Blindness on the 'Militarization' of Policing
There have been widespread objections raised to the acquisition by local police forces, of 'surplus' military equipment. Here in NJ, the Bergen County sheriff has been harshly criticized for expressing the desire to take delivery of "two mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicles, known as MRAPs, which he said have saved officers’ lives in other states." Question: how are such vehicles "surplus"? Does the military no longer need such vehicles abroad? Do they not work for their intended purpose on the battlefield?
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Elsewhere in the news, alarms have been raised about the danger to the United States of U.S. citizens (and other people who have the legal right to enter the U.S.) going abroad to areas controlled by ISIS, al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and other terrorist organizations, where they are trained and motivated to create havoc within our borders upon return.
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Why hasn't anyone in media put those two things together, to see that the Federal Government wants to see localities provided with appropriately mighty defensive equipment to empower them to cope with domestic terrorism?
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Is it physical distance, ISIS (or ISIL) to the U.S. heartland, some 6,000 miles, that causes people not to put these two things together? Is it an unwillingness to think about unpleasant things? Or is it something as banal and dopy as abysmal stupidity?
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Not every community in the United States is within quick reach of a military base. A quick search of the Internet astonishingly failed to reveal how many military bases in the Nation have been closed in recent decades. You'd think that "how many military bases in u.s. in 1960" and then a followup "... in 2014" would allow you to do a quick calculation to see how many bases have been closed, but the search for 1960 data (and similar searches) that I conducted in Google and Bing did not produce simple gross numbers, but only lists of bases that I was not about to slog thru. Suffice it to say that there must be HUNDREDS of bases that have closed since I was in high school (1958-1962), including major installations like Fort Monmouth, less than 10 miles from my home at the time. We spend a great deal more on the military now than then, and have more people in the armed forces, but fewer places from which military force might deploy quickly to any given place in the Nation.
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Thus it is important that the (inadequate) replacement for the military in case of a terrorist emergency, local police, county sheriffs, state police, and each state's National Guard's hyperlocal depots, be equipped to deal with what everyone understands to be a powerful desire on the part of (mainly Radical Islamist organizations) to inflict mass death and disruption inside the United States. Now do you see why the 'militarization of policing' is NOT the 'threat to civil liberties and our way of life' that some paranoid people have characterized it as being?
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In an age of individual terrorists trained abroad and not intercepted on their return to the United States, conventional military force is useless. But military EQUIPMENT in the hands of local authorities and first-responders well trained to use it prudently may well prove crucial.
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I'm not naive, and have been subjected to police excess myself on a couple of occasions. But if the question is posed, whom do I trust more with my safety, Jhokar* Tsarnaev and his ilk, or the Newark Police Department, Essex County Sheriff, and New Jersey State Police, I have no hesitation in answering the latter, without equivocation.
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* Typically, media have largely opted for the more absurd spelling "Dzhokar" over the less absurd spelling "Jhokar". Actually, "Jokar" should do. But this country rushes to embrace bad spellings. The more bizarre the spelling, the more the media like it.
- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 2:20 AM

 
Contemptible Ice-Bucket Challenge
What is wrong with this infantile country? "Social media" — meaning, here, sociopathological media — are promoting an insane and disgusting practice of people's pouring a bucket of icewater over their heads, supposedly to 'raise awareness of ALS', also known as "Lou Gehrig's Disease". As the term "Lou Gehrig's Disease" shows plainly, there has NEVER, since the famed Yankee baseball player Lou Gehrig developed and then died from it, been a need to "raise awareness" of that disorder. If people had just left it with its famed name, "Lou Gehrig's Disease", there could never have been any doubt that society is fully aware of that malady. Instead, some a*hole decided to f* around with the famous name and change it to something no one had ever heard of! Why?
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How do people get so stupid? Why does everything have to be given a new name every few years? Just leave traditional names as-is and it will not be necessary to "raise awareness" of any of the pointlessly, absurdly renamed phenomena, when it is only the name change that renders them suddenly unfamiliar.
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Of what conceivable importance is raising awareness of ALS? It's not as tho people who do not now have it can avoid it if they know what to look for, because it is NOT transmissible. That is, it isn't a disease at all. It is apparently not caused by a microbe. So how on Earth does it make any difference whatsoever whether people come to know about it or not? It's like other rare conditions like accelerated aging that causes children to die by age 12 of 'old age'. Either you have it, or you don't. Knowing about it won't keep you from getting it. Not knowing won't cause you to develop it. So what exactly is the point of this extremely annoying campaign?
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As regards this particular noxious campaign involving icewater, I hope dozens of the people who participate in such infantile behavior develop pneumonia and DIE from it. There are times when stupidity must not be its own, or only, punishment. By now, millions of hours of people's time and attention have been wasted, thrown away on this contemptible campaign, and it keeps spreading, wasting even more and more and more time. Is this infuriating look-at-me infantilism really doing any good? Does anyone who did not know what ALS was before they saw such childish behavior know any better now what it is? Can there be any realistic expectation that 'consciousness-raising' or even the raising of minor financial donations will make the slitest difference in society's success in fiting this malady? NO.
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Stop wasting our time and attention on nonsense. There are things for which massive time and attention might actually make a difference, such as considering solutions for social problems within societies, like crime and unjust distribution or wealth, and internationally, issues that produce intercommunal or religious violence or even war. If people were to give over millions of hours thinking about THOSE things, we might actually make some progress on them.
- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 1:17 PM

 
Absurdly Extravagant Praise for a Pitiful Little Man
Actor/comedian Robin Williams killed himself. That's the good news. The bad news is the ridiculous amount of high praise from all directions that has appeared in mass media and social media for a man whom I almost never found the slitest funny. Manic noise is not humor, not wit, not social commentary. Robin Williams was a poor man's Jonathan Winters, with whom he worked for some time on the TV sitcom, Mork and Mindy, that gave Williams his breakout role, "Mork", a goofy space alien who showed no sign of the high intelligence and advanced technology required for interstellar space travel.
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Poor little Robin Williams. He was very rich and very famous. He had a pretty, much younger wife. Successful children. A big house in a great neighborhood in a wonderful climate. But he was unhappy. Boo hoo.
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He had the money to seek the best psychological and medical help, but wallowed in depression. He abused drugs and alcohol, then felt sorry for himself for not being able (willing) to break free of chemical dependency. Poor baby.
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Williams did one thing I did really like, the clever and touching movie Mrs. Doubtfire. But he didn't do a sequel, nor "franchise" of linked movies, nor a television series using the Mrs. Doubtfire character to deal with problems of children and adults — including depression. A sequel was, finally — after 21 years — about to be made, when the star killed himself. Mind you, the concept need not be abandoned just because one actor is no longer available. Many sequels and series star different actors than created the role. Look how many actors have played Batman.
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Williams decided his pains — all those terrible things (fame, fortune, big house, etc.) that I mentioned above — were too much to bear, so he chose to kill himself. Good. Life is for people who want to live, esp. on this hugely overcrowded planet. I don't feel the slitest sympathy for him, but will reserve ALL my sympathy to people who want to live, but cannot, because of circumstances beyond their control, such as the nearly 15 million children who die in the Third World each year of starvation and preventable disease, and the other scores of thousands of people killed by extremists in local wars and crime (even gang wars in bad neighborhoods in the United States); who, before their untimely death, don't live in overfed luxury, in multi-thousand-square-foot houses on the water in a rich part of a rich county in a rich state and rich country.
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I shall look with interest for what Robin Williams willed be done with his wealth after death. He might redeem himself in some measure if he created a foundation to find new, more effective ways to fite depression, or gave most of his fortune to worthy charities. If he did no such thing, I will continue to hold him in contempt.
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At end, Robin Williams got, from his suicide, what he always needed: attention. Death seems rather too high a price for success in his lifelong quest for attention.
- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 11:59 PM