On April 1, 2006 J.B. Hehman exited the subway at Lexington and 125th street in Harlem at 8:30pm. He was on his way to a friend's apartment a few blocks away. He stopped and bent over to give some money to a man in a wheelchair. Apparently, as he stood up a 15 year-old kid punched him in the head and tried to take his iPod or cell phone - details are scarce. J.B. apparently got away and started running from what turned out to be four teenagers who marked him as soon as he left the subway. They chased him into the street where he was hit by a passing car - someone yelled something like "Get Whitey."
He feel unconscious and died a few days later from head injuries. He was 20, and an Urban Studies major at NYU. He was very passionate about New York and knew the city well. He posted pages and pages about local politics (which I always read nodding) and certainly would have had a lot to say about this, had it happened to someone else.
Federal air marshals shot and killed Rigoberto Alpizar, a Florida citizen, in Miami yesterday after he ran around a plane and allegedly said he had a bomb. Sick and sad on many levels, but most chilling is this quote from Homeland Security talking head Brian Doyle:
"...the air marshals proceeded consistent with their training," Mr. Doyle said. "Shots were fired as the team attempted to subdue the individual."
Wow, so every time we fly, we're surrounded by air marshals who are trained to shoot us dead if we make a commotion and yell fire? America loves its death penalty, but wow, judge, jury and executioner all follow us along on the plane. It appears that Mr. Alpizar suffered from mental illness, and suffered some kind of episode. Was it not possible to immobilize him without killing him? September 11th was a horrible atrocity, but is this dystopic police state better? This is the kind of evil "security" that used to be laid on "evil" communists, who shot first and asked questions later. Seems our "security" has moved beyond one definition
Freedom from risk or danger; safety.
to another
Freedom from doubt, anxiety, or fear; confidence.
Is freedom from paranoid, exaggeratted danger worth any one innocent life? Would it be worth a Caucasian life? Is it possible to be free from doubt, anxiety or fear in a culture where the daily news at five feeds us all the myth of urban crime, and now the myth of villainous "islamofacists" out to get us?
It's a dark day for our country when we ourselves look just like our "enemies."
Update: Looks like I'm not the only skeptic. From Time:
"I don't think they needed to use deadly force with the guy," says John McAlhany, a 44-year-old construction worker from Sebastian, Fla. "He was getting off the plane." McAlhany also maintains that Alpizar never mentioned having a bomb.
"I never heard the word 'bomb' on the plane," McAlhany told TIME in a telephone interview. "I never heard the word bomb until the FBI asked me did you hear the word bomb. That is ridiculous." Even the authorities didn't come out and say bomb, McAlhany says. "They asked, 'Did you hear anything about the b-word?'" he says. "That's what they called it."
Via Mathew Gross
I just can't get over how grotesque this dubya is.
"The president believes the government should be limited not in size, Jon, but in effectiveness. In terms of effectiveness, this is the most limited government we've ever had." --Daily Show correspondent Rob Corddry
More jokes & Bush hatin at Tennessee Guerilla Women
From Reuters:
Israel's top court on Thursday upheld the government's legal right to build a barrier through occupied West Bank land, rejecting a World Court ruling that it violated international law and should be torn down. Israel calls the structure a bulwark against suicide bombers. Palestinians say it is a land grab to deny them a viable state.
As posted on The Queer Arab Blog: "But don't you dare bitch about it.. that will make you an anti-Semite..." It's a bit notable that the world "wall" is so taboo given it's accuracy. Like I said last month, the semantics are killing me. Even Reuters is playing using bulwark, which basically means defensive wall. That's an editorial choice there. Wall is neutral. Falling in step with the Israeli government's pr spin that the wall is entirely defensive is... uncritical - at best. It's an aggressive thing to build such a wall, and a look at history books will show that it's something usually done by the bad guys...
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