft but is not a pastiche or homage. 

Ligotti is a singular voice. I will read the story again to fully understand events and their meaning. The writing is very atmospheric. There is a very dream like aspect to the descriptions. Even before the obvious supernatural elements intrude upon the reader, the reader might wonder about what is real and what is in the protagonist's head.

The protagonist, one Frank Dominio, opens the story by saying he has always been afraid. This turns out to be integral to the story because Frank is a very unreliable narrator, whether from fear or other failings. Frank is not entirely a schmuck but he's close. I think that many people may recognize themselves and/or their co-workers in Ligotti's description of Frank and his work associates.

In my own experiences, I didn't immediately realize that in work environments, rivals and enemies don't often reveal their hand and attack you openly and honestly. Some do, but that is rare. More often it's the "accidental" exclusion from business lunches or after hours conclaves, supposed jokes that are always at your expense, the damming with faint praise, a grudging meets expectations review, or an assignment to a task or path that gets little respect and no upper management visibility that limit someone's rise on the corporate totem pole.

Twerking at True Kitchen Restaurant

Let's say you invite a guest to your home. The guest puts her bare feet on your couch, throws her chewed meat bones on your carpet, and writes her name in permanent marker on your walls. When you politely ask the guest to stop this behavior she ignores you. 

She continues to disrespect you and deface your home. Upset, you eject the guest from your home, using some harsh language in doing so. This is not really news. It becomes news when other people who have the same warped values as the ejected guest blame you instead of the guest for the situation.

Kevin Kelley, owner of True Kitchen + Kocktails, tells TMZ that his anti-twerking speech has had a positive impact on his eatery. The Grio previously reported Kelley was filmed yelling at Black female patrons who were twerking and dancing on the furniture. In the clip, he makes clear that he is running a restaurant, not a club.
‘We’ve received an outpouring of support that we did not anticipate online and in person.’The Dallas restaurant owner who went viral for cursing out his customers over a twerking incident says business is booming.

Movie Reviews: Five Against The House

Five Against The House
directed by Phil Karlson

Although some consider this a film noir, I don't. It looks like one but it's just a heist movie and not one that's very engaging, with the exception of Kim Novak. It has some comedic asides about college life. It has some muddled thoughts about post traumatic stress disorder and what society owes to those veterans suffering from it. 

Five Against The House has Novak for the va-va voom factor. She definitely brought that element but had little else to do. There's no real conflict in her character or in her interactions with any of the other actors. She was no femme fatale. Not every noir movie has a femme fatale of course but they are common enough in the genre to be noticeable when absent. 

The film's other failing was that except for Novak the actors were simply too old to be believable as college students. The film addresses this problem by making the older looking characters law students instead of regular underclassmen but I still thought the other would be college students looked too old. 

There are some actors and actresses who can get away with playing 18-22 year olds well into their late twenties or early thirties but I didn't think any of these guys did that here. Four college students from Arizona take a weekend trip to a Reno casino. They have fun but obviously lose money. That is after all the point of a casino.