Duelling letters about Gates

Richard Frisbie, of Arlington Heights, IL, a writer whom I have known for years, primarily through our membership in Society of Midland Authors, cites a 1979 Florida case, “State vs. Brayman,” as one to keep in mind as we judge the arrest of Prof. Gates in Cambridge.

In it, Frisbie says in a letter to the Sun-Times,

a charge of “resisting a police officer without violence” was dismissed by Judge John J. King in a decision widely quoted in the press at the time.

I will take his word about that, but I would like to know how the decision fared in upper courts if challenged or to what extent it became precedent.

On the other hand, another letter writer, to the Canton, Ohio Repository, apparently no more a lawyer than Frisbie, cites another, later decision that supports the Gates arrest.

Terry v. Ohio is a famous U.S. Supreme Court case that defined “reasonable suspicion” and upholds law enforcement officers’ authority to stop, detain and frisk a suspect without arresting him, based on “reasonable suspicion.” [italics added]

This was in 1968.  The decision, approved with the sole dissent of Justice Douglas, has an enduring history:

Terry set the precedent for Michigan v. Long, 463 U.S. 1032 (1983). In an opinion citing Terry written by Justice O’Connor, the Supreme Court ruled that car compartments could be constitutionally searched if an officer had reasonable suspicion.

The scope of Terry was extended in the 2004 Supreme Court case Hiibel v. Sixth Judicial District Court of Nevada, 542 U.S. 177 (2004), which held that a state law requiring the suspect to identify himself during a Terry stop did not violate the Fourth Amendment prohibitions of unreasonable searches and seizures or the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination.

All of that goes far beyond the Gates arrest; it’s about stopping and frisking on the street, for one thing, not on one’s front porch.  But it does provide perspective for the case my fellow writer Frisbie brings up and seems on its face to have more substance.

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Here’s a Florida perspective on the 1979 case in the Broward-Palm Beach New Times blog, including that

it’s worth mentioning if only to celebrate the verbosity of late Broward Circuit Court Judge John J. King.

He was verbose, I guess.

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While we’re at it in re perspective, let’s get down to the common-sense level, if we may, with this observation by Michael Barone:

Obama’s acolytes love to say that this case is a “teachable moment.” The one who needs teaching, it is clear, is not Sergeant James Crowley but Professor Henry Louis Gates. Gates proclaimed that he was being questioned because he was black—which was plainly not the case. Crowley was responding to a passerby’s report that a house was being broken into.

Moreover—and this is a point I haven’t seen others make—when Gates was shouting in the hearing of passerbys that Crowley was a racist, Crowley must have regarded this as a threat to his entire career. Allegations of racism could result in losing his job, being publicly disgraced, being unable to get another good job—the end of everything he’d worked for all his adult life. [italics added]

We’ve seen that, have we not?  From baseball exec to talk-show host, the wheels have grinded rapidly and small, until little or nothing is left of the accused.  Hmmm.  Was Gates yelling fire in the old crowded theater?

Gates . . . had the power to destroy Crowley’s career. And he seemed to enjoy wielding that power, or at least to be acting in reckless disregard of his capacity to destroy the professional life of another human being.

Yes, Gates was jet-lagged and presumably irritated that he was locked out of his house. But the possibility that Crowley was a decent professional, not at all a racist, properly investigating a possible crime, doesn’t seem to have occurred to him. Crowley was just one of the little people, a disposable commodity in the career of an academic superstar.

Barone concludes:

In other words, by saying the Cambridge police “acted stupidly,” [Obama] aligned himself with the culture of victimhood that Gates channeled when he faced Sergeant Crowley. And he aligned himself with a member of the academic elite who committed acts which threatened to destroy another person’s professional life. Not a pretty picture. It will be interesting to see who shows contrition after this afternoon’s beer session.

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Bernanke Stutters?

I know stutters and this ain’t it.  It’s the second item I’ve seen in last two days about Bernanke looking bad on this point — the other was being questioned by a Congressman — and each time he doesn’t.

Heat’s on him and Fed because it’s lending (creating) money and not just setting rates, and rightly so,  And bigger q. is what about the Fed in the first place?  But that’s a minority view, to be sure.

As for his argument about letting Congress decide monetary matters — rates — if we need a wizard, those bozos can’t be the one, but more to point, that’s not the law, he argues.

Mad Barney Frank at the monetary helm?  Hollywood Waxman?  God save us.

Bernanke Stutters, Stammers And Shakes His Way Through Questions On Audit The Fed Bill

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Four in an hour

These burglaries are on the north end of town, not northeast, where houses are especially nice and residents are generally more affluent.

Oak Park police have issued a neighborhood alert following four residential burglaries within a four hour period early Wednesday morning. The burglaries occurred within a roughly four square block area bounded by Division on the north, Chicago on the south, Oak Park to the west and Ridgeland to the east

Details:

Three of the homes were entered through unlocked rear doors, and one through an open window. Numerous valuables were stolen while homeowners slept inside.

Oh boy.  While they slept. 

Cops are on it.  Indeed, they have been getting results.  But those unlocked back doors bespeak a confidence in one’s safety that is proving unrealistic.

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Orwellian science adviser

This was above Obama’s pay grade as a candidate, but as president he found a guy for whom it wasn’t:

President Obama’s top science adviser [John P. Holdren] said in a book he co-authored in 1973 that a newborn child “will ultimately develop into a human being” if he or she is properly fed and socialized.

That was his studied opinion.  His co-authors were uber population panic-peddler Paul Ehrlich, of Population Bomb fame, and Anne Ehrlich.

In the 1970s and 1980s . . . hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now,

Ehrlich wrote, in a prediction that bombed.

As for the newborn,

“The fetus, given the opportunity to develop properly before birth, and given the essential early socializing experiences and sufficient nourishing food during the crucial early years after birth, will ultimately develop into a human being,” John P. Holdren, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, wrote in “Human Ecology: Problems and Solutions.”

He’s Obama’s kind of guy, apparently.

He also

advocated the “de-development” of the United States in books he published in the 1970s.

It would work this way:

“A massive campaign must be launched to restore a high-quality environment in North America and to de-develop the United States,” Holdren wrote in [another] 1973 book he co-authored with Paul R. Ehrlch and Anne H. Ehrlich.

De-development?

“De-development means bringing our economic system (especially patterns of consumption) into line with the realities of ecology and the global resource situation.”

Back we would go to our golden age of primitivism, including radical wealth redistribution.

“The need for de-development presents our economists with a major challenge,” they wrote. “They must design a stable, low-consumption economy in which there is a much more equitable distribution of wealth than in the present one. Redistribution of wealth both within and among nations is absolutely essential, if a decent life is to be provided to every human being.”

Fascism, I called it in a Wed. Journal column last October.  How else but by such control of people’s lives can this be achieved?

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Later: True, the wild scenario urged on us by the science advisor in 1973 is fascistic.  But from there to say O. is equally fascistic is a stretch, it occurs to me.  One thing at a time, in other words.  At issue here is the kind of adviser O. picks.  He’s at least comfortable with this kind of thinking.  At least.

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Keep those rules and regs coming . . .

New Jersey is surpassing Illinois as a citadel of corruption, and this woman knows why:

Sandy McClure, co-author of the book “The Soprano State: New Jersey’s Culture of Corruption,” agrees that big government is a big reason behind the state’s corruption problem.

“You have all these little authorities that everyone has to go to for permission,” she says. “Too much government means too many opportunities for officials looking to cash in. And there’s no way that the press can keep track of it all.”  [Italics added]

Every new ordinance means a new chance to bribe and be bribed, does it not?

 

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We like to be in charge, you see . . .

It’s suspicion-of-profit time at the U.S. government:

The chairman of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission said Tuesday he believes the agency must “seriously consider” setting “strict” new limits on traders who place bets on energy contracts.

The standard arguments prevail, the same chutzpah:

“The CFTC is in the best position to apply limits across different exchanges, and we are most able to strike a balance between competing interests and the responsibility to protect the American public,” Mr. [Gary] Gensler said.

He’s the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s new commissioner, “pledged to look into setting aggregate limits across commodities of finite supply to make the rules more consistent.”

Now “certain agricultural markets” feel CFTC’s strong, visible hand — “hard limits” — soon oil, currently under such limits only in the last three days of a contract.  Speculation jacked up prices last time around, not heightened demand for shrinking supply, as some old-timers continue to insist on, say these wizards.

No nature-of-the-beast thinking here, no nature of anything, just stuff to be manipulated.

One of the big guys, CME Group, is on board with this stuff. Stands for Chicago Mercantile Exchange, owner of Merc and Board of Trade — among whose directors has been the astute and readable Sun-Times columnist Terry Savage, age 64 (!), since July 2007, for what that’s worth.

Ramifications of what CFTC does exceed the scope of my pay level, as do many other ramifications, but we do spy a, ah, philosophical difference here between standard Republican and standard Democrat approaches to business, do we not?  Not to mention when the Democrat hails from the party’s radical wing.

Gensler has blamed “speculation by index investors” for last year’s price run-up,” in the face of CFTC economists’ holding for “supply and demand  fundamentals, not speculation, [as] to blame.”

Yes.

As for CME support for this, it’s the sort of thing that the big guys have always liked, they being very conservative with their bundles.  (CME trailing only Amex, ING, the NY exchange, and Citigroup.)  At least since FDR, the biggies have lived nicely with controls and regulations — hey, hire a new compliance officer, set up a new department, we can afford it.

While not so big guys moan in the spirit of this fellow, reacting on Market Watch to the July 7 news of these very coming CFTC regulations: “Watch them help Goldman [Sachs] and JPM[organ] steal more.”

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Are they black or white?

The woman whose report of a possible house break-in led to the arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. said she never mentioned race during her 911 call and is “personally devastated’’ by media accounts that suggest she placed the call because the men she observed on the porch were black, according to a lawyer acting as her spokeswoman.

She couldn’t tell.

[She] saw the backs of both men and did not know their race when she called 911, said Wendy J. Murphy, a Boston lawyer from New England School of Law. [She] phoned police, Murphy said, because she was aware of recent break-ins in the area.

But the 911 operator would have asked if he or she were worth his or her salt.  [911 tape is out: he did ask, “white, black, or hispanic,” she thought one maybe hispanic, wasn’t sure, couldn’t say about the other]  In Oak Park they ask, as they should.  They don’t want to go looking for a black if a white did it, which they would do, considering the near universal blackness of such perps in Oak Park, most but not all being spillovers from the Austin (city) neighborhood immediately to the east.

You never know.  It could be a white guy “jimmying” (O’s word) the front door or back door or garage door.

A bit of history: Years ago, I told 911 I’d just seen two black kids on a bike, that being the going description of bike thieves on the prowl from Austin.  The operator berated me, I complained to her superiors and got a call from a sergeant apologizing. 

It was relevant to my call-in of suspicious behavior, and everyone but this (tyro) operator knew it.  She sounded white, by the way, and had something to learn.

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Later: See bracketed note above.

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Andrew Greeley on the mend

The latest on Rev. Andrew Greeley, injured in a taxi-related accident in November of ’08, update as of 3/17/10:

Father Andrew Greeley and family wish to express their profound gratitude to all who have kept him in their prayers. On his behalf, we ask for your continued prayers for him and for all victims of traumatic brain injury and their families.

We express our thanks to the skilled medical personnel, caregivers, and rehabilitation therapists who have cared for and encouraged him during this difficult time.  We will continue to work so that, in spite of his injury, he can enjoy a quality of life in keeping with his imagination, intelligence, and service to his Church and community.

Through the years, we have observed first hand his deep commitment to his friends, academic colleagues, readers, fellow priests, and parishioners. We know that Fr. Greeley blesses you for your concern.  Happy Easter to all!

Earlier:

Health update 05/15/09 from downtown Chicago

Father Greeley still has therapy three mornings a week. He continues to make good
progress in physical, speech, and occupational therapy, and his family and friends are
hopeful he will continue his recovery.

On May 5 he celebrated his 55th anniversary as
a priest.

Yet earlier, the first such update:

Health update 04/05/09 from downtown Chicago

Father Greeley is home where he continues intensive therapy. He has been making some excellent progress. The sessions are hard, but Fr. Greeley is tenacious. He and his family continue to appreciate your kind messages. Thanks to all.

More to come, when available, says the site.

No-news Sunday

Both major all-metro dailies looked tired today — a beautiful Sunday morning, yes, when people, or “folks” as Obama always says, are out and about early, with little time for Chi Trib and Sun-Times. But how boring and inconsequential can you be, even on a late-July Sunday, and still lay claim to excellence, not to mention stay afloat financially?

So: weak outing for the two major metros today.

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* But first, not part of their weak outing, Obama is widely quoted saying he “gave the impression [he] was maligning” the Cambridge MA cop and department, a day after telling a prime-time national audience that the cop acted “stupidly.” Q: How does O. sound when he really does malign someone?

Plus: To say you give “the impression” of doing something implies you did it inadvertently. He makes inadvertent statement on prime-time national TV? Does he do that often? Also when he negotiates without preconditions with the Iran president et al.? Q: Is he ready for prime time?

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Getting back to the two majors, Sun-Times got to p. 5A (Sneed item) with first news of the day, after:

* Pure puffery for the Urban League’s president who is candidate for governor, with flattering head shot (“Convention a boost for Senate bid?”),

* Report of hackneyed advice in a “Latina” adress to grads of an online “university” (!), namely, guess what?, don’t drop out.

* Health story, on 5A, recounting a (self-promoting) Chi doc (who supplied his nicest head shot), disputing a “nationally known” doc about letting babies cry.

Finally the Sneed column, with its usual heard-on-the-Rialto stuff, including birthday hellos to Sandra Bullock and Mick Jagger (permitting an editor to run head shots of those consummate newsmakers), but — and this the news — a not-bad item about Michelle O’s wearing a $2G (!)sweater made in France, which I take as nouveau riche extravagance. Maybe it’s not such a bad country after all, eh Michelle?

And at least Sneed keeps it short and more or less newsy, something worth the 90 seconds needed to read it.

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As for Chi Trib, it was time to take dry cleaners to the cleaners again with an old pollution story, “Cleaners leave toxic legacy,” a longtime staple of ecology crusading — DRY CLEANERS SAY NEW EPA RULES ARE LEAVING THEM OUT TO DRY, July 4, 1993; A DRY RUN – CLEANER PRESSES CASE FOR NON-CHEMICAL METHOD, June 9, 1993; DRY CLEANER LOSES BID TO ADD MACHINE – ARLINGTON BOARD SHIFTS ON VARIANCE, May 24, 1991 to name a few stories — and just the thing for Sunday morning breakfast, when we all want to get mad as hell at Koreans.

More:

* “Human cost of budget crisis” on page one has same old artsy (mournfully gazing into distance) shots of Suffering People — black male schozophrenic looking like a youthful Paul
Robeson doing “Old Man River,” a mentally handicated adult woman, an autistic girl with Afro features. Read it and weep.

* John Kass on page 2 with expose of yet another state boondoggle, with graduitous reference to Bad Bill Cellini, super-connected and under indictment.

* Michelle again! In major headshot-decorated story about how she bobs her curls, etc. on p. 3. (Axelrod, stop them; she’s overexposed.)

* On p. 4 the polluted dry cleaner sites, listed and mapped and bemoaned.

* Story of hotel strikers now six years on the line — included here because they were happily ignored a few weeks ago by Society of Midland Authors on their way to their annual dinner, as they were by thousands of others before them who continue to use the worn-looking, even seedy Congress Hotel.

* On p. 6 at the bottom a many-paragraphed (one per sentence) Mary Schmich column sucking her thumb — “We talk a lot about untangling the mess of race in this country” — giving us an over-back-fence chat available in any neighborhood. She has words meant to sooth a savage breast. (But for police union waiting presidential apology for “stupidly,” go to Trib’s web site, we are told in a bottom right column inch.

* On p. 8 Annie Sweeney, late of Sun-Times, has story with a head for the ages, “Few surprises in state traffic study.” [I give up, Trib online ed., where is it?]  Thanks of course to a copy editor with a grudge against Annie, for all we know. Q: If there are few surprises, why bother? This is a news-paper, not one that announces no news today.

Sometimes I think they are just all tired out at these papers, undermanned (womanned) and overworked and suffering a malaise . . . .

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