Marijuana Conflicts, State and Federal

Liberals are calling for the President to respect states’ rights and not oppose the voters of Washington and Colorado who just chose to legalize marijuana in their states.  Not yet clear where conservatives stand on this, but the White House is starting to look like the odd man out.

A recent Huffington Post story presented the argument in favor of legalization, highlighting the ways that enforcing prohibitions on marijuana are counter-productive:

1.      financially burdens taxpayers;

2.      encroaches upon civil liberties;

3.      engenders disrespect for the law;

4.      impedes legitimate scientific research into the plant's medicinal properties and;

5.      disproportionately affects communities of color;

6.      criminalization has not worked.

Like so many issues in American politics, the average voter is more pragmatic (and less polarizing) than our elites.  According to the Huffington Post article,

“Despite more than 70 years of federal pot prohibition, Americans' consumption of and demand for cannabis is here to stay. Voters' passage of Amendment 64 in Colorado and Initiative 502 in Washington acknowledges this reality. These measures seek to stop ceding control of the marijuana market to untaxed criminal enterprises, and to impose new, common-sense regulations governing cannabis' personal use by adults and licensing its production.

Unlike the federal government, which continues to define cannabis as an illegal commodity that is as dangerous as heroin, most voters recognize that a pragmatic regulatory framework that allows for limited, licensed production and sale of cannabis to adults but restricts use among young people best reduces the risks associated with its use or abuse.”

But so far the president, and his Drug Czar (the former Chief of Police in Seattle, Gil Kerlowske), have yet to speak clearly or with one voice on this, and some signs indicate they plan to continue the ineffective War on Drugs by another name.  Congress is already preparing to act (sadly, that sentence seems to express something out of the ordinary today).

Presenting and Meta Conflicts:  Seeing Political Strategy

Liberals call for the President to respect states’ rights and not oppose the voters of Washington and Colorado who just chose to legalize marijuana in their states.

Conservatives call for the President to respect states’ rights and not oppose the elected representatives of states who have chosen to reject Obamacare.

Liberals call for limiting the power of federal and state governments to regulate a women’s right to choose.

Conservatives call for limiting the power of federal and state governments to regulate gun ownership.

We could extend this list; it is just illustrative.

Yet, the presenting conflict usually portrays liberals as big government nationalists and conservatives as small government state’s righters.  Beneath these presenting conflicts are deeper conflicts over the location of sovereignty, political agency, power, and resource allocation. 

These meta-conflicts can be traced back to our founding generation, divided as well between those who favored ‘energetic state government’ that is close to the people and more easily held accountable and those who favored energetic federal government empowered to protect property, pay back revolutionary war debt, fight Native Americans, and enforce the terms of treaties. 

The former favored our first constitution, the Articles of Confederation; the latter preferred our second constitution, the Constitution.

Moderately interesting academic point?  At best…but it is also an essential insight for understanding political conflict, because elites understand the strategic dimensions not usually highlighted in mass media accounts of the ‘horse race.’ 

“What happens in politics depends on the way in which people are divided…which of the multitude of conflicts [fears, concerns, issues, challenges] gains a dominant position (60).”

Schattschneider develops a framework for thinking about politics that centers on conflict and the importance of elite efforts to use conflicts to mobilize supportive constituencies (‘audiences’ or ‘crowd’ in Schattschneider’s metaphor).  Elites compete in a struggle over the scope of conflicts—a struggle to make particular conflicts salient, to amplify these conflicts and support and mobilize the communities prioritizing concern about these issues.  And just as making a conflict salient creates an attentive community of insiders, it marginalizes others muting their concerns.

And one central strategy is this struggle is to displace, or resist the displacement of, conflicts (or framings of conflicts) on the public agenda—in order to win the meta argument over what the argument will be about. And most of us never even notice the meta conflicts, because we both interested in, and our attentions are repeatedly drawn to, an intensive focus on the presenting conflict. 

This makes politics more confusing than it might otherwise be for non-elites.  It makes is harder to anticipate and see the efforts of elites to reframe their private interests as ‘the’ public interest.  A failure to see the strategic dimension confuses efforts to understand why ‘common sense’ solutions to presenting conflicts (filibuster) can be so elusive, because we need to anticipate that elites are (in Galanter’s terms) playing for a rule, playing the long game, using this or that presenting conflict to create an advantage in a larger meta conflict.

“The most important thing about any democratic regime is the way in which it uses and exploits popular sovereignty, what questions it refers to the public for decision and guidance, how it refers them to the public, how the alternatives are defined and how it respects the limitations of the public.  A good democratic system protects the public against the demand that it do impossible things. The unforgivable sin of democratic politics is to dissipate the power of the public by putting it to trivial uses.” (137)

So, ironically, Schattschneider ends up focusing on the importance of leadership in a democratic society, but even this focus is about ‘the audience.’  He would suggest that when we get off track, our leaders (public officials and private leaders who run the mass media) are likely asking the wrong questions—elites are likely making less significant conflicts more salient—dissipating public energies.

The most important questions in politics focus on how leaders use conflicts to mobilize audiences by publicizing some conflicts and ignoring others, displacing more trivial conflicts with conflicts of concern to a broader general public, that unify and create a larger national community. 

We need leaders to set agendas that make sense and enable meaningful citizen participation, to frame (or reframe—displacing one way of thinking and talking about a conflict with another) debates to make agreements easier to achieve.  And this understanding of democracy highlights leadership failures as particularly crippling to democratic societies seeking to find ways to contain violence and self-govern—through energetic state governments and/or a more powerful federal government.

Guns and Violence
This short historical analysis of guns and violence in the US concludes that our focus today should be on banning assault weapons and very seriously and severely regulating hand gun ownership because these are the two types of weapons causing nearly all the gun-related violence in the US.  Comprehensive background checks would, therefore, be one essential element any effective hand gun regulation.  And high capacity magazines should be an essential element of any assault weapon ban.

Political Strategy Several Steps from Policy

The Senate failed to fix the filibuster problem this week.  Slate argues that the filibuster is ‘inherently reactionary.’  EzraKlein argues in the Washington Post that most Senate Democrats do not want to fix the rule, fearing powerlessness when they again become a minority party.  Klein adds that most media coverage of this debate gets the logic of one aspect backwards.

“The reform idea that got the most press was the “talking filibuster.” I’m a skeptic. The Senate can do quite a bit more to force filibustering senators to talk right now. The reason it doesn’t is that time is precious. The talking filibuster had many virtues, but at its core, it got the causality of the problem backwards. The reason the minority doesn’t burn time on the Senate floor talking isn’t because they don’t want to. It’s because the majority doesn’t want them to.”

The best idea I have heard has been proposed by the younger generation of Senators and is called the 41 vote rule.  Rather than the current rule, which requires the majority to deliver 60 votes in the chamber to defeat a filibuster, this would shift the burden of proof to the minority seeking to block legislation with the filibuster by requiring them to deliver 41 Senators in the chamber.  This will both reduce the use of the filibuster to block legislation and do it by appropriately shifting the burden of proof to the Senators seeking to block any particular piece of legislation.  As Klein put it “filibustering should be inconvenient.” 

There appears to be widespread Democratic party support for the 41 vote rule, among younger Senators and leadership, but their fear of becoming a minority party again may have overrode other considerations.  It is also unclear to me how much support there was for this idea among Republican Senators, and if even this rule would have required expending large amounts of political capital right now, it is possible that Senators were weighing party interest, individual interest (the current rule provides lots of power to individual Senators), and the interests of those who want to pass immigration, tax code, and gun regulation reform this term. 

White Privilege Makes it to Leno!
Louis CK, in this very short clip, makes Leno look a bit uncomfortable.  But the Tonight Show players get it.

The Daily Show provides the best analysis of reaction to the president's speech...

Respond to the argument that was advanced...
...not the one you wish was advanced...that's just basic respect

David Brooks, the sometimes smart usually worth reading NYT columnist, argued that the President’s second inaugural address “surely has to rank among the best” and “makes an argument for a pragmatic and patriotic progressivism.”

Clive Crook, writing for the Bloomberg View, argues that in the second inaugural address the president “made the struggle for social justice and equality the whole of his message.”

As such, according to Crook, the speech was “more divisive that it needed to be” and overlooks “another tradition” in American political thought that would focus on “the principle of individual liberty and limited government, of personal responsibility, the private sphere and reward for merit.”

First, both of these commentaries are well worth reading.  Brooks rightfully highlights the importance of the president tracing our American story from the principle that ‘all of us are created equal’ in the Declaration of Independence to “railroad legislation, the Progressive Era, the New Deal, the highway legislation, the Great Society, Seneca Falls, Selma and Stonewall.”

Crook describes the president’s vision as a ‘noble’ reminder of our hard fought struggles to expand civil rights and protect individual liberties, to reduce poverty, discrimination, and violence and quotes the president as saying that

“We do not believe that in this country freedom is reserved for the lucky, or happiness for the few,” he said. “The commitments we make to each other through Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security, these things do not sap our initiative, they strengthen us. They do not make us a nation of takers; they free us to take the risks that make this country great.”

But the overarching image from Brook’s portrayal  is of the president is moving, in this speech, from his “post-partisan” self to reveal the true inner liberal self we all knew was there all along.  Crooks claims, similarly, that the president has abandoned, in this speech, efforts to speak to both sides of a divided nation.  And Crooks concludes

“There wasn’t much respect, either. How could there be? If you cast all your policy ideas as moral imperatives, what does that say about people who disagree with you? Obama made it plain he thinks Republicans are not just wrong but morally impaired.”

I wonder.

It seems to me that the president chose to frame his comments around one core shared value (unless ‘all men are created equal’ is now only a progressive or liberal value) in order to reach out to those whose perspective on politics is profoundly moral.  This strikes me as the highest form of respect.  If you see the world through a moral lens, the president suggested, then consider this. 

Was he using a moral lens to try to persuade the persuadables that we ought to recognize the connection between our shared values and Social Security, environmental stewardship, and equal rights?  Yes.  But making an argument using the language preferred by your opponents is a form of reaching out.  It is decidedly post-partisan. 

And neither Brooks nor Crooks see this because they appear to assume the president’s use of a moral lens can only be disingenuous (like Fox News analysts during the election, believing their own hype about the president’s hostility toward religion).

Rather than engage with the story the president did tell they dismiss it because he did not tell another story, like the one they want to tell.  That is disrespectful. 

Engaging with the language, stories, lenses your opponents prefer is harder, more risky, and more likely to provide a foundation for achieving agreement.  Ignoring your opponent’s story because he did not tell you story is juvenile, disrespectful, and more likely to perpetuate the two ships passing in the night gridlock paralyzing our politics.

Respond to the argument that was made.  Do you think we can come together around our shared belief that all of us our created equal? 

Rethinking Power Point Presentations

Dinesh Paliwal, CEO of Harman International Industries, shared his philosophy on slideshows with the New York Times:

"Whenever you're going to talk to investors, to management, to the board, or at quarterly meetings, [you should] write your presentation first. It may be five or six pages. Then [make it] one page. Then [make it] half a page. If you can't explain it to me without slides, you haven't understood the issue."

A very good point. 

If you have 10 slides, you probably should have two (or zero).

President Obama’s Second Inaugural Address, January 2013
Transcript and Video at Link and Transcript Below

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much.

Vice President Biden, Mr. Chief Justice, members of the United States Congress, distinguished guests, and fellow citizens, each time we gather to inaugurate a president, we bear witness to the enduring strength of our Constitution. We affirm the promise of our democracy. We recall that what binds this nation together is not the colors of our skin or the tenets of our faith or the origins of our names.

OBAMA: What makes us exceptional, what makes us America is our allegiance to an idea articulated in a declaration made more than two centuries ago. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.

(APPLAUSE)

That they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, and among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Today we continue a never ending journey to bridge the meaning of those words with the realities of our time. For history tells us that while these truths may be self-evident, they’ve never been self-executing. That while freedom is a gift from God, it must be secured by his people here on earth.

OBAMA: The patriots of 1776 did not fight to replace the tyranny of a king with the privileges of a few, or the rule of a mob. They gave to us a republic, a government of, and by, and for the people. Entrusting each generation to keep safe our founding creed. And for more than 200 years we have. Through blood drawn by lash, and blood drawn by sword, we noted that no union founded on the principles of liberty and equality could survive half slave, and half free.

OBAMA: We made ourselves anew, and vowed to move forward together.

Together we determined that a modern economy requires railroads and highways to speed travel and commerce, schools and colleges to train our workers. Together we discovered that a free market only thrives when there are rules to ensure competition and fair play. Together we resolve that a great nation must care for the vulnerable and protect its people from life’s worst hazards and misfortune.

Through it all, we have never relinquished our skepticism of central authority, nor have we succumbed to the fiction that all societies ills can be cured through government alone. Our celebration of initiative and enterprise, our insistence on hard work and personal responsibility, these are constants in our character.

For we have always understood that when times change, so must we, that fidelity to our founding principles requires new responses to new challenges, that preserving our individual freedoms ultimately requires collective action.

For the American people can no more meet the demands of today’s world by acting alone than American soldiers could have met the forces of fascism or communism with muskets and militias. No single person can train all the math and science teachers we’ll need to equip our children for the future. Or build the roads and networks and research labs that will bring new jobs and businesses to our shores.

OBAMA: Now, more than ever, we must do these things together, as one nation, and one people.

(APPLAUSE)

This generation of Americans has been tested by crises that steeled (ph) our resolve and proved our resilience. A decade of war is now ending.

(APPLAUSE)

And economic recovery has begun.

(APPLAUSE)

America’s possibilities are limitless, for we possess all the qualities that this world without boundaries demands: youth and drive, diversity and openness, of endless capacity for risk and a gift for reinvention.

My fellow Americans, we are made for this moment and we will seize it, so long as we seize it together.

(APPLAUSE)

For we, the people, understand that our country cannot succeed when a shrinking few do very well and a growing many barely make it.

(APPLAUSE)

We believe that America’s prosperity must rest upon the broad shoulders of a rising middle class. We know that America thrives when every person can find independence and pride in their work, when the wages of honest labor will liberate families from the brink of hardship.

OBAMA: We are true to our creed when a little girl born into the bleakest poverty knows that she has the same chance to succeed as anybody else because she is an American, she is free, and she is equal not just in the eyes of God but also in our own.

(APPLAUSE)

We understand that outworn (ph) programs are inadequate to the needs of our time. So we must harness new ideas and technology to remake our government, revamp our tax code, reform our schools, and empower our citizens with the skills they need to work hard or learn more, reach higher.

But while the means will change, our purpose endures. A nation that rewards the effort and determination of every single American, that is what this moment requires. That is what will give real meaning to our creed.

We, the people, still believe that every citizen deserves a basic measure of security and dignity. We must make the hard choices to reduce the cost of health care and the size of our deficit.

(APPLAUSE)

But we reject the belief that America must choose between caring for the generation that built this country and investing in the generation that will build its future.

(APPLAUSE)

For we remember the lessons of our past, when twilight years were spent in poverty and parents of a child with a disability had nowhere to turn. We do not believe that in this country freedom is reserved for the lucky or happiness for the few. We recognize that no matter how responsibly we live our lives, any one of us at any time may face a job loss or a sudden illness or a home swept away in a terrible storm. The commitments we make to each other through Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security, these things do not sap our initiative.

OBAMA: They strengthen us.

(APPLAUSE)

They do not make us a nation of takers. They free us to take the risks that make this country great.

(APPLAUSE)

We, the people, still believe that our obligations as Americans are not just to ourselves, but to all posterity. We will respond to the threat of climate change, knowing that the failure to do so would betray our children and future generations.

(APPLAUSE)

Some may still deny the overwhelming judgment of science, but none can avoid the devastating impact of raging fires, and crippling drought, and more powerful storms. The path towards sustainable energy sources will be long and sometimes difficult. But American cannot resist this transition. We must lead it.

(APPLAUSE)

We cannot cede to other nations the technology that will power new jobs and new industries. We must claim its promise. That’s how we will maintain our economic vitality and our national treasure, our forests and waterways, our crop lands and snow capped peaks. That is how we will preserve our planet, commanded to our care by God. That’s what will lend meaning to the creed our fathers once declared.

OBAMA: We, the people, still believe that enduring security and lasting peace do not require perpetual war.

(APPLAUSE)

Our brave men and women in uniform tempered by the flames of battle are unmatched in skill and courage.

(APPLAUSE)

Our citizens seared by the memory of those we have lost, know too well the price that is paid for liberty. The knowledge of their sacrifice will keep us forever vigilant against those who would do us harm. But we are also heirs to those who won the peace, and not just the war. Who turn sworn enemies into the surest of friends. And we must carry those lessons into this time as well. We will defend our people, and uphold our values through strength of arms, and the rule of law.

We will show the courage to try and resolve our differences with other nations peacefully. Not because we are naive about the dangers we face, but because engagement can more durably lift suspicion and fear.

(APPLAUSE)

OBAMA: America will remain the anchor of strong alliances in every corner of the globe. And we will renew those institutions that extend our capacity to manage crisis abroad. For no one has a greater stake in a peaceful world than its most powerful nation. We will support democracy from Asia to Africa, from the Americas to the Middle East, because our interests and our conscience compel us to act on behalf of those who long for freedom. And we must be a source of hope to the poor, the sick, the marginalized, the victims of prejudice.

OBAMA: Not out of mere charity, but because peace in our time requires the constant advance of those principles that our common creed describes; tolerance and opportunity, human dignity and justice. We the people declare today that the most evident of truth that all of us are created equal -- is the star that guides us still; just as it guided our forebears through Seneca Falls and Selma and Stonewall; just as it guided all those men and women, sung and unsung, who left footprints along this great mall, to hear a preacher say that we cannot walk alone; to hear a King proclaim that our individual freedom is inextricably bound to the freedom of every soul on Earth.

(APPLAUSE)

It is now our generation’s task to carry on what those pioneers began, for our journey is not complete until our wives, our mothers and daughters can earn a living equal to their efforts.

(APPLAUSE)

Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law, for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal, as well.

(APPLAUSE)

Our journey is not complete until no citizen is forced to wait for hours to exercise the right to vote.

(APPLAUSE)

Our journey is not complete until we find a better way to welcome the striving, hopeful immigrants who still see America as a land of opportunity, until bright young students and engineers are enlisted in our workforce rather than expelled from our country.

(APPLAUSE)

OBAMA: Our journey is not complete until all our children, from the streets of Detroit to the hills of Appalachia to the quiet lanes of Newtown, know that they are cared for and cherished and always safe from harm.

OBAMA: That is our generation’s task, to make these works, these rights, these values of life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness real for every American.

Being true to our founding documents does not require us to agree on every contour of life. It does not mean we all define liberty in exactly the same way or follow the same precise path to happiness.

Progress does not compel us to settle century’s long debates about the role of government for all time, but it does require us to act in our time.

(APPLAUSE)

For now, decisions are upon us and we cannot afford delay. We cannot mistake absolutism for principle or substitute spectacle for politics, or treat name-calling as reasoned debate.

(APPLAUSE)

We must act. We must act knowing that our work will be imperfect (ph). We must act knowing that today’s victories will be only partial, and that it will be up to those who stand here in four years and 40 years and 400 years hence to advance the timeless spirit once conferred to us in a spare Philadelphia hall.

OBAMA: My fellow Americans, the oath I have sworn before you today, like the one recited by others who serve in this Capitol, was an oath to God and country, not party or faction.

And we must faithfully execute that pledge during the duration of our service. But the words I spoke today are not so different from the oath that is taken each time a soldier signs up for duty, or an immigrant realizes her dream.

My oath is not so different from the pledge we all make to the flag that waves above and that fills our hearts with pride. They are the words of citizens, and they represent our greatest hope. You and I, as citizens, have the power to set this country’s course. You and I, as citizens, have the obligation to shape the debates of our time, not only with the votes we cast, but the voices we lift in defense of our most ancient values and enduring ideas.

(APPLAUSE)

Let us each of us now embrace with solemn duty, and awesome joy, what is our lasting birthright. With common effort and common purpose, with passion and dedication, let us answer the call of history and carry into an uncertain future that precious light of freedom.

Thank you.

God bless you.

And may He forever bless these United States of America.

Dr. King on the Unity of Love and Power
Some years ago, I discovered that my students were deeply motivated by scholarly analysis connecting restorative justice to Christian (most directly Mennonite) traditions.  This spurred me to developed a summer conflict management class that focused on reading the work of Dr.Martin Luther King, Jr.

Our goal was to identify and examine ‘King’s Way.’  What was the path—what are the attitudes and skills and perspectives—that Dr. King lived and taught to help us more productively address the conflicts in our lives?

I learned quite a lot from my students that summer.  And the following analysis from Dr. King has stuck in my mind ever since.  I keep coming back to it and thought others might benefit from reflecting on these ideas from one of America’s most thoughtful leaders.

“Power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love.”

Dr. King reinforces this idea from Where Do We Go From Here? (his final book—a great read) in other texts as well.  He is emphasizing, in my view at least, the importance of rejecting 'either/or' thinking, rejecting the simplistic suckers choice trap we encounter in the dualistic framing of conflicts.  He reinforces this idea in a sermon about toughmindedness and tenderheartedness, the qualities of a serpent and a dove respectively.

“To have serpentlike qualities devoid of dovelike qualities is to be passionless, mean and selfish. To have dovelike qualities without serpentlike qualities is to be sentimental, anemic, and aimless….  We must combine the toughness of the serpent and the softness of the dove, a tough mind and a tender heart.

The strong man holds in a living blend strongly marked opposites. The idealists are not usually realistic, and the realists are not usually idealistic. The militant are not generally known to be passive, nor the passive to be militant. Seldom are the humble self-assertive, or the self-assertive humble. But life at its best is a creative synthesis of opposites in fruitful harmony.”

Dr. King is highlighting the importance of embracing the paradox of the Prince of Peace, engaging with love, and learning what Tupac calls the ‘skills it takes to be real,’ so that we might become both toughminded and tenderhearted, both serpent and dove, both powerful and loving.  Not either/or...both/and.

 

America's First Microbrewery
Craft beer lovers will appreciate this column in today’s Beacon Journal.  Jack McAuliffe, the man who in 1976 built the first microbrewery in the US and created New Albion Ale, is back.  He will be visiting the area. 

Perhaps more importantly NewAlbion Ale is back and the story is fascinating.  Described in the linked article as ‘a classic American story:  Guy has an idea. Guy acts on idea. Guy’s idea goes haywire and fails. He fades into obscurity and all of a sudden, late in his life, whammo. How cool is that?”

 

Just Another Crime & Punishment Story

Barberton Police Seek Accused Killer Month Before Pregnant Teen Shot

DNA links David Stoddard, 24, to violent home invasion in Barberton a month earlier

That was the headline in the online version of this article today, an article on the list of ‘most read’ articles.  In the hard copy paper delivered to my doorstep the headline, above the fold, in the B section read “Man Wanted Before Teen Killed.”  Online there was no photo with the story.  Hard copy had a tiny half-inch head shot of the killer.

The three comments in the online comment section read:

1.      ‘Sure lets blame the cops for this psychopath killing the girl. The attorney says he was in daily contact with his client, while knowing the police were looking for him, yet refusing to cooperate. Get over yourself dude, not even sure how you sleep at night defending scum like that.’

2.      ‘"“It’s kind of one of those things that you just keep checking for the suspect and if you come across him, you deal with him at that time,” Eberhart said."  So what did the cops do keep checking the jail cell... "No he's not in there yet".’

3.      ‘What Trexler didn't say, was that the DNA evidence gotten from the dog wasn't certain enough for anyone to be convinced or convicted. Police wanted to meet with the loser to collect additional DNA for testing. They were building their case.’

What is the story as reported today?

24 year-old David Stoddard, from Barberton, is accused of bursting into a private home to kill his girlfriend but ended up murdering 16 year-old Anna Karam and shooting 19 year-old Jessica Halam in the head.  Karam was four months pregnant; Halam is recovering at Akron General.

Yesterday’s story has a photo of a candlelight vigil for the two victims.  Today’s story tells us that the shooter was already wanted for a “violent home invasion” by the Barberton Police.

DNA evidence linked Stoddard to the home invasion.  Barberton Police had been in ongoing negotiations with Stoddard’s attorney to get him to turn himself in.  Barberton Police arrested Stoddard on a gun charge “a month after the home invasion” but released him.  The Barberton Police had not secured a warrant for Stoddard’s arrest by the time he was murdering Anna Karam.

Here is what the police told the Beacon reporter:

‘Officer Marty Eberhart, Barberton police spokesman, said officers in December looked for Stoddard, checking the various addresses he was known to frequent. Beyond that, Eberhart was unable to say how intense the search was for Stoddard and how long they searched.

“It’s kind of one of those things that you just keep checking for the suspect and if you come across him, you deal with him at that time,” Eberhart said.

Eberhart said police did not have a warrant for Stoddard’s arrest in December. At the same time, however, he said Stoddard would have been arrested once he met with detectives.

“We needed to talk to him about it,” Eberhart said. “We were making arrangements with his attorney to turn himself in and be charged at that time.”’

The friends of the victims are “left to wonder.”  I am left to wonder if Stoddard was a 24 year-old black man, with a violent criminal history, who was known to the police and openly living in his own home…wouldn’t he have been arrested before he killed anyone?  If aggregate data (about arrests, police discretion, and racial profiling) can help us at all, we can only conclude that if he were black he would have absolutely been arrested, even if the previous criminal history had not been violent.

‘On Jan. 6, police say, Stoddard barged inside an East Archwood Avenue home and opened fire. Witnesses say he was looking for his ex-girlfriend when he shot Karam and Halman. Stoddard fled the house and was found inside a motel room hours later by Wadsworth police. 

The home invasion took place on Oct. 5 inside a Jefferson Avenue home. Police say three men, one armed with a gun, burst inside and demanded money. One person inside was assaulted, and the resident’s 10-year-old pit bull named Duke was shot to death after biting the arm and leg of one intruder.’

DNA from the dog’s mouth linked to Stoddard and the victim of the home invasion identified Stoddard even before the DNA results were available to police.

‘“My client was not eluding police,” Sinn said. “He was in town, living at home and I was in daily contact with him. We were in discussions with police….”’

A suspect identified by the victim for a violent home invasion, with corroborating DNA evidence, was ‘in discussions with police’ through his attorney??   I wonder if this is either evidence of a police department with an admirable respect for due process and alternatives to punishment, or a police department giving special rights to one of its own?

Of course, we could all follow one online commentator and add information to the story, reassuring ourselves with comments like ‘the police were building their case,’ or ‘the evidence was inconclusive,’ or ‘the police were trying to trick the suspect into giving up information.’  Even if we assume these speculations are true, would we make these same extra-ordinary efforts to ‘fill-in the blanks’ for the police if a young black man had been left on the streets, without a warrant even issued for arrest, only to then commit a violent murder?  Or if Anna Karam and Jessica Halam were our daughters?

Cameron Russell on Image

A ten minute TED talk by Cameron Russell...worth a watch.  Image is power and our image of being a model is distorted.

Very interesting to compare casual photos taken of to shots taken that same day and were published.

Just listening to her, rather than only looking at her, hearing her be thoughtful and funny, makes this worth checking out.

Very well done.

Bipartisan Support for Reducing our Understanding of Guns and Violence

"It's All Politics on National Public Radio (NPR: 89.7 and 90.3 FM in our area) aired a very interesting story about data and research related to guns and violence.  In that story, we learn how emergency room doctor, Art Kellermann, and others have been discouraged from researching these topics. 

According to the NPR story (which you can listen to here) Dr. Kellermann ‘was raised in eastern Tennessee, where his father taught him how to shoot a long gun when he was 10 years old. Kellermann grew up to become an emergency room doctor — and a target for gun-rights groups when he started asking questions like, "If a gun kept in a home was used, who did it shoot, and what were the consequences?"

Kellermann found people turned those guns on themselves and others in the house far more often than on intruders. "In other words, a gun kept in the home was 43 times more likely to be involved in the death of a member of the household than to be used in self-defense," he says.

Kellermann says the National Rifle Association and other Second Amendment advocates leaned on his then-employer, Emory University, to stop the research. That didn't work.  So, he says, "they turned to a softer target, which was the [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention], the organization that was funding much of this work. And although gun injury prevention research was never more than a tiny percentage of the CDC's research budget, it was enough to bring them under the fire of the NRA."

Lawmakers — both Democrats and Republicans — held back some money from the CDC and made clear that no federal funds should be used to promote gun control.  Many researchers interpreted that message to mean no public health studies about injuries from weapons.’

Reject PunishingSchools
The Akron Beacon Journal has done some exemplary work covering educational reform efforts over the years I have lived in Akron.  Today, they provide a detailed and disturbing summary of a study just completed by the Children’sDefense Fund-Ohio and the Ohio Poverty Law Center.

There are several findings that should cause us to pause.  Most striking for me is the fact that we now know that in Ohio black students are more than five times more likely to be disciplined than white students.  While total disciplinary actions are declining in the state, the racial gap remains and Akron Public Schools are the worst in the state.

In Akron Public Schools, “about 80 percent of students, according to school officials, have no disciplinary infractions. But Akron remains 16th of 924 public school districts and charter schools in overall disciplinary action and leads the state’s largest urban centers in disciplining minority students, with about 97 disciplinary actions for every 100 black students.”

And while I generally like our Superintendent, David James, his response to these tragic numbers was to point out that when as student brings a weapon to school expulsion follows, and then conclude that this is a ‘color-blind issue.’

Others draw our attentions to a different set of variables.

‘In the 2010-11 school year, the most recent year for comparable data, black students made up less than half of Akron schools’ population but accounted for more than three-quarters of all disciplinary actions, including all of the district’s expulsions, according to ODE statistics.

The numbers cannot be defended, Sarah Biehl, an attorney at the Ohio Poverty Law Center, said.  “Anyone who tries to sugar-coat it is being dishonest,” she said.  Dan Rambler, Akron Public Schools director of student support services, agrees.  “I don’t know that there’s an explanation for [disproportionately disciplining minority students],” he said.

McWilliams and Rambler openly acknowledged the problem. They stress that fostering relationships with students could produce a school climate of respect and appreciation.

Still, officials lack a definite reason for disproportionately disciplining black students.  Biehl suggested the blame might rest on society and not necessarily with administrators or teachers.  “It’s a racist system. We create a social stereotype of what criminals look like: a young, black man,” she said.

Advocates and school administrators acknowledge that minority students often struggle with poverty, food insecurity and might receive minimal support from their parents and community.  According to U.S. Census data, blacks are twice as likely as whites to be living in poverty in Akron.

“I do think that poverty is a huge factor in outcomes,” said Jason Haas, president of the Akron Board of Education. “Unfortunately, we live in an area that has a high concentration of poverty.”’

This is not a new challenge.  But it seems clear to me that racism and poverty, and the intersections of racism and poverty, have to be a central part of this conversation.  As Rev. Walker noted, “When you have a black eye, it’s very visible.  You can try to hide it, but it’s there.”  As a white male I am not exactly sure how I can help.  I can see that being white sometimes allows one, ironically, to be more candid about racism, but I also do not want to suggest or even imply that current (or future) black leaders in Akron are not themselves fully capable of figuring this out.  Ideas? 

The Beacon had a second story on this same topic today, which added the following...

'"The kid who gets the suspension or expulsion is three times as likely ... to be involved in the juvenile justice system in the following year,” said Michael Thompson, director of the Council of State Governments Justice Center, a nonpartisan organization that develops and promotes data-driven solutions for problems that intersect the legal system and other areas, like education.' 

Learn to Say Some Chinese Idioms

The Confucius Institute at Wayne State University offers short videos featuring Chinese idioms.

Here are the idioms in characters that are attractive to look at, and then below this, you will find translations and links to the Wayne State youtube videos that will teach you how say them!

 

吹牛皮 Literally, blowing the cow hide; to be a blowhard.  Chui niu pi (1^st tone, 2^nd tone, 2^nd tone)

开夜车 Literally, drive at night; burning the midnight oil.  Kai ye che (1, 4, 1)

让人大跌眼镜  Literally causing another’s glasses to fall off; so surprised one’s glasses fell off. 

Rang ren da die yan jing (4, 2, 4, 1, 3, 4)

说好话 or 说坏话  Literally, good talk, bad talk; to speak well (of someone) or to speak negatively (of someone), to praise or to talk trash.  Shuo hao hua or shuo huai hua (1, 3, 4/1, 4, 4)

隔墙有耳 Literally, walls have ears.  Ge qiang you er (2, 2, 3, 3)