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

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

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.

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?”

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

This is a 2 lb loaf, so if your bread machine doesn’t go that big, you’ll have to pare it down.

• 1 2/3 Cups Water
• 4 Tbsp Butter or Margarine
• 2 Tbsp Honey
• 2 Tbsp Non-Fat Dry Milk
• 1/2 Cup Wheat Germ
• 3 1/2 Cups Flour
• 1 Cup Oats
• 2 tsp Salt
• 2 tsp Yeast

Put it together according to your bread machine’s directions, but that is the order that I add it to the bowl. It comes out dense and moist and yummy. You should try it.

Chaos and anarchy are scary things and people don’t always trust one another in a crisis. But the fact remains that whenever a crisis occurs in the African American communities, many of the authorities who know better (and would be far more prudent if a different community were involved) are too willing to believe wild, unbelievable rumors they would never believe of others — and they overreact.

Go read.

Wait, two years? Jenna, what about that thing you had in Argentina over Christmas? Did that mean nothing to you? Ramiro will be so sad to lose his 10.

Note the lovely sleek packaging, and the “Light and Luscious” tagline. Reynolds has been throwing parties at nightclubs to promote the brand — Girls’ Night Out-type events where women get makeovers, massages, gift bags, and free cigarettes. They’ve also advertised heavily in magazines like Cosmopolitan, Glamour, and Vogue — all publications geared toward young women. And it pisses me off.

According to the CDC, more than 178,000 women died from smoking-related illnesses each year from 1995-1999. 178,000 EACH YEAR. Lung cancer deaths surpassed those from lung cancer in 1985. And younger women are far more likely to start smoking than older women — a fact the R.J. Reynolds is counting on, no doubt.

Smoking also greatly increases a woman’s chance of developing heart disease — which is the leading cause of death for women. It more than doubles the risk of heart attack — and women who smoke while using hormonal birth control methods are at an even higher risk.

Women who smoke also have an increased of developing oral cancer, cancers of the larynx, pharynx, esophagus, kidneys, pancreas, and the cervix. Not to mention the lovely wrinkles, yellow teeth, and nasty ashtray smell smoking gives you.

If it seems like I’m taking this personally, well, I am. I started smoking when I was 16. I was curious about it, and there was a store near my rural Vermont high school that didn’t ask to see an ID to buy cigarettes. And I got addicted to smoking really, really fast. I smoked about a pack a day for the next 14 years or so, until I quit for good on February 16th, 2004. Jeff can attest to how hard quitting was — no, he never smoked, but he had to deal with me while I was quitting. It was awful. It was actually painful. It sucked so much that the memory of it has kept me from lighting up again — I wouldn’t want to go through quitting again.

And there is one other reason why I take this personally — it’s this obituary:

Laura Lynn Gronlund
1964 – 2003

Laurie passed away on February 25, 2003, at 6:30AM CST in Grapevine, TX after a brave battle with cancer which lasted more than two years.

Born May 13, 1964, in Chicago, Ill., Laurie enjoyed reading, writing, watching hockey and big, slobbery dogs. She was a “good egg” whose life was an adventure she always cherished. Whether up or down, Laurie tackled life with a genuine passion and a multi-faceted sense of humor, which she always held dear. Her father, Ralph G., preceded her in death in 1992.

Survivors: Daughter, Rachel L.; mother, Mary S.; sister, Karen G.; brother, Christopher G. and sister-in-law, Cynthia G.; stepbrother, Jeff A. and her boyfriend, Sean A.; and countless family and friends scattered around the globe.

(Last names of her family edited by me.)

Laurie was a wonderful person. I didn’t get to know her terribly well, because we lived so far apart, but we were good online buddies. We liked to talk hockey, and joke with each other. She made me laugh every single day. And smoking killed her.

There are calls for the cigarettes to be taken off the market, by womens’ and public health group. That’s heartening, but it’s not going to work. R.J. Reynolds doesn’t care about the lives of its customers. The money is what they care about, and the only way to stop them is to stop buying their products. If you smoke, please quit. If someone you care about smokes, get them to quit. Nag, beg, plead, bribe, anything. Get them to quit. I know how hard it is, but it’s worth it.

Facing renewed scrutiny (and presumably a few Google searches) locals discovered that the current head of the ADL refuses to recognize the Armenian Genocide, a bizarre and disappointing stance for an organization formed to protect the rights of Jewish people from bigotry.

The Armenian Genocide was perpetrated by the Ottoman Emprie during World War I. More than a million Armenians were forcibly deported and killed over a two year period. As it was practically a blueprint for the Holocaust, it’s hard to understand the ADL’s stance here.

For Sooners looking to show their terror-fighting pride while tearing up the asphalt, the Oklahoma Tax Commission has extended the deadline to order the global war on terrorism license plate (aka GWOT) pictured here.

The worst bit, to me, is that Oklahoma was home to the worst home-grown domestic terrorist attack in American history, yet doesn’t ever seem to see the connection in methods between Tim McVeigh and Osama bin Laden.

Researchers from the Queensland University of Technology looked into 62 brands of printers, 17 of which they call” high particle emitters”. They found that these laser printers release tiny particles into the air that could post a “significant health threat” if inhaled or ingested.

The really startling thing is the level of dust actually equalled the effects of smoking in some cases. Will OSHA do anything about this? Is OSHA even funded anymore? I haven’t checked.

This past week, the White House issued an interim Iraq report. It claims progress on just eight of 18 “benchmarks” and stretches even for that. Iraq was supposed to complete a constitutional review, but gets a passing grade for forming the committee. And so on. To read it is to be sick at heart.

Unless, of course, you’re Joe Lieberman, who says he read it and found nothing to cast the least doubt on our plan of action. In fact, he’s now sure the war can only be lost by “defeatists at home.”
…
The most important bipartisan movement in a generation is taking shape on Capitol Hill. But ironically, Joe Lieberman isn’t part of it. Instead, he joins Bush in attacking the “defeatists.” Yes, we’ve come to that phase of a war when disgraced leaders blame the outcome on those brave enough to oppose them. Sadly, Lieberman shows signs of giving in to the temptation.

And just who is Bill Curry?

Bill Curry, former counselor to President Bill Clinton, was the Democratic nominee for governor twice.

He also worked on Lieberman’s 1988 campaign to unseat Lowell Weicker.

Recent research surveyed by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a governmental think tank for the rich nations, found that mobility in the United States is lower than in other industrial countries. One study found that mobility between generations — people doing better or worse than their parents — is weaker in America than in Denmark, Austria, Norway, Finland, Canada, Sweden, Germany, Spain and France. In America, there is more than a 40 percent chance that if a father is in the bottom fifth of the earnings’ distribution, his son will end up there, too. In Denmark, the equivalent odds are under 25 percent, and they are less than 30 percent in Britain.
emphasis and links mine

One of the big conclusions of the Times is that opportunities are not equally distributed, thus upward mobility is restricted to luck and/or very hard work. This is not the land of opportunity anymore.

We need to provide more opportunities, through better access to education, better access to equal healthcare (where one bad accident won’t bankrupt people), and a more powerful social safety net. Random Chance should not be allowed in this country to dictate the fates of its people.

I’m not sure why, but this story gave me a giggle. It’s actually something good to remember, the skewing of contraceptive failure rates by abstinence-only purity pushers. The stats they tend to use include the highest ever found failure rates for condoms, but the lowest for abstinence. But, the part that made me laugh was the serious tone of this:

When it comes to “typical,” measurable behavior among professed users, abstinence actually suffers a higher “failure rate” than the pill and some other contraceptives, says a study based on the National Survey of Family Growth. That’s because teens who profess to remain abstinent practice that method, on average, as imperfectly and irregularly as kids who use condoms or the pill, the study found.

So, kids, if you forget to use your abstinence, put a condom on.

As an unintentionally abstinant youth, I can speak from experience that the best form of birth control is shyness. At least from a male perspective. Past that, Jen’s advice is good.