Major Harris, Kid Criminals, And Consequences

 

Kids are killing kids here in Milwaukee.

On October 14, Mallory Muenzenberger was found shot to death in the back yard of a home in Milwaukee. Authorities had difficulty identifying her and notifying her family because she was from Onalaska, WI, just outside LaCrosse. But when they finally did reach family members, they discovered that Mallory's three-year-old son, Major Harris, was missing. This prompted an Amber Alert and the entire city of Milwaukee came together in a municipal-wide hunt for the boy.

One week later, the hunt came to a tragic end. The remains of Major Harris were found in a storage bin off 35th Street, one block north of Villard Ave. The boy had been shot in the head.

Officers had quickly developed a suspect in Jaheem Clark. But as police approached his home on N. 41st and Custer Ave., he committed suicide. That was Sunday, October 17th.

Other suspects were arrested in the case, but Jaheem Clark appears (for now) to have been the ringleader, and the oldest among the suspects.

Not even legal drinking age.

Another tragedy took place in Wauwatosa on October 15th. Four juveniles, aged between 13 and 15, jacked a car in front of the Holiday Inn on North Ave. and Mayfair Road. The busted a window on a vehicle, but were scared off. Sunita Balogun, a 47 year-old Nigerian woman from Oshkosh, informed security at the hotel. Later, she spotted the kids from inside her Jeep. She caught up with the group, got out of the vehicle and confronted them, but the youngest of them, a 13-year-old identified as Jayden Adams, got past Balogun, hopped into the driver's seat of her Jeep, punched her in the face, then kicked the door into her. She fell, he hit the gas and ran her down. He then picked up his friends and they took off.

Sherwin Hughes reported that the kids later went shopping with Balogun's stolen credit cards.

When the stolen Jeep was recovered, it was found that the kids were in the process of repainting it. They were going to keep the vehicle!

The driver who struck her was only 13. He is being charged as an adult, and is facing 115 years in jail.

He was born in 2008.

He will never graduate from 8th grade.

These are just a few stories from the police blotter of the City of Milwaukee as of late. And one pattern becomes clear: Our criminals are KIDS!

Right now, there is a plague of car thefts on top of a plague of reckless driving. Often, the reckless drivers are the thieves themselves.

And they are KIDS! Not even old enough to drive, anyway.

Marshall High School has become an epicenter of this. Kids there are introduced to car theft before they're even old enough to take drivers' ed.

Part of this is the system. Kids steal cars, they joyride, they ditch the car afterwards. Even if the police catch them, they are usually let go. Only 2% of car thefts are ever prosecuted, much less convicted.

But the more crucial part is that the schools have failed. People often complain, "Where are the parents?" But when parents are forced to take on two minimum wage jobs to make ends meet, they simply can't raise a teenager responsibly. Nobody can.

This is where good schools are supposed to make up the difference. But in Milwaukee, schools are subjected to the School Choice Program - a positively Darwinian approach which leaves MPS utterly bereft of the resources it needs to teach kids properly.

But do charter schools work better? The numbers seem to say yes. But that's because charter schools bump out the most problematic kids after only three weeks. This boosts their academic numbers and allows them to brag about what a fine job they're doing with education. They also get to keep the school voucher money! But those kids who get booted have no choice but to return to MPS - which then has even less money to deal with. Zero vouchers for those who need them most.

In other words, the very kids who need the most remedial education, the very ones who need the most time, effort, and - yes, I'll say it - money, are the ones most left out in the cold.

Do Republicans really believe that has zero consequences?

Now, suppose you were thrown into that meat grinder as a teenager. Suppose the system failed you that utterly. You know damned well there's no future for you. You know damned well nobody will help you. You also know your best shot at a GED is from inside a jail cell.

Wouldn't you lash out? Wouldn't you steal cars just for kicks, too? Hell, you're headed straight for jail, anyway. Might as well have some fun before you go.

If you have been in favor of school choice, you have been in favor of exactly this. You have been in favor of letting public schools fail. But what you ignored was that when a school fails, all the kids in that school fail also. That comes back to us in the form of crime, crime, and more crime, and all it takes is one abandoned kid to make a troublemaker out to make our streets unsafe. Multiply that times the hundreds upon hundreds of kids whom MPS is forced to let down, and you get the hideous situation on the city's north and northwest sides.

If you backed school choice, you have some of Major Harris' blood on your hands. You have some of Sunita Balogun's blood on your hands. You have some of the blood of the 167 Milwaukee homicides on your hands.

You should have known this would inevitably happen. Fuck you.

It's absolutely clear what the solution is: FUND THE SHIT OUT OF OUR PUBLIC SCHOOLS!

You want to end crime? Are you "tough" on crime? Then give kids a reason to believe they can make it without going to jail! That means FUNDING THE LIVING SHIT OUT OF OUR PUBLIC SCHOOLS!

You want reparations? Or at least, the beginnings of reparations? FUND THE ABSOLUTE SHIT OUT OF OUR PUBLIC SCHOOLS!

You want to end segregation in Milwaukee? FUND THE UTMOST SHIT OUT OF OUR PUBLIC SCHOOLS! You'll be amazed how quickly quality education brings white people back into the city!

And if Republicans say, "But that's too expensive," the only proper response is that it got that way because YOU refused to pay the piper before. And now the interest on that account has grown!

It's time to pay the piper. And if I had it my way, I would seize Scott Walker's assets as a down payment. But barring that, I'll settle for the willingness of city officials to pony up, and white people generally shutting the hell up about the price tag.

It is not just the solution, it is the only solution.

Eric

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Cancelling Dave Chapelle

I've realized something about cancelling people. It doesn't work.

I mean, if the general idea is to shame people into changing their minds, canceling does exactly the opposite.

Case in point, Dave Chapelle, who has built his career by being boldly offensive. He's also made a career making jokes out of uncomfortable truths. But in his latest Netflix special, "The Closer," he is being decidedly transphobic, and even highlighting some of his own past transphobic humor. As a result, many of my fellow Leftists are calling for The Closer to be canceled from Netflix. So far, Netflix is standing its ground, and for good reason - it's reached #3 on Netflix's Top 10. Chappelle remains popular despite, or perhaps even because of, his transphobia.

But Chappelle is no fool. He has an unusual clarity of insight which makes him good at his job, and sooner or later (I believe), this will make him see things differently.

IF we back off.

Don't get me wrong. I side with transgender issues. I'm all for trans rights. But canceling doesn't convince anyone of anything - other than that we are the Parisian mob of 1799, beheading anyone we disapprove of without scruple or supplication.

When I was a teenager, I was a Bible-thumper. I berated certain people all the time, usually classmates or family. They, in turn, tended to double-down on being rebellious, often rubbing it in my face.

Then I questioned my faith, and eventually left Christianity. And the people I used to berate all became responsible citizens. Some even embraced the Church!

Often, backing off is the best way to let people change their minds on their own.

I'm convinced that J.K. Rowling might have come around if people had backed off on her. I'm equally convinced that Richard Dawkins might not have dug in his heels if we'd "discussed" things with him beforehand instead of merely writing him off. But people hit back hard if you hit them first. Doubly so if they're hit by an Internet flash-mob! After that, it becomes personal, and changing one's mind becomes nearly impossible.

Is it too late for Rowling or Dawkins? I don't know. But as I've said repeatedly on this blog, forgiveness is not just for religious people.

What really gets me is the outrage. It's not the outrage regarding Chapelle's transphobia that's the problem. In fact, I think the trans community has a legitimate gripe. No, the problem is that the outrage is HERE, surrounding Chappelle, and similar outrage is NOT to be found regarding the impending fall of our Republic!

Doesn't anybody care that our Democracy is about to DIE? Doesn't anyone care about that MORE than they do about Chappelle's antics?

I'm sorry, but Trump attempting ANOTHER steal is way, way more important than Chappelle or Rowling. Because if we lose our Democracy, trans rights go with it, and bad shows on Netflix will be the least of our problems.

If ANYONE trying to cancel Dave Chappelle stays home for the 2022 election, I will personally cancel that fool right back. And if Chappelle somehow gets cancelled and Tucker Carlson isn't? I will go full-on Jesus-in-the-temple, throwing over every table I can find among my fellow Progressives!

Am I saying we have bigger fish to fry? No. 

I'm saying there's a goddamned SHARK on our ass! We might want to look to that.

I mean, if we want to be alive long enough to cancel Chappelle.

Eric

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Let's Cancel Nicki Minaj

For those who haven't heard, Nicki Minaj recently made a bizarre claim on Twitter regarding the Covid-19 vaccine. According to her, her cousin's friend received the vaccine on the Caribbean island of Trinidad and became impotent, suffering from swollen testicles.

After everyone from health officials to free media scrambled to try and verify this story, it was finally confirmed to be 100% false. Yet the claim went so viral that Trinidad's own health minister, Terrence Deyalsingh, had to make a press conference to debunk it.

Now, I'm a fan of Nicki Minaj. Not of  her music. That stuff isn't my style. But I'm a fan of her dancing. I'm a fan of her giving voluptuous women a place in celebrity fandom. And I'm a fan of her generally.

So when I say this, understand that I'm making a personal sacrifice: We need to cancel her.

For all Richard Dawkins' faults, his remarks on Twitter didn't kill anyone, and never will. For all Harvey Weinstein's abuses, he didn't kill anyone, either. Even Bill Cosby didn't kill anyone. 

But Minaj? Her Tweet will KILL. It likely already has killed. It will go on to kill thousands. And no, she doesn't get a free pass because she's black, or even a black sex symbol, because in the end, her bullshit will likely have killed more than Jeffrey Dahmer, Ted Bundy, Timothy McVeigh and the 9/11 terrorists - combined.

Yes! Cancel her! Because if someone like Richard Dawkins deserves to be cancelled, Minaj deserves to be cancelled. If comparative teddy bears from Minnesota like Garrison Keillor and Al Franken deserve to be cancelled, so does Minaj.

If we are to be logically consistent at all, Minaj needs to go the way of Joss Whedon.

If we are to be logically consistent, the American Humanist Association should issue a statement of condemnation against Nicki Minaj. (Hint, hint.)

OR...

We could find a little bit more forgiveness in our hearts. We could understand that Minaj's cousin likely misinformed her. Or worse, pulled the story out of his ass. Or maybe his friend lied to him. (Maybe his balls are just fine.) We could finally learn that we all need forgiveness as an element of everyday life.

We could forgive Minaj, and Keillor, and Franken, and Whedon, and Dawkins. Because we all make mistakes. We all fuck up!

And we all need forgiveness. It's not just a religious thing.

Eric

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The Most Effective Advertising Method: Hatred

I've recently gone back to read an old classic: Future Shock by Alvin Toffler. In it, Toffler discusses various aspects of Future Shock as an extension of the concept of culture shock. One experiences culture shock when one finds oneself suddenly in a different culture, but it can also happen if culture changes faster than one can adapt to the change. By the same token, future shock happens when changes in technology happen faster than one can adjust to the changes those technologies bring about. It was an important insight at the time, which was 1970.

Well, his predictions for the post-1970 future were interesting, but it's enlightening to see what he got spectacularly wrong. The one thing he got most obviously wrong (to me) was the prediction that companies would never be able to achieve lasting brand loyalty - because brands changed so rapidly. Noting that consumers regularly couldn't find their favorite brand on the store shelves anymore, Toffler concluded that brand loyalty was impossible in such a shifting environment.

This is laughable given what we know today, because we know that these brands disappeared from store shelves not due to consumers' choices but through corporate takeovers. Products were consolidated, and consolidated, and consolidated again until every variety of product was left with only two or three super-brands competing with each other. By the 1980's, there were almost no independent brands left. All one could find was Coke vs. Pepsi. McDonald's vs. Burger King. Nike vs. Reebok. And where there seemed to be some sub-brands beneath these behemoths, those sub-brands turned out to be mere subsidiaries of the larger corporations. There might be 30 different brands of soap, but they all boiled down either Procter & Gamble or Colgate Palmolive. Try to find something outside the giant corporations, and the options were all but nonexistent.

So a kind of brand loyalty was achieved at last - not by brands truly putting preferred products on the shelves, but by corporations eliminating the competition one by one, until finally, only one giant competitor remained - and anti-trust laws prevented them from eating that one as well.

But removal of choice was not the only way they achieved brand loyalty. For most, additional brand loyalty was achieved by appealing to the emotional center of the human brain - creating a sense of belonging to a "tribe" that was critical to one's identity. In this way, consumers which bought into the identity also bought the product. "We're the Pepsi Generation!" cried Pepsi in the 80's, while Coke marketed itself as "The Real Thing." Dr. Pepper was even more brazen in this tactic advertising, "I'm a Pepper! Wouldn't you like to be a Pepper too?" McDonald's achieved amazing success by recognizing that customers saw eating there as taking a break. Their resulting ad campaign, "You deserve a break today," caused millions to identify with McDonald's as their place to take a break, and sales soared. Wheaties marketed itself, thanks largely to Bruce Jenner (back when she was "Bruce"), as "The Brand of Champions," meaning if you wanted to be a winner (and who doesn't?), then logically that had to be your cereal. Sales responded accordingly.

There is, however, another way to appeal to the emotions of consumers, and it can't be done with most products. One can create fierce brand loyalty by demonizing the competition.

We see this in a limited way in sports. Chicago Bears fans refer to their team as "Grizzlies" and the Green Bay Packers as "fudge packers." Green Bay fans counter by calling their team "Packerderms" and the Chicago team as "teddy bears." There are innumerable similar examples: Philadelphia Eagles vs. New England Patriots, Boston Red Sox vs. New York Yankees... the rivalry list goes on and on, with fans utterly demonizing the competition, and lionizing their own team.

Of course, these fans haven't done a damned thing to help their team win, other than buy tickets and cheer. But they see "their" team as a sense of identity - and that's the point. Even though they haven't stepped one foot on the playing field, they refer to "their" team as "us" and "we." And if they win, they then get to say, "we won!" as if they lifted one finger.

Also, the NFL stops short of outright endorsing demonizations of the other team. After all, at the end of each game, fans must go home peacefully.

When it comes to store-bought products, if corporations try to demonize their competition, they quickly find themselves on the wrong end of an expensive lawsuit. The plaintiff can claim that the negative ad is libel, and unfairly damages their ability to do business. Such a plaintiff invariably wins these lawsuits, and so corporations have learned to compete fairly, or at least be subtle about their slander.

And here's my major point: Such restrictions do not exist in politics. In fact, demonizing one's opponent while on the campaign trail is considered to be one of the most time-honored versions of free speech. So political demonization does not have the legal backlash that product demonization has. Oh, libel suits abound in politics, to be sure, especially if a slanderous claim has no basis whatsoever in fact. But on the whole, inciting hatred of the political opposition is not frowned upon in law. In fact, it is openly called for.

This would be just fine, except it has taken a sharp turn for the worse, because the NEWS has now been drafted into this war of words. There's always been bias in newspapers and media, but media networks have now been bought out by corporate consolidators who are experts in building brand loyalty, and they are not above using demonization to do it! On the contrary, they rely on it to drive up ratings! The op-ed page, once relegated to the back page of every newspaper, has now been made prime-time television on Fox News and its more right-wing cousins, OANN and NewsMax. Full-throated demonization has now been disguised as an official news broadcast - and millions buy into it! Democrats are demonized, 24-7, on millions of networks, everywhere. On the more liberal side, there is some bias to be sure, but news is still essentially news. The demonization is largely one-sided towards Democrats.

And this demonization is why millions are willing to attack the very Capitol itself rather than allow one little old fart of a Democrat to be sworn in.

They are literally generating Alvin Toffler's "Future Shock" on purpose.

The greatest need in our nation, right now, is for this ongoing travesty to stop!

We can't stop free speech - that's an absolute - but we can insist that news be news! You can lie and demonize anywhere else, but not there. No one must engage in KLONNING any more. No more featuring op ed without a countering voice on the other side. No more featuring op ed in a prime time slot! In fact, no more passing op ed off as news at all!

Lying on a news network IS shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theater. There is fundamentally no difference.

At long last, the shellac must be scraped off of the polished turd! The stink must permeate the nostrils of everyone who was wrongly convinced that Trump was even remotely an option!

We need this more than we need oxygen. At long last, let news be news and nothing else!

Eric

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Talking UFO's

Friends, let's talk about UFO's.

The recent 60 Minutes piece has lent credibility to the phenomenon of UFO's, or UAP (Unknown Aerial Phenomenon), as the new term is used.

The footage shown is compelling. The unknown objects, whatever they are, seem to move at fantastic speeds. They change direction suddenly, as if unconstrained by the strictures of physics. They disappear as suddenly as they appear. They are invisible, except in infrared.

What are they?

What amazes me most about the UFO/UAP craze is how quickly people jump to the unlikeliest of conclusions. There is a hierarchy of possibilities, and somewhere way, way down at the bottom of the likelihood pile is alien visitation. Yet that's the one people seem to want to pick first.

There's an old saying in the field of medicine. It applies to any mystery, whether diagnosing a disease, solving a murder, or looking at UFO footage. It goes like this:

"When you hear hoof-beats, think horses, not zebras."

In other words, go with the likeliest explanation before considering the more exotic ones.

Which, oddly, we never seem to do.

This goes for other scenarios as well, obviously. For example, do Democrats simply have a better message for city folk than country folk? Or are they winning elections by funneling money through a Satanic child pedophile ring?

If you need help with that, I have a horoscope I'd like to sell ya.

 

The hierarchy of likelihood regarding UFO's goes something like this:

1) Natural phenomena: lens-refraction, strange clouds, weather balloons, meteors, satellites, etc.

2) Deliberate hoax: faked footage or photograph, drone, CGI, etc.

3) New technology: experimental aircraft flown by the U.S. 

4) New spycraft: Flown by another nation (Russia, China).

5) Hallucination.

6) If none of the above apply, leave it an unsolved mystery.

7) Exotic explanations: alien visitation, time travelers, ancient gods, etc.

In this hierarchy, I would like to propose my own hypothesis, which wedges in nicely between #2 and #3. And then I would like to propose that it's the likeliest explanation for the footage seen on 60 Minutes last Sunday. Here it is:

These UFO's are caused by hackers.

We forget sometimes that our defense systems are getting more and more computerized every day. And those computerized systems are vulnerable to hackers in ways we might not yet have been able to fathom. Hackers in Russia and China might want to experiment with hacking our defense systems in ways that don't necessarily alert the military to the fact that someone's been tampering with our code. So, to test the waters as it were, they put small hacks in which make what appear to be strange objects in the sky.

In reality, these are no more than internally generated, CGI blips. But because they come from inside the defense system's computer, they appear to do amazing things. They will speed up and slow down at rates and speeds which are impossible by our currently known standards. They will appear suddenly, and then disappear just as suddenly again. They will be able to change direction at perfectly right angles without seeming to slow down. They will be invisible to the naked eye, yet visible on the infrared scopes.

All this makes sense, because the objects aren't really there. They exist solely inside the computer, and as a projection on a screen.

On some level, the Pentagon might even realize that this sort of thing is the result of a hack, which explains part of why they don't want to let the public know about it. After all, it would be embarrassing enough if Russia or China had better experimental spying aircraft. But Russian hackers making our defense systems see targets which aren't there? That's the sort of thing you bury, and bury deep! One hopes that they've secretly developed countermeasures, or else the next major conflict may see our planes firing on targets which aren't there, and hitting our own forces or civilians!

No, I don't have proof. But my hypothesis makes more sense than anything else out there currently, and perhaps it will persuade some of you out there to not bother so much with the "space alien" hypothesis, which, on the hierarchy of likelihood, is the least likely of all.

No, this doesn't explain all of the phenomena. But it explains much of it. For those it doesn't explain, possibilities 1 through 5 above are adequate. The fact that so very much UFO footage is explainable by my "Russian hacker" hypothesis should be deeply disturbing to everyone concerned.

Now, what I'd really like to know is why I'm the one offering this hypothesis, and not 60 Minutes.

Eric

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The Worst Is Yet To Come

 

It is not over.

Derek Chauvin has been convicted. Yes, that's a turning point in the history of Minnesota, and in the nation. Yes, that's a positive development. But it is not over.

Because while Chauvin was being convicted, Tucker Carlson was pretending with Candace Owens that Chauvin was somehow innocent. Fox News in general was insisting that Chauvin was getting shafted.

The worst of them were even saying that Chauvin deserved a promotion, not a conviction.

It is not over.

Chauvin's own police captain and co-officers testified against them. I wonder how the pundits on Fox News think they know Chauvin's actions better than his own colleagues do.

On the very day Chauvin was being convicted, what was the House of Representatives doing? Censuring Chauvin? Passing legislation making it safer for citizens' being arrested? Maybe even making things safer for cops?

No, it spent the day censuring Maxine Waters for threatening the riots we all knew would happen if Chauvin got off.

That's right. No censure for the Right Wing Media Cult. No censure for Tucker Carlson. No censure for Sean Hannity.

Yes, Biden is in the White House. But 40% of the nation is still convinced by The Big Lie that he somehow didn't actually win.

Yes, things are getting done, yet not ONE Republican is willing to break ranks and support Biden for anything. It is a repeat of how they treated Obama all over again.

The very worst elements of the Right Wing Media Cult are getting stronger and more virulent, without Trump in power. Without Trump having money. Because Trump still has the Right Wing Media Cult on his side, and so long as they back him, he will forever be on the game board.

Make no mistake: The Right Wing Media Cult will make another attempt at thwarting democracy in 2024! Only this time, they'll be more blatant, better prepared, better planned, and better armed!

You have been warned.

Eric

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The Native Advertising Goes On...

 

Native Advertising is a commercial which mimics the platform its on. We see this when we scroll through a news app and find an ad which is disguised to look like another news story. We see it as a sponsored post on Facebook or Twitter. We might even see it as an embedded news story, as I once did when I saw David Muir do a "news" segment on CBS about a new heart medication.

A skeptical eye can discern the difference between a genuine news post and a fake one. But skepticism is in short supply these days. This is one large reason why the plague of our time, misinformation, is so rampant, even in the so-called "Information Age."

What I've come to realize lately is that the entire "infotainment" industry is essentially native advertising. It is political advertisement disguised as news commentary. And what's really disgusting, is that this sort of crap is done as commercial television. So if you're watching, say, Sean Hannity, or Jeannine Pirro, or Tucker Carlson, and the show breaks away for commercials, you've actually seen your larger commercial interrupted for a smaller one. The entire hour is non-stop commercial!

I said after January 6 that such programming cannot, CANNOT, simply be allowed to go back to work as though nothing happened. But, of course, it was, and now we're in a situation where Republicans are acting like nothing happened at all. And that's because they're watching political ads disguised as opinion news programs. Back, to back, to back non-stop native advertising pushing the most extreme anti-liberal hatred.

I have no desire to spend the next two years warning people about the most severe threat to human freedom and yet see nothing done about it. But I fear that may be the case. True, it's only March. There's a long stretch yet in front of us to make changes. But so far, there has been ZERO accountability brought upon Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingram, and their ilk. Meanwhile, their faithful listening audience who sacked the Capital on their orders, and Trump's, are facing jail time and/or huge fines. Why aren't these suckers banding together and filing their own lawsuit? 

I imagined that by now, a flurry of lawsuits against everything involving Trumpism would be underway. And I know, Merrick Garland was only confirmed a week ago. But damn it, the wheels of justice are turning way too slowly!

I see no point in waiting for the Dominion lawsuit to take Fox News out of the cable TV lineup. The pundits will just go over to Newsmax or OANN and continue there. And nothing will be done about the vast number of AM radio stations lying to the white working class every working hour of every working day. The announcement by Westwood One that Dan Bongino would take over in Rush Limbaugh's radio slot is all the proof we need of this.

No, I won't spend two years pleading for people to get off their asses and deal some real-world consequences to the right-wing-pundit destroyers of America. I don't know what I'll do if we get to 1.5 years in, and still nothing is done, but I'll do something beyond words, that's for sure. 

Just please, someone at least hinder the non-stop commercials for the Right Wing Media Cult? Please?

Eric

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