30
Jul 09
I can’t remember who Local DJ Cullen Stalin linked to this article, and it is everything newspaper journalism should be:
The 4th Infantry Division’s 4th Brigade Combat Team fought in some of the bloodiest places in Iraq, taking the most casualties of any Fort Carson unit by far.
Back home, 10 of its infantrymen have been arrested and accused of murder, attempted murder or manslaughter since 2006. Others have committed suicide, or tried to.
Almost all those soldiers were kids, too young to buy a beer, when they volunteered for one of the most dangerous jobs in the world. Almost none had serious criminal backgrounds. Many were awarded medals for good conduct.
But in the vicious confusion of battle in Iraq and with no clear enemy, many said training went out the window. Slaughter became a part of life. Soldiers in body armor went back for round after round of battle that would have killed warriors a generation ago. Discipline deteriorated. Soldiers say the torture and killing of Iraqi civilians lurked in the ranks. And when these soldiers came home to Colorado Springs suffering the emotional wounds of combat, soldiers say, some were ignored, some were neglected, some were thrown away and some were punished.
Some kept killing — this time in Colorado Springs.
Read the whole thing. Calling it “gripping” or “harrowing” would be a vast understatement.
30
Jul 09
Radley Balko has a good post on abuse of police power at Reason:
The power to forcibly detain a citizen is an extraordinary one. It’s taken far too lightly, and is too often abused. And that abuse certainly occurs against black people, but not only against black people. American cops seem to have increasingly little tolerance for people who talk back, even merely to inquire about their rights.
[...]
Deference to police at the expense of the policed is misplaced. Put a government worker behind a desk and give him the power to regulate, and conservatives will wax at length about public choice theory, bureaucratic pettiness, and the trappings of power. And rightly so. But put a government worker behind a badge, strap a gun to his waist, and give him the power to detain, use force, and kill, and those lessons somehow no longer apply.
Police officers deserve the same courtesy we afford anyone else we encounter in public life—basic respect and civility….Verbally disrespecting a cop may well be rude, but in a free society we can’t allow it to become a crime, any more than we can criminalize criticism of the president, a senator, or the city council. There’s no excuse for the harassment or arrest of those who merely inquire about their rights, who ask for an explanation of what laws they’re breaking, or who photograph or otherwise document police officers on the job.
As an aside, I feel a little bad for taking this long to start reading Balko’s Agitator blog.
Going even further afield, the title comes from this t-shirt I saw in China. And for the record, it should be.
23
Jul 09
I’ve been looking at my analytics, and because I love you (and I love making fun of people), here are some of the “better” searches from this fine year of ’09:
- “what overreacting mean?”
It is what I do when you use bad grammar.
- “sharah palin nuked”
That’s a much more pleasant thought than the more-popular variants of “Sarah Palin naked.”
- “electroma was boring”
Yes, it fucking was.
- “what does frenching it up mean”
I’d bet my post was entirely unhelpful in your quest, too.
- “where’s my retainer”
Does anyone really believe Google can help with this?
- “BAtman make me a sammich]”
…
I can’t believe I haven’t used “misanthropy” or “schadenfreude” as tags yet. One down.
23
Jul 09
“I’m always losing bookmarks. I resolved to have my manhood judged by how long I can hang on to this one.” – Ta-Nehisi Coates
From a more serious post about talent and hard work, this little throwaway line made me realize that the only bookmark I currently own, a gift from a former coworker, has never been used. I don’t read anything longer than NYer articles anymore. This needs to change.
Suggestions for non-Twilight, non-Harry Potter books, please. No Ayn Rand, either–I saw some sixteen-year-old girl reading Atlas Shrugged on the Metro the other day, but refrained from telling her she was a) wasting her time and b) if she liked that book, she was probably going to be an asshole when she grew up.
