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Some common sense warranted in emotional debates

A suburban New York newspaper ignited a massive debate recently when it published names and home addresses of local gun owners. The Journal News in White Plains had attained the information through a public information request for the more than 33,000 names from the local governments in Westchester and Rockland counties in the wake of the December 14 Sandy Hook, Conn., school shooting.

Some gun owners reacted predictably by writing and calling the paper saying they would boycott TJN advertisers. Others went much farther by threatening employees of the newspaper with harm. The names, addresses and phone numbers for the paper’s workers were also published online.

The debate over the right for the public’s access to open government records versus the press publishing some of those records remains healthier than ever. When a Facebook friend, a former reporter with whom I worked, asked for fellow FB member input regarding the use of such data used by TNJ he received various opinions including that of my own.

My experiences in having,on numerous occasions, retrieved open records information from government entities gave me a particular insight as to whether the New York publication erred in publishing identifying information about its area gun owners.

The use of public information as a journalist is obviously a double-edged sword. While the government does not keep, at least I hope they don’t, information based on who works for a particular newspaper there are plenty of sources of information out there for one who seeks it which can be used to identify someone. The Internet and other computer-aided means of gathering data has made retrieving such information much, much easier for the media as well as the public in general. With most local and state governments as well as the federal government scads of personal information can be accessed. Databases — some free while others not — exist for information such as license registration as well as criminal and various civil records. Many of the folks I know who use computers frequently check free records for registered sex offenders who might live in the neighborhood.

But as I shared with my Facebook compadre there are times when records should be made public by a media outlet and other times not. I was taught to give as full an identity as possible when identifying those who were involved somehow in a criminal activity. Maybe sometimes I went overboard but I tried to give my readers as complete a picture as possible. I found though that the media — I’m speak specifically about managers — often wrongly use public data just because they can.

While I have found a number of public information items useful I did not always use them mostly because they had no to limited news value. I am particularly peeved when I view 911 tapes from a crime or emergency. While some of this information is newsworthy, too often it appears used only because it shows sensational emotion. I feel the names and addresses of the New York gun owners falls into the category of having little use toward news value and appears to be used more from the emotional reaction of the tragic events of the more than 20 fatalities in the Sandy Hook shooting.

That said I feel publishing the identifying information of TNJ employees and threats of physical harm was nothing but mean-spirited. There are less juvenile ways of making known one’s displeasure of news content. It is time people, both news providers and consumers, start using some common sense.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The count goes on; Mass killings don’t discrimnate against little children

The count: 28 here, two there, and another 12 and another 32. Just another day in America with our sacred Second Amendment. Yes I am talking about the 28 people, mostly children, who were killed this day in the Connecticut school shooting. And I’m talking about the mall shooting in Oregon earlier this week and the Aurora, Colo., theater shooting and the mass killings at Virginia Tech. That is not even counting the domestic and criminal killings which happen in this country every day in which multiple — “2, 4, 6, 8: Who can we assassinate?” –shootings.

Yes people could have been blown up, or stabbed, or poisoned or attacked by trained dogs … Yes we have heard it before. Too often.

I kept having to preface a thought like this with, I like guns. I do. I like the power of shooting them. The raw macho feeling of bringing down beer cans or bottles or skeet or making aluminum cans dance. I am not convinced the right to bear arms is explicit in the Constitution, no matter what the courts have ruled. I believe the “fathers” were talking about state-organized militias like the Texas National Guard.

But this shit keeps happening every day. And I don’t give a rat’s ass if you hate Obama or not. What he said today in reaction to the mass killing was right on:

 “As a country, we have been through this too many times, the President said. “Whether it’s an elementary school in Newtown, or a shopping mall in Oregon, or a temple in Wisconsin, or a movie theater in Aurora, or a street corner in Chicago — these neighborhoods are our neighborhoods, and these children are our children.  And we’re going to have to come together and take meaningful action to prevent more tragedies like this, regardless of the politics.”

Guns have almost become a religion in itself just as the anti-abortion movement has often transcended religion and forsaken its own Christian dogma.

But what about protection? Yes. What about deer hunting. Yes. What about so I can go out and slaughter more than a dozen innocent, unarmed little children? Does that one stump you?

I usually like to end the weekend on a happy note. But I just can’t do it knowing so many heartbroken people out here in our society can find little to smile about this weekend.

For your reading displeasure: Here is a list of some of the deadliest mass shootings compiled by ABCNews.com.

Peace.

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Why Tommy James sang for the mob but not at Woodstock

Scattershooting … and wondering what happened to Tommy James. (“Scattershooting and wondering what happened to …” was a journalistic trademark of the late great sports writer and columnist, Blackie Sherrod who wrote for The Dallas Morning News.)

Why Tommy James? I haven’t a clue. Maybe it was so I could get “Crimson and Clover” stuck in my head until I go to sleep tonight. 

Tommy James of the Shondells fame as pictured in 2010.

“Yeah. La la la la la la. My mind’s such a sweet thing. La la la la la la. I want to do everything. La la la la la la … over and over.”

O-kay.

James career kicked off with a little “Hanky Panky.” Actually, that was the name of his first hit song.

His songs weren’t what you were called “deep.” In fact, they seem to have tread the netherworld of pop bubblegum with a touch of psychedelia thrown in. Apparently though, James and the Shondells were cool enough to have been invited to Woodstock. They didn’t make it. Supposedly his manager didn’t want him playing at some stupid pig farm.

It was okay, he was in good company. The list site, 11points.com, says in a list titled “11 Bands That Skipped Woodstock For Incredibly Lame Reasons,” Jethro Tull didn’t play because band frontman Ian Anderson reportedly said in an interview that he didn’t like hippies and he feared naked women “unless the time is right.” Roy Rogers, who had been invited to sing “Happy Trails” at the end of the festival said the reason he didn’t take part was that he would have been “booed of the stage by all them (expletive) hippies.”

Tommy James was much more well known and had more hit records than some of the other bands that did play at Woodstock. Take for instance, Sweetwater, Bert Sommer, Quill and the Keef Hartley Band. Most younger people today also would have no idea who some of the bands were of the day that enjoyed some measure of popularity and played at Woodstock, yet were not huge names to all. I use for examples Melanie Safka, who was known only by “Melanie,” and had several big hits back then including “Brand New Key” and “Lay Down.”

Plenty of folks, both old and young, have probably heard in commercials or films the flute and guitar intro of “Going Up The Country” by Canned Heat but do not know who or what the band was. Even many rock and roll fans may not have known of or heard of Tim Hardin back when he played at Woodstock. Songs Hardin, who was a folk singer and composer, had written are much more well known than he was. Among those tunes are the beautiful ballad “Reason To Believe” recorded by Rod Stewart.”

Back to Tommy James once more, I found out doing this Internet scattershooting that he released a book in 2010 in which he revealed that the record company that recorded his songs, Roulette, was actually a front for the Genovese crime family in New York. James tells in his book that his deal was he would make the records and the company would keep the money. Great deal, huh? The book is called “Me, The Mob And The Music.” Give it a read. I plan to do so.

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Someone stole my radio antenna perhaps to smoke drugs but the issue isn’t black and white

My truck radio antenna was stolen about a week ago. I was riding along, expecting to hear some noise on the radio and sure enough, noise is all I heard. A static-like hissing noise. I happened to look out the windshield and said: “Holy s**t, my antenna’s gone.”

Looking at where my antenna once stood I noticed that the base of the structure was gone. I looked closer and could see the little grooves where it appears the mast could be screwed in, or perhaps in this case, out.

I originally thought: “WTF?” I have an 11-year-old Toyota Tacoma. It’s not in the best of shape. Toyotas — This is the fifth Toyota I’ve owned over the past 37 years — have a habit of its engines outliving by years its interiors. The plastic on my steering wheel is all sun-rippled and has a crack I am patching with duct tape until I buy a cover for the wheel. I’m waiting for it to get cooler before I tackle a couple of maintenance issues. I don’t drive the truck very far these days as I have a car furnished for my part-time job. Money and heat are the two things holding me back with my vehicle issues. Like Pa Kettle used to say: “Yeah, I’m gonna fix that one of these days.”

The point is, what kind of low-life would steal a car antenna off a weathered automobile produced during the last century with more than 160,000 miles? Well, one answer that was suggested to me was meth heads.

I pulled up in the complex parking lot Monday and saw a black gentleman cooking on a little barbecue pit behind his behemoth pickup truck. We are not supposed to cook on outside grills, I suppose George Foreman’s grills inside are okay, where I live along with hundreds of other rules. And yes, it does matter in this case the race of the fellow who was surreptitiously barbecuing.

We exchanged greetings as I took another look at where my antenna once stood so proudly on the front fender of my sunfire red pearl Tacoma and exclaimed to no one in particular: “I don’t understand why someone would steal my damn antenna.”

The covert cook asked a couple of questions and then proclaimed: “Meth heads.”

He didn’t know so much about down here in Southeast Texas but back in Missouri, the secret chef said, “People steal car antennas to smoke meth or that stuff you can buy in the convenience stores.” I couldn’t imagine how exactly someone would use a car antenna to smoke drugs. I do remember in the 70s how, let’s just say people I knew, would find all kinds of inventive ways to smoke pot. A pipe from a beer can, for example. Or perhaps using a tennis ball can for a bong. Then there was Old Faithful — so I am told now! — using aluminum foil to fashion a pipe. But a car antenna to smoke meth? Well, I knew people who free-based cocaine and smoked various drugs from a pipe. This was years ago and if they could afford some of these drugs, cocaine for instance, they usually could afford a pipe.

People nowadays have all kinds of different ways of smoking different drugs. Some of these substances seem to warrant quite a bit of caution compared to the days of old, sitting around listening to Led Zepplin while puffing a peace pipe. Take this forum on “fent for example,” which actually exhorts its meth-addled readers to find an “old school” car radio antenna and “snatch that mother****** right off … ” Scumbag! Fent, short for Fentanyl, is a powerful pain killer supposedly “100 times stronger than morphine.”

I have no idea what, if anything, the person who stole my antenna was smoking. I was at the front desk here last week when our manager told a young guy he had to leave because he’d been seen smoking bath salts. “I didn’t know it was illegal,” was the guy’s answer. Yeah, well I kind of doubt he doubted it was against the law too.

Back to the black man who told me about what stolen antennas were used for, he had indicated that is what folks back in Missouri did with the antennas they stole. Here in Beaumont, Texas, he wasn’t for sure.

“Especially the black folks down here,” he said, twirling his index finger around next to his temple to indicate the well-known sign for the crazies. “Those people are strange.”

I found that a very odd statement although many of the rednecks who comment on the local newspaper’s Web site would agree. They would agree that all blacks are strange. And worse. Right now, we are on the verge of some serious racial problems in Beaumont. It’s a long story. Much of it has to do with the city having become majority black due to white flight to the suburbs. The most recent ignition point has been the local school superintendent, a black man who just recently retired who was the highest paid such school official in Texas. Instances of financial mismanagement was uncovered and the former superintendent and some of his supporters have been very arrogant, almost as if they were untouchable especially when the district’s electrician was given a lenient plea-bargain after his first trial for bilking the district out of more than $4 million ended in a hung jury.

The angriest whites spew their hate in the comment section of the local paper’s stories and a blog that seems to delight stirring the pot in true Hearst — the paper’s owners — fashion.

So I don’t believe I was just whistlin’ Dixie when I told the black covert cook that, if indeed some of the black folks down in these parts seem a little crazy, he must have not seen many of the white folks.

In the meantime, looks like I am going to fashion a clothes hanger into an antenna if I want to hear my truck radio again. I hope no one, black or white, steals it.

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You won’t see this …

A lot of my more conservative friends — more conservative than what I do not know — sometimes send me e-mails about something on the reactionary side that many times bears the subject line: You Won’t See This on CNN, or CBS or blah. I usually delete it with much haste. No just kidding.

Well this time, I have a story that I can say “You won’t see this … ” on CNN or Fox or maybe anywhere except in Spanish-speaking local TV stations in  South Texas. It is a bizarre little story from Texas Observer columnist Cindy Casares, who specializes in issues of the Latino community. The story concerns the shooting of an “ICE” agent, or agent of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in South Texas near the border with Mexico. The agent was expected to recover and was not wounded by drug cartel members, as far as anyone has said.

The incident apparently stemmed from the agent, Kelton Harrison, staking out a rural neighborhood northeast of McAllen at 3:30 in the morning. Pedro Alvarado, 41, reportedly believed the car in which Harrison was in and which had its lights turned off, had been casing the neighborhood for some kind of  criminal activity. One might think of it as a rural South Texas neighborhood crime watch, if you will.

Alvarado began pursuing the unmarked car while his sons, one 18 and the other 16, shot at the vehicle Harrison was driving. The adult Alvarado suspects were charged in federal court on assaulting a federal officer and knowingly carrying a gun during a violent crime. I suppose one could UN-knowingly carry a gun during a violent crime. Just sayin.’ The Juvenile was charged with attempted capital murder in state court. The 18-year-old reportedly gave a full confession, according to the story by Ms. Casares, and told authorities the father told the sons to get their guns. They dutifully responded with a .22-caliber rifle and 9-mm handgun. Harrison crashed his car during a pursuit and, luckily I suppose for him, was soon joined by fellow Homeland Security investigators. The agent was then soon taken to the hospital where he underwent surgery for his wounds.

The whole episode was apparently complicated by the fact two undocumented men from El Salvador were found during a search of the Alvarado home and are being considered material witnesses.

Ms. Casares raises some interesting questions about the incident. I will let you make your own decisions as to the situation. I just think it was a really strange story and this was the first time I had heard anything about it, not that my lack of knowledge of the incident means anything.