The Carter Gilson Report

Early on New Year’s Day, transit police at the Fruitvale Oakland BART station detained several men involved in an altercation.  It’s now January 6th and I haven’t written about it yet because it’s a bit too much to get my brain around.

22 year old Oscar Grant, unarmed, handcuffed, prone, restrained held down by two cops, was shot and killed by a third cop. Grant’s death leaves behind a young daughter, a reeling community, and, oh, yes, amateur video aplenty.

That’s how we actually know that Grant was restrained and posed no threat.  The cop that shot him had a good view from directly next  to him, so there does not appear to have been any question about the situation.  The officer reached for his holster, drew his gun, aimed and fired.

One of the early theories put forth by investigators is that he thought he was reaching for his Taser and not his gun.  Nevermind that they are kept in different holsters on opposite sides and feel nothing alike, but what the hell would he have been using his Taser for anyway?  Grant had been subdued, he was pleading with the cops not to hurt him, that he has a young daughter at home.

And now that daugter will be growing up without a father because some kid with two years on the BART police force reached for the wrong holster when he shouldn’t have even been reaching?

Tough to get my brain around.  Tough to understand how something like this happens.  Tough to see how a cop killing an unarmed and handcuffed father disappears from the news, with hardly any national coverage. Google searching doesn’t pull up a whole hell of a lot of articles on this story, and I’ve seen far more reporting in blogs than in newspapers.

This isn’t Rodney King; we aren’t joining an excessive beating in the middle.  The video that has emerged shows Grant to be agitated but complying.  And then it shows him being murdered.  Shot in the back while restrained.  What the fuck?

corrected some facts with strike-outs above; sorry for the sloppy

Alas, quite a bit of the middle is still missing.

Christmas is Coming–missing
A Baby Just Like You–missing
Deck the Halls–missing
When the River Meets the Sea–missing
Little Saint Nick–missing
Noel: Christmas Eve, 1913
The Christmas Wish

Butch Cassidy has passed away.

The Boston Herald reports today something that anyone who depends on the T everyday has long suspected.

Top MBTA officials acknowledge that for years the agency has been secretly cutting thousands of bus and train trips from published schedules to lower costs – a practice that has left legions of customers waiting for rides that arrived late or not at all.

Not a month goes by that I don’t spend a morning or two (or more) wondering where the hell the bus is. It’s nice to know that it’s actually the T making me late for work instead of wondering if my clock changes on me during the night.

Dan Grabauskis has been on the job since May of 2005.

“We were not telling the truth to our customers before when we were not delivering the service that was scheduled,” Grabasukas said in an interview. “But we began to remedy that when I came on two years ago, and I know we’ve improved service.”

So now they’re improving service by changing the published schedule to reflect reality. It’s certainly a step forward, but only in the sense that it’s not a step backward.

I’ve been advocating a major change at the T for some time now, but this is just ridiculous. It’s time for the state to take ownership of the T. The MBTA is broke, they can’t manage anything, and they rewarded the MCBR’s crappy service by giving them a no-bid contract extension of three years. That’s a failure of leadership and a failure of the culture of the T. That won’t change with a new general manager. That will only change with a complete overhaul under state supervision.

Think Progress reports a nugget form an emergency cabinet meeting yesterday to discuss the SoCal Wildfires:

During a cabinet meeting yesterday, Vice President Cheney fell asleep on camera while President Bush was discussing wildfires in California. A Cheney spokeswoman “laughed it off,” telling CNN that the vice president was “practicing meditation.”

Apparently, if nobody’s getting shot in the face, our VP doesn’t care enough to take the NoDoz.

Or, possibly six words to end him? “Don’t you think he looks tired?”

Chinese lead paint has now impacted the Boy Scouts:

The Boy Scouts of America said Thursday that a painted plastic badge worn by some of its youngest scouts was being voluntarily recalled after a test revealed high levels of lead in the paint.

As many as 1.6 million of the badges, which are made in China, may be affected.

Aren’t you glad you voted to reduce testing and standards for imports?

Mike Festa is no longer my State Rep:

Gov. Deval Patrick and Secretary of Health and Human Services Dr. JudyAnn Bigby issued a press release last Thursday naming Mike Festa, D-Melrose, as state Executive Secretary of Elder Affairs.

This dashes my dreams of working in his office (which is about 100 paces from my front door), but still, good for him.

Myanmar:

More than 100,000 people flooded the streets of Myanmar’s biggest city Monday, joining Buddhist monks in the strongest show of dissent against the ruling generals in nearly two decades.

In swelling tides of humanity, two major marches snaked their way through the nation’s commercial capital led by robed monks chanting prayers of peace and compassion, witnesses said.

What started as a reaction to fuel price hikes has become a true movement, led by Buddhist monks, peacefully telling the junta who has led this country for decades to either treat them better or get out. It’s hard, in a country the size of Myanmar, to ignore the will of 100,000 people. I think we may soon see true democratic reform there soon.

cnn.com:

Delinquencies and defaults more than doubled year over year to 243,947, according to August figures released Tuesday by RealtyTrac, a marketer of foreclosed properties. RealtyTrac’s forecast is for total foreclosure filings to exceed 2 million this year.

It’s only going to get worse, as the ARMs adjust up. Meanwhile, we actually had negative job growth in August. Tell me those two aren’t related.

The ProJo reports today that Lincoln Chafee has quit the GOP:

Chafee said he disaffiliated with the party he had helped lead, and his father had led before him, because the national Republican Party has gone too far away from his stance on too many critical issues, from war to economics to the environment.

“It’s not my party any more,” he said.

Linc, it wasn’t your party for many years. If you’d realized that in 2005, you might still be a Senator now. Instead you cast your lot with people who would betray you at their first opportunity.

I see by my trusty calendar that this Tuesday is “Patriot Day.” I can’t fully explain why, but naming the anniversary of the worst foreign terrorist attack in US history “Patriot Day” actually makes me angry. Observe it, yes. We still observe Pearl Harbor Day, after all. Call it “Remembrance Day” or something like that. But not “Patriot Day”.

The Blotter, among others, reports on Norman Hsu, the warrant-skipping Democratic donor who has, fifteen years after he first fled justice, failed again to appear before the bench to face the music. He plead no contest to charges stemming from a Ponzi scheme, but skipped out on the sentencing.

So, we need to make sure that when we, as candidates, take money, that we know who we are taking it from. At the least, look them up in The Google.

Yes, I am at work today. Because there’s no better way to celebrate the achievements of workers than engaging in mind numbing work, right?

Every now and then, I think we should unionize, but I have never planned on being here long enough to do it.

CNN.com:

White House press secretary Tony Snow, who is undergoing treatment for cancer, will step down from his post Sept. 14 and be replaced by deputy press secretary Dana Perino, the White House announced Friday.

Man, it’s going to be like Scotty McClellan all over again. Perino is such a terrible liar that it’s hard to believe we might actually miss the big headed guy.

I wonder if he’s going to go back to Fox. It would at least offer some job continuity.

Also, there was a storm that destroyed an American city. But I hear the cake was good.