Jan's Stinkin Blog

Friday, September 06, 2013

STOP & FRISK: In Detroit?

I have been paying more attention to the STOP & FRISK situation in New York since the same company that designed New York’s police program is now designing a program for Detroit.

When I was growing up in Detroit, we had a police program called STRESS (Stop the Robberies, Enjoy Safe Streets) and by all accounts it was pretty successful but if I remember correctly, it used entrapment techniques which means situations were set up to entrap a criminal.

This method made criminals very wary of committing certain crimes because they never knew if the crime they were thinking of committing was actually a police sting.

This police program was ended by our first black mayor, Coleman Young, mainly because most of the criminals were caught were black and that situation is still a problem today; racial profiling.

The New York plan has been challenged on constitutional grounds because of racial profiling.

New York is defending their plan because it has produced such great results by lowering the crime rate considerably and that in turn makes the city and its citizens much safer than before the plan; this is a good thing.

I understand the issue of racial profiling which is against the law and police are not allowed to use racial profiling to stop and frisk; driving while black or Hispanic?

In Detroit, police are saying their plan will not follow the New York stop & frisk plan but will mainly involve traffic cops who will do “investigative stops” based on certain clues and suspicions.

All these plans have something to do with the general “broken windows” criminology theory that dictates doing something about even small crimes like vandalism, etc. and not waiting till a major crime occurs. In this way the crime rate in an area drops because of such police actions according to the theory.

In Detroit, we have not seen any pro-active anti-crime programs and only police reactions (often very late) to actual crimes; something needs to change.

One can understand why blacks and Hispanics are against such programs because they are the main targets of such programs for the very well-known reason that most of the crimes in an urban setting are committed by blacks or Hispanics; statistical fact.

The problem is when law abiding blacks and Hispanics are caught up in the program; they obviously resent it vehemently as any innocent person should.

What is the solution? Everyone wants crime to go down and everyone wants to feel safe in their community which is exactly what happens where stop & frisk programs are in affect so doing away with these programs will bring crime back…is that what everyone wants?

I feel that unless statistics change the profile of the criminal; there is no other way. We can make sure that the current laws and regulations in stop & frisk are followed very closely with zero tolerance for police misbehavior.

Wednesday, September 04, 2013

MAYOR OF BOSTON: I would blow Detroit up!

The mayor of Boston, Thomas Menino, is being criticized for saying that he would blow Detroit up and start from scratch.

This is similar to what the Detroit emergency manager Kevyn Orr also said in an interview.

It is not nice to say that about any city but they were speaking the truth when they said that the city is too far gone to fix; it needs to be rebuilt from scratch.

The city government and its leaders were not only corrupt but totally incompetent and this goes for every department and department head.

This was evident in the people that were running for mayor of the city in the primary. Tom Barrow who has run for mayor five times and lost his ass in the primary is calling for a re-count because he thinks the election was fixed…seriously folks…these are the kind of nuts that want to run the city.

How do you fire everyone for incompetence when this has been the culture of the city for years; hire your political supporters and who cares if they know what they are doing.

But I think the city is recovering and it is being managed from the bottom up and not from the top down. People are making a difference and taking it upon themselves to help save a once thriving metropolis.

The only thing these people need to remember is not to vote for the usual suspects; those that took advantage of the city and its people…I hope the lesson has been learned.

ANOTHER CATHOLIC DIOCESE GOES BANKRUPT...

Lest we forget the great clergy sex abuse scandal and cover-up, the diocese of Gallup, New Mexico has just declared bankruptcy as a result of mounting clergy sex abuse cases.

Gallup is the 9^th Catholic diocese in the U.S. that has had to seek bankruptcy protection due to the priestly sex abuse scandal.

And you don’t think the Catholic Church has a problem????

Tuesday, September 03, 2013

LABOR DAY: Fast Food Strike?

LABOR DAY is over and now back to school / work but not before we address some labor issues.

I have been reading about a “fast-food worker’s strike” planned for Labor Day in which the workers were asking for $15 / hour for their work (minimum wage is at $7.25).

It was not surprising that the SERVICE EMPLOYEES INTERNATIONAL UNION was behind the strike since their only chance at unionizing fast food workers is only when they can afford to pay union dues and that cannot happen on minimum wage so let’s demand doubling the current rate…really?

Historically, the fast food industry employed young, inexperienced workers, usually students who needed extra cash or senior citizens who were bored at home and/or needed extra cash; by employing either the young or the elderly, fast food industry could deliver cheap food fast.

When I read about this strike, I wanted to find out why the strike was called and what has changed in the fast food industry to demand a change in employment practices.

The push by the union is understandable as all unions are desperately looking for new people to unionize so they can keep the union alive but there was something else going on here…

As I studied the matter more, it became apparent that the people asking for the raise have changed. No longer are fast food workers teenagers or the elderly but adults who considered their fast food job as their main job for life and not just a transient job to earn extra cash while going to school or filling up idle days.

I read a number of an examples where adults were trying to support themselves and their families on fast food wages and that is just NOT what fast food jobs were designed to be.

The problem appears to be the adult workers that have no apparent marketable skills seeking a living wage from jobs not designed to provide living wages.

So let me see if I have this straight, adult fast food workers have no compelling reason or drive to obtain marketable skills yet want the fast food eating public to spend a lot more on their fast food so that workers unable or unwilling to acquire marketable skills, can enjoy a living wage…really?

Something needs to change and it is not fast food wages…

Monday, September 02, 2013

TESTAMENT OF MARY: Interesting?

Just finished the book THE TESTAMENT OF MARY by COLM TOIBIN which is also a Broadway play…

I am more of a history purist and for stories that relate or try to portray a certain event in history like the life of Mary, Jesus’ mother, at the time of Jesus’ short ministry; I demand from the author some historic basis like what Reza Aslan presented in his book The Zealot; Toibin uses only Gospel stories to create his drama.

As an example, Toibin dramatizes the whole crucifixion scene based on the Gospels without reference to the historic basis how Roman crucifixions were handled. He also totally falls for the whole Pontius Pilate nonsense as if he was somehow sympathetic to the plight of Jesus. There are many more examples but I guess I should acknowledge that he is basing his story on the Gospel accounts and not historic accuracy.

In his dramatic portrayal of Mary in those turbulent times, he has her talk about how her son had changed from the boy she raised. How he turned away from her and just surrounded himself with his followers, who she did not like or trust.

She also talked about how certain so called miracles may have been staged (turning water into wine) and how Lazarus was a zombie that should have been allowed to die.

In the end, she was troubled and puzzled how Jesus’ followers were trying to make her remember things “differently” than how they really happened.

It was an interesting portrayal of Mary’s days during her son’s ministry but I guess I am not into this type of fiction no matter how dramatic.

Some may find it interesting and the author is a gifted writer of note so the writing is first class but I guess I am after knowable facts and not just dramatizations of semi-fictional Gospel stories.

THE ZEALOT by Reza Aslan...good read.

Just finished the book THE ZEALOT by REZA ASLAN…

Through the years, I have read countless books on the so called “historical Jesus” as opposed to the Jesus of faith but I feel this book did advance a slightly different view point; one based on the historicity of the area and the people, during the time of Jesus.

Some may ask what the difference is between the historic Jesus and the Jesus of faith and the answer(s) usually convey the fact that very few facts about the Jesus of history are known but can be somewhat deduced from available information even if what is available is very scant. The Jesus of faith is a person or god created by those who invented the Christian religion and therefore also created a Jesus that met the needs of their religion.

Aslan creates a very accurate picture of Israel in the years slightly before the birth of Jesus to after his death and places Jesus (the historic man) into that historic environment.

Stripped of all that theological mumbo-jumbo that colored and obscured the real man of history; Jesus is easier to see and maybe understand when placed in the context of “his” time in history.

I won’t go into all the details of this fascinating portrayal of Jesus the man but some of those details maybe of some interest to people that actually like to look behind what they have always been taught and get a glimpse of what may have “really” happened.

One detail is that there were “many” so called messiahs in the time of Jesus and all of them also performed miracles or works of magic, whichever you prefer. Many of these “other” messiahs are actually better known and better documented than Jesus himself was (no non-gospel data) like John the Baptist was.

Aslan also deconstructs the New Testament stories that have grown around the life of Jesus, citing historic facts that show why certain of the stories just cannot be true as recorded based on historic data.

The book is not for everyone but for those like me that have made the study of Christianity, a lifelong endeavor, you will be well pleased with this book and it will add quite a bit to your knowledge of the subject.