[QuickTidal]

Studlock, on 28 April 2015 - 04:09 PM, said:

Yes, I'm sorry I came on strong. You simply stated it was sad. I've been internet comments all day of a different manner and well like so I'm in a bad mood but that doesn't excuse me taking it out on you.

Dude, it's not a prob at all. I get how this stuff can get everyone talking about it heatedly. I fully understand that, and I should have been clearer.

[amphibian]

Ta-Nehisi Coates has the best take on the Baltimore situation: http://www.theatlant...pliance/391640/

Quote

The money paid out by the city to cover for the brutal acts of its police department would be enough to build "a state-of-the-art rec center or renovations at more than 30 playgrounds." Instead, the money was used to cover for the brutal acts of the city's police department and ensure they remained well beyond any semblance of justice.

Now, tonight, I turn on the news and I see politicians calling for young people in Baltimore to remain peaceful and "nonviolent." These well-intended pleas strike me as the right answer to the wrong question. To understand the question, it's worth remembering what, specifically, happened to Freddie Gray. An officer made eye contact with Gray. Gray, for unknown reasons, ran. The officer and his colleagues then detained Gray. They found him in possession of a switchblade. They arrested him while he yelled in pain. And then, within an hour, his spine was mostly severed. A week later, he was dead. What specifically was the crime here? What particular threat did Freddie Gray pose? Why is mere eye contact and then running worthy of detention at the hands of the state? Why is Freddie Gray dead?The people now calling for nonviolence are not prepared to answer these questions. Many of them are charged with enforcing the very policies that led to Gray's death, and yet they can offer no rational justification for Gray's death and so they appeal for calm. But there was no official appeal for calm when Gray was being arrested. There was no appeal for calm when Jerriel Lyles was assaulted. (“The blow was so heavy. My eyes swelled up. Blood was dripping down my nose and out my eye.”) There was no claim for nonviolence on behalf of Venus Green. (“Bitch, you ain’t no better than any of the other old black bitches I have locked up.”) There was no plea for peace on behalf of Starr Brown. (“They slammed me down on my face,” Brown added, her voice cracking. “The skin was gone on my face.")

When nonviolence is preached as an attempt to evade the repercussions of political brutality, it betrays itself. When nonviolence begins halfway through the war with the aggressor calling time out, it exposes itself as a ruse. When nonviolence is preached by the representatives of the state, while the state doles out heaps of violence to its citizens, it reveals itself to be a con. And none of this can mean that rioting or violence is "correct" or "wise," any more than a forest fire can be "correct" or "wise." Wisdom isn't the point tonight. Disrespect is. In this case, disrespect for the hollow law and failed order that so regularly disrespects the community.

[worry]

It's definitely an interesting human mother-son moment, but that begs the question: when was the last time CNN actually conducted any journalism?

It seemingly pings from entertainment to punditry with zero investigative reporting in between:
http://www.rawstory....all-them-thugs/
http://www.rawstory....-focus-on-whcd/

As opposed to:
http://www.vocativ.c...timore-poverty/

[amphibian]

Wolf Blitzer and Don Lemon have lost any actual touch with the truth beyond soundbites. Lemon in particular has been spewing out trash for the past year on black respectability.

There's also a difficulty in putting investigative reporting on-screen. It takes long lead times (usually months or even years on the really big stories), quite a bit of thought in how to present the information and ultimately doesn't draw anywhere near as much eyeballs as the quick hits. I experienced some of this firsthand when I would do these big, long technique dissections for BloodyElbow dot com and they'd do 1/15th the traffic that a "Hot woman wants to do MMA" article does. The detailed scouting reports on future prospects also suffer the same fate.

That doesn't mean there isn't a space for that, but it does explain why Blitzer and Lemon - among the many TV media notables - don't engage in much of this. It takes too much of their time, which is more lucratively/productively spent doing quick hits and round table discussion pieces. The investigative journalists most often go to PBS, BBC or write their own books, and then do TV appearances in support of that work.

So the meta-game of mainstream media precludes the appearance of investigative journalistic pieces on Baltimore now. We should actually be getting more Garner pieces now, but I don't think we will.

[worry]

I definitely understand those difficulties, but I suppose I'm also suggesting they simply weave other people's already-conducted investigative journalism into their reporting. It would be enough if any of these people, even as mere presenters of videos and conductors of interviews, were informed at all about the topics they were discussing. They don't have to do the investigating, but could they at least not be completely unaware of everything around them?

Even in the age of Jeff Zucker, is there any excuse for this?

[Obdigore]

http://en.wikipedia....talization_Plan

We need to do this to address the decades old (all civil planning since WW2) idea that economic classes should be segregated.

It would be a good first step in fixing some of the problems in US' cities.

[Nicodimas]

Obdigore, on 29 April 2015 - 11:17 PM, said:

http://en.wikipedia....talization_Plan

We need to do this to address the decades old (all civil planning since WW2) idea that economic classes should be segregated.

It would be a good first step in fixing some of the problems in US' cities.

I agree with Obi 10000%. For a first step this... I have always had this plan with Section 8 in nicer area of cities..wait. You all have section 8 housing or its equivalents in some sort? Essentially they don't worry about house/rent payments.
https://housing.az.gov/node/101

The problem with section 8 housing is they put them in extremely poor..crime ridden neighborhoods. Most of the families accepted in this program DO want to get get out. These neighborhood's keep them in the same climate unable to grow. In Arizona, these houses are really in the middle of meth level drug areas..it is bad.

So basically spread the section 8 housing folks into the best school districts is how I look at it.

<with the housing crash this would have been the perfect opportunity..start filling those foreclosed homes out>

This post has been edited by Nicodimas: 30 April 2015 - 12:12 AM

[Obdigore]

Nicodimas, on 30 April 2015 - 12:10 AM, said:

I agree with Obi 10000%.

I feel a strange disturbance in the force...

[Nicodimas]

Quote

We need to do this to address the decades old (all civil planning since WW2) idea that economic classes should be segregated.

To expand on that wiki: Diversity would be in everyones benefit, instead of a master planned community focusing on housing at just *500k* houses for this square mile where you get a bunch of same folks, creating a stagnation of culture/thought..it could focus on a whole range of income/size/cultures/people..

This would work wonders with re-growing inner cities if you did it right..too. Maybe people would talk to their neighbors with a focus on public areas like parks, trails, rail/public based transportation, art, free space, culture-centers etc. I really like the upside on it Obdigore the more I think about it!..This is a great thing the government could focus on.

[Obdigore]

The point is, really, that building some shitty homes, pushing a ton of low income residents into them, and then just throwing them to the proverbial wolves isn't good (or even acceptable) city planning. It's what the US has been doing for decades now.

Of course these people generally don't get a say because they don't get elected to city council or control money to choose to do these developments on their own.

And, before people start screaming 'gentralization', this is from the wiki:

Quote

One of the prominent claims made by Toronto Community Housing from the beginning of the revitalization plan was that all Regent Park residents who have been relocated due to construction are guaranteed a right to a new unit in the revitalized neighbourhood. This is meant to not displace the existing community and residents, but rather to add more residents to the existing community to maintain a sense of community. Toronto Community Housing pays for the tenants’ moving and rental costs during their relocation, finding the correct intermediate and future place for them to live

[amphibian]

worry, on 29 April 2015 - 09:58 PM, said:

I definitely understand those difficulties, but I suppose I'm also suggesting they simply weave other people's already-conducted investigative journalism into their reporting. It would be enough if any of these people, even as mere presenters of videos and conductors of interviews, were informed at all about the topics they were discussing. They don't have to do the investigating, but could they at least not be completely unaware of everything around them?

What's interesting is that the places where investigative journalism still exists - almost by accident - is the local newspapers who've not fired or golden parachuted the twenty and thirty year veterans.

The Baltimore newspapers and the DC newspapers have people who can provide the right context to all this.

But media sandboxing and the disinterest of yabbos like Blitzer in consulting them means they don't get chances to tell the stories that hit more truth than the hot takes.

I'm reminded of one of the best examples of television explaining this in Anthony Bourdain's CNN series in which he goes to the Congo. Bourdain and his staff take a few minutes to explain why they need a local guide staff to navigate the constantly shifting coalitions of militia groups and the moving fronts of violence. They do this so well and by using graphics effectively that the sheer complexity and necessary knowledge of the decades of past history is apparent to the viewer.

What is happening in Baltimore is not quite that complex, but yes, there needs to be a greater emphasis of the national yabbos handing off to the local people - instead of sending the same reporters all over the world.

It's why national media organizations used to have extensive networks of bureaus all over the country. But... that's ancient history now.

[QuickTidal]

Freddie Gray's death officially ruled a homicide. Officers will be charged.

[Maark Abbott]

I just saw that on the news here as well. Predictably, not long after I found myself in a discussion with some white, middle-class Americans who were outraged by this and felt the solution was to burn all welfare places and black neighbourhoods.

I'll be interested to see where this ruling leads - the last time the UK saw a situation like that was the Mark Duggan incident back in 2011/2.

[amphibian]

Baltimore Sun has an article on how the rough rides I'm the back of a police van are a tradition - and several other people have been paralyzed or seriously injured over the years. 40 years, actually.

http://touch.baltimo...e/p2p-83373499/

Yeah, that's right - there have been others treated like Freddy Gray for 40 years.

The media yabbos on TV better pick this up.

[HoosierDaddy]

Maark, on 02 May 2015 - 06:03 AM, said:

I just saw that on the news here as well. Predictably, not long after I found myself in a discussion with some white, middle-class Americans who were outraged by this and felt the solution was to burn all welfare places and black neighbourhoods.

For real? I repeat. For real? This seems a lot "stupid americans are stupid and racist!*

If so, stop talking to them and tell them to STFU. Racism is racism, no matter where you are.

Idiocy is idiocy. No country has a monopoly on it.

[amphibian]

Why are you defensive about American racism?

It is far more patriotic to question things and talk to people about this.

Pointing to European or whatever continent racism to deflect attention away from what we need to deal with is wrong.

[amphibian]

This logic is like saying All Lives Matter - without acknowledging that it's a diminishing of what is being talked about.

[Illuyankas]

HD is very forward about defending the US from stereotyped accusations, if I remember correctly.

As for all lives matter I've always enjoyed this comic on it:

[HoosierDaddy]

It's not about where you are from. Racism is racism.

If someone was stupid enough to utter those opinions around me I'd cut them off and they wouldn't be "friends" anymore.

It's just caricature stupidity that I have trouble believing because it's so stupid. If true, see above.

Doubtless some people are this ignorant, but it shames me to think there are people representing this while traveling abroad (an experience that should educate and mature).

[amphibian]

HoosierDaddy, on 03 May 2015 - 02:10 AM, said:

If someone was stupid enough to utter those opinions around me I'd cut them off and they wouldn't be "friends" anymore.

You have a luxury of being able to cut people off and not fear any reprisals for rejection. You can say "Fuck that guy" in the presence of "that guy" and not really fear violence or anything beyond a "Hey!" and it has to do with you being a white American dude of decent physical size and mobility to go other places.

Many people don't have that luxury. They can't walk away. They have to deflect or to be non-confrontational because reprisals are very real things to them. Women of color in particular have to do this to an absurd degree.

Maark's not one of the above groups needing to be diplomatic, as he's a large, deadliftin' Bakkake-reading, white guy. But he was probably curious as to what this group of Americans would say, which is somewhat amusing and hopefully useful.