Trayvon Williams tragedy(not)

[Bled Welder]

That's also not me in those FB photos either.  I don't know who that idiot is.  Cute dogs though, whosever they are.  And Bled Welder is not a main character in my book.  I don't even write fiction of any sort, ever, let alone novels.  Except my emails, of course.  All fiction.

> Subject: Re: Trayvon Williams tragedy(not)
> From: brook7 at sover.net
> Date: Sat, 24 Mar 2012 00:01:08 -0400
> To: pynchon-l at waste.org
> 
> Ha ha ha, so witty and amusing.
> On Mar 23, 2012, at 12:20 PM, Bled Welder wrote:
> 
> > Driving through the wrong neighborhood! Even in Minneapolis these things occur.
> > 
> > Democracy is always good for a laugh. I suppose the G.Zimmermans of the nation are allowed to vote. Whatever happened to our dream of the truly benevolent dictator?
> > 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > 
> > From: Joseph Tracy
> > Sent: 23 Mar 2012 15:17:55 GMT
> > To: P-list List
> > Subject: Re: Trayvon Williams tragedy(not)
> > 
> > I agree with the innocent until proven guilty approach to law. This is the core problem because neither the killer nor the police had any reason to believe Trayvon M was guilty of any crime whatsoever.  There is some pretty intensive evidence in this case: a racial epithet, the cries of the victim for help, the fact that the killer was following the victim, the failure of the police to contact the family. There is no possible scenario that justifies this killing or the police actions that I can think of, but there should be a fair trial to establish guilt or innocence.
> > 
> > These events are not without personal import for me. I am the adoptive father of a mixed race girl, now adult curriculum planner. One night when she was 12 we were driving to some friends house in Minneapolis and somebody took a shot at her with a 22 I think. Whatever it was it hit the metal next to the window and failed to penetrate the car. The car sped away too fast for anyone to identify it.
> > There are different sources for this fear and hatred, but I have noticed over the years that the more such fears are propagated in public discourse the more senseless assaults occur and the color or minority status of the victim seems to make a huge difference in who goes to jail and who doesn't. I could make a long list, or quote statistics but we all know the score. I believe that there is a deterrent effect when wrongdoers are punished, and am not the least bit worried about what jail will do to Zimmerman, he should have considered that,  but he thought he didn't have to. Is that the kind of country we want?
> > It may be sad or even tragic that a human being was led by his weird ideas to do such a thing as follow and shoot a young man, but I feel none of that.  I feel it is time to apply the law to white people, congressman, presidents, bankers, cops  in the same way it is applied to black, latino and muslim citizens.
> > Should prisons be rehabilitative? Yes of course, as much as our best psychologists and job training can do. But people who shoot others without cause should have part of their own life taken; they should face the weight of their crime.
> > 
> > On Mar 23, 2012, at 10:17 AM, Michael Bailey wrote:
> > 
> >> David Morris wrote:
> >>> Discuss the word tragedy all you want.  Just leave this boy's murder out of it.
> >>> 
> >> 
> >> How does pointing out that the tragic protagonist in the shooting of
> >> any apparently innocent victim is not the victim, but the shooter,
> >> fall short of acceptable sympathy?
> >> 
> >> Isn't considering a killer as being a fallible human - not unlike
> >> oneself in many respects - the liberal, progressive response, rather
> >> than the reactionary revenge-oriented response that brought the
> >> current law-and-order gun-toting stand-your-ground menace into its
> >> current prominence? Isn't there a place for mercy, for rehabilitation,
> >> or at least forbearance?
> >> 
> >> more to the point, isn't there a responsibility to define one's terms
> >> adequately - how else can one act sensibly?  Isn't there a presumption
> >> of innocence built into the legal system?  Nothing has been completely
> >> proven, yet.  I was outraged that this was seeming to be let slide,
> >> but a rush to judgement is equally wrong.
> >> 
> >> -- holy cripes, while I'm on the soapbox, some buttwipe with a
> >> supposedly nasally gifted dog helped Florida lawmen wrongfully convict
> >> a whole bunch of people over the years, one of whom was finally
> >> released and compensated
> >> 
> >> http://wrongful-convictions.blogspot.com/2009/08/16-cases-mired-in-dog-handlers-fraud.html
> >> 
> >> trying to find a live petition about that -- Florida atty general
> >> promised to address it, hasn't.
> >> 
> >> 
> >> If somebody shot me or anyone I love I would say the same thing, in
> >> public anyway.  Assuming I could speak...
> >> 
> >> ah well David, don't hate me because I'm a word geek.
> >> 
> >> I'm done anyway.  Places to go, petitions to sign...donations to make
> >> (from a moth-ridden wallet)...ballots to cast...
> 
 		 	   		  
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://waste.org/pipermail/pynchon-l/attachments/20120323/fbbb98fb/attachment.html>