Reuters Does Balanced Portrait of Zimmerman
Several people have emailed me pointing to a Reuters portrait of George Zimmerman. Here is a taste:
During the time Zimmerman was in hiding, his detractors defined him as a vigilante who had decided Martin was suspicious merely because he was black. After Zimmerman was finally arrested on a charge of second-degree murder more than six weeks after the shooting, prosecutors portrayed him as a violent and angry man who disregarded authority by pursuing the 17-year-old.
But a more nuanced portrait of Zimmerman has emerged from a Reuters investigation into Zimmerman’s past and a series of incidents in the community in the months preceding the Martin shooting.
Based on extensive interviews with relatives, friends, neighbors, schoolmates and co-workers of Zimmerman in two states, law enforcement officials, and reviews of court documents and police reports, the story sheds new light on the man at the center of one of the most controversial homicide cases in America.
The 28-year-old insurance-fraud investigator comes from a deeply Catholic background and was taught in his early years to do right by those less fortunate. He was raised in a racially integrated household and himself has black roots through an Afro-Peruvian great-grandfather – the father of the maternal grandmother who helped raise him.
Tommy Christopher almost certainly thinks it’s a racist dog-whistle to read the article. So read the whole thing.
Yea that makes Z. just about as black (1/8th?) as Obama… I guess Z. looks just like the son that Obama would have had.
BfC (fd87e7) — 4/27/2012 @ 7:51 amI found this page:
http://www.whitegirlbleedalot.com/most-recent-race-riots.php SEVENTEEN separate incidents in the last two months alone (there could be more, we don’t know) and although clearly directly related to the resentment created by mainstream media, none of those incidents are apparently worth the same coverage or media scrutiny as “white” on black crime. Mainstream media is responsible for whipping those blacks into a frenzy!!!!
Is a class action lawsuit possible?
jk (69d0bb) — 4/27/2012 @ 8:35 amDenounced. Denounced and condemned. That is all.
JD (abb177) — 4/27/2012 @ 8:54 amWhat is wrong with Al-Reuters?
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 4/27/2012 @ 9:07 amSo Ol’ Zim had just bought his first gun? Bet he wishes he’d never done that now…
Alex (15f526) — 4/27/2012 @ 10:12 amAlex,
The police told Z. to get a gun… Is the department bankrupt yet?
BfC (4380de) — 4/27/2012 @ 10:33 am6: worst advice ol’ z ever took…. And why would that bankrupt anyone?
Alex (15f526) — 4/27/2012 @ 10:36 amI love how Reuters is portraying their investigations into Zimmerman as being this hard slog of a thing.
Guys, investigating and then reporting what you find? That’s your JOB.
And it didn’t take a genius to learn he was this stuff about him, it’s not like his family and neighbors were keeping quiet about Zimmerman’s personality.
Book (20a430) — 4/27/2012 @ 10:52 amI think you’re half right, Alex. I don’t think it’s regret or guilt, but he obviously doesn’t feel great about taking a life. Remorse, not regret.
Ghost (5327a0) — 4/27/2012 @ 1:44 pmWe learn a couple things that we should have learned long before – and they even mannged to discuss the elephant in the room – the fact that here have been an increasing number of even brazen burglaries at Twin Lakes done by young black men. As you could have suspected. This is what I mean people have confused ideas about race. They think either that to think that this is true so is evil profiling, or that if they do think so, they would have to believe there’s something innate and permanent about being black that causes people to rob and steal.
I would only give Reuters a B. They still get things wrong. Zimmerman may not have so certainly linked Trayvon to this (it was only a possibility – Twin Lakes is about 20% black, and in once cas e he recognized somebody was a criminal)
Most important he did NOT follow Trayvon Martin. He tried at one point, and he couldn’t. He ran after him, and could not catch him, and he stopped when the dispatcher asked him to.
There was a Zimmerman Bleg post asking what are we missing. This is the most important thing thatpeople are missing.
Except for what they actually checked into for this story, Reuters still bought into a lot of the background misinformation.
There’s is lots more I should mention about this case. the police chief tried to resign and was rejected (the mayor sort of switched his vote) Bil Lee has many supporters.
We are not getting at the truth of all of this.
And Trayvon Martin may really indeed have some links to the burglars (through his cousin) It could help explain the attack. It is ridiculous not to go into Trayvon’s background (although there is misinformation there. The pictures with the tattood boy that Michelle Malkin had are apparently of a different Trayvon Martin in Georgia.
Now my one big question:
On February 26 2012, was there a third person in the vicinity whom Zimmerman and the police and the neighbors never saw or noticed but Trayvon knew?
Sammy Finkelman (f913b2) — 4/27/2012 @ 4:15 pmIf the saying that all politicians are crooks is anywhere near accurate, it should be safe to say that all journalists are liars.
AD-RtR-OS! (b8ab92) — 4/27/2012 @ 4:17 pmBy their own words and actions they are condemned.
Zimmerman got his gun a few years ago because a policeman advised him that if he wanted to deal with an out of control pit bull, pepper spray would be no good because it would too long for it to take effect and the dog could jump him before, and he should get a gun and shoot the dog if he needed to.
At a later point to deal with bad humans he was advised to get a more threatening dog and he did.
Sammy Finkelman (f913b2) — 4/27/2012 @ 4:19 pmNo confirmation here about Zimmerman siding with protesters against the previous chief of police (but it is not so high quality an article that we should rule it out or even discount it much because it dos not mention it)
Zimmerman also visited his grandmother and his father in the hospital in February, if I got that right. No information as to whether or not he got any colds in January and/or February.
Sammy Finkelman (f913b2) — 4/27/2012 @ 4:22 pmZimmerman was a Catholic and the Catholic Church is the most integrated church of any in the United States. His grandmother, whose father was black, used to tutor two black girls and they ate meals at his home for years. He had a black partner in a business that quickly failed in 2004/2005.
Zimmerman was actually the first member of his family to move to Florida. his parents followed the next year, in 2002.
Sammy Finkelman (f913b2) — 4/27/2012 @ 4:25 pm#9 oh I imagine the regret level is quite high. He’s ruined his life, and may go to prison. He will end up costing his family a ton of money, and of course I’ve been over the screwed home owners in the hoa. Never minding that he killed an unarmed kid, he still has a lot to regret.
Alex (b22650) — 4/27/2012 @ 5:33 pmIntersting NYT, LAT, WaPo, etc didn’t have the investigative staff to do the research necessary to write such a comprehensive profile of Zimmerman.
(btw, according to Reuters, Chris Francescani recently joined the Reuters staff in October, 2011.)
Dana (4eca6e) — 4/27/2012 @ 5:38 pmAlex never fails to be a complete douchenozzle.
JD (abb177) — 4/27/2012 @ 6:43 pmLike the Prez, he excels at it, JD.
Colonel Haiku (65290e) — 4/27/2012 @ 6:48 pmProlly likes dogs.
JD (abb177) — 4/27/2012 @ 6:56 pmIt’s kind of a RAshomon feel, but Reuters has the story substantially different that the Post and
narciso (8d0f34) — 4/27/2012 @ 7:10 pmthe Times account.
Dummy calls me to tell me there’s a suspicion person prowling in our driveway. I tell him, “Go on about your business, don’t start a fight”. I walk outside, it’s a lady, maybe 75 to 80, maybe five feet tall, maybe 80 pounds. She’s waiting for her daughter who told her “two doors past the alley”. The lady came west instead of east. I walked with her to the right address. She was not afraid of me, we were laughing the whole way, she 80 and me limping on my cane.
BTW, she was some kind of a foreigner, I think Filipina, but it’s hard to tell with these Chinese.
nk (875f57) — 4/28/2012 @ 4:46 amNk – Profiler! You used her age, sex, and diminutive size to assess the threat level.
SarahW (b0e533) — 4/28/2012 @ 7:07 am22: lacking skittles and blackness, she was clearly not a dangerous thug.
Alex (4767b0) — 4/28/2012 @ 9:54 amAlex, you did read that Tea and Skittles was slang in that area for Pot and Ecstasy–Right?
And that the Sullivan Law and many other gun control laws were aimed at immigrants and blacks?
Sullivan Law was specifically created to protect gang members (of Tamminy Hall fame) from getting shot by their victims:
So–here I am, a “right winger”, very happy that a “black” liberal Democrat was able to defend himself (and his family) from being attacked, injured, and possibly left brain damaged or killed.
Nobody here is celebrating the death of anyone–But in the case of self defense, I support the victim’s right to armed self defense.
Taking of any life is serious business (except, apparently world wide drone strikes by our government to push political agendas). And I am sure that most anyone would be badly shaken and full of doubt–But gun control has always had a long history of increasing violence and death–not less:
BfC (fd87e7) — 4/28/2012 @ 10:21 amYou think he regrets not having brain damage or still having a heartbeat? Like I said, I’m sure he feels remorse. But regret is a different story. Maybe he regrets getting involved in the first place, maybe he regrets telling his neighbors that he would help keep an eye on the community, maybe he regrets telling the lady next door to call him for help if anyone broke into her house again. Maybe he regrets having his fathers Caucasian sounding last name, because surely the black panthers wouldn’t have ordered a hit on his life if his last name was Rodriguez, or Valdez, or some other name that ends in Z instead of starting with it. Hell, if he was Pedro Martinez, his life wouldn’t be ruined, his family wouldn’t be scared, and his HOA wouldn’t be losing property value.
But the moment that he pulled his gun, that was also the moment his head was bouncing off the pavement. I highly doubt he regrets that decision, but it’s also very clear, from his immediate reaction to his testimony, is that he is remorseful about what happened.
Ghost (536c02) — 4/28/2012 @ 10:24 am24: omg, you made be laugh, thank you! He went to the store for Weed and extasy! I love it.
Clown college!
25: since you were obviously there that night, can you give us more details? Fascinating!
Alex (562a9f) — 4/28/2012 @ 11:16 amI’m almost afraid to meet whoever Tommy Christopher thinks is a good guy.
IYKWIMAITYDon’t.
Dustin (330eed) — 4/28/2012 @ 11:23 amAlex was never interested in details (facts) once he absorbed the narrative.
AD-RtR/OS! (93973a) — 4/28/2012 @ 11:25 amAlex, can you point to the source of the Tea and Skittles purchase information? At this point, I have only read this as coming from the Martin Family Lawyer–No police report, no 7-11, no eyewitnesses, etc.
Don’t know one way or the other–But it has come up in other discussions that there was no evidence of any kind released that confirms any of this.
BfC (fd87e7) — 4/28/2012 @ 11:38 amAccording to the time stamp and GPS coordinates associated with this pic somebody with a camera was obviously there that night to document the reality of Zimmerman’s bleeding head.
I’ve read a lot of incredibly stupid things written about this incident, Alex, but the B.S. you’re spouting about how Zimmerman should have had concerns over property values or making himself unpopular at the next HOA meeting first and foremost in mind as his head was hitting the sidewalk takes the cake.
Steve (8ab96a) — 4/28/2012 @ 12:07 pm30: poor Steve. He has reading comp issues.
Alex (988839) — 4/28/2012 @ 2:31 pmThe irony. It’s just too much.
Ghost (ebcb8d) — 4/28/2012 @ 3:39 pmI know! Steve was there too! So many eye witnesses in the comments!!!
Alex (fa4fca) — 4/28/2012 @ 4:00 pmApologies for drive-by link-dropping, I was a little excited when I found that page at whitegirlbleedalot.com (which details SEVENTEEN HORRIFIC black on white crimes committed in the last two months alone “in revenge for Treyvon”), and I was trying to remember which one of the blogs I’ve been following is written by a lawyer so I could ask him what he thought.
The thing is, reality is now starting to expand my tiny liberal brain and I now realize that as a white person, if I needed to defend myself against a young black man — a demographic which commits roughly 50% of all violent crime — I am the one who magically becomes the criminal.
And apparently this demonization of white people has been going on for awhile now, courtesy of race-baiters like Al Sharpton and the mainstream media. Okay, I gronk the situation, FINALLY.
I am not liking black people very much right now… I no longer want to be around them. And the thing is, I’m not so sure that’s me being “racist” so much as me calculating the odds, noticing the predictable outcome, and taking steps to protect myself (by avoiding black people). Btw. I own my own business. I won’t be hiring any more black people any time soon. Instead, I’ll be hiring white people who are smart enough to check that little box marked “I identify as black”.
Yeah I realize I’m a bit paranoid, but I can hire white people who identify as black just as easily as I can hire black thugs who identify as choirboys.
jk (69d0bb) — 4/28/2012 @ 8:16 pmComment by BfC — 4/28/2012 @ 10:21 am
And that the Sullivan Law and many other gun control laws were aimed at immigrants and blacks?
Sullivan Law was specifically created to protect gang members (of Tamminy Hall fame) from getting shot by their victims:
Where do you get blacks in here? At that time (1911) the criminals were Irish.
And blacks, of which there were many fewer in New York, had nothing to do with Tammany Hall. They voted the straight Republican ticket.
Problem was the gangs worked for Tammany. The Democratic machine used them as shtarkers (sluggers), enforcing discipline at the polls and intimidating the opposition. Gang leaders like Monk Eastman were even employed as informal “sheriffs,” keeping their turf under Tammany control.
The Tammany Tiger needed to rein in the gangs without completely crippling them. Enter Big Tim with the perfect solution: Ostensibly disarm the gangs — and ordinary citizens, too — while still keeping them on the streets.
In fact, he gave the game away during the debate on the bill, which flew through Albany: “I want to make it so the young thugs in my district will get three years for carrying dangerous weapons instead of getting a sentence in the electric chair a year from now.”
Sullivan knew the gangs would flout the law, but appearances were more important than results. Young toughs took to sewing the pockets of their coats shut, so that cops couldn’t plant firearms on them, and many gangsters stashed their weapons inside their girlfriends’ “bird cages” — wire-mesh fashion contraptions around which women would wind their hair.
Ordinary citizens, on the other hand, were disarmed, which solved another problem: Gangsters had been bitterly complaining to Tammany that their victims sometimes shot back at them.
So–here I am, a “right winger”, very happy that a “black” liberal Democrat was able to defend himself (and his family) from being attacked, injured, and possibly left brain damaged or killed.
Nobody here is celebrating the death of anyone–But in the case of self defense, I support the victim’s right to armed self defense.
Taking of any life is serious business (except, apparently world wide drone strikes by our government to push political agendas). And I am sure that most anyone would be badly shaken and full of doubt–But gun control has always had a long history of increasing violence and death–not less:
As one scholar concludes “It didn’t take long for those hopes to be dashed: within twelve months of the passage of the Sullivan Law, New York City’s murder rate increased 18 percent.” In the year after enactment, New York City experienced “a crime wave unequaled in its history.” in 1912 presidents of fourteen burglary insurance companies called for repeal of the Act, arguing that burglaries and robberies had increased by 40%. The following year, an insurance industry publication argued that in practice the law restricted only the “honest man” and that a criminal would “carry his pistol, law or no law, and is reasonably certain of evading arrest”
Sammy Finkelman (f913b2) — 4/28/2012 @ 8:19 pmApologies if that was out of order, but it’s really been bothering me lately.
jk (69d0bb) — 4/28/2012 @ 8:20 pmSorry, I neglected to delete the rest of the quote (everything past “straight Republican ticket”)
Sammy Finkelman (f913b2) — 4/28/2012 @ 8:22 pmAlex does know how to write. Maybe even how to read. Maybe even trade in his food stamps and SSI check for crack. The public school system is nto a failure after all.
(Yes, I know that food stamps are now some kind of plastic and SSI is direct deposit. But an Alex is still an Alex. BTW, Alex, did you know that “alex” is Greek for “keeping away”?
nk (875f57) — 4/28/2012 @ 8:24 pmIt was more complicated than that, Sammy. The ginzos were coming in with their luparas, not just in New York but also in New Orleans. And then, there was Sanger.
nk (875f57) — 4/28/2012 @ 8:29 pmA lupara is a “wolf-killer”, stockless, short-barreled shotgun that shepherds carry.
nk (875f57) — 4/28/2012 @ 8:38 pmSammy Finkelman,
Was a sloppy sentence structure… But I was lumping “…Sullivan Law and many other gun control laws…”. Yes Sullivan was aimed at Immigrants and other gun control laws were aimed at blacks (southern laws pre-civil war and post civil war “Jim Crow”, California’s against Black Panthers, etc.)…
In times past, even NRA and Republicans were involved in creating restrictive gun control laws too…
BfC (fd87e7) — 4/28/2012 @ 8:42 pmI swear, Reuters found out more background information about George Zimmerman than they ever did about
Elephant Stone (0ae97d) — 4/28/2012 @ 9:27 pmBarry SoetoroBarack H. Obama.Comment by BfC — 4/28/2012 @ 11:38 am
Alex, can you point to the source of the Tea and Skittles purchase information? At this point, I have only read this as coming from the Martin Family Lawyer–No police report, no 7-11, no eyewitnesses, etc.
Don’t know one way or the other–But it has come up in other discussions that there was no evidence of any kind released that confirms any of this.
This is now one of the “facts” in the probable cause affidavit. A person on one of the talk pages about this article on Wikipedia said the earliest report he could find was an March 16 ABC report. That report also states that Trayvon left home during the basketball game, which is imposssibly late.
Three days later (April 8) the same Wikipedia editor said a reader forwarded him an e-mail exchange with a Miami Herald where the reporter said the source was the (on leave now) police chief (Bill Lee There is also an printed interview in which Bill Lee states that as fact.
That does not tell you at all the original source of this claim, or how it was known, or verified (or not)
Now one thing hat is kknown is that Trayvon Martin’s father (and girlfriend/fiancee) went out for dinner. He told People Magazine
http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20581404,00.html
“and when I got home, Trayvon wasn’t there. I tried calling his cell phone several times, and it went straight to voicemail. I wasn’t that worried, because he had been spending time with my 20-year-old nephew who was a responsible young man. There wasn’t a panic that he wasn’t at home. I figured that they had gone to the movies, because they had said they might. So I laid down, thinking they would show up later.”
The next morning, when he woke up, Tracy realized that Trayvon had not returned home.
“I started making calls, and I reached my nephew,” Martin says. “He said he hadn’t seen Trayvon. Then I really started getting worried. So I called the Sheriff’s department to file a missing persons report. I let them know it hadn’t been 24 hours, but it was unusual for Trayvon not to return home.”
Three police cars soon pulled up and a detective asked Tracy for a recent picture of his son. “I had one on my phone, so I showed it to him,” Tracy says, his voice tightening. “He told me he was going to show me a photo and ask if it was my son. He pulled out a photo of Trayvon’s dead body. And the nightmare began.”
There is something in some sources about there possibly being a younger “stepbrother” who had also been left at home, but I don’t know. If so, he could have been source for the time Trayvon left and may the skittles and tea. If that’s the case though, Tracy Martin is hiding it.
There was an American Thinker piece about Trayvon Martin’s Final Hour on April 9 by Jeff Lipkes.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/04/the_story_unravels_new_questions_about_trayvon_martins_final_hour.html
He apparently contacted the law offices of Benjamin Crump, the lawyer for the Martin family, who he says is the original source for this claim.
A spokesman for the law office confirmed that the information came from Martin’s girlfriend, and also, he believed, from a call to Tracy Martin. The law office hadn’t corroborated their account by looking at security camera tapes or at an electronic receipt from the store.
That “girlfriend” is a very problematical source. I’m not sure everything she said, or supposedly said, can withstand scrutiny. The probable cause affidavit uses her as a source, but, I think significantly, does not give the time of her call, and doesn’t say anything except that Trayvon reported to her that he felt he was being stalked. I would pay close attention to this aspect of the case .
The probable cause affidavit does not have her overhearing the start of the confrontation, which probably means that the timing of the phone record (which by the way I wouldn’t assume was to a phone Trayvon was carrying) is impossible for that to be true. Originally I assumed that she overheard the first meeting between Zimmerman and Martin, but that was before I listened and read the transcripts of Zimmerman’s call to police – he did not talk to Travon during that call, and from the call, it would appear, he didn’t speak to him before either.
A call to Tracy Martin? By whom? Trayvon? The law office? What is the nature of this second source?
They clearly have no receipt or confirmation from any store clerk.
Now, Jeff Lipkes writes, at some point a tape from a 7-Eleven was taken by investigators. There’s no indication what they found.
But a video does exist. The public relations director of 7-Eleven told me that, according to the company’s manager of security, a store camera captured an African-American male (she wouldn’t commit to “young”) purchasing a bag of Skittles and a can of tea (she wouldn’t say that it was “Arizona” tea). The hard disk with the video was removed after the story broke, and it has been subpoenaed by investigators for the state and/or county. The company has not made it available to the media. The public relations director could not specify the exact time of the purchase but said it was between 6:00 and 6:30.
Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/04/the_story_unravels_new_questions_about_trayvon_martins_final_hour.html#ixzz1tP1ENpYy
Does this have anything to do with Trayvon Martin? Did the lawyers, or whoever, first locate a store where something or other cheap and more or less lightweight was bought by some African American male and then make up the rest of the story? (That is, since skittles and tea were bought, say that’s where Trayvon went, and that’s what Trayvon bought? And then have his witness confirm it. That would make the lawyer into a liar, true, but there are some other things pointing to that idea.)
Sammy Finkelman (f913b2) — 4/28/2012 @ 10:24 pm39. 40. Comment by nk — 4/28/2012
It was more complicated than that, Sammy. The ginzos were coming in with their luparas, not just in New York but also in New Orleans. And then, there was Sanger.
A lupara is a “wolf-killer”, stockless, short-barreled shotgun that shepherds carry.
Ok. The immigrants in question would then be the Italian “Black Hand” or Mafia. But many (Irish) gangs were at odds with each other. The Sullivan law allowed the police (and Tammany Hall) to control the gangs by always being able to arrest them.
What’s Sanger here? Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood? She actually began in 1916.
Sammy Finkelman (f913b2) — 4/28/2012 @ 10:44 pmI knew one of old Mayor Daley’s security detail, Chicago police, who carried a lupara. Not all Italians are Mafia and not all Mafia is Italian. Some carried the things to protect themselves and their families from wolves, the two-legged as well as the four-legged kind.
(It’s been a long time since I’ve seen the movie, but Sean Connery has one when he pens the line “… bring a knife to a gunfight” in The Untouchables.)
nk (875f57) — 4/29/2012 @ 2:13 ami hate it that we live in an america where shepherds feel so goddamn scathingly vulnerable
me i blame barack
obama
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 4/29/2012 @ 2:23 amI don’t know why the Irish are thought to be tough guys, BTW. I mean, the Swedes, the British? Really? Really? They conquered you?
nk (875f57) — 4/29/2012 @ 2:24 amThey are beautiful things in themselves, happyfeet. But they are only permitted to peace officers under both federal and state law in Illinois.
Back, two lifetimes ago, on my side of the mountain, my father had to take his in to the policeman (yup, just one) and get the trigger wired and sealed with red wax during the fire season.
nk (875f57) — 4/29/2012 @ 2:29 ammy side of the mountain?
mostest subversive book.
ever.
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 4/29/2012 @ 2:33 amAsked the school librarian about the “Trigger John’s Son” books, http://archive.org/details/triggerjohnsson00robi as an addition to my daughter reading Percy Jackson and The Hunger Games. She had no clue about what I was talking about.
nk (875f57) — 4/29/2012 @ 2:52 amDon’t blame her, I’ve been a school library volunteer and my comfort, while I was restacking the books according to Dewey, was that the little
nk (875f57) — 4/29/2012 @ 2:59 ammonstersangels were our emergency food supply.And yes, that was the book, happyfeet, that I read when I was maybe twelve. Didn’t know that’s how hides are tanned. My father just salted our lamb and goat skins, they got hard as rocks, and he sold them to tanners.
nk (875f57) — 4/29/2012 @ 3:03 amMy father just salted our lamb and goat skins
the whole radically subversive idea of the my-side-of-mntn book was that… maybe you could transcend your father
(but then he stopped by your dug-out, and you had a little chat)
very very different book than hunger games
love them both though
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 4/29/2012 @ 3:15 amBut it’s Edward Abbey http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/e/edward_abbey.html that warped my mind.
nk (875f57) — 4/29/2012 @ 3:18 amI an not lying, I have no reason to. My father would kill our pig and dress it (clean it). My mother would turn it into ham, bacon and sausage.
He would hunt during the winter, when he had planted the winter wheat, and there was not much more to do than care for the livestock. My mother milked the goats and made cheese and butter. My father got us wild birds, my mother got us roosters and rabbits.
nk (875f57) — 4/29/2012 @ 3:25 amthat sounds like an exceedingly honest life really
and tasty
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 4/29/2012 @ 3:31 amNo, I never wanted to be better than my father. He wanted that for me and my brothers, but I died when he did.
nk (875f57) — 4/29/2012 @ 3:32 amPlease forgive me, for using you as my psychologist, happyfeet. You, too, Patterico.
nk (875f57) — 4/29/2012 @ 3:36 amnot at all Mr. nk
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 4/29/2012 @ 3:39 amNK,
For a fellow who got a little bent out of shape about people cracking jokes about the perception that Muslim Brotherhood may or may not have been advocating for necrophilia in Egypt, you sure are relaxed about pulling the trigger on ethnic cracks about Irish “toughness” and Joe Arpaio being a “Guido.”
I’ll put in a call to Norman Lear and tell him I found a good casting replacement for Carroll O’Connor, in case he ever wants to re-boot Archie Bunker in “All in the Family.”
Elephant Stone (0ae97d) — 4/29/2012 @ 8:23 amNo, I want to play Gloria.
nk (875f57) — 4/29/2012 @ 9:05 amsorry nk but
Colonel Haiku (d04f33) — 4/29/2012 @ 9:22 amto play role of “gloria”
one must have teh teats
jk is a racist. That is all.
Icy (3eea39) — 4/29/2012 @ 11:30 am24: omg, you made be laugh, thank you! He went to the store for Weed and extasy! I love it.
Clown college!
Comment by Alex — 4/28/2012 @ 11:16 am
— Assemble all of Alex’s comments together and you’ll have a clown collage.
Icy (3eea39) — 4/29/2012 @ 11:34 amComment by nk — 4/29/2012 @ 2:13 am
Not all Italians are Mafia and not all Mafia is Italian.
Of course not all (or very many) Italians are Mafia. And in Italy, the Mafia is strictly Sicilian. The gangs of Naples are called the Camorra, for instance.
However, when organized crime in America as we know it was put together in the 1928-32 period by Owney Madden (later political boss of Hot Springs, Arkansas, circa 1935?-1948 and again circa 1954-65, and Bill Clinton’s political godfather) Joe Bonanno, Meyer Lansky and others, anyone Italian became eligible to be admitted to the Mafia. That’s the American Mafia.
The larger organization was known as The Outfit.
The Italian contingent was the biggest. The Irish gangs were limited in total membership (probably because many Irish were policemen) and Jewish membership was restricted to those individuals who were already members at the time, in 1931 or 1932.
Jack Ruby, (1911-1967) by the way, was a member (and not much of a criminal either) and was sent to Dallas in the 1940s against his wishes, but he acted independently when he killed Lee Harvey Oswald.
However, he was wearing what you can call a Mafia hat when he did it (a hat with black halo running across the bottom)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ruby-shooting-oswald2.png
And within about half a year all organized crime figures stopped wearing that hat – most stopped wearing hats altogether. Just check the dates of the pictures.
Jack Ruby later said that because of his background he should have been the last person to do this. But it was because of his background that he was close to the only person who would have dared to do it!! He probably really did it because he was afraid they would not carry out the death penalty, although he said the reason was to spare Mrs. Kennedy from going back to Dallas for a trial. But if ensuring Oswald was put to death was the reason, he wouldn’t have said so.)
Sammy Finkelman (e9b54a) — 4/29/2012 @ 12:16 pmAnd within about half a year all organized crime figures stopped wearing that hat – most stopped wearing hats altogether. Just check the dates of the pictures.
— Wow . . . at the exact same time that most men, period, stopped wearing hats? What a coinky-dink! Well, they would have to, I guess, seeing as how it would’ve gone from “anyone wearing that type of hat is in the mob,” to “anyone wearing a hat is in the mob.”
Icy (3eea39) — 4/29/2012 @ 12:36 pmFrom January, 1979 to August, 1979, I worked for the Chicago Crime Commission. I did not so much monitor The Outfit, my immediate supervisor, a former FBI agent did that, I monitored more the judges who granted defense requests for continuances, for two years until the prosecution could no longer find the witnesses.
And I wear the best Stetson fedoras I can find in Chicago, the Humphrey Bogart gray, not the Harrison Ford brown.
nk (875f57) — 4/29/2012 @ 1:30 pmIcy, #66,
I’ve been told that it was President Kennedy that made the hatless look acceptable, but Hallas and Landry did not go along.
nk (875f57) — 4/29/2012 @ 1:34 pmI liked the look on a lady’s face, when she stepped into the court elevator and I took off my hat. 😉
nk (875f57) — 4/29/2012 @ 1:37 pmhttp://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/2-busted-murder-chef-bronx-article-1.1068635
“If I had a son he might look like Hwangbum Yang.”
Where is the outrage when black men kill? And no controversy here … not one protest.
Bill (af584e) — 4/29/2012 @ 5:01 pmAnother place where the recordings of the Zimmerman call to police and the 911 calls can be heard:
http://axiomamnesia.com/2012/03/16/trayvon-martin-911-calls-audio
There are some brief descriptions of 911 calls.
Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 5/2/2012 @ 4:26 pmhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Shooting_of_Trayvon_Martin
Scroll down to:
Trayvon Martin was not “walking”; records of Martin’s phone calls
Possible serious problem with the “record” of the call to Trayvon Martin (the phone record in question is using Pacific time)
Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 5/2/2012 @ 4:32 pmEnhancement maybe of screaming in background
http://www.soundclick.com/bands/page_songInfo.cfm?bandID=676362&songID=11548279&showPlayer=true
Person who prepared this says screaming continues for a bit after the shot (and must be Zimmerman) not the person who got shot)
Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 5/2/2012 @ 4:38 pmhttp://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/02/us/trayvon-martin-shooting-prompts-a-review-of-ideals.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print
Name of the other boy in the house, son of Brandy Green – a juvenile detention officer by the way, was Chad – age 14. When Trayvon left the house he is suppoosed to have said he is going to a store and if there anything he should buy. Chad said skittles. It could Chad was not azware of the exact time trayvon left because maybe he wasn’t interested in basketball.
The Wikipedia discussion also reports someone from 7-Eleven saw a tape which wass taken to headquarters . In addition to being a black man, the person on the tape wore a hoodie.
Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 5/2/2012 @ 4:42 pm