''Fuck Your Breath'' As Nominee For Worst Sentence Uttered This Week

This is how bad shit has gotten in terms of police violence in the U.S.: we're happy that when one deputy murders a man with overwhelming evidence, he's at least getting charged with manslaughter and will have to face the justice system.

And this is how bad it's gotten for me, personally: I'm more outraged at the cop who responds to Eric Courtney Harris' plea of ''I'm losing my breath'' with ''Fuck your breath'' - you can see it at the end of this one-minute clip:



That's the guy who should be facing the harshest punishment, in my opinion.

The deputy was a 73-year-old former cop who paid his way into basically tagging along on joyrides and made a fatal mistake. That's involuntary manslaughter. It's bad, for sure; on a ''humanity needs to improve'' scale, it probably ranks a 7/10, but as a scale of a bad person, it scores pretty low.

The other cop, however, is heard justifying the shooting by saying ''you ran'', excusing a fatal gunshot by means of placing blame on the victim, then adding insult to injury with the order to tie his hands behind his back when he's clearly already incapacitated. On a scale of police corruption, it scores at least an 8/10, and hides a character that could possibly be a 10. Adding the famous last words ranks a 10/10 on the asshole scale.

At the very least, this guy should have internal affairs on his ass for two years, making sure he stays in line. He is the symptom and the reason why all citizens now have a low opinion towards those who are supposed to serve and protect us. If they find anything, he should be stripped of his badge, fired and tried.

The only way to change the culture of the locker-room... is to change the culture of the locker-room. You get rid of the bad seeds, you promote the good guys, and you remember to Hold The Line, 'cause love isn't always on time.

Welcome To The 14th Century

By now you've probably heard about Marte Deborah Dalelv, the Norwegian woman who was sentenced to 16 months in prison in Dubai after having gone to the police to report she had been raped by a colleague.

If not, here are the facts - those that can be proven in a court of law, at least: she went out one night with friends and work colleagues, was accompanied to her hotel by a colleague around 3AM, things ensued, she managed to get out of the room she was in when room service came for the wake-up call, called the police to report she had just been raped, then spent four days in jail; her passport was confiscated and never returned.

After four days, the only thing that happened was this:

A piece of paper with Arabic text was handed to her, she said. An Arabic speaker told her it listed two charges against her: one for sex outside of marriage and the other for public consumption of alcohol. Both are violations of the law in the United Arab Emirates.

She claims her colleague raped her that night - and it is (most) probably true.

She was later told by either the police or the person managing her case (who was also her translator, the United Arab Emirates being an Arab country) that she should change her story from ''rape'' to ''consensual sex'' so she could just forget about the ordeal and go back home, and deal with the situation from there.

But as anyone in the right frame of mind would have realized, that would not only be admitting guilt about the two charges against her, it would also add perjury to the mess - and that's what she was found guilty of. Well, that and the other two, of course, which her recant pretty much admitted to:

Dalelv was convicted Tuesday on all three charges and was sentenced to one year in jail for having unlawful sex, three months in jail for making a false statement and one month for illegal consumption of alcohol.

There are three things I want to say about this case. First, it's fucking awful what happened to her, her government should stop at nothing to get her back home safely. And I do mean nothing: money, bribery, sending in the fucking army, getting Bill Clinton to act as negotiator - anything.

Secondly, though, we all need to reflect a bit more before we accept to go into foreign countries, find out what we're getting into before accepting the consequences. Many all over the world are reacting to this particular story and saying the UAE is an ''ass-backwards'' country, where women have no rights, etc. Which is all true. She is not the first woman in this situation. 99% of them know not to go to the police with their story because it'll just make matters worse, but all of those who did got in trouble for it:

In December 2012, a British woman reported being raped by three men in Dubai. She was found guilty of drinking alcohol without a license and fined.

In January 2010, a British woman told authorities she was raped by an employee at a Dubai hotel. She was charged with public intoxication and having sex outside of marriage.

An Australian woman reported in 2008 that she was drugged and gang-raped. She was convicted of having sex outside marriage and drinking alcohol, and she was sentenced to 11 months in prison.

The men there live in a culture that lets this happen all the time; every time one (or a bunch of them) get away with it, it just reinforces their attitude and almost encourages them to act this way. If 91 women can get raped in merely 4 days in public in Egypt (other reports claim ''at least'' 169 were raped in Tahir Square in the same period, 80 on July third alone), a 'moderate' country which has just discovered democracy, how the fuck do you think they're going to act in one where Sharia Law is in full effect?

Which brings me to #3. I'm all for instituting rules, and protecting people - heck, I've often been quoted as saying many troubles would be saved if all countries pledged that well-being laws would apply to all citizens equally and if there were also a universal minimum wage - which would put an end to child labor and poorly-maintained death/suicide-factories in third world countries.

But one thing we can't do overnight - nor in a few centuries, apparently - is change the mores and customs of folks. Countries are different for a reason, and immigration is massive for another - well, a lot of other reasons, but one of them is that if you don't like where you were born, and it doesn't fit your moral compass, and you do not feel like you can make enough of a difference there to make it more like you'd want it to be, you can leave. You can smuggle yourself out, or you can apply for a visa, for immigration - as a potential resident or refugee. Almost anywhere.

Sure, you can be born into a world where your rights are negated from day one and not even be aware that it's wrong, much less that you can change it. This is particularly true of countries who restrict their citizens' rights and/or access to media and information. But people from the West should know what they're getting into by now when working abroad - especially since most of them are qualified, certified, highly-paid skilled workers, usually very educated. They should refuse at the very first sign of unsettling business.

Now, don't get me wrong: I AM NOT BLAMING THE VICTIM for getting raped. She ''wasn't asking for it'', she was just overpowered by the wrong asshole who happens to have been taking advantage not only of her, but also of the fact that he was in a country that forgives men for those types of actions while it judges women for far simpler transgressions (drinking? really?).

Maybe she knew that those things happened in Dubai, but didn't know how frequent it got, because most of those crimes go unreported, and she wrongly evaluated her chances of it happening to her as being similar to Norway.

We should seriously re-evaluate sending them workers at all, or at the very least make sure they're protected 24 hours a day. Anything else just seems like it would have no effect on how women get treated in the UAE anyway.

Again, my three points:
1. get her back home safely, quickly
2. I don't think we can change the UAE
3. we should stop sending folks there, short of having them be accompanied by a Blackwater commando for protection

Just writing this made me angrier than I was reading the article, because three hours went into it rather than 10 minutes. Now I need to go throw up.

''Not'' Guilty

I am just as angry as the next guy that the ''justice'' system has excused George Zimmerman for killing Trayvon Martin. But unlike most of my friends, from what had transpired surrounding the case of late, I kind of knew that's where it was going to go.

But the shock is epic. Even The Huffington Post decided to get opinionated:

The Michael Moore quote up-top is quite true. Not just that, but Trayvon Martin's actions that night were scrutinized way beyond what normally transpires in ''normal'' murder cases. As a matter of fact, it was treated a little in the same way rape is, where they have more questions about the victim than they do the culprit (What was she wearing? Had she been drinking?), and the jury's fear of ''a Black man'' overshadowed the facts.

Because what this verdict means, pretty much, it's that since Black people appear more dangerous, it is excusable to kill them even if/when they're unarmed, teenagers, and coming home from the convenience store. Especially if they're wearing hoodies. A good lawyer could still get you off for killing one in a suit, but ''street'' wear is a no-brainer.

It has stopped being a ''Justice system'' and has become a ''criminal assessment system'' instead, where one type of victim is more complicit in their fate than others, and aggressors can be cleared of charges despite all evidence pointing to the contrary if they can arise enough suspicion on the victim.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for ''Innocent Until Proven Guilty'' - when the rules aren't rigged. This is exactly what I was referring to two weeks ago when I said:

with a legacy that lives on today in the disparity of the applications of the Law codes and how minorities are targeted most by the police and ''the system'' in general in the U.S.

And you can't ''just'' blame Florida, either. Case in point: this black woman mother who got a 20-year jail sentence for firing warning shots. WARNING SHOTS. At her abusive husband. And guess who's going to take care of their child now?

 There is a Mahatma Gandhi quote that goes along the lines of:

"There is a higher court than courts of justice, and that is the court of conscience. It supersedes all other courts."

But not only does it not apply to this situation, it doesn't even apply to this generation, because whenever shit like this happens, those in the wrong are convinced they're right. Say what you will about Barack Obama, he's always trying to choose between the lesser of two (or four) evils; Fox News, George W. Bush, John Ashcroft, Dick Cheney, Rick Perry, Stephen Harper: these people either deliberately force the choice to be between two evils, or just create one themselves.

And there are too many of them with too wide a platform to spread their stupidity around to masses who are unable of critical thinking (or too blinded by their stance on smaller issues to change sides for the larger ones). And that leads to this. And the system once again proves it's fucked.

Dear CNN

If you can't spell out ''the N word'' on screen, you have pretty much answered your own question prior to the ''debate''...

We're not talking about the difference between ''dipshit'' and ''asshole'', here. The only thing that comes close to ''nigger'' (yes, I wrote it, because ''the N word'' is the worst euphemism in modern history, because we all know what the fuck is being said, yet the person using it wants to use it without having the balls to actually say it and instead forces you to think it, which makes the listener/reader the asshole...) is the modern use of ''sand nigger'' for anyone from the Middle East, which oddly enough seems more acceptable despite the fact that not only is it a direct attack on people from some 15-20 countries, it incorporates the previous ''nigger'' to imply one (sand) is worse than the other (regular).

I think now is an ok time for a debate on the use of words, on self-censorship and respect, and on the statute of limitations of the transgressions of the past in a time where education is at an all-time low. What I mean by that is the music selling the most units in the United States is rap, and the vast majority of the rappers are black, and even the smartest ones (like the cerebral Mos Def) use the word 'nigger' repeatedly. For adults in their 70s or older - not the target audience - the word conjures up images of the Civil Rights movement; for folks in their 40s and 50s, the images are still vivid, but instead of being from their own recollection, it's from education and their parents explaining how it went down; for folks like me, in our 30s, it's a struggle we haven't seen happen except in documentary footage, but with a legacy that lives on today in the disparity of the applications of the Law codes and how minorities are targeted most by the police and ''the system'' in general in the U.S.

But for suburban white kids, aged 10 to 25, rap is pretty much all they've known in terms of ''culture'', their education is a joke (schools teach Creationism as 'history' for fuck's sake!), not only do they not know about Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, they barely understand the concept of slavery except maybe that Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves (although they probably think slaves were freed from the British), and the richest people they've ever seen are the gold-wearing rappers in YouTube videos. They have no idea of the struggle, Rosa Parks, the C.I.A. using the actual Ricky Ross to sell crack to ghettos, they don't understand half of what Public Enemy are saying. What they do know is that Black folks call themselves 'nigger' all the time, and that the ultimate acceptance from a Black friend is when he deems the white kid worthy of being called 'my nigger'.

None of which makes for a healthy society, by the way.

But it's where we're at. We need to address that. In a much smarter way than what CNN did. Because it's not about which word is worse (nigger ''wins'', hands down), it's about how widespread it is and how its meaning and implications may be lost on an entire generation and more to come as the young replace the old - which may or may not be a good thing (on the plus side it renders an offensive word weak and takes power away from the fuckers who abused and owned other people, on the other, we should never forget any part of History lest we be condemned to repeat it, though we often repeat it without having forgotten).

R.I.P. Mindy McCready

She was a tortured soul who felt alone, needed to feel loved and accepted, and never quite got past the brink of happiness. As a teen - some reports (quoting him) say she was 15, others (quoting her) say 16 - she met baseball steroid über-user and star pitcher Roger Clemens and they promptly started a long-term relationship that was ''sexual in its nature''; as a young adult, she entered the country music business on the strength of karaoke tapes she brought to Nashville labels (and was signed by BNA Records); apart from Clemens, she dated pop culture side-dishes Dean Cain and Drake Berehowski; her substance-abuse problems became so rampant that she spent a season on Celebrity Rehab With Dr. Drew.

That was the public life of Mindy McCready.

In the end, she shot herself on the same porch, in the same exact manner as her boyfriend (and father of her second child) David Wilson, who had done it a month prior. It was at least her fifth suicide attempt.

Most of the conversation regarding her death should center around her talent, then substance abuse and mental health - and hopefully it will.

But we should also reserve a spot to talk about Reality TV, and more specifically Dr. Drew's exploitation show. She is the fifth ''cast member'' of the hack Dr. Drew Pinski - the third from Season 3 alone - to die in the last two years. While some of those were deemed ''accidental'', all of them involved drugs and alcohol directly: Rodney King drowned but was found to have alcohol, marijuana, cocaine and PCP in his blood, and Grease actor Jeff Conway may have died from pneumonia, but the autopsy showed his life-long addiction to painkillers was the cause of it. Alice In Chains bassist Mike Starr and Real World participant Joey Kovar both died of overdoses, Starr on cocaine and heroin, Kovar on heroin and other opiates.

Some cynics claim it'd be a scandal if no one from a series about addiction had died, and Pinski agrees with them, from a CNN interview last night:

One of my hopes was, in bringing ‘Celebrity Rehab’ out, was to teach people how dangerous addiction was. If I was doing a show on cancer, there would not be much surprise when my cancer patient died. In fact, we’d celebrate a few years of good quality life. People don’t understand that addiction has virtually the same prognosis. If you have other mental health issues on top of that, it’s so much worse. This was not an addiction death, interestingly. This was related to - had her boyfriend not died, I don’t think there’s any way we’d be in this position right now.

Really? He drops the fucking towel this easily? ''Meh, I gave it a half-assed shot, spewed out a few clichés here and there, made her (and others) look like a complete ass, and I did all that while also seeing my regular, non-celeb patients on the side, raking money in from all sides while forging myself a reputation as the go-to guy. Come see me, you have a 1-in-3 chance of dying.''

Jack Kevorkian went to jail for helping people who wanted to die get there. This hack's job is to try to save the fuckers and he fails consistently - how is that not also murder?

Irony

''We interrupt this press conference about possible restrictions on current gun control laws to take you live to the scene of yet another school shooting...''

Ridiculous!

Wolf Blitzer puts his pants on and calls Donald Trump on his bullshit. Trump has trouble making sense of reality, since he can't get Blitzer fired from his own show.

Gallagher Hospitalized After Heart Attack

For the second time in a year, comedian Gallagher was hospitalized after suffering a heart attack. I'm glad CNN took time off of their useless Republican Primary coverage (not because it's the Republicans, but because they actually have nothing going on despite their jumbo-matrons and situation rooms and hounding of vote counters - but more on that at a later date) to talk about the guy Comedy Central ranked the 100th best comic of all-time.

They put Louis C.K. at 98 and David Cross at 85, though, with fucking Howie Mandel at 82, so what the fuck do they know?

Anyway, back to the watermelon smasher. Wait, there's nothing else to say, unless you want to mention that his most-famous skit, the ''Sledge-O-Matic'', is nothing more than a parody of a 60s appliance Veg-O-Matic (''it slices, it dices!'') that he's kept repeating ad nauseam, murdering millions of fruit for no valid reason throughout the decades.