Patterico's Pontifications

4/28/2015

Baseball Game to Be Played in Baltimore . . . With Public Not Present

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 10:17 pm



This is why we can’t have nice things.

Amid civil unrest in Baltimore, Wednesday’s game between the White Sox and Orioles at Camden Yards has been moved to a 1:05 p.m. CT/2:05 p.m. ET start and will be closed to the public, the Orioles announced Tuesday. The game had been scheduled for Wednesday night.

The change comes after Monday and Tuesday’s games between the teams were postponed due to safety concerns after rioting broke out near the stadium. The latest round of demonstrations follow the recent death of Freddie Gray, 25, an African-American suspect who had been taken into police custody.

That’s going to be . . . weird. It has apparently never happened before.

Gay Marriage Arguments Today

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 8:10 pm



I have no particular insight for you; Kennedy made a reference to the definition of marriage having been constant for “millenia” but I suspect it’s a head fake and he’s in it for the glory. We’ll see come June. If you want to listen, audio is here and here, transcripts here and here.

UPDATE: By the way, in that first audio clip, it’s worth your time to scroll ahead to 27:00 and listen for about a minute. Trust me. Go all the way to 28:00. I don’t want to spoil it by describing it.

Compelling Love: Baltimore Mom Pummels Son And Drags Him Away From Rioting; She Talks About It Today

Filed under: General — Dana @ 7:15 pm



[guest post by Dana]

Last night I posted the video of the Baltimore mom who spotted her son heading toward the thick of the rioting and subsequently tore into him:

Toya Graham, single mother of six, including 16-year old Michael seen in the video, was interviewed this morning on CBS.

Graham explained that she went after Michael in order to prevent him from becoming the next Freddie Gray. In spite of the mask her son wore, Graham recognized him:

“He gave me eye contact. And at that point, you know, not even thinking about cameras or anything like that. That’s my only son and at the end of the day I don’t want him to be a Freddie Gray.”

“At that point, I just lost it,” said Graham. “I was shocked, I was angry, because you never want to see your child out there doing that.”

Graham expressed her concern for her son’s safety in their neighborhood and denounced the rioting and attacks on police officers:

“There’s some days that I’ll shield him in the house just so he won’t go outside and I know that I can’t do that for the rest of my life,” said Graham. “I’m a no-tolerant mother. Everybody that knows me, know I don’t play that.”

And knowing that about his mom put the fear of God in Michael:

It’s that reputation that made her son wince the second he saw her.

“He knew he was in trouble,” said Graham. “He said when ‘I seen you,’ he said, ‘ma, my instinct was to run.'”

Graham discussed what she thought may have prevented the protests from escalating:

Graham told CBS News she thinks the situation wouldn’t have been as bad if there were more mothers out there monitoring their sons. But she acknowledged there are some circumstances that can prevent moms from from doing that.

“We don’t know where those mothers are at, a lot of mothers have to provide for their children,” said Graham. “You can talk blue in your face to your children, but at the end of the day they gonna make their own decisions. As parents we just have to follow through to make sure that’s where they supposed to be at.”

(Sadly, there is no mention of fathers being needed to monitor their teenage sons and rein them in when necessary.)

–Dana

Judge Rules In Favor Of Christian T-Shirt Company That Declined To Print T-Shirts For A Gay Pride Festival

Filed under: General — Dana @ 5:04 pm



[guest post by Dana]

Back in November, I posted about the T-shirt company Hands On Original, whose owner Blaine Adamson had declined a request by the Gay and Lesbian Services Organization of Lexington to make shirts for an upcoming Lexington Pride Festival. Adamson declined, not wanting to violate his religious beliefs by endorsing groups or events he did not agree with:

To be very clear, Hands On Originals does not and never has discriminated against any individuals or groups. As my earlier statement clarifies, we both employ and do business with people from all walks of life.

My decision not to print the shirts requested of us has nothing to do with who was ordering the shirts; it had only to do with the message of the shirts no matter who was ordering them.

In this situation, the message is in disagreement with my values. My faith calls me to love all people regardless of whether they share my values or not.

As result of Adamson’s decision, the Kentucky Human Rights Commission ruled that he had violated a city law prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation.

Yesterday, in a heartening decision, a Lexington judge sided with Adamson and overturned the commission’s ruling:

A judge in Lexington has ruled in favor of a shop that refused to print gay pride festival T-shirts.

The ruling Monday by Fayette County Circuit Judge James Ishmael overturns a decision by the city’s Human Rights Commission. The commission had ruled in 2014 that the print shop, Hands On Originals, violated a city law that bans discrimination based on a person’s sexual orientation. The shop says it has refused several jobs because of its Christian beliefs.

Ishmael said the Human Rights Commission went beyond its statutory authority in siding with the Gay and Lesbian Services Organization. The judge said that the print shop’s refusal in 2012 was based on the message of the gay group and pride festival and “not on the sexual orientation of its representatives or members.”

Further:

Ishmael said the business never inquired about the sexual orientation of the representatives from the Gay and Lesbian Services Organization. The owners of Hands On Originals have “treated homosexual and heterosexual groups the same,” Ishmael wrote, noting that the business has in the past turned down orders for shirts promoting strip clubs and containing violent messages.

The Gay, Lesbian Service Organization released a statement:

We feel that this is just a reminder that there are still many out there who feel that their citizenship is worth more than that of members of the (gay, lesbian and transgender) community.

The Alliance Defense Fund, which argued on behalf of the shop, stated:

The government can’t force citizens to surrender free-speech rights or religious freedom in order to run a small business, and this decision affirms that

–Dana

Having Failed with Interest Rates, Our Betters Now Want to Increase Inflation

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 7:47 am



Oh, brother:

The cardinal rule of central banking, in the United States and in most other advanced industrial nations, is that annual inflation should run around 2 percent.

But as the Federal Reserve prepares to start raising its benchmark interest rate later this year to keep future inflation from exceeding that pace, it is facing persistent questions about the wisdom of the rule and the possible benefits of significantly increasing its target.

Higher inflation could disrupt economic activity, but it also would enhance the Fed’s power to stimulate the economy during recessions. And some experts say the struggles of the Fed and other central banks to provide enough stimulus since the Great Recession suggest they could use more room for maneuvering.

. . . .

The case for raising the 2 percent target rests on the counterintuitive idea that moderate inflation is a good thing, helping to grease the wheels of commerce and prevent an outright fall in prices. This is widely accepted by economists. It is the reason that central banks aim for a modest inflation rate, rather than keeping prices at the same level from year to year. The question is, How much?

On goes the Sarcastic Hat.

Indeed, all the smartest people know that it is important for consumers’ purchasing power to diminish year to year by some amount determined by central planners. The experts make a convincing case that our purchasing power isn’t plummeting fast enough.

I think they should start by targeting the specific industries that have a demonstrated history of dangerous deflation, like computers. Everyone knows that computers keep getting better all the time, while prices get lower. This is an intolerable and dangerous situation, for the same sound reasons that general deflation would be intolerable and dangerous. If the prices of computers keeping dropping, consumers will wait to buy computers. Also, companies making computers will not be profitable. These are the arguments we always hear about general deflation and I don’t see why they shouldn’t apply to the computer industry.

The conclusion is clear. Government needs to take action to ensure that the prices of computers does not decline, but rather increases, steadily. Ideally, the price increase will occur at a rate determined by government bureaucrats living in Washington, D.C., who have no personal stake in the success of the companies. I think that would be for the best, don’t you?

And to those who say that better and cheaper products (like computers) are a good thing for consumers, I say: don’t you guys understand economics??

Next thing you know, you guys will be saying the real problem is excessive taxation and regulation, and that the government needs to get out of the way and let the free market allocate resources according to the individual decisions of consumers. That, I hope most people realize, is crazy talk. The very thought should be illegal to think and I am going to go draft a law to ban such thoughts right now. Be right back; talk amongst yourselves.

Reactions To Rioting In Baltimore

Filed under: General — Dana @ 6:25 am



[guest post by Dana]

As rioting continues in Baltimore, here are a few reactions to the situation by members of the elite media.

Rachel Maddow at MSNBC attempted to label police as out of control – as massive rioting took place: In an interviewing with at-the-scene reporter Erica Green of the Baltimore Sun, Green described the scene in Baltimore as “all-out war” and relayed to Maddow that an officer had just been rushed away for medical attention after having been hit in the head with brick and that other officers picked up the items being thrown at them and threw them back at rioters.

From Maddow:

“If they’re picking up things that are being thrown at them and throwing them back, that implies to me, just as a lay observer, that the police feel .. that the police are a little bit out of control, or that they may not be using disciplined police tactics.”

Green would not agree with Maddow and instead explains that the police:

…showed extreme restraint even under the direct assault for “a very long time” during which they “didn’t do anything

Senior Editor of TNR Jamil Smith likened rioters to “children” with this gem:

I don’t condone this, but we need to listen to what these children in Baltimore are communicating. Make no mistake, this is communication.

Sally Kohn at CNN has fun with a new hashtag :

Looting a real shame. But FAR MORE shameful is pattern of police violence against black community! Perspective, people. #BaltimoreRising

If only every white Americans was even *half* as outraged about police violence as are about riots…

Wolf Blitzer at CNN was more concerned about how fast emergency vehicles were going rather than rioters burning down buildings:

“Look at this, we have a police vehicle now getting through this area, and this, this shot from the helicopter. That cop car is going very fast right now. And presumably … I don’t know where it’s going, But uh, that’s a dangerous situation in an urban area like this. Look what’s going on Tom Fuentes, is that the appropriate behavior for a vehicle like this with a lot of cars like that on the road?”

Marc Lamont Hill at CNN disagreed with fellow panelists and justified the rioting uprising:

No, there shouldn’t be calm tonight. Black people are dying in the streets. They’ve been dying in the streets for months, years, decades, centuries.

Now, I think there should be an ethics attached to this, but we have to watch our own ethics and be careful not to get more upset about the destruction of property than the destruction of black bodies and that seems to be to me – to me what’s happening over the last few hours and that’s very troublesome to me. We also have to be very careful about the language we use to talk about this. I’m not calling these people rioters. I’m calling these uprisings and I think it’s an important distinction to make. This is not a riot. There have been uprisings in major cities and smaller cities around this country for the last year because of the violence against black female and male bodies forever and I think that’s what important here. I agree with you, Don. We can’t ignore the fact that the city is burning, but we need to be talking about why it’s burning and not romanticize peace and not romanticize marching as the only way to function. I’m not saying we should be hurting, I’m not saying we should be killing people, but we do have to understand that resistance looks different ways to different people and part of what it means to say black lives matter, is to assert our right to have rage – righteous rage, righteous indignation in the face of state violence and extrajudicial killing. Freddie Gray is dead. That’s why the city is burning and let’s make that clear. It’s not burning because of these protesters. The city is burning because the police killed Freddie Gray and that’s a distinction we have to make. – See more at: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/curtis-houck/2015/04/28/cnns-marc-lamont-hill-baltimore-not-riot-uprisings-against-police#sthash.ZegJd6Qa.dpuf

Perhaps the best reaction to the mayhem in Baltimore is the lone mom who catches her son at the riots:

–Dana


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