In a long story about Michael Brown’s trials and tribulations, which include things like fights, drug and alcohol use, vulgar and violent rap lyrics, while attempting to paint a picture of just a typical good boy, we get
Michael Brown, 18, due to be buried on Monday, was no angel, with public records and interviews with friends and family revealing both problems and promise in his young life. Shortly before his encounter with Officer Wilson, the police say he was caught on a security camera stealing a box of cigars, pushing the clerk of a convenience store into a display case. He lived in a community that had rough patches, and he dabbled in drugs and alcohol. He had taken to rapping in recent months, producing lyrics that were by turns contemplative and vulgar. He got into at least one scuffle with a neighbor.
How’s that for honest journalism. “The police say..” If only we had it on video or something, so that it wasn’t just the police department’s word.
Meanhile, the insaniacs at Grist decided that Ferguson’s unrest was a good time to discuss “climate change”.
I gotta say Teach that when I watched the police release the stills and the video of the robbery that Friday morning, I thought it was a hit job to merely smear Brown.
At the time, the police did say they “thought” the person at the QuikTime was Brown (and later Brown’s friend Johnson confirmed it Brown) but the police had not tied the robbery to the shooting and even later that day said that Officer Wilson did not know of the robbery.
It was a smear job on the victim.
Given what we know now, the language in the NY Times article is at best outdated and at worst is wrong.
At the same time, the Washington Post took a shot across the bow at Wilson in a piece that makes absolutely no connection between the shooting and the statements in the article.
It is guilt by association and has no place in serious journalism.
It is clear that the media war is gearing up. People are taking sides on the histories of Brown and Wilson without any thought to establishing a link between the histories and the shooting itself.
This just gets uglier and uglier.
As a side note Teach, what is going on with all the comment spam?
Is Bad Behavior not working or filtering well any more?
You have got to be frustrated on some level to see your article on the Brown / Ferguson / Wilson / NY Times met with a comment on potty training a three year old.
Or maybe that is germane in dealing with liberals. ;)
The way the police released the video was definitely hinky, done in an inappropriate manner. It was a smear job, I’ll agree. And, yeah, the Fish Wrap needs to catch up to reality. You can bet if Brown was White and a member of the Tea Party, the Times would have written that much, much different.
None of the spam blockers are working particularly well over the past couple months. Bad Behavior, Akismet, neither is stopping it all. Of course, there are almost 2500 spam comments in the spam que right now, and that is for about 5 days.
I really do not want to go to Strict Logging with Bad Behavior, and decided against some other type of strict checking. Rather deal with spam than make things more difficult.
About to update Akismet.
I am running Akismet and aren’t having near the problems that you are. Of course, Pirates Cove is a bigger target than I am so that could be adding to it.
I hope you get it fixed or reduced because I know it is annoying to you.
Hang in there.