Two years after the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman, a book came out entitled KILLING TIME by Donald Freed and Raymond Briggs. It was the first book I bothered to read about the sensational crime.
Having investigated much less traumatic events, usually cases where a minister was accused of sexual misconduct, I wasn’t about to immerse myself in a major crime like that. I watched bits of the trial, scanned some of the articles in the papers, even read an article or two in TIME or NEWSWEEK. When the glove did not fit and the jury voted not guilty, I was satisfied that OJ didn’t do it, though I had no idea who else might have done it.
I saw an interview on TV with Dr. Briggs who described the book. I decided to read it because he brought up the importance of developing a chronology of events, something I did on the church cases.
The book was more than a “how to” book on trying to sort out the facts. It included, among other information that had not been published in the news, evidence of a number of smokers in Nicole’s garage, the fact that she and Ron had black belt karate skills, that there wasn’t a mark on OJ except for a minor cut on his finger which bled because he had taken Nsaids for his arthritis for many years and would have bruised and bled very easily, and, most important, the autopsy reports on the two victims which showed the probability of four different size and shape knife wounds, indicating at least four assailants.
The chronology I developed also showed he couldn’t have done it.
I was writing a novel about an adult Sunday School class that solved crimes and decided to integrate what I read into the story. To be fair, I read all kinds of other books, mostly against OJ. When I got done, I was most moved to believe the jury. Some of them had written a book about what they heard and saw during the trial that persuaded them OJ was innocent.
I sent my book to friend for his critique. He didn’t accept my analysis. I showed it to a crime lab specialist and he didn’t either. Another friend who is probably the most intelligent person I know was still convinced OJ did it after reading my book.
It must be a lousy book because no one agreed so I never tried to publish it.
Some dozen years later, I added as a PS to the first friend I’d showed my book, “OJ didn’t do it.”
He wrote back immediately, “He confessed. He wrote a book about it.”
---To be continued--- (See the posting below.)
Thursday, November 3, 2011
O. J. Simpson’s “Confession” Part 2
Five years ago, OJ tried to publish a book that told his side of the story and included a “confession” which he called “hypothetical.” The last I’d heard, the book was not published because of the Goldman law suit against it.
Turns out that the Goldmans were given the rights to the book and decided to publish it after all.
The library had a copy so I read it this past week.
OJ spent 90 percent of the story describing his marriage to Nicole and its break up. His story was what had been pieced together by Freed and Riggs eight years earlier but had more details which I found persuasive. He was married to an energetic, confrontational, and caring woman who got caught up with a crowd of drug-users and partiers. I do not think he was the spouse abuser poster boy he was made out to be by the anti-abuse movement peaking at the time.
He spent a few pages on his early life and first marriage and a few pages on his reactions to the news of the murders and the police arresting him. The slow “chase” in the white Bronco was revealing because he said why he decided not to commit suicide.
The “confession” chapter was pretty lame because it really did not fit into the narrative, ignoring such facts about his arthritis and his incredible patience with Nicole based on his commitment to parenting established in the rest of the book.
The “confession” also included things that could not have happened.
I reported my findings to my friend who said he was not surprised. “You wouldn’t believe it if OJ came up to you and said he did it.”
He was right! I’d have asked him a ton of questions because I did not think the facts I had would support a confession and he would have to show me how it was possible. I could be persuaded but, for example, he would have to tell me about the cobwebs he encountered just hours before Mark Furman went through them during his investigation.
My friend didn’t think I could ever be shown OJ did it so I challenged him if he was open to the possibility that OJ was innocent.
“Only if someone else confesses,” he wrote back.
I think the killers are long since dead just to prevent that from happening. Besides, can anyone get past the roadblocks to the evidence held by the LAPD. Is anyone else even interested because of the overwhelming prejudice against OJ?
Turns out that the Goldmans were given the rights to the book and decided to publish it after all.
The library had a copy so I read it this past week.
OJ spent 90 percent of the story describing his marriage to Nicole and its break up. His story was what had been pieced together by Freed and Riggs eight years earlier but had more details which I found persuasive. He was married to an energetic, confrontational, and caring woman who got caught up with a crowd of drug-users and partiers. I do not think he was the spouse abuser poster boy he was made out to be by the anti-abuse movement peaking at the time.
He spent a few pages on his early life and first marriage and a few pages on his reactions to the news of the murders and the police arresting him. The slow “chase” in the white Bronco was revealing because he said why he decided not to commit suicide.
The “confession” chapter was pretty lame because it really did not fit into the narrative, ignoring such facts about his arthritis and his incredible patience with Nicole based on his commitment to parenting established in the rest of the book.
The “confession” also included things that could not have happened.
I reported my findings to my friend who said he was not surprised. “You wouldn’t believe it if OJ came up to you and said he did it.”
He was right! I’d have asked him a ton of questions because I did not think the facts I had would support a confession and he would have to show me how it was possible. I could be persuaded but, for example, he would have to tell me about the cobwebs he encountered just hours before Mark Furman went through them during his investigation.
My friend didn’t think I could ever be shown OJ did it so I challenged him if he was open to the possibility that OJ was innocent.
“Only if someone else confesses,” he wrote back.
I think the killers are long since dead just to prevent that from happening. Besides, can anyone get past the roadblocks to the evidence held by the LAPD. Is anyone else even interested because of the overwhelming prejudice against OJ?
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Thoughts on 9/11
Many people were asked this past weekend what they were doing on September 11, 2001, and what they thought about the planes crashing into the Twin Towers. Even though no one has asked me, I wish to offer my answers to those questions.
But first, a little background: I had just finished writing a novel which included a lot about Israeli-Palestinian relations. My views had sharpened considerably from the typical pro-Israel stance most Americans take to one sharply critical of Israel’s policies toward Palestinians and of the American government giving Israel carte blanche.
For instance, Israel persisted in maintaining its military occupation and building new settlements in Palestinian territories. They were taking over all water sources from Palestinians. They were building highways that split up the occupied land so that Palestine’s economy and social matrix were physically disrupted (farms were separated from the farmers’ residences, commerce between towns was disrupted by forcing Palestinians to drive many miles around the obstructing highways, schools were separated from their communities, etc.). All ports of entry into Palestinian territories were controlled by Israel. No matter what agreements were negotiated, Israel dragged its feet or completely refused to implement what they had officially agreed to.
By 2001, the Israelis had established, as former President Jimmy Carter observed, apartheid in the Palestinian territories.
It had not always been like that. Palestinians, Jews, and Christians had lived side by side in the Holy Land for more than a thousand years. Even with the early influx of Jews seeking to return to the land of their forefathers, even with those financed by the Zionist movement, there was relative peace.
But that all changed. Following WW II, Zionist squads began systematically forcing Palestinians out of their villages using bloody tactics. In response to the flood of refugees coming across their borders, neighboring Arab states sought to halt the flow and demand that the refugees to be returned. Israel ignored them and continued its campaign to ethnically cleanse Palestinian territories so that new Jewish settlers coming from Europe, the Asian subcontinent, and Africa could have some of the better land on which to settle. Despite winning acceptance into the United Nations based on promises to repatriate the refugees, Israel never did.
America consistently supported Israel in the United Nations, vetoing nearly every challenge the UN mounted against Israel’s behavior and practices. We also provided billions of dollars each year to Israel’s military support. It is no wonder America joined Israel as targets of radical Islamic sects' and organizations' wrath-filled rhetoric.
In 1993, one of those radical organizations, Al Qaida, truck-bombed the World Trade Center in New York. A number of people were killed and injured by the blast. The damage was serious but could be repaired. The perpetrators were caught and tried in American courts and life went on.
On September 11, 2001, I was mowing my front lawn when a car from further into our sub-division stopped. The driver told me that the Twin Towers had been hit by airplanes. Since they had been targeted in 1993, I just knew that Al Qaida was looking for more payback.
The attack on the World Trade Center, even if the Twin Towers had been full to their normal complement of 33,000 workers, would not have come near comparing with the thousands of Arabs killed in the various Israeli attacks on Lebanon and Gaza and the hundreds of thousands they had displaced through ruthless treatment of Palestinians, both Arab and Christian, over the previous 60 years.
Americans do not realize just how cruel the Israelis have been to the Palestinians. Bin Laden tried to tell us but his actual words rarely got through the American media. His writings were always described as crazy talk or pure hate speech. But he was trying to point out how America showed no inclination to deal fairly with the Palestinians and only continued disrespect for Arab culture. To Bin Ladin, the American presence in Saudi Arabia added insult to injury.
While a few extremist groups kept some violence going after Israel soundly defeated the handful of Arab nations that threatened them militarily in 1967 and 1973, the political use of fear in Israel overwhelmed the large number of peace-seeking Jews, Arabs, and Christians who were citizens of Israel. The assassination of the last Israeli Prime Minister who actually worked for peace, Yitzhak Rabin, by a right wing Zionist was the decisive moment when the conservatives took and maintained power undermining all peace efforts since.
So, this weekend as the TV, newspapers, and local groups all were remembering the ones who died, especially the first responders, mostly presuming the nineteen men who hijacked the four planes were terrible people who hated us because we love freedom, I prayed for the government to be more aggressive in holding Israel’s feet to the fire and working with other nations to bring about some decent resolution so that there is less reason for the extremists to hate us. . . and just maybe begin a new era of peace in the Middle East.
I wonder how long it will be before there is a national interest in the hijackers, an exploration of why those intelligent, educated young men were motivated to do the horrible deed they did and the impact on their families and friends.
Their unspeakable action should never be trivialized to be understood as the use of a 2-by-4 to get our attention. But neither should the Israeli occupation and suppression of Palestine be interpreted as Israel's "manifest destiny." Nor should our turning a blind eye to Israel's behavior be left unchallenged.
Unless America becomes realistic in viewing the Israeli-Palestinian problem and understanding our policies which fed into that conflict, there will be no chance for a peaceful solution to the Middle East Crisis.
But first, a little background: I had just finished writing a novel which included a lot about Israeli-Palestinian relations. My views had sharpened considerably from the typical pro-Israel stance most Americans take to one sharply critical of Israel’s policies toward Palestinians and of the American government giving Israel carte blanche.
For instance, Israel persisted in maintaining its military occupation and building new settlements in Palestinian territories. They were taking over all water sources from Palestinians. They were building highways that split up the occupied land so that Palestine’s economy and social matrix were physically disrupted (farms were separated from the farmers’ residences, commerce between towns was disrupted by forcing Palestinians to drive many miles around the obstructing highways, schools were separated from their communities, etc.). All ports of entry into Palestinian territories were controlled by Israel. No matter what agreements were negotiated, Israel dragged its feet or completely refused to implement what they had officially agreed to.
By 2001, the Israelis had established, as former President Jimmy Carter observed, apartheid in the Palestinian territories.
It had not always been like that. Palestinians, Jews, and Christians had lived side by side in the Holy Land for more than a thousand years. Even with the early influx of Jews seeking to return to the land of their forefathers, even with those financed by the Zionist movement, there was relative peace.
But that all changed. Following WW II, Zionist squads began systematically forcing Palestinians out of their villages using bloody tactics. In response to the flood of refugees coming across their borders, neighboring Arab states sought to halt the flow and demand that the refugees to be returned. Israel ignored them and continued its campaign to ethnically cleanse Palestinian territories so that new Jewish settlers coming from Europe, the Asian subcontinent, and Africa could have some of the better land on which to settle. Despite winning acceptance into the United Nations based on promises to repatriate the refugees, Israel never did.
America consistently supported Israel in the United Nations, vetoing nearly every challenge the UN mounted against Israel’s behavior and practices. We also provided billions of dollars each year to Israel’s military support. It is no wonder America joined Israel as targets of radical Islamic sects' and organizations' wrath-filled rhetoric.
In 1993, one of those radical organizations, Al Qaida, truck-bombed the World Trade Center in New York. A number of people were killed and injured by the blast. The damage was serious but could be repaired. The perpetrators were caught and tried in American courts and life went on.
On September 11, 2001, I was mowing my front lawn when a car from further into our sub-division stopped. The driver told me that the Twin Towers had been hit by airplanes. Since they had been targeted in 1993, I just knew that Al Qaida was looking for more payback.
The attack on the World Trade Center, even if the Twin Towers had been full to their normal complement of 33,000 workers, would not have come near comparing with the thousands of Arabs killed in the various Israeli attacks on Lebanon and Gaza and the hundreds of thousands they had displaced through ruthless treatment of Palestinians, both Arab and Christian, over the previous 60 years.
Americans do not realize just how cruel the Israelis have been to the Palestinians. Bin Laden tried to tell us but his actual words rarely got through the American media. His writings were always described as crazy talk or pure hate speech. But he was trying to point out how America showed no inclination to deal fairly with the Palestinians and only continued disrespect for Arab culture. To Bin Ladin, the American presence in Saudi Arabia added insult to injury.
While a few extremist groups kept some violence going after Israel soundly defeated the handful of Arab nations that threatened them militarily in 1967 and 1973, the political use of fear in Israel overwhelmed the large number of peace-seeking Jews, Arabs, and Christians who were citizens of Israel. The assassination of the last Israeli Prime Minister who actually worked for peace, Yitzhak Rabin, by a right wing Zionist was the decisive moment when the conservatives took and maintained power undermining all peace efforts since.
So, this weekend as the TV, newspapers, and local groups all were remembering the ones who died, especially the first responders, mostly presuming the nineteen men who hijacked the four planes were terrible people who hated us because we love freedom, I prayed for the government to be more aggressive in holding Israel’s feet to the fire and working with other nations to bring about some decent resolution so that there is less reason for the extremists to hate us. . . and just maybe begin a new era of peace in the Middle East.
I wonder how long it will be before there is a national interest in the hijackers, an exploration of why those intelligent, educated young men were motivated to do the horrible deed they did and the impact on their families and friends.
Their unspeakable action should never be trivialized to be understood as the use of a 2-by-4 to get our attention. But neither should the Israeli occupation and suppression of Palestine be interpreted as Israel's "manifest destiny." Nor should our turning a blind eye to Israel's behavior be left unchallenged.
Unless America becomes realistic in viewing the Israeli-Palestinian problem and understanding our policies which fed into that conflict, there will be no chance for a peaceful solution to the Middle East Crisis.
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Art Davis' book of poetry
As I've blogged before, I love the off-beat poetry of Art Davis. We have been after him to organize his lifetime trove for publication. His children also pushed so he pulled together over 200 of what he liked best and self-published. If you would like a copy, send $12 to him at his home, 3006 Caring Way, Port Charlotte, FL 33952.
Just to remind you of his quiet wit and wordsmithing, here's one printed on page 169:
GROWING OLD
Chromosomes begin to tarnish,
my neurons start to rust.
The spice of life no more the garnish,
my engine's losing thrust.
Sadly now I've lost my flair,
creativity is lacking.
I've no longer dapper air
and my memory's sans tracking.
What is left to be desired,
where to travel. what remains?
Ambition lags, now I'm retired,
all that's left are pills and pains.
Medicines do miracles,
prolonging day and night.
Health guided by empiricles,
to pharmacist's delight.
If growing old is such a gift,
why carry vials or pills,
to calm us down, or give us lift,
to greet dementia's ills?
Alas, forgetting comes with ease,
and not without chagrin.
"Has anybody seen my keys?"
a daily-facing warp I'm in.
Growing old, a universal plight,
about it, little can we do.
I think someday I'll try and write,
to share these thoughts with you.
Art understands his place in the universe and what poetry is for him. He put the following in the book as his foreword:
An Ogden Nash,
I'm really not,
Nor Maya Angelou
of hallowed spot.
I write poems
one can understand
of people or
events at hand.
When one takes time
to read my works,
they'll not wonder if
some hidden meaning lurks.
True thoughts on printed page
for all to see;
no need delving
introspectively.
He's in our writer's group which meets today here at my house. He is a delightful and humble friend and I hope I have piqued your interest in his poems.
Just to remind you of his quiet wit and wordsmithing, here's one printed on page 169:
GROWING OLD
Chromosomes begin to tarnish,
my neurons start to rust.
The spice of life no more the garnish,
my engine's losing thrust.
Sadly now I've lost my flair,
creativity is lacking.
I've no longer dapper air
and my memory's sans tracking.
What is left to be desired,
where to travel. what remains?
Ambition lags, now I'm retired,
all that's left are pills and pains.
Medicines do miracles,
prolonging day and night.
Health guided by empiricles,
to pharmacist's delight.
If growing old is such a gift,
why carry vials or pills,
to calm us down, or give us lift,
to greet dementia's ills?
Alas, forgetting comes with ease,
and not without chagrin.
"Has anybody seen my keys?"
a daily-facing warp I'm in.
Growing old, a universal plight,
about it, little can we do.
I think someday I'll try and write,
to share these thoughts with you.
Art understands his place in the universe and what poetry is for him. He put the following in the book as his foreword:
An Ogden Nash,
I'm really not,
Nor Maya Angelou
of hallowed spot.
I write poems
one can understand
of people or
events at hand.
When one takes time
to read my works,
they'll not wonder if
some hidden meaning lurks.
True thoughts on printed page
for all to see;
no need delving
introspectively.
He's in our writer's group which meets today here at my house. He is a delightful and humble friend and I hope I have piqued your interest in his poems.
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Substantial Cake
Ann’s cakes are amazing. She bakes chocolate cake from scratch that stays moist and tasty and light for a long time. We do not know how long because it is eaten up within a few days. It is always good.
So I was excited that she was going to bake our son’s birthday cake again this year. This time she chose to do a yellow bundt cake. That’s fun because she bakes it in a round, donut-shaped pan which leaves interesting grooves in the surface. Even though we were not leaving until Sunday, she baked it on Wednesday and when it was nearly room temperature, she put it in the refrigerator. Freezing it too soon would leave crystals that would spoil the surface when it thawed.
She busily prepared some other dishes that we froze over the next couple days.
On Sunday, there was the bundt cake, still in the fridge. We had put it in a two gallon zip-lock bag so it was not likely to dry out. But the gluten in the flour could firm up pretty much. When we got it out to pack to carry over to Orlando where we were to meet our family, we noticed it was, uh, sort of heavy?
The only way Ann could get it into the packing box was on its edge. Ann is a master packer so you know she was left with a desperate decision. Being a circular cake, and being, uh, sort of heavy? Well, you get the picture. We expected it to sag a little and maybe flatten one edge.
At worst, if the travel took a toll on it, we could break up the cake into pieces, mix them with chocolate pudding, cherry pie filling, and Cool Whip and call it a parfait.
As we put that box into the car, we checked the cake and found it held up on its fluted edge very well so far, no sagging or flattening. It still faced three hours travel time with the occasional bumps in the road.
As we drove, I asked Ann about the texture of the cake. I thought it was supposed to be like a sponge cake, soft and light. She said it was more like a pound cake.
The pound cake one gets at the store is a lot firmer than a sponge cake but still is pretty light.
As I recalled, pound cakes originally were a pound of sugar, a pound of flour, a pound of butter, and some eggs. Three one pound loaves could be made. They were not light, either. But they were pretty soft and soaked up strawberry juice if you used them for short cakes.
As we drove, I began to imagine trying to heft that bundt cake. If it was firmer than a pound cake, I thought about it as a hammer for nails. That was a notion about “pound” cake that ever occurred to me before.
When we got to Orlando and to the site where David found adjacent apartments for all of us, we checked to see how the cake did.
It stood on its edges proud and as round as could be. The fluting was not even dented.
When we got it in to the apartment, we put it into the fridge, keeping it hidden from David. We didn’t know if he’d laugh or cry!
After he and his family were in bed, we snuck out to the kitchen to test it.
It was so, uh, sort of heavy? Still! What else? We set it on the counter which groaned a little as it accommodated to the new weight upon it.
I struggled but finally slid the cake out of the zip-lock bag far enough for Ann to cut a small piece from the bottom of the cake.
It was crispy! And delicious!
We still had two days until we were to take it out and present it with candles and frosting, but we were a little more comfortable with the final result, provided our shoulder muscles held up from handling it.
I began to make comments to David about the cake that withstood riding on its edge all the way over from Port Charlotte. But I left in the air whether or not it would be any good for his birthday.
He didn’t bat an eye or even pursue any lines of questions.
He trusted his mother’s cakes . . . and packing.
By the time we served it on his birthday, he cut it, ate it, and then had another piece. Both were bigger than what I usually eat!
We are all looking forward to eating the rest of this, uh, sort of heavy cake?
So I was excited that she was going to bake our son’s birthday cake again this year. This time she chose to do a yellow bundt cake. That’s fun because she bakes it in a round, donut-shaped pan which leaves interesting grooves in the surface. Even though we were not leaving until Sunday, she baked it on Wednesday and when it was nearly room temperature, she put it in the refrigerator. Freezing it too soon would leave crystals that would spoil the surface when it thawed.
She busily prepared some other dishes that we froze over the next couple days.
On Sunday, there was the bundt cake, still in the fridge. We had put it in a two gallon zip-lock bag so it was not likely to dry out. But the gluten in the flour could firm up pretty much. When we got it out to pack to carry over to Orlando where we were to meet our family, we noticed it was, uh, sort of heavy?
The only way Ann could get it into the packing box was on its edge. Ann is a master packer so you know she was left with a desperate decision. Being a circular cake, and being, uh, sort of heavy? Well, you get the picture. We expected it to sag a little and maybe flatten one edge.
At worst, if the travel took a toll on it, we could break up the cake into pieces, mix them with chocolate pudding, cherry pie filling, and Cool Whip and call it a parfait.
As we put that box into the car, we checked the cake and found it held up on its fluted edge very well so far, no sagging or flattening. It still faced three hours travel time with the occasional bumps in the road.
As we drove, I asked Ann about the texture of the cake. I thought it was supposed to be like a sponge cake, soft and light. She said it was more like a pound cake.
The pound cake one gets at the store is a lot firmer than a sponge cake but still is pretty light.
As I recalled, pound cakes originally were a pound of sugar, a pound of flour, a pound of butter, and some eggs. Three one pound loaves could be made. They were not light, either. But they were pretty soft and soaked up strawberry juice if you used them for short cakes.
As we drove, I began to imagine trying to heft that bundt cake. If it was firmer than a pound cake, I thought about it as a hammer for nails. That was a notion about “pound” cake that ever occurred to me before.
When we got to Orlando and to the site where David found adjacent apartments for all of us, we checked to see how the cake did.
It stood on its edges proud and as round as could be. The fluting was not even dented.
When we got it in to the apartment, we put it into the fridge, keeping it hidden from David. We didn’t know if he’d laugh or cry!
After he and his family were in bed, we snuck out to the kitchen to test it.
It was so, uh, sort of heavy? Still! What else? We set it on the counter which groaned a little as it accommodated to the new weight upon it.
I struggled but finally slid the cake out of the zip-lock bag far enough for Ann to cut a small piece from the bottom of the cake.
It was crispy! And delicious!
We still had two days until we were to take it out and present it with candles and frosting, but we were a little more comfortable with the final result, provided our shoulder muscles held up from handling it.
I began to make comments to David about the cake that withstood riding on its edge all the way over from Port Charlotte. But I left in the air whether or not it would be any good for his birthday.
He didn’t bat an eye or even pursue any lines of questions.
He trusted his mother’s cakes . . . and packing.
By the time we served it on his birthday, he cut it, ate it, and then had another piece. Both were bigger than what I usually eat!
We are all looking forward to eating the rest of this, uh, sort of heavy cake?
Saturday, July 25, 2009
A Teaching Moment
Transcript of the discussion among President Obama, Professor Gates, and Officer Crowley sometime next week:
Obama: I appreciate you both for taking the time to sit down with me.
Gates and Crowley: Your welcome, Mr. President.
Obama: I hope what we do here is something with which you both are familiar, an evaluation of just what happened last week. You both are professionals and are both teachers so please understand that we will find things to blame on each other. That's not the point. I hope we will be able to look at the mistakes as mistakes and figure out better ways to do things so we don't repeat those mistakes. Let's make this a teaching moment.
Gates: Where's the beer you promised?
Obama: Skip, it's right over here. (The President leads both men over to a cooler on the floor next to the desk where they each take a brand of their own choice.)
Obama: Officer, as I understand it, you were sent to Dr. Gates' house because someone called to say someone was breaking in. You arrived within ten minutes. Am I correct to say that you found the house quiet, door closed, and nothing unseemly happening?
Crowley: That's right. I went up to the door and knocked on it. An older gentlemen answered the door, holding mail in his hands.
Obama: Did he appear threatening to you in any way?
Crowley: At the moment, he did not. But I have been on burglary calls before and have encountered all kinds of people, all ages and sizes, and both genders so I had to remain alert.
Obama: Professor, what was your reaction to seeing a police officer at your door?
Gates: The first thing that came to mind was, "Oh Oh, what kind of trouble am I in?" I could not think of any reason for him to be at my door. Where I grew up, when a white police officer confronted a Black person, that was not a good situation to be in. Inside I felt on the defensive but I tried to keep my poise. I invited him in.
Obama: Officer, so far so good?
Crowley: I went by the book and stayed just inside close to the door. I asked him who he was.
Gates: I asked him why he had come. It was my house, after all.
Obama: Officer?
Crowley: He failed to answer my question so I asked it again.
Gates: He failed to answer my question and my fear of something being wrong increased.
Crowley: I realized he was getting tense so I asked more quietly a third time. Whatever he was thinking, he handed me a letter and pointed to the name on it. I was not satisfied because some burglars are cool enough to pretend to be the homeowner when we catch them like that. So I asked him if he had his I. D. on him. He showed me his Harvard I. D. and asked me for my name and badge number.
Gates: That's when he told me to step outside and then turned his back on me and went out onto the porch. "Step outside" was given as an order. I felt disrespected at that moment. He refused to identify himself and he expected me to do whatever he wanted me to do. That angered me. I am a respected professor. My picture was on the I. D. so he had to know I was telling him the truth about who I was.
Crowley: When I realized who he was, I acted on my training which is to get the subject outside as quickly as possible because the perpetrator may still be in the house, a potential danger to all of us.
Obama: Did you tell the professor that was the situation?
Crowley: I would have but he said something about my mother which angered me.
Obama: You know better, Skip. The white community only hears one phrase when the word "mother" is mentioned in anger.
Gates: I was standing there being ordered around and said something that any Black person in the country would have understood, "I won't go outside for anyone but your mama."
Crowley: That's not what I heard.
Obama: Officer, tell me what you know about mothers in African culture.
Crowley: Most African cultures are matriarchal so the mother and grandmother are the heads of the family. Dr. Gates, were you saying I did not have enough stature to make a demand on you, that my mother would have had to ask it for you to do it?
Gates: Either that or "Please come outside with me in case there is a crook inside the house who could hurt us."
Obama: Officer, did you say please or explain the situation?
Crowley: By then, the situation had deteriorated. I was afraid for both of us and he made me angry with his remark which I had never heard before and sounded like a terrible insult.
Gates: When he had not given me his name and badge numbered, I went to the door to ask him again and that's when I was grabbed and handcuffed, read my rights, and hustled off to jail.
Crowley: He was very aggravated and I was ready to also charge him with resisting arrest.
Obama: There were no cooler heads around to prevail?
Crowley: My partner was there as back up but his role under that circumstance was to put on the cuffs and make sure the subject was no longer a threat.
Obama: Did your partner then go in and check the house for a possible burglar?
Crowley: No, by then our focus was on the professor and his anger.
Obama: Skip, knowing what you know now, what do you think you should have done?
Gates: Kept my cool. The situation was exactly what every Black person fears day and night. I should have done whatever he said. That's what I was taught when I was little. Do nothing to add to the confrontation because they have the power.
Obama: But you didn't even come close to doing that. You are a man. You are a distinguished professor. You were in your own home. Is there anything else you could have done to retain those and still not escalate the situation?
Gates: I did not think of what he was up against. He's twice as big as me and half my age. I felt a real threat from him. But police officers face things we do not even realize. I wish I had kept my temper and stayed quietly where I was when he went out the door. I wish I had calmly asked him why he wanted me to go outside. I had no idea he was there on a burglary call. As I said, if he had been polite and explained what he was doing, I probably would have had no problem with him and we wouldn't have made the news.
Crowley: I should have kept my poise and taken a moment to identify myself and my purpose for being there and telling him the potential danger we might be in. Once we got into the tiff, I forgot why we were there. As many times as I've taught this stuff, I never realized how easy it is to lose track of what our safety priorities were.
Obama: So you both will teach your respective classes a little differently from now on?
Gates: I'll teach it differently but I'm not sure I will be able to completely control my feelings and reactions if this happens again. Maybe we will need to practice in my classes. How about you, Crowley?
Crowley: Good idea. I am glad to discover just how deep our respective fears run and how they can disrupt a situation. We will have to practice so we do not let those feelings take control.
Gates: Thank you, Mr. President. I appreciate your bringing us together and thank you for standing up for me the other night.
Crowley: Let me add my thanks, too, but didn't you make a mistake by taking sides the other night and then called my department "stupid?" What would you do differently?
Obama: Who, the President make a mistake? Well, maybe my first this year. (All laugh.) Look, I apologize for using that word. In fact, if I had not, would we even be here?
Gates: Are you saying that you set this all up just so we could open up the country to this sort of discussion?
Crowley: I know you are smart but I still think it was a mistake.
Obama: The real mistake was drawing attention to your case by offering my opinion. I really wanted to stay on health care the whole presser. Some in the public media really want me to fail on this health care issue. I knew that the moment I started to offer my opinion, this would be the subject of the next three news cycles.
Gates: But you chose to let it fly? You still could have pulled back, especially before using the derogatory term about the department.
Crowley: That was like "a shot heard round the world."
Obama: Did you stop to think that the health care issue has been with us sixty years since Harry Truman but the racial tensions here go back to the bringing of slaves in the eighteenth century?
Gates: All that went through your mind when you were making your statement?
Crowley: That is not what went through my mind!
Obama: Mistake, miscalculated or not, let's make the most of it, Gentlemen.
Crowley: I'll drink to that. (The three touch their long necks.)
Gates: Too bad we didn't record this.
Obama: That's what Jerry just did. Hey Eckert, thanks.
Obama: I appreciate you both for taking the time to sit down with me.
Gates and Crowley: Your welcome, Mr. President.
Obama: I hope what we do here is something with which you both are familiar, an evaluation of just what happened last week. You both are professionals and are both teachers so please understand that we will find things to blame on each other. That's not the point. I hope we will be able to look at the mistakes as mistakes and figure out better ways to do things so we don't repeat those mistakes. Let's make this a teaching moment.
Gates: Where's the beer you promised?
Obama: Skip, it's right over here. (The President leads both men over to a cooler on the floor next to the desk where they each take a brand of their own choice.)
Obama: Officer, as I understand it, you were sent to Dr. Gates' house because someone called to say someone was breaking in. You arrived within ten minutes. Am I correct to say that you found the house quiet, door closed, and nothing unseemly happening?
Crowley: That's right. I went up to the door and knocked on it. An older gentlemen answered the door, holding mail in his hands.
Obama: Did he appear threatening to you in any way?
Crowley: At the moment, he did not. But I have been on burglary calls before and have encountered all kinds of people, all ages and sizes, and both genders so I had to remain alert.
Obama: Professor, what was your reaction to seeing a police officer at your door?
Gates: The first thing that came to mind was, "Oh Oh, what kind of trouble am I in?" I could not think of any reason for him to be at my door. Where I grew up, when a white police officer confronted a Black person, that was not a good situation to be in. Inside I felt on the defensive but I tried to keep my poise. I invited him in.
Obama: Officer, so far so good?
Crowley: I went by the book and stayed just inside close to the door. I asked him who he was.
Gates: I asked him why he had come. It was my house, after all.
Obama: Officer?
Crowley: He failed to answer my question so I asked it again.
Gates: He failed to answer my question and my fear of something being wrong increased.
Crowley: I realized he was getting tense so I asked more quietly a third time. Whatever he was thinking, he handed me a letter and pointed to the name on it. I was not satisfied because some burglars are cool enough to pretend to be the homeowner when we catch them like that. So I asked him if he had his I. D. on him. He showed me his Harvard I. D. and asked me for my name and badge number.
Gates: That's when he told me to step outside and then turned his back on me and went out onto the porch. "Step outside" was given as an order. I felt disrespected at that moment. He refused to identify himself and he expected me to do whatever he wanted me to do. That angered me. I am a respected professor. My picture was on the I. D. so he had to know I was telling him the truth about who I was.
Crowley: When I realized who he was, I acted on my training which is to get the subject outside as quickly as possible because the perpetrator may still be in the house, a potential danger to all of us.
Obama: Did you tell the professor that was the situation?
Crowley: I would have but he said something about my mother which angered me.
Obama: You know better, Skip. The white community only hears one phrase when the word "mother" is mentioned in anger.
Gates: I was standing there being ordered around and said something that any Black person in the country would have understood, "I won't go outside for anyone but your mama."
Crowley: That's not what I heard.
Obama: Officer, tell me what you know about mothers in African culture.
Crowley: Most African cultures are matriarchal so the mother and grandmother are the heads of the family. Dr. Gates, were you saying I did not have enough stature to make a demand on you, that my mother would have had to ask it for you to do it?
Gates: Either that or "Please come outside with me in case there is a crook inside the house who could hurt us."
Obama: Officer, did you say please or explain the situation?
Crowley: By then, the situation had deteriorated. I was afraid for both of us and he made me angry with his remark which I had never heard before and sounded like a terrible insult.
Gates: When he had not given me his name and badge numbered, I went to the door to ask him again and that's when I was grabbed and handcuffed, read my rights, and hustled off to jail.
Crowley: He was very aggravated and I was ready to also charge him with resisting arrest.
Obama: There were no cooler heads around to prevail?
Crowley: My partner was there as back up but his role under that circumstance was to put on the cuffs and make sure the subject was no longer a threat.
Obama: Did your partner then go in and check the house for a possible burglar?
Crowley: No, by then our focus was on the professor and his anger.
Obama: Skip, knowing what you know now, what do you think you should have done?
Gates: Kept my cool. The situation was exactly what every Black person fears day and night. I should have done whatever he said. That's what I was taught when I was little. Do nothing to add to the confrontation because they have the power.
Obama: But you didn't even come close to doing that. You are a man. You are a distinguished professor. You were in your own home. Is there anything else you could have done to retain those and still not escalate the situation?
Gates: I did not think of what he was up against. He's twice as big as me and half my age. I felt a real threat from him. But police officers face things we do not even realize. I wish I had kept my temper and stayed quietly where I was when he went out the door. I wish I had calmly asked him why he wanted me to go outside. I had no idea he was there on a burglary call. As I said, if he had been polite and explained what he was doing, I probably would have had no problem with him and we wouldn't have made the news.
Crowley: I should have kept my poise and taken a moment to identify myself and my purpose for being there and telling him the potential danger we might be in. Once we got into the tiff, I forgot why we were there. As many times as I've taught this stuff, I never realized how easy it is to lose track of what our safety priorities were.
Obama: So you both will teach your respective classes a little differently from now on?
Gates: I'll teach it differently but I'm not sure I will be able to completely control my feelings and reactions if this happens again. Maybe we will need to practice in my classes. How about you, Crowley?
Crowley: Good idea. I am glad to discover just how deep our respective fears run and how they can disrupt a situation. We will have to practice so we do not let those feelings take control.
Gates: Thank you, Mr. President. I appreciate your bringing us together and thank you for standing up for me the other night.
Crowley: Let me add my thanks, too, but didn't you make a mistake by taking sides the other night and then called my department "stupid?" What would you do differently?
Obama: Who, the President make a mistake? Well, maybe my first this year. (All laugh.) Look, I apologize for using that word. In fact, if I had not, would we even be here?
Gates: Are you saying that you set this all up just so we could open up the country to this sort of discussion?
Crowley: I know you are smart but I still think it was a mistake.
Obama: The real mistake was drawing attention to your case by offering my opinion. I really wanted to stay on health care the whole presser. Some in the public media really want me to fail on this health care issue. I knew that the moment I started to offer my opinion, this would be the subject of the next three news cycles.
Gates: But you chose to let it fly? You still could have pulled back, especially before using the derogatory term about the department.
Crowley: That was like "a shot heard round the world."
Obama: Did you stop to think that the health care issue has been with us sixty years since Harry Truman but the racial tensions here go back to the bringing of slaves in the eighteenth century?
Gates: All that went through your mind when you were making your statement?
Crowley: That is not what went through my mind!
Obama: Mistake, miscalculated or not, let's make the most of it, Gentlemen.
Crowley: I'll drink to that. (The three touch their long necks.)
Gates: Too bad we didn't record this.
Obama: That's what Jerry just did. Hey Eckert, thanks.
Sunday, June 7, 2009
JCD 1113
When George W. Bush was elected President, some of us had already read Molly Ivins’ book about him and had a feeling he was going to be a bad President. He got along with people in Texas but he also signed more death warrants for executions than any other governor in any state in the U. S. We also knew his governmental papers had been sealed in his father’s presidential library with no one being given access.
But the new President Bush would have to store his papers somewhere along with his library so SMU, according to reports, began planning on how that could come to their campus. He said he was a Methodist and his wife Laura was a graduate of SMU. And some of the Bush family friends who had financed much of the new President’s political career were on the SMU Board.
The Bush administration led us into a war of choice against Iraq in 2003 and did it so poorly that American troops had little or no armor to protect themselves from IEDs and sniper fire. The Bush administration turned a lot of the war over to mercenaries like Blackwater who had little or no military discipline and were not held accountable when they violated rules of engagement. The military was encouraged to use torture on prisoners in Abu Graib. Arguments over rights being lost in the Patriot Act and secret policies that were coming to light were not enough to prevent President Bush from being re-elected.
In 2005, a group representing the Bush library asked SMU to submit a proposal. In December of 2006, SMU was named as one of the finalists by the Bush Foundation.
Dr. Andrew Weaver circulated a petition which got 12,000 signatures nationally protesting the Bush Foundation/SMU linkage. Faculty on SMU joined in the protest and at a faculty senate meeting on March 7, 2007, nearly overturned the linkage. Their main object was to not allow an institute which would not be subject to University control.
A week later, a group called the Mission Council which was made up of some bishops and some laity from the South Central Jurisdiction of the United Methodist Church voted to allow a lease between SMU and the Bush Foundation. The jurisdiction owns SMU and needed to make the final decision. However, the Mission Council had been formed to provide for inter-meeting decision-making.
Protests continued against the institute and in general against the Bush Foundation as the Bush administration hid behind a unitary executive policy and refused to allow any viewing of their e-mails or meeting notess despite federal law requiring such access.
The Bush Foundation then asked the College of Bishops of the jurisdiction to rule on the authority of the Mission Council to permit lease signing. On January 9, 2008, after a telephone poll, the bishops supported the Mission Council’s authority.
At least one of those Bishops, Scott Jones, was on the SMU Board, the Mission Council, and the College of Bishops. There is no sign he recused himself but more likely that he asserted himself in getting the results that would forward the lease signing.
Six weeks later, SMU signed a 99 year lease with the Bush Foundation for $1,000, with the option of extending that lease out to 249 year. This time line and these figures come from THE DAILY CAMPUS, an independent SMU campus newspaper, for February 26, 2008.
General Conference received a petition from Dr. Weaver requesting that the South Central Jurisdiction drop the lease. General Conference, in May of 2008, referred the petition to the jurisdiction which was to meet in July.
After a spirited debate at the jurisdictional conference, the referred petition was defeated and the conference voted to accept the action of the Mission Council to allow the lease. A Perkins staff member then asked the presiding bishop a question of law in effect asking if the miniscule lease price provided backdoor funding that supported the ideology of the Bush instiutute, something that was contrary to the Discipline and SMU charter.
The bishop responded that the question was moot and hypothetical. But the Discipline requires that ruling and the question be reviewed by the Judicial Council at their October, 2008, meeting. The ruling came too late and so the matter was held over until April of 2009.
The Council ruled that the matter had indeed been before the conference and that the bishop should have answered the question. They went into the Discipline, the Jurisdiction’s own rules of procedure, and the SMU charter to determine if everything was all right with the vote by the conference. They ruled that the conference vote validated the lease and that the Mission Council had acted properly. They did not have the lease information, however, so they were unable to make a judgment on the major issue of the question of law. But since the vote had been made by the conference, they supported the legitimacy of the lease.
One thing some of us wondered about was what the Dean of Perkins would do. He was both on the Judicial Council and was SMU’s PR man for the Bush Foundation project.
As has been the practice with this Judicial Council, he removed himself from the discussion and also did not vote on the case. Another member who had once been on the SMU Board made note of that relationship but said he did not recuse himself because he was not on that Board when the Bush people contacted SMU or during any of the time of the negotiations.
I find two more possible problems in the case which I wish the Council had handled as well.
One may sound more like a “Monday morning quarterback” fuss. The College of Bishops should have reported their ruling to the Judicial Council for review.
Taking the principle of law from Judicial Council Decision 331 that matters that are similar should be construed together, any request for a ruling of law should follow Disciplinary authority (may a secular group seek a judicial ruling outside of the normal appeals and conference processes?) and if so, should that ruling be reviewed as any question of law must be by the Judicial Council?
The Judicial Council should be very sensitive to those who take over their job.
The other flaw I perceive is that the Judicial Council missed a whole body of law in their careful study of the documents related to process and authority: their own precedents in church law made among previous decisions.
As far back as 1946, the Judicial Council ruled that no body can abandon its own powers and grant them to a subsidiary group. JCD 38 says, "No authority is given in the Constitution of the Church for it to delegate its powers in such a manner as to deprive itself of that basic or ultimate power." I was startled at how many decisions since have maintained that precedent.
If that precedent had been acknowledged, the Mission Council’s decision could not have been taken as final and the lease should not have been signed until after Jurisdictional Conference,
Conclusion
The Bush administration’s unwillingness to be transparent may be not only propagated by the institute but may actually interfere with any scholarly and public access to the archives. That and so much about the Bush administration has brought shame to our nation and so much damage to the world (failure to act on global warming, use of torture, using war instead of diplomacy, etc.) that I fear how that will spill over onto SMU.
I see a die cast in which the Judicial Council inadvertently did not prevent and others of us failed to stop.
But the new President Bush would have to store his papers somewhere along with his library so SMU, according to reports, began planning on how that could come to their campus. He said he was a Methodist and his wife Laura was a graduate of SMU. And some of the Bush family friends who had financed much of the new President’s political career were on the SMU Board.
The Bush administration led us into a war of choice against Iraq in 2003 and did it so poorly that American troops had little or no armor to protect themselves from IEDs and sniper fire. The Bush administration turned a lot of the war over to mercenaries like Blackwater who had little or no military discipline and were not held accountable when they violated rules of engagement. The military was encouraged to use torture on prisoners in Abu Graib. Arguments over rights being lost in the Patriot Act and secret policies that were coming to light were not enough to prevent President Bush from being re-elected.
In 2005, a group representing the Bush library asked SMU to submit a proposal. In December of 2006, SMU was named as one of the finalists by the Bush Foundation.
Dr. Andrew Weaver circulated a petition which got 12,000 signatures nationally protesting the Bush Foundation/SMU linkage. Faculty on SMU joined in the protest and at a faculty senate meeting on March 7, 2007, nearly overturned the linkage. Their main object was to not allow an institute which would not be subject to University control.
A week later, a group called the Mission Council which was made up of some bishops and some laity from the South Central Jurisdiction of the United Methodist Church voted to allow a lease between SMU and the Bush Foundation. The jurisdiction owns SMU and needed to make the final decision. However, the Mission Council had been formed to provide for inter-meeting decision-making.
Protests continued against the institute and in general against the Bush Foundation as the Bush administration hid behind a unitary executive policy and refused to allow any viewing of their e-mails or meeting notess despite federal law requiring such access.
The Bush Foundation then asked the College of Bishops of the jurisdiction to rule on the authority of the Mission Council to permit lease signing. On January 9, 2008, after a telephone poll, the bishops supported the Mission Council’s authority.
At least one of those Bishops, Scott Jones, was on the SMU Board, the Mission Council, and the College of Bishops. There is no sign he recused himself but more likely that he asserted himself in getting the results that would forward the lease signing.
Six weeks later, SMU signed a 99 year lease with the Bush Foundation for $1,000, with the option of extending that lease out to 249 year. This time line and these figures come from THE DAILY CAMPUS, an independent SMU campus newspaper, for February 26, 2008.
General Conference received a petition from Dr. Weaver requesting that the South Central Jurisdiction drop the lease. General Conference, in May of 2008, referred the petition to the jurisdiction which was to meet in July.
After a spirited debate at the jurisdictional conference, the referred petition was defeated and the conference voted to accept the action of the Mission Council to allow the lease. A Perkins staff member then asked the presiding bishop a question of law in effect asking if the miniscule lease price provided backdoor funding that supported the ideology of the Bush instiutute, something that was contrary to the Discipline and SMU charter.
The bishop responded that the question was moot and hypothetical. But the Discipline requires that ruling and the question be reviewed by the Judicial Council at their October, 2008, meeting. The ruling came too late and so the matter was held over until April of 2009.
The Council ruled that the matter had indeed been before the conference and that the bishop should have answered the question. They went into the Discipline, the Jurisdiction’s own rules of procedure, and the SMU charter to determine if everything was all right with the vote by the conference. They ruled that the conference vote validated the lease and that the Mission Council had acted properly. They did not have the lease information, however, so they were unable to make a judgment on the major issue of the question of law. But since the vote had been made by the conference, they supported the legitimacy of the lease.
One thing some of us wondered about was what the Dean of Perkins would do. He was both on the Judicial Council and was SMU’s PR man for the Bush Foundation project.
As has been the practice with this Judicial Council, he removed himself from the discussion and also did not vote on the case. Another member who had once been on the SMU Board made note of that relationship but said he did not recuse himself because he was not on that Board when the Bush people contacted SMU or during any of the time of the negotiations.
I find two more possible problems in the case which I wish the Council had handled as well.
One may sound more like a “Monday morning quarterback” fuss. The College of Bishops should have reported their ruling to the Judicial Council for review.
Taking the principle of law from Judicial Council Decision 331 that matters that are similar should be construed together, any request for a ruling of law should follow Disciplinary authority (may a secular group seek a judicial ruling outside of the normal appeals and conference processes?) and if so, should that ruling be reviewed as any question of law must be by the Judicial Council?
The Judicial Council should be very sensitive to those who take over their job.
The other flaw I perceive is that the Judicial Council missed a whole body of law in their careful study of the documents related to process and authority: their own precedents in church law made among previous decisions.
As far back as 1946, the Judicial Council ruled that no body can abandon its own powers and grant them to a subsidiary group. JCD 38 says, "No authority is given in the Constitution of the Church for it to delegate its powers in such a manner as to deprive itself of that basic or ultimate power." I was startled at how many decisions since have maintained that precedent.
If that precedent had been acknowledged, the Mission Council’s decision could not have been taken as final and the lease should not have been signed until after Jurisdictional Conference,
Conclusion
The Bush administration’s unwillingness to be transparent may be not only propagated by the institute but may actually interfere with any scholarly and public access to the archives. That and so much about the Bush administration has brought shame to our nation and so much damage to the world (failure to act on global warming, use of torture, using war instead of diplomacy, etc.) that I fear how that will spill over onto SMU.
I see a die cast in which the Judicial Council inadvertently did not prevent and others of us failed to stop.
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