Two adults and two teenagers were recently charged with the kidnap and gang rape of a 28 year-old woman in Richmond, Calif. last month.  The suspects allegedly assaulted the woman as she left her car at 9:30 pm on December 13.  According to police the men forced her back into her car, drove several blocks to a vacant apartment complex, and then raped her several times inside and outside the vehicle.  Afterward the men drove off in her car, leaving her naked by the apartment building. 

Since they are reported to have made disparaging remarks about the victim’s sexual orientation during the assault — she is openly lesbian and her car had a rainbow gay pride sticker – the case will be prosecuted as a hate crime.

While a few same sex marriage advocates are latching onto this story as a dire consequence of the passage of Proposition 8, I find more puzzling the media’s silence on the immigration status of the four suspects.  Charged with kidnapping, carjacking, and several sexual assault crimes are Humberto Hernandez Salvador, 31, Josue “Pato” Gonzalez, 21, Darrell Hodges, 16, and a 15 year-old being charged as a minor. 

It is possible that the four suspects are legal residents, even American citizens.  It’s also possible that they are illegal aliens.  We don’t know because the Bay Area media won’t touch the issue.  The San Francisco Chronicle and the San Jose Mercury News frequently print sympathetic sob stories about poor undocumented workers.  Yet the newspapers rarely publish stories that explore negative aspects of illegal immigration.*  (A notable exception was last summer; following the senseless murder of a family by a convicted felon, the Chronicle reported on San Francisco’s policy of protecting illegal juvenile felons.)  The question is especially relevent since Richmond, like many California communities, has proclaimed itself a “sanctuary city” for illegal immigrants.

Are they or aren’t they?  The media doesn’t think it matters.

* Patterico has frequently noted that the Los Angeles Times has exhibited a similar pattern.

Donations to help the victim pay for relocation expenses can be sent to Community Violence Solutions, 2101 Van Ness St, San Pablo CA 94806.  Phone (510) 237-0113 for information.

Hi, all. My thanks to Patterico for the opportunity to write here. I’ve spent some time away since the election reflecting on events and trying to regain some perspective. I’ve implicitly promised the boss man some “level-headed” thinking but it seems I need to exorcise a few demons first. Here goes:

Imagine my surprise when I received a solicitation from my friend, Senator John McCain. He Is starting a new organization called, naturally enough, “Country First”, and needs my help. I thought I was special, but it turns out that many, many people received the same plea. Hot Air has the text.

http://hotair.com/archives/2009/01/07/john-mccain-launches-his-country-first-pac/

I felt courtesy demanded a reply. Here it is, slightly amended (for language)from the original: (more…)

This is not a defense of the New York Times. This is not a defense of the Los Angeles Times. This is not a defense of the United Nations. This is not a commentary on the conflict in the Middle East (though it might come to seem like it, toward the bottom.) And this is not an attack on Patterico.

While this blog contains, I think, a respectable proportion of solid thinkers — including commenters — the tendency of the form to degenerate into a circle jerk is disturbing. Most recent case in point: Patterico’s post on death tolls. He points out that the New York Times says the U.N. has estimated that a fourth of the dead in Gaza have been civilians, and that the Los Angeles Times claims the U.N. estimates 400 of 700 killed have been civilians.

He asks a reasonable enough question: “Is 400/700 anything like one-fourth? I’m no math whiz, but I’m thinking the answer is ‘no.’ So what gives?”

In the comments section, that reasonable-enough question blossoms poisonously into an opportunity to opine that:

1. It’s either confirmation that the U.N. is, as we all know, “a bunch of idiots,” or evidence that the “liberal idiots” in the media got it “wrong in their reporting” — “Either way, IDIOTS!!!!”
2. “It must be Diplomatic UN Math, also known as DUM.”
3. “Apparently the UN just makes up statistics depending on what day of the week it is.”
4. “What do you expect from the liberal media, ACCURACY? or ‘equality’ & ‘fairness’?”

And that’s with only six commenters weighing in with seven comments, at the time of this writing. Only one person ventures to answer the question (”Different U.N. sources?”), and one of the withering remarks quoted above even included a link to a source document that might actually have *answered* the question, to a degree. But why bother with that, when it’s so much easier and more fun to snipe?

It’s disheartening to me that many clearly intelligent people seem satisfied — no, *pleased* — to just marinate in the bile of like-minded partisans, adding to the stew without bothering to bring any real intellectual effort to seeing the other side (or, in this case, to simply figure out the facts).

Why *can’t* we just give each other the benefit of the doubt, instead of assuming mendacity at every turn? Don’t you get *tired* of this?

So here’s my effort to answer the question at hand:

Gaza is a developing story. Patterico quotes from a New York Times story from Tuesday and a Los Angeles Times story from Wednesday (actually, from Thursday in the Middle East). The numbers are changing.

The United Nations website has a report of a U.N. press conference, dated Wednesday, that says, “Some 218 children and 85 women were among the 660 casualties of the conflict.” Elsewhere, the same report says, “Since the recent ground incursion, the death toll had nearly doubled, with some 40 per cent of the casualties being civilians, according to the most recent estimates.”

I suspect that the proportion of civilians killed has surged in the last day or two, when the school was hit. As Patterico notes, the New York Times story said, “The United Nations has estimated that about one-fourth of those killed were civilians, though there have been no reliable and current figures in recent days.” Note the verb tense, “has estimated”: This appears to be a proportion from perhaps a few days back.

Further, it looks to me like the U.N. may consider only women and young children to be confirmed civilians, which would constitute an undercount of civilians, though possibly not a significant undercount. (I don’t pretend to have the slightest clue how many Gaza men of fighting age are Hamas, and it’s beside the point for this purpose.) That alone would account for discrepancies, if some counts attempt to estimate unconfirmed (adult male) civilians and some don’t.

In any case, none of this militates toward the conclusion that the media or the U.N. are liberal. (Please note: I am not saying the media or the U.N. are or are not liberal! I’m just saying that the commenters are wrong to cite *this* as evidence that they’re liberal.) If, judging from the evidence I’ve found, any of the figures Patterico quotes are wrong, it’s the New York Times’ citation of the U.N.’s probable underestimate that a quarter of the dead are civilians. That scarcely points to the Times’ liberalism; if anything, it would tip in the other direction. (Understand, I’m not saying it points in *any* direction, politically!)

Whew. Well, this is a lot of energy I’ve expended semi-fisking a narrow point that no one is likely to care much about. But I’m trying to use it as a springboard to point out in microcosm what I see as a pervasive problem with blogs and comments.

Thanks for listening (if you did).