Alan K. Henderson's Weblog

Last week a white Mobile man was beaten to near death by about 20 blacks. As reported by the Daily Caller, several witnesses heard one voice yell "Now that’s justice for Trayvon." Naturally, a lot of folks suspected that the attacks were motivated by both racial and Trayvon-related tensions. After all, there is a precedent for this sort of thing - ask Reginald Denny. Other reports said there may have been an altercation over a pick-up basketball game in the street.

But initial appearances can be deceiving. As the evidence rolled in, we learn the real story - see the Daily Caller link:

Ashley Parker, whose brother Matthew Owens is clinging to life after the assault, said Owens was attacked after her 21-year-old daughter witnessed a group of African-American youth moving from yard to yard in the neighborhood and taking something that didn’t belong to them. She told Owens, who confronted the youths. She “saw one of them take something off a porch,” Parker said, “and that is when Matthew approached them and told them they need to go home.” The group returned with more than a dozen others, she said, beating Owens with bats, brass knuckles, a chair, a paint can and other objects. The attack left him bloodied and unconscious.So, it was all about a guy confronting burglars and getting gang-assaulted for it. Anything else to see here?

Yes - the Trayvon remark. If the Trayvon case was irrelevant to this attack, why does that one thug's outburst matter? Because it's relevant to public reaction to the attack. The media and certain political leaders have gone to great lengths to (wittingly or unwittingly) set the stage for a replay of the Los Angeles Riots. A thug yells "Trayvon," and to some it looked like those chickens are already starting to come home to roost. It's not a bad thing to worry about a reasonably probable event - it is a bad thing to think that eve event has already happened when it hasn't. The Trayvon case has not yet claimed its first Reginald Denny - or worse, a Yankel Rosenbaum.
Something else disturbs me: that the "justice for Trayvon" meme may enter (or may already be entering) the black thug community. I can imagine thugs of any ethnicity invoking the outrage-du-jour against one of "their people" as a sort of battle cry. If we start seeing more instances of violent criminals shouting "justice for Trayvon," that will influence some to suspect that Los Angeles Riots Redux is closer than it really is. Worse, there are some leftists who will feel natural sympathy for ANYONE who exclaims "justice for Trayvon," even if that person is in the process of committing a serious crime. We know who they are - they're the same leftists who excused the many crimes associated with Occupy Wall Street. Some of them were among the yammering class at the time of the Denny beating, and I'll bet many of them saw no problem with Damian Williams' mere 10-year sentence for his role in that crime.

Labels: Crime, Culture, Politics

Andrew Klavan's politically-incorrect take.

Link via Transterrestrial Musings. Recalling this old post of mine, I left this comment:

This brings to mind an old news item. A few celebs including Cameron Diaz had visited a poverty-stricken Nepalese village. Diaz had remarked about how the villagers "continue to live in harmony with the world around them."

It never occurs to these people that a goodly part of nature is at war with us. Unsanitary homes and drinking water supplies are not harmony, they are capitulation to the jackboot of nature. At the time, life expectancy in Nepal was 59 years; now it’s 68, so the country is doing something right. (Google charts that statistic from 1960 forward.

Next Earth Day someone should show up at an event protesting against nature, with “Stand up against the oppressor” signs.

Labels: Culture, Politics

The Special Counsel to President Nixon and Prison Fellowship founder passed away yesterday. For those with an hour and a half to spare, CSPAN has a video interview, in which Colson "talks about the secret White House tapes, the Watergate break-in, his relationship with the 37th president, and the day that Richard Nixon resigned from office."

With Timothy George, Colson wrote a number of columns for Christianity Today, available here. This appears to be Colson's last live Breakpoint broadcast; Breakpoint's main page is here.

Labels: Obituaries, Politics, Religion

By a museum to be built by the European Union.

The idiocy is so obvious it shouldn't require explanation. No-brainer - the war was fought between independent states. We don't refer to the Middle Ages/Renaissance wars between the Italian city-states as Italian civil wars - there was no Italy then. Likewise, a war between independent states Italy and France (and others) was not a civil war.

Labels: Europe, History, Politics

Life: Obama has eaten dog meat, way back during his Indonesian childhood.

Art: Poodle: The Other White Meat: The Second Sherman's Lagoon Collection.

Labels: Comics, Food

Turn in your forms on time. We want information...information...information...and don't forget the check.

Labels: Blog traditions, Tax Day

Brilliant.

(via Spatula City)

Labels: Humor, Politics

And I don't even drink.

Hillary Clinton's party night in Cartagena as the most ethical member of the Obama administration. Seriously.

Also seriously...I'm with Nile Gardiner on this. Public face is everything to high-ranking government officials. Any wild and crazy partying should be held well away from the limelight.

Labels: Politics

The world’s most complex Rube Goldberg machine.

Labels: Cool stuff

I do not recall a time when so many facts surrounding a single news story have been misreported and falsified by the news media. Spatula City (reprinting a detailed comment from this NJ.com article) and Pajamas Media contributor Bob Owens cite the many falsehoods that have been reported about the Trayvon Martin shooting.

There has better be criminal prosecutions.

Labels: Crime, Media

Ironically, Fox's slogan could serve as a defense for a CNN reporter who reported a shooting suspect's Facebooked ethnic slurs - and actually reported what those slurs were. In comments I said this:

First question: do children still watch the news? That is the only issue that concerns me.

If reporters report that so-and-so said nasty stuff and tells the audience what those nasty words were, I'd say they're doing their job.

(Full disclosure: I prefer Fox over CNN. Hell, I prefer Instapundit over CNN.)

Labels: Crime, Media

Wapo has the column here. I'm looking forward to the future column in which he promises to explore "a more economic approach to the 'natural' problem of drugs."

Labels: Crime, Politics

"All I want for Christmas is cameras in the courtroom and both Gore and Olbermann acting as their own counsel." - NRO's Daniel Foster

Labels: Media

Tornadoes struck the Dallas/Fort Worth area last night.

Labels: News