Another late night without much inspiration. So here’s the last night of the Deadly Vipers’ tour. It was posted at way past their bedtime last night; I don’t expect them home early:
They seem to be making friends.
Here’s another Neil Steinberg blog to contemplate, about a 1915 disaster I’d never heard of until today. More than 800 people drowned when a ship capsized at the dock on the Chicago River. They were close enough to shore to easily swim, but that was when swimming was a rare skill. Eight hundred forty-four dead, and the ship was still tied up. Mind-boggling.
I swam this morning. Couldn’t find my rhythm, felt off the whole time. Maybe I’m being haunted by the ghosts of the Eastland, drowned 100 years ago today.
I see there was another mass shooting last night. Today, I swear, CNN was tweeting a piece about “movie-theater safety.” No words. And Bobby Jindal informed the world he was rushing to the scene, inspiring Twitter to yell at his exhaust plume, Make sure you tell ’em how much you like guns, Bobby! Awright.
OK, to work and to the weekend. Enjoy yours.
Kirk said on July 24, 2015 at 9:37 am
Speaking of guns, one of the gun-toting citizens who were “guarding” a military recruiting office in Lancaster, Ohio, was arrested yesterday after his military-style rifle “accidentally” went off when he was showing it to someone. No one hurt, but the mall management told them to hit the road.
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coozledad said on July 24, 2015 at 9:57 am
Bobby Genital an ambulance chaser? Who coulda knowed.
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coozledad said on July 24, 2015 at 10:07 am
Shooter appears to have been a fusion of talk radio trash and murderer. Claims to have hosted a couple of AM radio hatefests.
http://www.rawstory.com/2015/07/louisiana-gunman-was-a-drifter-and-self-described-taxpayer-watchdog-who-tried-and-failed-to-get-rich-quick/comments/#disqus
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Jolene said on July 24, 2015 at 11:20 am
Some links to good stuff on Comedy Central at the bottom of yesterday’s post.
And beb asked re Sandra Bland, “What is a defective autopsy?” I imagine an autopsy could be defective in lots of different ways. In this case, though, I believe that terminology was introduced by the Bland family’s lawyer, not by the medical examiner or the legal authorities. As I understand it, the autopsy revealed marijuana in her body, and they wanted to do additional testing to determine how long ago she had smoked it. Why they wanted this info I have no idea. It doesn’t seem particularly relevant to either the traffic stop or her suicide.
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Jeff Borden said on July 24, 2015 at 11:37 am
I guess mass shootings are now a weekly occurrence here in ‘Murica.
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Wim said on July 24, 2015 at 12:03 pm
More like daily, Jeff. They have to be splashy just to get noticed.
Is that an official Deadly Vipers tour shirt in the photo? You’re going to post a sales link, right?
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Joe K said on July 24, 2015 at 12:04 pm
The deadly vipers look like there having a heck of a lot more fun than working at Walmart would be.
Pilot Joe
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beb said on July 24, 2015 at 12:36 pm
The last gig on the tour and the band is still together? Now that’s a wonder!
It was Heather @46 yesterday who asked what was a defective autopsy. I was trying to answer that.
kirk@1: I really think we need a law that says “accidentally” discharge a gun, lose your right to own one.
And a good read on the Sandra Bland arrest: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/cafe/sandra-bland-video-legal-but-not-good-policing
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Little Bird said on July 24, 2015 at 12:58 pm
Yeah, we’re going to need sales links! For both t-shirts and tapes. I think I’ve got a cassette player somewhere….
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brian stouder said on July 24, 2015 at 1:24 pm
And if every detail about this shooter was the same, but his name was (similar to) Raphael Cruz or Piyush “Bobby” Jindal, then what would the tenor of the news coverage be?
Piyush (et al) might better push back on this odd normalization, wherein we have “acceptable” mass -shooters in public spaces, and then scarey ‘other’ people
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Sherri said on July 24, 2015 at 1:45 pm
Maybe someday we’ll realize that the easy access to and the ridiculous number of guns floating around are a far greater existential threat than ISIS or al Qaeda or any terrorist group.
One guy tries (unsuccessfully) to blow up a plane with explosives in his shoes, and we all have to start putting our shoes through X-ray to fly. One other guy tries (again unsuccessfully) to blow up a plane with explosives in his underwear, and now we have expensive, invasive, ineffective, questionably safe machines in our airports that we may have to go through. Every few days, someone picks up a gun and kills a bunch a people, and we do nothing.
I know the “you’ll pry my gun from my cold dead hands” crowd is loud, but I don’t really believe that they are in the majority. Gabby Giffords being shot didn’t change things; will it take a Republican Congressperson being shot in one of these mass shootings (by a white guy, otherwise it’s terrorism) to change things?
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Judybusy said on July 24, 2015 at 1:53 pm
Sherri, if Ronald Reagan and Sandyhook (because, children!) didn’t change things, I don’t think anything will.
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Brandon said on July 24, 2015 at 2:00 pm
“I swam this morning. Couldn’t find my rhythm, felt off the whole time. Maybe I’m being haunted by the ghosts of the Eastland, drowned 100 years ago today.”
Were you swimming in the Chicago River? If not, then don’t worry.
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Sherri said on July 24, 2015 at 2:06 pm
In better news, Hillary’s tax plan would establish a sliding scale for the capital gains tax rate, so that for investments held between 1 and 2 years, earners in the highest bracket would pay the same rate on capital gains as on ordinary income. Which is as it should be (actually, I think the distinction between capital gains and ordinary income should go away entirely), and will never pass, but maybe can at least move the capital gains rate in a better direction.
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Suzanne said on July 24, 2015 at 2:39 pm
I actually knew about the Eastland disaster. If I’m not mistaken, the old Harpo (you know, Oprah) studio was in the long since converted warehouse was the temporary morgue where many of the bodies were taken. Supposedly, there were reports of ghost sightings over the years…
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Dexter said on July 24, 2015 at 3:46 pm
I bet the old speedway will be awash in rebel flags this weekend, whatcha wanna bet? http://www.journalgazette.net/news/local/indiana/Indiana-State-Fair-nixes-displays-of-Confederate-flag-7885074
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Sherri said on July 24, 2015 at 4:05 pm
Mass shootings since Sandy Hook: http://www.vox.com/2015/6/25/8836735/map-mass-shootings-sandy-hook
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Jolene said on July 24, 2015 at 4:37 pm
Following up on Sherri’s post: 11 essential facts on guns and mass shootings in America.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/07/24/11-essential-facts-about-guns-and-mass-shootings-in-america/
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coozledad said on July 24, 2015 at 4:57 pm
The New York Times, drinking deeply of that Repub queef again:
http://wonkette.com/592018/new-york-times-writes-badass-slash-fiction-about-hillary-clinton-criminal-investigation
I’d rather have Gawker around than these repeat dupes.
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Colleen said on July 24, 2015 at 5:02 pm
Sherri said:
“One guy tries (unsuccessfully) to blow up a plane with explosives in his shoes, and we all have to start putting our shoes through X-ray to fly. One other guy tries (again unsuccessfully) to blow up a plane with explosives in his underwear, and now we have expensive, invasive, ineffective, questionably safe machines in our airports that we may have to go through. Every few days, someone picks up a gun and kills a bunch a people, and we do nothing.”
Exactly. Look at other developed nations. They don’t have the gun tragedies we do. Every day, I’m seeing a story about a child getting shot by another child. A co worker told me a heartbreaking story about her granddaughter (who is 11) wanting to sit up high in the movie theater because “even since that shooting, I want to be able to see everyone”. I don’t know what the answer is, but it’s not more guns. Are we just more violent than other nations? Or are we just crazier?
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Basset said on July 24, 2015 at 5:28 pm
No dents on the Volvo, I would assume.
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Heather said on July 24, 2015 at 5:32 pm
A friend posted a tweet she’d seen that pointed out that the gun control debate effectively ended after Sandy Hook. If a massacre of small children didn’t change things, nothing will.
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Sherri said on July 24, 2015 at 5:46 pm
I’m honestly curious about how people react to things. I hate the security theater of airports, but I know people who think that anything that might reduce the risk of a terrorist blowing up a plane is worth it, the equivalent of the Cheney 1% doctrine. Why does gun violence not trigger the same reaction?
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Bill said on July 24, 2015 at 7:01 pm
I talked with a German woman today who feels that it’s a cultural thing. Americans use guns to kill each other; Germans use the autobahn. I think we’re much farther ahead.
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alex said on July 24, 2015 at 7:15 pm
I had always looked forward to driving on the autobahn. Then I got an anemic Opel rental and figured out very quickly that I had no business in the fast lane.
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brian stouder said on July 24, 2015 at 7:21 pm
Bill, I’d think that a German would be skittish to make any kind of ‘cultural’ argument, given the bloody 20th century that their culture unleashed.
On a slightly different cultural note, here in Fort Wayne, our Fort Wayne Community Schools (which I love love love!) has (finally) decided to move forward the process of changing the mascot for one of our five high schools – The North Side Redskins.
I’m a South Side Archer from way back, as were my brothers and my dad (etc); and our daughter is currently a Wayne General….and indeed, one could be argumentative and say that General Wayne was no Saint (little Bishop Dwenger High School humor their; sorry!)….but this story is just the sort that puts knumb-skulls and rubes into the street, while others mutter “it’s about time” and then go on to the next news story.
My lovely wife Pam always tells me “Don’t read the comments” – but check out the comment thread on this story from Channel 15 (where Nance did a series of television commentaries, back in the day)
http://wane.com/2015/07/23/fwcs-opens-conversation-for-north-side-nickname-change/
and then there’s this follow-up, which (at this writing) only has a few comments, and by people who have no earthly idea what they’re talking about –
http://wane.com/2015/07/24/fwcs-gets-backlash-on-redskins-position/
(our superintendent does NOT make $250k a year – closer to $180K; in fact, she heads up the largest district in the state of Indiana and is about #5 or #6 in terms of salary. But she is a woman and she is black, while most of the rest are white and male – so the Redskin thing is just too delicious to NOT get our hate goin’!)
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Colleen said on July 24, 2015 at 7:32 pm
Oh God. I read some comments. Bad me, bad me. I should know better…never read the comments. It’ll just makes me feel hopeless for the future of this city….
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Dexter said on July 25, 2015 at 12:47 am
I saw that about the Redskins, brian. I had a feeling it was coming. There’s a site that lists all the nicknames of all Indiana high schools through the years. Some are clever, some are quaint, some are ridiculous…who could not laugh at the Frankfort Hot Dogs? I remember the one that shocked me: the Pekin Chinks. F’real, people. On a higher level, Miami changed, as did St. John’s and many others.
I wonder why Cleveland and Washington get passes? Cleveland now uses a “C” as the home uniform cap logo instead of Chief Wahoo, who is now on the sleeve instead.
It’s been about twenty years since the Minnesota media guide only calls that team “Cleveland American League baseball team” as they banished the Chief and the name forever.
Native Americans, no doubt the real deal, would sometimes protest the Indians team beside the ball park before games. I still recall the stare-down I received as one of the protesters did not approve of my Chief Wahoo hat and shirt.
There is not much heat on the Indians team to totally drop the chief, and most of the crowd who are raising hell about Washington’s Redskins name are people outside the Beltway, far away, and I’d guess these are folks who hate football in general anyway.
Hey Kirk? Wasn’t that a creative way for the Cincinnati Redlegs to lose tonight? Oh my.
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Jolene said on July 25, 2015 at 3:01 am
Dexter, the Redskins get plenty of heat inside the Beltway too. The Post has advocated a name change, and so have some other media figures. As in your Cleveland example, people have begun to refer to the team in various ways such as “the Washington pro football team” and “the Washington NFL team”. I don’t particularly follow sports, so I’m not really up to date on who’s saying what, but I do know that it’s very much a live issue. There’s also been some legal action about the team’s trademark. Just tried to google that and found this Wikipedia entry on the issue.
Just came across this interview with Jon Stewart’s. A bit worshipful, but still good. I imagine there will be many comments about him in the next few weeks.
Am still missing David Letterman, and now Stewart is departing too. Hoping Steven Colbert and Trevor Noah can take up the reins of late-night TV comedy.
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Jolene said on July 25, 2015 at 7:35 am
Here’s Joe Nocera forthrightly slamming HarperCollins for publishing Go Set a Watchman. Well done.
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Basset said on July 25, 2015 at 7:43 am
An old friend who recently passed was an Epsom Salt back in the day, down in Daviess County. Loogootee Lion here, never played sports in school though.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on July 25, 2015 at 7:51 am
I’m somehow envisioning Kate and the band standing around the Volvo with the back end up on blocks, trying to run the odometer back.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on July 25, 2015 at 8:09 am
Beb, end of last thread you were looking for a blog post/essay on the origins of policing, which I believe would be:
https://worxintheory.wordpress.com/2014/12/07/origins-of-the-police/
I am not comfortable with statements that police are necessarily brutal and are all bullies. That’s like saying all Marines are angry violent killers. There are reasons for that stereotype, and if you go into that line of work, you can’t get too awfully defensive about it, but just as the Marine Corps has enlisted and even officers who are kind, gentle, and poetic individuals, you will find in law enforcement ranks some very judicious and thoughtful individuals who simply have had to learn the protocols of force and use them, sparingly. The bigger problem with both groups is that you can have plenty of people who join for idealistic or at least pragmatic reasons (a job, a career they can anticipate enjoying more than a cubicle farm), but who are not able personally to handle the repeated encounters with the worst of human nature.
We have some probation officers in our shop who are, in my opinion, far too quick to call their clients “filth.” As in “yeah, my piece of filth tried to pry off his EMD then went down to the river to smoke a sherm and find a child to molest with one of his dirtbag buddies.” It’s hard to keep the essential humanity of a person in the forefront when you end up dealing with dehumanizing behavior day after day . . . but if you can’t manage to do both things, you start treating people who simply stumbled into your path, or made a mild mistake, as “filth.”
And pretty soon you become what you hate. That’s the thing about hate.
Anyhow, lots of good cops committed to service and sensitivity and compassion out there, but as the link I posted above outlines, there’s an essential flaw in the entire policing model that does indeed make it very hard to hold onto those qualities over time, for all of them. What I thought about the other night was the guy who’s told “we’re going in the lobby, scramble to the back door and make sure he doesn’t get loose that way.” And there in an empty barren concrete alley, you stand there with your hand at your unsnapped holster, trotting up to a blank steel door, and take up a position with the gun now in hand, wondering what is coming out of that door first. Situations like that make me cut even jerk cops some slack; the officer in the Bland traffic stop, though, is going to be featured in training videos of what not to do for years to come.
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David C. said on July 25, 2015 at 8:38 am
The only police officer I know who I trust with a gun says about 30% of cops are what you would hope for. They are in it to serve the public. He says 10% are sadists who need to be weeded out. The remaining 60% could go either way, depending on leadership. Jeff, in your line of work, you must have a lot more contact with officers than I do. Do his percentages seem right to you? But anyway, this makes sense to me. If a police chief goes to the local Oddfellows hall and tells the fellows that he is going to take the gloves off, your town would seem to be in deep trouble. I have no doubt that stop and frisk and similar policies leads directly to over-aggressive policing. How can it not? And with any brutal crime being transmitted over the whole country with a “they could come and kill you and yours in your bed tonight” spin, people don’t much care what the police do. Of course, as long as they are doing it to someone else.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on July 25, 2015 at 9:54 am
Yeah, that’s about the percentages I’d name, but I would probably go with more like 25% the Platonic ideal, 5% SPS sufferers, and 70% watching leadership and watch commanders for which way the wind is blowing. And I don’t say that to minimize: 5% of a police force can really make a community an unhappy place . . . and I know for a fact that there are departments where the good ones are a majority and others where vicious morons, who are usually related to the chief, are more than critical mass. That’s where state mandated training minimum standards are important, because Cousin Lenny having to drive over to the State Police Academy from time to time, or passing check-outs, has a tendency to weed the worst out.
Like the shooter in Louisiana, though, the biggest problem are the ones who are in one sense clearly insane, but are able to keep up the appearances enough when it matters to skate past sanctions. Three days in confinement and a promise to take their meds, and they’re back out now with a grudge and more awareness of how to not trigger involuntary committal. Most who go in, go because they lose it entirely (ranting at a Wendy’s for an hour, taking a swing at a cop).
Ditto bad cops. The worst ones are those no one wants to be partnered with, everyone knows is loosely wrapped, but keeps passing his exams and range qualifications. We count on the bad apples to be terrible, but the problem are the ones who are on long term slow simmer. The lid gets stuck over something, and when they blow, people get hurt — but it’s hard to look back and see who should have taken him off the front burner.
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Kirk said on July 25, 2015 at 10:42 am
Dexter, I just winced a little. Too deep into a lost season for it to hurt. Besides, I went down and saw the Reds throttle the Cubs on a beautiful day Wednesday. Good day, good seats, good beer and nice to see a bunch of Cubs fans whining and leaving early.
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coozledad said on July 25, 2015 at 10:59 am
These guys are Republican dirtbags from my county. They run a concealed-carry sales and training facility. I wonder how many people they’ve killed right here at home, and how deep their connections with the local party run. Filth.
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/feds-men-traveled-philippines-murder-hire-plot-32627788
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alex said on July 25, 2015 at 11:26 am
Cooz, that’s some scary-ass shit.
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coozledad said on July 25, 2015 at 11:26 am
This link gives a little more of the local flavor. I used to carry mail out that way. Lots of Timothy McVeigh worship, Blackwater contractors and Klan/Neo Nazi automatic weapons enthusiasts. In short, a bunch of Republicans:
http://www.wral.com/2-north-carolina-men-arrested-in-murder-for-hire-scheme/14789212/
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Deborah said on July 25, 2015 at 12:06 pm
I just had 2 Hoosier Mama cherry turnovers from the Lincoln Park green market. Delicious. I’m at a coffee place between the market and my place, thankful for the air conditioning. I go back to Santa Fe on Monday, really looking forward to the low humidity and the cool mountain air in the mornings. I also miss the gardening.
Yesterday we drove down to the little town where the playground is under construction, about 250 miles away. Just south of Joliet our left front tire blew out. That was scary as hell. An extremely nice man stopped and helped us change the tire and wouldn’t take a dime for it. So I’m looking for an opportunity to pay it forward.
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Deborah said on July 25, 2015 at 12:12 pm
Nancy, I forgot to ask where the Vipers played in St. Louis. I tried to place where they were, from the little you can see in the photo. It sort of looks like somewhere near St. Louis U, or in the U City/Delmar area?
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Jolene said on July 25, 2015 at 12:14 pm
159 firearms! Pretty amazing.
I wonder why the person who hired them wasn’t named. Also wonder why anyone would hire two Americans to carry out such a killing. I know little about the Philippines, but it’s hard to believe there wouldn’t be local talent available.
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Deborah said on July 25, 2015 at 12:28 pm
Ok, a little sleuthing, I googled the button makers place in the photo and it’s on Cherokee which is in South St. Louis near Benton Park. The only club that showed up was the Fortune Teller Bar, is that where they played?
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nancy said on July 25, 2015 at 12:50 pm
No, they were at a place called Foam. My family hails from south STL, but when I think of the place names I heard when I was a kid it always comes back to Carondelet Park, Gravois Avenue and Scruggs School. Here’s a picture of me in front of my family’s old apartment there, on Neosho Street. Scruggs is across from there. I understand it is no longer an entirely white neighborhood. (And that was 20-30 pounds ago.) We moved to Ohio when I was very young, so I only recall STL from visits.
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Sherri said on July 25, 2015 at 1:05 pm
I understand cutting a little slack for police officers because they never know what’s coming through the door. But let’s also cut a little slack for the brown people whose interactions with law enforcement have not typically been of the “protect and serve” variety.
Leadership in a department does make a huge difference, both in setting the tone of what is expected and tolerated and in hiring. That can be a big problem, though, when it comes to sheriff’s departments, because sheriff is usually an elected position. When the culture goes bad and a new sheriff comes in to change it, there’s a lot of resistance, and it’s usually pretty easy to convince the low information voter that the new guy is putting deputies at risk and preventing them from doing their jobs.
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brian stouder said on July 25, 2015 at 1:16 pm
Two marvelous photos from St Louis (and – bravo on the weight-loss, but the 20-30 pounds don’t look bad at all!)
The four side-by-side front doors threw me, but I suppose two of them lead to stairways
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Deborah said on July 25, 2015 at 1:21 pm
Nancy, I googled Foam and on their site they had this photo, which I beleive is Kate in the background? https://instagram.com/p/5hRhEOPsIY/
Also, the way they pronounce many of the French street names in St. Louis is funny. Chouteau should be shoe-toe, but they say show-toe. Gratiot is pronounce gra-shit there, and on and on.
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Kirk said on July 25, 2015 at 2:06 pm
Don’t forget GRAV-oy, Deborah
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Sherri said on July 25, 2015 at 3:33 pm
I’m still trying to understand why nothing can get done about gun control. Three thousand people died on 9/11, and we spent trillions of dollars and invaded two countries over that. Ten times that number of people die every year from firearms, and nothing happens.
Sure, the NRA is a powerful lobby, but automobile manufacturers were a powerful lobby, too. Motor vehicle deaths peaked at around 54K back in the 60s, and the government and the public have steadily pushed manufacturers to make their cars safer. Now, with a much bigger population and more vehicle miles driven, motor vehicle deaths are down to 32K. (To put it in even more perspective, that’s a decrease from 26 deaths per 100K people to 10 deaths per 100K, or 4 deaths per 100 million miles driven to 1 death per 100 million miles.)
Roughly, as many people die from firearms as die from motor vehicle accidents in a year. People would intuitively understand that more cars driving more miles would result in more deaths, unless something were done to make cars much safer. Yet the NRA is peddling the line that the only way to reduce deaths from firearms is more firearms. Of course, a significant fraction of gun deaths each year are suicides, so more guns aren’t going to help there. And we see that cops seem to be in fear for their lives from unarmed black people running away from them, and they’re armed, so hard to reconcile those arguments.
Fewer people own guns than ever, though the number of guns a gun owner owns is higher than ever. How do they wield such power, that Stand Your Ground and CCW laws have been spreading? I’m always curious about how groups outside the mainstream gain and maintain such power.
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Dexter said on July 25, 2015 at 3:35 pm
People always get Carmel and Carmel mixed up. One is car-MELL and the other is CARR-mull. I spent a helluva lot more time in car-MELL because I lived a short drive away for a year. That’s the one south of Monterey, with the beautiful white sand beach which borders Pebble Beach, the fancy golf course and club.
CARR-mull is THE rich Indianapolis ‘burb…I spent a couple nights there in a McMansion which was owned by a friend of a friend…in an addition that was nothing but McMansions. The owner was a prominent builder and of course he had designed his own home, with his wife in charge it seemed, as she was a devout Christian, and had a full chapel built right in the middle of the house. It was a helluva thing to contemplate, lemme tell ya. Jesus forever.
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Deborah said on July 25, 2015 at 4:08 pm
We had family in town this past week as I mentioned before. Thursday evening they went out to eat at Spiagia, a nice restaurant on Michigan Ave and Oak St. We got a frantic text telling us that Lady Gaga was sitting at the table behind them with two other women. Nice celebrity sighting.
Dexter, when I was in college we had a chapel in the basement of the dorm my freshman year (Missouri Synod Lutheran college). We used it mainly to sneak in and out the window at night after hours. We had a ridiculous curfew, and of course only the women students had the curfew then, the guys had no curfew. Hard to believe this day and age, isn’t it?
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Julie Robinson said on July 25, 2015 at 8:55 pm
From 1976-78 my then-boyfriend was attending seminary in St. Louis and he lived in an apartment exactly like that one. It could be that very one.
It was a very colorful neighborhood even then. Almost everyone from the sem lived around there because it was super cheap. Before he found the apartment he was staying with friends and had every single possession stolen from his car. Welcome to the hood, white boy.
I never felt unsafe there, though if my folks had seen the place my visits would have been cut off pronto.
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Deborah said on July 25, 2015 at 9:10 pm
Julie, the Lutheran Sem is quite far from Nancy’s photo. So I’m guessing it’s possible he lived near there but more likely another iffy neighborhood closer in to the Seminary in Clayton. Of course when Nancy lived in her St. Louis neighborhood it wasn’t iffy at all.
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Julie Robinson said on July 25, 2015 at 9:33 pm
Deborah, he went to Seminex, the LCMS breakaway sem. It’s since been incorporated into the Lutheran School of Theology in Chicago. Not sure how many years in was in St. Louis, I left both the LCMS and the guy and never looked back.
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brian stouder said on July 25, 2015 at 10:39 pm
And indeed Julie, I’d say both the feller and the synod are the poorer, for it
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Deborah said on July 25, 2015 at 11:38 pm
Julie, I knew a lot of the professors at Seminex, many of them went to the church I attended in St L after I left the MO Synod. Seminex classes were held in a building in an area of the city then called midtown near where the symphony played. That area has been completely gentrified now.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on July 26, 2015 at 12:13 am
And don’t forget Eden Theological Seminary, out Webster Groves (?) way. They have some lovely Niebuhr connections.
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susan said on July 26, 2015 at 12:22 am
USA! USA! USA!
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Linda said on July 26, 2015 at 7:11 am
Deborah @47: Detroit has oddly pronounced French names, too. We also have a Gratiot (gra-shit), and an even more weirdly pronounced Cadeiux (cad-Jew). When I was a kid, a stranger asked me where Dubois was, and I told him I didn’t know. But if he asked me in the Detroit pronunciation (DEW boys), I would have known what he was talking about.
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Basset said on July 26, 2015 at 8:03 am
Same pronunciation for Dubois County in southwestern Indiana.
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Suzanne said on July 26, 2015 at 8:43 am
Another first place for Indiana!!!
http://www.journalgazette.net/news/local/police-fire/Pharmacy-heists-hit-an-unwanted-high-7900336
Honest to Goodness
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Deborah said on July 26, 2015 at 9:40 am
Suzanne, reading your link was interesting. New Mexico has big drug problems too, it’s multi-generational there, grandma and grandpa are addicted along with the rest of the family. Desperation is the scariest part, what people are willing to do to get their next fix. My husband has stories about guys in Viet Nam who would walk out in dangerous fire-fight areas to seek out their drugs. But what in the world is wrong with Indiana now? We used to say that about Kansas, well actually we still do.
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Dave said on July 26, 2015 at 10:36 am
Gratiot, Ohio, is pronounced Gray-shot. Gratiot is west of Zanesville, Ohio, in Muskingum County.
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alex said on July 26, 2015 at 10:43 am
Part of the problem around here may have to do with an area chain of pain clinics that was closed down last year, cutting off thousands of Opana and OxyContin addicts from their source. The doctor who owned this outfit and some of his staff are facing criminal charges for overprescribing drugs and falsifying records. They were operating under a cloud the last few years because of numerous deaths attributed to their practices. The local health commissioner was on the news at the time they shut down saying that this was a matter of grave concern because there are not enough other pain management clinics in the area to absorb so many patients.
Recently there has been a huge spike in local heroin use reported and this is being attributed to the shutdown of these clinics.
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Jolene said on July 26, 2015 at 11:01 am
Haven’t read it yet, but WaPo has a big, front-page feature on the resurgence of heroin. This is the first in a series on this topic, and this one, at least, is by Marc Fisher, a great reporter and writer.
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Deborah said on July 26, 2015 at 12:21 pm
I read it Jolene, totally worth it. Well written.
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brian stouder said on July 26, 2015 at 12:40 pm
A cultural note.
Pam and the young folks and I are still doing the residence hotel thing (probably another few weeks stretch ahead of us) in a hotel west of downtown, near Lutheran hospital. Whenever we run any errands, we end up blowing through town, and yesterday I noted a group of young ladies in cowboy boots/shorts/waist-revealing tops/cowboy hats….and then another, and another – and Pam immediately said “Dierks Bentley concert!”
She then enlightened me as to who Dierks is, and how people who like Mr Bentley might tend to dress – and we continued on our way (had to round up a birthday cake for our now-17 year old daughter, plus some other stuff).
It was entertaining, though, to see how folks dressed to see their fave singer. Honestly, it looked just like when we were in Cheyenne, Wyoming last summer, for the rodeo
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beb said on July 26, 2015 at 2:41 pm
Linda @59;Deborah @47: Don’t forget the weirdly pronounced German names in Detroit (which is itself a mispronounced french name) Schoenherr is pronounced SHAY-ner.
Brian Stouder: “it looked just like when we were in Cheyenne, Wyoming last summer, for the rodeo” — except in Cheyenne people were just wearing “clothes” instead of a costume.
Jeff@33: That is indeed the article I recalled on the formation of urban police forces. It perhaps overstates its case, but as with Zinn’s History of The American People things sometime need to be overstated to counter all the whitewashing they get.
This will probable explode a few people’s heads but, on a cost-benefit level ten deaths a year from traffic stops seems a manageable loss for what is an inherently unpredictable interaction. Sure one would like to see zero deaths from traffic stops: so would the 1000 death civilians killed by the police. There are a number of ways to reduce the number of cops killed in traffic stops. Two, actually: greatly reduce the number of guns in America, or reduce the number of traffic stops the police make. Since the first appear unlikely let’s look at the later. Sandra Bland changed lanes without using her turn signal. I would guess that 90% of people forget to use their turn signals some or all of the time. It’s good manners and ought to be taught in driver’s ed but an actual ticketable offense? Like Prohibition, with everyone is breaking the law it’s time to change the law. Then there was the guy killed because one of his three tail-lights was out — in a state that only requires one operating tail light. These are bogus laws which exist largely as a pretext for the police to stop and search a car, harass the driver and look for evidence of some other crime. They’re no different from the stop-and-frisk policy in New York. They’re based on the anti-American principle that everyone is guilty until proved innocent. Do away with petty traffic infractions, reduce the number of traffic stops cops make and you’ll reduce the number of injuries.
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Sherri said on July 26, 2015 at 3:10 pm
Either make the stops fairer, so that I’m just as likely to get stopped for failing to signal a lane change as someone like Sandra Bland is, or end them. Actually, just end them, since I really think stops for moving violations should be about the safety of the roads, not for raising revenue, confiscating cash, or on the rare chance that you might find a real criminal.
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Charlotte said on July 28, 2015 at 8:45 pm
I lost a couple of relatives in the Eastland disaster — here’s an old clipping about the Plamondons bad luck (Eastland/Iroquois Theater/Lusitania):http://www.eastlanddisaster.org/news/the-844-eastland-lusitania-and-iroquois-theatre-tragedies-in-plamondon-family
My great-grandmother, known as “Lolo” was the Charlotte Plamondon in the Iroquois theater and my namesake.
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