politics, police, professor, perspective and poker
3 of the BILL HICKS CHRONICLES are now in the can and one of them will be posted on utube soon with links on my web site and on face book.
as soon as obama made the "stupid" remark about the professor and the cops i knew he had stepped into some shit. he cannot, under any circumstances, be seen as the BLACK president and he came across that way by those ill conceived statements. he is now trying to make ammends and probably will but the republicans will play the race card over and over and in these times with so many important things on his plate obama cannot afford these kind of distractions.
on the surface of it, the cops were doing the right thing. they had a call from a neighbor that two black men were breaking into a house. the "black" in the statement was not racial it was descriptive. apparently the professor took umbrage at someone accusing him of being a burglar and refused, at first, to show i.d. well, what did he expect the cops to do?
not every time a black person is stopped or questioned by the police is racism involved. to the contrary, i would say that the majority of the time there is a good reason on the cops part for the incident whatever it was. and i say this as a strong supported of civil rights for all and have stood on that side of the fence all my life but a crime is a crime and a criminal is a criminal regardless of race. the police have a very, very dangerous job and they are, for the most part, good men and women (of all races...one of the cops in mass. was black) of good character and good intentions. are there rotten apples in the cops cart? of course. are there black (or brown) people stopped just for racism? of course. but some long haired white kids are stopped because of a "profile" as well. perfection is really hard to come by and, as far as i know, no one person nor one race is perfect.
i hope that obama will make an apology for his remarks, not just to say that he could have said it better but an out and out apology. we shall see.
on the poker front: one of the reasons i like mandalay bay is their "high hand bonuses" where they pay extra money for 4 of a kind or better with both hole cards playing and 20 dollars in the pot to qualify. yesterday, rhonda and i were playing there and we were at a short table of 5 when i said that i was not going to play where my money, so to speak, was 40% of the total so i went and got some coffee and cigarette. finally someone else sat down and i came back. even though i would have the blind in two hands i went ahead and posted my 3 dollars (fair is fair) and took my seat. i look down and there is a pair of tens, so i raise to 10 dollars and am called by one person. flop comes ten, ten, jack. FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS thank you very much.
as soon as obama made the "stupid" remark about the professor and the cops i knew he had stepped into some shit. he cannot, under any circumstances, be seen as the BLACK president and he came across that way by those ill conceived statements. he is now trying to make ammends and probably will but the republicans will play the race card over and over and in these times with so many important things on his plate obama cannot afford these kind of distractions.
on the surface of it, the cops were doing the right thing. they had a call from a neighbor that two black men were breaking into a house. the "black" in the statement was not racial it was descriptive. apparently the professor took umbrage at someone accusing him of being a burglar and refused, at first, to show i.d. well, what did he expect the cops to do?
not every time a black person is stopped or questioned by the police is racism involved. to the contrary, i would say that the majority of the time there is a good reason on the cops part for the incident whatever it was. and i say this as a strong supported of civil rights for all and have stood on that side of the fence all my life but a crime is a crime and a criminal is a criminal regardless of race. the police have a very, very dangerous job and they are, for the most part, good men and women (of all races...one of the cops in mass. was black) of good character and good intentions. are there rotten apples in the cops cart? of course. are there black (or brown) people stopped just for racism? of course. but some long haired white kids are stopped because of a "profile" as well. perfection is really hard to come by and, as far as i know, no one person nor one race is perfect.
i hope that obama will make an apology for his remarks, not just to say that he could have said it better but an out and out apology. we shall see.
on the poker front: one of the reasons i like mandalay bay is their "high hand bonuses" where they pay extra money for 4 of a kind or better with both hole cards playing and 20 dollars in the pot to qualify. yesterday, rhonda and i were playing there and we were at a short table of 5 when i said that i was not going to play where my money, so to speak, was 40% of the total so i went and got some coffee and cigarette. finally someone else sat down and i came back. even though i would have the blind in two hands i went ahead and posted my 3 dollars (fair is fair) and took my seat. i look down and there is a pair of tens, so i raise to 10 dollars and am called by one person. flop comes ten, ten, jack. FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS thank you very much.
posted by Ron Shock | 9:15 AM
2 Comments:
And Gore Vidal says:
One interesting fallout from the tragic business in Cambridge – and it is tragic, let me tell you – was that the president was forced to speak suddenly in his own voice, and at his very best, and not swathed in the authority of his great rank, but simply as a citizen making a sensible comment about a nobody policeman. Yes, I mean “nobody” literally – I know all human beings, if they are Americans, are highly valued and worshiped, indeed, for their wonderfulness and their helpfulness to fellow citizens. I state this ironically, as you might suspect. After all, why would the young man be armed unless he was a superior citizen, elected, as it were, by his fellows to ride herd on an unruly mob unless he was demonstrably special by virtue of being legally armed, which is how we are supposed to tell them from us?
But there the president was, saying, this is stupid. But he did not say, “How dare you go after a 58-year-old man who is one of the great scholars of the country and think you can get away with it?” Unfortunately, it never seemed to have crossed the president’s mind in this crisis that he is expected to do something about it. I know there is a great deal, as they say, on his plate, but after displays of this sort, he should call together a commission involving every section of the country. Every municipality is complaining about local police forces run wild. And no one does anything about it. And our masters are armed to the teeth and would seem more likely to fire at us instead of at the troublemakers. I can’t think of any civilized country that would allow this, from the look of these bulky guardians of the peace, to whom no right-minded person would allow even a slingshot to be given.
And Gore Vidal says:
One interesting fallout from the tragic business in Cambridge – and it is tragic, let me tell you – was that the president was forced to speak suddenly in his own voice, and at his very best, and not swathed in the authority of his great rank, but simply as a citizen making a sensible comment about a nobody policeman. Yes, I mean “nobody” literally – I know all human beings, if they are Americans, are highly valued and worshiped, indeed, for their wonderfulness and their helpfulness to fellow citizens. I state this ironically, as you might suspect. After all, why would the young man be armed unless he was a superior citizen, elected, as it were, by his fellows to ride herd on an unruly mob unless he was demonstrably special by virtue of being legally armed, which is how we are supposed to tell them from us?
But there the president was, saying, this is stupid. But he did not say, “How dare you go after a 58-year-old man who is one of the great scholars of the country and think you can get away with it?” Unfortunately, it never seemed to have crossed the president’s mind in this crisis that he is expected to do something about it. I know there is a great deal, as they say, on his plate, but after displays of this sort, he should call together a commission involving every section of the country. Every municipality is complaining about local police forces run wild. And no one does anything about it. And our masters are armed to the teeth and would seem more likely to fire at us instead of at the troublemakers. I can’t think of any civilized country that would allow this, from the look of these bulky guardians of the peace, to whom no right-minded person would allow even a slingshot to be given.
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