April 19, 1775

BY the rude bridge that arched the flood, Their flag to April's breeze unfurled, Here once the embattled farmers stood, And fired the shot heard round the world. --Ralph Waldo Emerson

Publicola also reminds us of last year's post.

We're the Only Ones Off Key Enough...

A Hermosa Beach police officer named in two excessive force lawsuits was arrested in Redondo Beach last week after he got into a scuffle with someone who reportedly was heckling him during a karaoke performance.

You like me. You really like me!

Or else.

For my next number: Don't It Make Your Brown Eyes Black and Blue...

Mi-mi-mi-i-i-i....

[More from "The Only Ones" files...]

We're the Only Ones Responsive Enough

POLICE chiefs were today facing demands for an inquiry into how a technical fault left hundreds of non-emergency police calls unanswered...But the most recent April call figures show the centre receives around 80 non-emergency calls an hour from all over Edinburgh and the Lothians meaning that around 360 calls may have gone unanswered...It is ust another hiccup for the £10.4 million call centre, which ran into controversy soon after opening in February 2004, when 300 calls went unanswered in the first three weeks.

"You don't need to have a gun; the police will protect you."

Ri-ight.

[More from "The Only Ones" files...]

Protected Mayors Plot Disarming Everyone Outside Their Jurisdictions

Boston Mayor Thomas Menino and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg will host a summit next week for about a dozen of their colleagues to discuss gun violence, a problem that has long frustrated big-city mayors.

Mayors from Dallas, Philadelphia, Milwaukee, Washington, D.C., and Seattle are among those scheduled to attend the meeting at Gracie Mansion, the historic Upper East Side house where Bloomberg holds official events.

And they'll meet under the finest armed security taxpayer money can buy!

Dare I Speculate?

Siretha Woods, whose daughter was killed last month by stray gunfire, also called on guns to be relinquished. Siretha White, 10, was struck by a stray bullet at her surprise birthday party in an Englewood home. Police have said the intended target was someone standing on the porch.

"I got 11 more kids," Woods said. "Let's let the rest of them grow up."

12 kids in all? Different last names from you? Grammar indicating lack of education? An intended target was on your porch, an invited guest to one of your parties?

Siretha, I don't suppose any of your life choices have contributed to a culture where stuff like this happens...?

Big Crybaby Quits Sierra Club

“It appears to me that the Sierra Club should have better projects to spend $15,700 on than sending some nimrod to Alaska to shoot wildlife.”

He doesn't get his way, so he calls people names, then takes his ball and goes home.

Paul Watson, you're a paragon of maturity.

[Via John Schaefer]

University Professors Shape Laws

All of which, Kleck said, can be boiled-down to a bumper-sticker slogan: "Bad guys have guns, bad effects. Good guys have guns, good effects."

This is a pleasantly surprising balanced report, although I suspect the line about guns and property owners will renew an old debate...

Yet Another Gun "Buyout"

The Rev. Louis Coleman, who directs the center, said volunteers buy guns from people for $20 to $25. Those guns are later destroyed.

The campaign is an effort to keep weapons off the street and out of homes, Coleman said.

And how about away from your kid, Reverend?

I have to wonder if anyone has done a criminal background check on the volunteers handling the firearms?

How to Stop a Potential School Shooter in His Tracks

What we are doing right now is reviewing our discipline plan and our lockdown procedures, and we are making sure the staff on site have a daily schedule for the principal, assistant principal, probation officer, and the student accountability specialist. ... We are also determining if we need more hand-held radios.

Schedules, radios and an accountability specialist. Why the solution is so simple it's elegant. Why didn't we see this before?

What do you think, Wayne?

A Matter of Purpose

Critics rightly point out that some criminals don't bother to register their guns and that criminals may acquire them by illegal means. The fact some people ignore the law does not mean that the registry serves no purpose.

Yes, we're aware of the purpose it serves--and whose.

UN Renovation Needs U.S. OK

The United Nations headquarters is "falling down," but a planned renovation still needs U.S. government approval, the project director said yesterday.

I say let it fall. Maybe we can melt the metal down and make something useful--like arms for free people. Start with this:

We're the Only Ones Lame Enough

A Clayton County Police officer reholstering his gun after a brief foot chase Sunday morning accidentally shot himself in the leg.

At least they don't say he was shot by his gun...

[More from "The Only Ones" files...]

More Guns Plague City Streets

Altoona police reported one shooting incident over the weekend and confiscated a gun with its serial numbers filed off.

That's it? You use the word "plague" and I'm expecting something Biblical here, like locusts or pestilence.

Nice use of hyperbole, Altoona Mirror!

"Gun Advocates Ignoring Columbine"

Didn't Benjamin Franklin say that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results?

I'm not sure who said it, Heidi Yewman, but he had a point. Every public school in America is a "gun free zone" and we can see how well that works.

Or are you expecting different results the next time?

Oh, I know. There woudn't be a "next time' if we only banned guns.

Yeah, we see how well that's worked everywhere it's been tried, too.

Heidi, are you insane?

How to Be a Polite World Citizen

The reputation of the "Ugly American" abroad is not, however, just some cruel stereotype, but - according to the American government itself - worryingly accurate. Now, the State Department in Washington has joined forces with American industry to plan an image make-over by issuing guides for Americans travelling overseas on how to behave.

Under a programme starting next month, several leading US companies will give employees heading abroad a "World Citizens Guide" featuring 16 etiquette tips on how they can help improve America's battered international image.

I wonder if it contains tips such as "Don't sneak over foreign borders and make yourself at home"?

Europe is being taken over by increasingly hostile and violent strains of Islamic fundamentalism and they're worried about us being rude?

Destroying Babylon

Babylon, in reggae and hip-hop slang, is a term for a corrupt place — it is sometimes used to refer to white society. Bascunan and Pearce interviewed more than 100 rappers worldwide for the book, to be published by Random House of Canada, talking about the role guns played in their lives.

"How many rappers have been shot, lost a brother, lost a friend?" asks Bascunan. "How much gun violence have we heard of? It seemed pretty obvious what the problem was. Guns escalate violence."

There you have it. The cause of violence in the gangsta community is white society and guns! It must be so, because more than 100 rappers say it is...(I wonder if they interviewed Proof?)

My favorite line comes from Ms. Dynamite, who started out strong and then blinked:

I want a man that has, if not a job, then is looking for a job.

Yeah, baby, I'm lookin'...

We've talked about crime and violence in "the community" before, and acknowledge this is fraught with the peril of being branded with today's Scarlet Letter, the dreaded "R." I will repeat myself:

[W]e also can't forget to look at race--not as a cause of violent crime, but as an indicator of populations most directly affected by and responsive to a continuing history of destructive government policies.

If we're afraid to even address this, we're never going to be able to make things right. And those hurt the most by this self-imposed blindness will continue to be the least properous and protected among us.

Hristos a Înviat!

Adevarat a Înviat!

"Student Safety Was Not in Jeopardy"

A lockdown at the West Bend High Schools Thursday yielded a gun in a vehicle that led to an arrest. No drugs, however, were found in any locker or vehicle.

The gun, a cased, 22-caliber rifle, was found in a West student’s truck in the parking lot. Ammunition was found in the Ford truck as well.

The driver, a 17-year-old town of Trenton male, said he was an avid hunter and forgot it was in the truck behind his seat, according to the West Bend Police Depart-ment and the school district. He was arrested and taken to the Washington County Jail on charges of possession of a dangerous weapon on school grounds, the police said.

The cased rifle was confiscated.

Students’ safety was not in jeopardy.

Sounds like they've taken the one kid who, in his spare time, pursues activities requiring patience, discipline, intelligence, work, knowledge and skill, and dropped the hammer on him for it.

The compulsory education system requires individuals to attend and report to a specific location for a specified time. To then turn around and require them to submit to warrantless searches and seizures sounds a lot like the state ordering you to surrender your unalienable rights--and assuming the power to punish you if you don't.

It sounds like that because it is like that. Not that you could ever get one of the black robed high priests charged with abiding by "the supreme law of the land" to agree...

We're the Only Ones Following You Enough...

A former police officer has been convicted of stalking a woman with whom he claimed to be romantically involved.

Yep, sure glad this creep spent decades carrying a gun where you and I could not.

We're the Only Ones Immune Enough

A former FBI agent accused of helping a ruthless mobster plot gangland slayings in Brooklyn more than a decade ago wants his case moved to federal court, his lawyers said in court papers.

State prosecutors have charged R. Lindley DeVecchio with four counts of murder in what they billed as one of the worst law enforcement corruption cases in U.S. history. They said on Tuesday that they would fight to keep the case in state court...

Attorneys for DeVecchio claim the case belongs in federal court because there -- unlike in state court -- they would be allowed to argue that he was immune from criminal charges arising from his duties as a federal agent.

It certainly sounds like he was operating by the book...and still is.