The Observation Deck

Paul Schrimpf wrote:The board has its ups and downs, and I haven't visited for a while, but this is a pretty sour place right now. Doomed? Wow.

There are the doomed and the really doomed.

There is the nation that is doomed and then there is our region which is doomed and then there is Lakewood.

We are really doomed when the country's Attorney General becomes the leader of a lynch mob and a race baiter like Al Sharpton sets the agenda.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=si55h9- ... detailpage

Bill

This is one of my favorite speeches ever on film. "Decency is what your grandmother taught you."

However, have you read the book, or seen the entire film?

While it would be easy to gloss this over as that, in real life, the truth is it is nothing like this.

I can never forget the BS with Rev. All and Tawana Brawley, but I can see how it happened. I have
to give the Reverend, and the people of Ferguson a ton of credit. Most, including all are preaching
vote, not riot and complain. Get out and vote, get representation.

I believe Rev Al, like Kasich have been served well with their time on MSNBC. Both have moderated
and moved to more tangible arguments, and discussion points.

There was no excuse for the killing of Michael Brown, and there are even less reasons for the
looting and burning by out-of-towners who came to "blow it up."

Should Reverend Al have not deliver the Eulogy when asked?

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Jim O'Bryan wrote:
However, have you read the book, or seen the entire film?

While it would be easy to gloss this over as that, in real life, the truth is it is nothing like this.

Yes, I have read the book and I have seen the film.

Real life can be like that and one of the great things about this country is that we are constantly striving to be a more just society. That striving is made harder by guys like Al Sharpton.

Of course police can and do lie about many things.

http://7online.com/archive/9440401/

We don't know what happened at Ferguson.

Are their any lessons for Lakewood? There are but that would lead down a path you dare not go!

"Justice is conscience, not a personal conscience but the conscience of the whole of humanity. Those who clearly recognize the voice of their own conscience usually recognize also the voice of justice. "
Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn (11 December 1918 – 3 August 2008)

This picture out of Ferguson last night really hit me and made me think of this thread...



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The grand jury made the right decision.

It's time for black "leaders" to grow up.

Bill Call wrote:The grand jury made the right decision.

It's time for black "leaders" to grow up.

Bill

I think in all of this the family had the best attitude.

"Let's get cameras on all police"

The truth is police would love this, prosecutors would love this, many people being stopped
would love it, and it seems like a solid step."

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That prosecutor is bent, twisted. That was evident from day one.
But that is just one of the many problems in that/our situation.

I was hoping the safety forces would use firehoses against the rioters.
That sounds Innovative.
It is important to use the word 'innovative'.

Trying to get the feel of the beast...



After closing down the Shoreway in Cleveland for nearly 90 minutes, protesters moved up
Ontario and into Public Square.


Where they assembled and I had a chance to see the protestors in the lights.




The message seemed multifaceted. It was not just about 12-year-old Tamir Rice, or Michael Brown
but more about stopping police killing.




But from up with the organizers looking down...


It seemed like more bloggers than protestors. The entire walk and ending made me think
back to Ferguson last night where bloggers were tripping over each other.

Interesting world we live in, eh?

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From what I have seen, much if not most of the crowds were media people, if you count reporters and cameramen, and blogers and hanger ons who want to get a picture and get it posted. The old rules about who are in the media category have gone, and we have a new and unsupervised crowd. When I was young, you could believe that the media were working to inform the public; I'm not sure that was really true, but at least they maintained the image. But then I think of the persecution visited on Sam Shepherd by the lout at the Cleveland Press, whose name I won't speak, and that makes me believe that media responsibility was a sham.

Anyway, it appears that the media will do anything to create, may I say, excitement, including goading people into actions that can be put into headlines. For instance, if a mother who has lost a child stood there crying, and some man stood next to her yelling "burn this place down", the attention, and cameras, would focus on the man, not the mother. And the mother might realize that being noisy was how you get attention, and start yelling herself. In any event, the killing was quite a while ago, and there hasn't been much happening in Ferguson until the last few days, yet the media have broadcast from Ferguson every day in a cruel attempt to foment some violence. Well they certainly succeeded, and I imagine that they will be overjoyed if the violence spreads.

I once worked in the federal building, and our offices overlooked city hall. On more than one occasion some group was demonstrating in front of city hall, They usually had signs and a bullhorn, and would march around in a circle, but usually there were so few of them that there were great gaps in the circle, and pedestrians would walk by without noticing there was a demonstration. Then a van from one of the TV stations would show up with a reporter and a cameraman, but they realized it wasn't news unless they had a crowd, so they lined up the demonstrators side by side on perhaps five stairs, placing them like a director would place a cast, and got a tight shot that made it appear that there was a crowd of demonstrators, and that was what they broadcast. It wasn't true, but if they had just filmed the circle, it would reveal that the demonstrators were not drawing a crowd.

So I attribute much of the current actions to the media, and I wonder is the extended protection granted to journalists is in our best interest.

The grand jury system is not really fair. The accused can apply to testify, but his attorneys are barred from the chamber. The prosecutor can present evidence he feels shows a criminal act. But there is no cross examination and thus no way to challenge the evidence. Prosecutors joke that they could indict a ham sandwich, and there is some truth to that.

Because the grand jury system is so slanted in favor of prosecution, I expected to see an indictment. So the no bill issued by the grand jury probably means that they didn't believe much of the prosecutor's evidence, or at least believed the testimony of the accused more.

I believe that most people don't understand how the criminal justice system operates. It would have been nice if the prosecutor had explained it to the public, but a mob won't hear what they don't want to hear, so perhaps an explanation would have been futile.

I wonder about the ability of this prosecutor. The no bill was issued, assuming what is reported is true, at noon, and he dithered and dallied until after 20:00 before announcing the results. I read that he delayed to give the schools, the police, and the community time to prepare. And because there was no announcement of when the announcement would be made, he ended up addressing a group that had been kept waiting for eight hours; talk about a hostile audience. And of course his announcement was made after dark, presumably to give the shelter of darkness to those he knew would be acting out. Better he would have announced at noon that he would be holding the conference at 05:30 the next day. I would guess that those who intended to act out might oversleep and miss the whole thing.

As for the findings, I get most of my information on the internet, and it is almost all explained by someone who may or may not understand it, and who may or may not have an agenda. So I am aware that I have not seen the evidence, certainly not all of the evidence, and I don't form an opinion until I have seen all the evidence. The problem I see is that we are all in the same boat as far as having not seen the evidence, Yet apparently there are millions of us who have formed an opinion.

Are there indeed, lessons here for Lakewood?

Perhaps, but...

Are there instead, in fact, a number of lessons that Lakewood could teach others?

I believe so.

Beginning with Lakewood's schools-

Going back perhaps to their origin, our schools have for the most part, encouraged achievement, respect for each other, and for each other's unique capabilities. Our schools have strongly supported the concept of being merit-based institutions; offering any number of ways for all students to experience and demonstrate their individual successes.

As anyone who has been around here for very long knows, Lakewood has always been comprised of a very eclectic blend of people. We've seen many immigrants come to us from many lands, many races, and many faith traditions. Our city has responded to those immigrants with acceptance and welcoming gestures. Most years lately, we've had annual diversity pot-lucks. (and this year particularly, the event at Garfield School was tremendous, with hundreds of people sharing their cultures and traditions together in one of the best parties I've ever been to!

From the beginning, the wealthy and not-so wealthy too have freely associated in our houses of worship, our shops and restaurants, and in our schools and library. Opportunities for full assimilation into Lakewood life exist for anyone willing to do so.

Has all been perfect here? Of course not. At the same time, I do think that our social experiences and interactions, particularly in the schools, are getting better all the time. In volunteering with the schools, I can tell you that bullying is also much more rare nowadays, than it was when I was a youngster. If they are caught, bullies these days will learn very important lessons about their behavior.

UNIVERSAL RESPECT AND ACCEPTANCE is perhaps the best phrase that I could use to describe the Lakewood Schools social experience these days, based on my observations as a Lakewood Schools volunteer; and I do believe that, to a large extent, that is one of the reasons why you don't see a great deal of social unrest in our city.

Back to the banjo...

Tamir Rice Memorial, Thanksgiving Day, 2pm

As a friend of mine from Cyprus wrote me, "How very sad."

3 days later, it still seems incredible. The video, the story, the response, the story and the response.

Hundreds of lives changed forever. Many, many, many people with heavy hearts.

No winners, no losers, just really sad.

A young boy's terrible idea with terrible consequences.

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Ferguson was not very good at disclosing all the evidence and testimony vindicating Officer Wilson.
Or at least they seemed to take their time releasing it all after the verdict.
Maybe they did this as a kind of joke.
In the future, they should probably release the transcripts well before arriving at a verdict, or making that verdict public.
http://www.copinthehood.com/2014/11/who ... lieve.html

Some places are better at not-rioting.
http://www.danficker143.com/Home_Page.php

The doom school of philosophy blames incompetent journalism.
http://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/5289/

I am not sure if this is the appropriate place to post this but I wanted to share something that happened to me as a high school kid.

I was in a class where we needed to produce a video and a group of friends and I decided to make a movie with some guns in it. We got permission from the business owner to film at the gas station on the corner of Sloane and West Clifton one night after they closed. We were playing our parts and a couple of us had BB gun rifles. Apparently someone called the police...

I was standing with a BB gun when I saw police approaching with their guns drawn. We immediately dropped our bb guns and raised our hands and yelled that this was a class project and were using bb guns as props. The officers put their guns away and told us we should have notified them what we were doing because it would naturally cause concern. We all left and no one got hurt.

I can guarantee you that if I or someone else in our group would have even began to point that bb gun in the direction of the police we would have been shot dead, even though we were minors. It isn't their job to risk their lives to have a wait and see approach. I was taught to respect the police and to be careful around them because they deal with all types of crazy so they are trained to react faster than most.

I wish police could just use rubber bullets or always start with a taser but, in my opinion we would have more dead cops if they started doing that. It seems like non lethal methods just don't stop the real crazies that are wanting to hurt people. I do believe there are some bad cops, ones that abuse their power. I have actually had interactions with some where I was in the right and got into heated arguments, but if they would have tried to falsely arrest me I WOULD NOT RESIST and then I would hire an attorney.

Please just obey police orders, even if you are in the right, dying to prove a point isn't a smart approach.

I just wanted to throw it out there that I attended a Lakewood Budget meeting last week and Chief Malley shared that the Lakewood Police Department has already been researching and even field testing body cameras (as early as this past spring). Given that it was a budget meeting, the funding would also be there.

There are still issues of cost to consider, along with rent vs. own, ongoing video storage questions, etc. but I left the meeting pleased that Lakewood seemed to be ahead of the curve on this one.

The lesson for Lakewood would seem to be expediting this initiative as a win win win.