On The Origin Of Species

Nobody has to tell me that I said I was going on a week long vacation.  But there are some extenuating circumstances why I’m writing an article today.  And as soon as I’m done I’m going back to doing nothing.  I promise.  Timing is everything and I would be totally remiss if I didn’t have something to say on today the one hundred fiftieth anniversary of the publishing of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, the book many claim as the foundation for the theory of evolution.  I heard this as I was climbing stairs at the gym this morning.  I was listening to National Public Radio like I always do when I try to give this old body something that reasonably resembles a work out.

As I continued to climb the stairs, the radio program went on to give a brief synopsis on the controversy surrounding Mr. Darwin and his theory on evolution that flies in the face of many people who want to cling to their religious belief systems without any distraction.  The idea of species evolving over the eons of Earth’s existence flies in the face of what we learned in church.  God made heaven and Earth and everything in between in seven days and nobody can say otherwise.  Time started precisely on a second after midnight on the first Monday to be and come that following Saturday six days later everything was done.

For many people, the reality is that everything that exists was made in seven days.  There is not enough corroborating science to serve as the basis for the theory of evolution and therefore it should not be taught as fact in our schools.  By many people’s accounting, Creationism, the religious belief that the universe was created by a Supreme Being, is just as relevant as a scientific theory.  But if the claim from these people is that there is no evidence to support the theory of evolution, if all the archeological findings of species in various stages of development does nothing to support evolution, what evidence do we have that creationism or intelligent design, is something that deserves to be taught as science?

If past experience with these types of people is any indication, their only claim to proof is what is written in a Christian bible.  They’ll point to the first chapter in the book of Genesis, point to the verse that said the Supreme Being created the heaven and the earth, and say that’s all the proof they need.  And if such “fact” is enough to prove the legitimacy of the theory of creationism, couldn’t somebody do the same with Mr. Darwin’s book, turn to the page that says evolution is legit, and that’s all the proof you need?

And without batting an eye the creationist would say that any comparison between the Christian bible and Mr. Darwin’s work of fiction is blasphemy.  God wrote the Christian bible.  And when the Christian is asked for proof that god wrote the Christian bible, the good Christian will turn to some other page in their bible and find all the proof that they need.  It’s easy to accept the word of the bible as proof when one is conditioned to believe that the mere fact that the bible exists is proof of god’s existence.

Mr. Darwin doesn’t enjoy such benefit of doubt.  In fact, it doesn’t matter how many archeological digs turn up bones of various species in the various stages of development along the Earth’s timeline.  It doesn’t matter how much science is developed to measure the age of fossilized bones or other ancient artifacts.  To the person who is dead set against believing in evolution, it wouldn’t matter if somebody invented a time machine, went back to the past and showed the progression of the species.  The automatic response from the staunch denier would be to throw their nose up in the air and call the whole affair smoke and mirrors.  There will always be a convenient excuse why evolution is not legitimate.

A hundred years since the publishing of the book that remains the most prime example of the struggle between science and religion.  The evolution of species through time is a scientific theory that is widely accepted as fact through the more reasonable side of the scientific community.  The other side will hold fast to its belief system based on the delusion that the bible is a book of facts that can be taken to the bank.  But the truth is that the Christian bible is just a book like any other.  And if people are willing to accept what is written there as proof that it is true, then that is truly the flimsiest of evidence ever used to prove a point.  The naysayer cannot point to Darwin and say that there is no proof there while at the same time touting their belief in creationism as founded in science.

It’s Hard To Leave Blogged Enough Alone

There just isn’t enough time in the day these days.  Don’t let that observation give you the impression that I’m complaining.  If given my druthers I’d rather be up to my elbows in work instead of sitting around doing nothing.  But with so much that has to be done, there isn’t really enough time to get it all done.  Something usually ends up slipping by the wayside.  And unfortunately, more often than it did before, it’s usually the blog that ends up on the back burner.

When I first started putting articles up thirty two months ago, my keyboard was smoking.  A day didn’t go by where I didn’t have at least one article to publish.  Some days even had two.  I can’t point to any day that had three but I’m sure I did it once or twice.  Maybe I had a lot of time to kill then.  But that was a totally different world back then on the other side of the country.  The family’s moved from Idaho to Missouri.  The job has changed.  Baby boy was a newborn then and now he’s a walking and talking chaos machine.  And his grandmother, my mom, has been added to the mix and needs a little help.  And to top it all off we now have a large four family building that we’re trying to restore.  Life has gotten a little busier.  And some things get kicked down the road so often that they never get done.

Yesterday I published an article I promised to Baba Orunmila over six months ago.  After watching the film The Haunting In Connecticut, Baba gave me an assignment and asked that I write a little something about the way we slander our ancestors.  I thought it would be a piece of cake.  But then something happens in the news and it took precedence.  And then on other days, I have no time or energy to give a real article the hour or so it needs to make it something worth reading so I’ll pull out one of my practice essays from way back when, dust it off, and publish it instead.  But at least I published something.  Even when I’m more than tired and a little brain dead it seems I can’t leave my blog alone, even if it is just to reply to a comment.

When the family was moving from Idaho to Missouri, we made sure we spent the night at motels with internet access so I could keep the blog current.  Even when we had a family emergency a few months back, coming back to the blog after a long day at the hospital helping to keep everybody’s spirits up was actually a welcomed return to normalcy for me.  And even when most of the comments to articles were vehemently negative, full of a triple combination of attacks, accusations and threats, I kept writing.  I just couldn’t leave the blog alone.

But today I’ve decided to take a little time away from the blog.  In the past thirty months I’ve never been gone for more than a day tops.  Today starts a one week vacation to take advantage of our Thanksgiving holidays.  I’ll spend the time more focused on my family.  I’ll let the blog do what a blog does when people go away and it’s left to its own devices.  No comments.  No quick notes.  Nothing for one week.  That may not sound like much to you but for me it sounds foreboding.  I spent a long time and a lot of effort getting the few people that come now.  I have a fear that in a week, I’ll be back down to single digits and will have to start the whole process of building a somewhat respectable readership over again.

I’m the first to admit that I’m no Oprah with the capability to change the course of politics, book sells, or anything else.  I’m just a poor slob like everyone else trying to eek out a stake on the internet.  And with the little noise I do make I like the fact that some people listen to hear what I have to say and keep coming back for a little more.  But even I have to admit, after thirty two months of knocking articles out on a consistent basis it is time to let if go, even if it is just for a little while.

New York’s 9/11 Jury Pool

And some people think the terrorist might get a break because of a sympathetic juror in the New York City area.

The Comedy In Connecticut

I’ve had an assignment for a few months now.  It was right after I saw the movie The Haunting In Connecticut.  The story is a work of fiction about the Campbell family’s encounter with the battle between good and evil from the supernatural realm.  Trying to cope with the cancer ravaging their teenage son, in order to be closer to the clinic where he is receiving treatment, the family winds up moving to an abandoned funeral parlor that they did not realize was once used for séances and as a laboratory to study aspects of the dead and the supernatural many decades ago.  The son struggling with his health is clairvoyant and starts to serve as a kind of homing beacon for spiritual entities to crossover into our reality.

Back in the day, the previous resident of the house would dig up bodies from the nearby cemetery and conduct experiments to communicate with the dead.  I don’t remember the complete line of reasoning, but some how, cutting the eyelids off of a human carcass and cutting long phrases, perhaps prayers into the skin, prevents the spirit from moving on to the next realm of existence and forever leaving it trapped in the house.  The trapped spirits would enhance the abilities of his clairvoyant young assistant and his skill would be used to conduct séances for a handsome fee and notoriety.  The Campbell family finds a box full of dried eyelids under the floor boards indicating that dozens of bodies may have been mutilated.  Predictably, the climax comes when all of the spirits, angry at being manipulated, manifest in their mummified bodies for a final show down with the innocent Campbell family.

While the movie is not meant for anything more than entertainment for people who enjoy horror flicks, it is yet another example of how we can allow ourselves to be programmed to fear elements of the supernatural.  Dead bodies are little more than bags of flesh.  It doesn’t matter if eyelids or any other body parts are cut off or how many or what words are carved into mummified skin, dead bodies cannot become anchors to our spiritual souls.  If such was the case, cows and chickens would be haunting butcher shops and slaughter houses.  It just doesn’t happen.

For some of us, when the lights go out at night, we can imagine all kinds of unspeakable horrors waiting for us in the dark because of the fictional spiritual drama we like to see and hear.  Many of us love our ghost stories and want to be scared to death.  But these ghost stories are to the supernatural what Michael Myers and Friday the Thirteenth films are to the suburbs.  An abomination on the screen doesn’t necessarily translate into reality.  A lot of us can watch a slasher film and keep what we see in perspective.  We don’t go around thinking somebody in a spray painted Captain Kirk mask is going to pop out from behind the next tree and start kicking our ass to death.

But let it be something about some ghost that lurks in the closet.  That stuff will start to haunt some of us the moment the lights go out, even though we may be safe and sound in our own home in our own bed.  Add what will be our first line of defense against the supernatural that lurks in the shadows?  Covers and bed sheets.  That’ll keep those evil ghosts away.

We need to develop a more sophisticated sense of appreciation and perspective for all things supernatural.  If somebody came to me with a movie script about how some doctor a century ago who dug up bodies and cut off eyelids to enhance the powers of a psychic, I’d probably give it back to them and ask them to make it a little more realistic.  What’s the basis for such a hypothesis other than somebody’s vivid imagination about the relationship between our spirit and our body.  I would give them back their script and suggest that they develop a little more respect for our ancestors.

A long time ago I would’ve been more than ready to believe our ancestors could be captured and controlled to do our bidding.  But now I understand that such movies have as much realism as movies like Ghostbusters.  And like Ghostbusters with its ectoplasmic slime, these movies are little more than comedy waiting to be appreciated for their silliness and their ability to distort and little more.  I thought as much when I saw the movie so many months ago.  When it comes to drama and thrills based on the supernatural, The Haunting In Connecticut misses the mark entirely.

The tag line to this movie says that some things cannot be explained.  I guess what they were referring to was people’s attraction to a film like this and the resulting irrational response to and fear of all things supernatural.  And then they have the nerve to say that the movie was based on true events.  So was Alice In Wonderland.  It was based on a real trip by Reverend Charles Lutwidge Dodgson and the Reverend Robinson Duckworth who rowed three little girls up the River Thames.  That doesn’t mean any of us are going to fall down a rabbit hole anytime soon.

Fears Of An Unfair Justice System

What did people think was going to happen when people accused of terrorism were plucked out of their home on the other side of the world and brought to America for whatever reason people in authority thought justified foreigner’s kidnapping.  Here in America, people are supposed to be granted due process in the judicial system.  And after years of being trapped in a state of combatant status limbo it looks like people accused of being terrorist are finally getting their day in court.

But here in the land of tough sounding bravado talk, many of us want to cower in a corner too afraid to give these people their right to a fair hearing.  Too many conservative legislators are ready to jump on the fear mongering band wagon and press Attorney General Eric Holder over his decision to transfer the case of the five men from the military commissions at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to a federal courthouse in the vicinity of ground zero in New York City.  People are publicly airing their disapproval over the constitutional protections being given to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his co-conspirators saying that it is a perversion of justice that runs the risk of freeing men accused of being some of the world’s most notorious terrorists.

It appears that these people have no faith in the American justice system and its ability to convict the world’s most notorious terrorists.  If these bad guys are all that, wouldn’t their conviction in a court of law be a virtual slam dunk?  Some say that Mr. Mohammed will use his trial in to spew anti-American rhetoric and such proselytizing, and that it could make New York City a prime target for yet another terrorist strike.

These people forget that New York City was a target long before Mr. Mohammed and the other members of his super terrorist elite force were captured.  New York has been the target of terrorism for as long as it was arguably considered the financial capital of the world.  People also need to remember that the list of people spewing anti American rhetoric is as long as the Amazon River and often includes a lot of people who work at the very top of our government.  One more person wearing his criticism of America on his or her sleeve isn’t going to break the back of any camel holding back some potential terrorists’ trigger finger.  The whole concept is truly ludicrous and smacks of political posturing.

But what is truly important here is the fact that many of our lawyers and top officials are concerned over the potential for unfairness inherent in our court system.  Our leadership doesn’t have faith in the fairness of the system that is the primary tool the black community has been using for years to obtain some concept of racial fairness and equality in America.  People in the black community should be well aware of the way laws can be manipulated to our disadvantage.  In today’s court system, laws designed to end perpetual practices of racism and restore balance after years of supporting white privilege have been redefined as reverse discrimination and unfair to white people.

And after years of watching all the progress made during the civil rights era erode under some phony ass impression that correcting racism would in itself be racist, some of our legislatures who created all the loop holes in our system of laws that make the courts the farce they are now want to complain that there’s too much of a chance that the courts might be unfair.
Naturally, with traditional environment of politics being the type of animal that is more than happy to feast on its own, there is bound to be high profile opposition to Mr. Holder’s decision.  And the opposition will only intensify in the months, and quite potentially years, of legal maneuverings necessary to bring this trail to pass.

Indeed, during Mr. Holder’s appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee in the hearing held for him to defend his decision, Republican Senator Charles Grassley from Iowa told Mr. Holder that the situation was ludicrous considering the fact that all it would take is just one juror to derail the government’s case.  And somebody else brought signatures from a hundred thousand New Yorkers demanding that the accused remain at Guantanamo Bay.  Who needs a court when so many people think a one sided collection of signatures should suffice?

Honestly, if Mr. Mohammad’s rights were improperly trampled by people who represent our government, if he was tortured repeatedly and incessantly, the only person who gave him this get out of jail card would be the people who authorized the trampling of his rights.  And trust me, a court system carefully designed to protect the status quo would not allow any such technicality to impede our particular brand of American justice.

Going Rogue Doesn’t Mean Going Away

Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin’s new book is released today and it is topping the charts as far as book sales go.  But who’s surprised?  The woman has been pushing this book ever since she inked her seven figure pay deal with the publisher.  For the last week, she’s been making the book selling circuit doing appearances on a variety of shows.  Ms. Palin’s interview with Oprah Winfrey was meant to be the first interview with the former candidate for Vice President to promote her new book Going Rogue.  That was yesterday.  Today, the bookstores are free to sell Ms. Palin’s book to the rest of the world.

Ms. Palin is doing well for a person who just a scant fourteen months ago was an enigma to just about everybody who didn’t live in Alaska.  Largely responsible for getting the conservative faithful fired up about their hopes for Arizona Senator John McCain’s run for the White House, Ms. Palin is now more than ready to kick aside her backseat role as Mr. McCain’s oval office stand in.  After being in the national spotlight for just a few short months, Ms. Palin realized that even her job as the Governor of Alaska was no where near enough for her ambitions.  She used her other foot to kick the governorship to the side and to go rogue in the private sector.  It seemed Ms. Palin would be willing to do anything to keep the attention of the conservative hopefuls, even putting her political stock at risk.

But the risk seems to have been well worth it.  A lot of people are working to make her more popular now than ever.  And these people are amazingly successful despite the character of the person that they are working with.  Now in her new role as leading lady on the conservative’s political stage, Ms. Palin has returned to the forefront with what could be interpreted as a virtual conservative standing ovation.

And it really doesn’t help that Ms. Palin is featured on talk shows like Oprah to give her account of the numerous appearances she made on the political campaign where she appeared to have stumbled.  One of the most notable stumbles was her appearance on several CBS News interviews with Katie Couric.  When asked an incredibly benign question like what newspaper or magazine she reads on a regular basis, Ms. Palin replied any and all.  Maybe it was a journalist instinct or maybe it was an obvious recognition that Ms. Palin was trying to avoid the question by pulling a thoughtless answer out of thin air, Ms. Couric pressed and asked her to name one.  Who can’t name a newspaper or magazine that they read on a regular or irregular basis?  A normal person might say Time magazine or Washington Post or USA Today if nothing specific came to mind.

Ms. Palin blamed her inability to answer the question to some annoyance with Ms. Couric, who Ms. Palin took pity on and granted the now-infamous interview to because of what she thought was Ms. Couric’s low self esteem and incessant pressure.  Katie Couric might suffer from a variety of mental conditions but I seriously doubt if low self esteem registers on the radar of the anchor person for the CBS Evening News.  It really does appear that Ms. Palin is using this new round of high profile interviews, as well as her book, as an opportunity to settle an old score with the woman who was very instrumental in exposing Ms. Palin as somewhat of an intellectual lightweight.

But if Ms. Palin’s recollection of Ms. Couric can be considered harsh, according to some preliminary reviews of her book, her critique of the Mr. McCain’s political handlers was downright scathing.  The book has so incensed some the Arizona Senator’s aides that he had asked his people to avoid engaging in any public discussion of the book that goes beyond correcting factual inaccuracies.  Nevertheless, conservative party strategists Steve Schmidt and Nicole Wallace have both denied Ms. Palin’s charges and have called the book a work of total fiction.  Essentially, both have called Ms. Palin a liar.

Regardless of the accuracy of this book that Ms. Palin claims is her own words, regardless of all the people who are countering the book’s assertions, regardless of how many interviews people like former future son in law Levi Johnston try to derail her agenda, despite what we see and read about her and by her, Ms. Palin remains a phenomenon that appears incapable of being turned down, let alone snuffed out.  Indeed, for many people who adore her, this woman’s star is brighter now more than ever.  It’s like she’s wearing Teflon underwear.  It appears that the bulldog in lipstick has clamped those powerful jaws on the leg of fame and she refuses to let it go.

Exceptions To Every Rule

Like most people, I have my prejudices.  I am a firm believer that, all things being equal or even a little skewed, children that are obviously black or children with African ancestry should be raised with an appreciation for the black community.  I believe that most white people are not familiar enough with the inherit problems of growing up black in America.  Most white people wouldn’t spend five minutes out of a week immersed in black culture with a few exceptions like music, comedy, and little else of substance.

The converse is very different.  Black people are automatically raised with an appreciation for the dominant community.  It is unavoidable.  It is the dominant community that holds the vast majority of the jobs.  It is the dominant community that controls the government and all sources of media.  It is the dominant community that controls so much of America.  You can’t turn on a television, walk by a magazine stand, or do much of anything else without seeing the influence of dominant America.  It is pretty difficult for black people to ignore the white community.

Therefore, in order for the black community to gain the type of compassion from the dominant community that it readily bestows on its own institutions, I feel that the more black people who grow up in the black community, the better chances we will have changing the issues effecting the black community.  Black kids should be raised by black people.  But this morning, I am reminded that there are always exceptions to any rule.

This morning, a little obviously black girl’s life may be in danger and there is a very good chance that she may have already been murdered, because her white father gave up his rights to custody and released her to her black mother.  Five year old Shaniya Davis is the daughter of a white man and a black woman, the product of a one night stand.  Her father, Bradley Lockhart, said that he has been raising his daughter for several years and recently decided to let her stay with her mother, Antoinette Nicole Davis.  Mr. Lockhart said that Ms. Davis struggled to make ends meet for years to make ends meet.  But the woman had recently obtained a job and a place of her own and decided to give her a chance to raise their daughter.  That was about a month ago.

Last week Ms. Davis called authorities in Fayetteville, North Carolina and reported that little Shaniya was missing.  Authorities began searching nearby wooded areas.  Ms. Davis’ current boyfriend was initially charged in the kidnapping.  But the charges were later dropped and he was released.

When the story made the local news, a hotel worker remembered seeing a child matching Shaniya’s description at a hotel about forty miles away in Sanford, North Carolina.  Investigators reviewed the hotel’s surveillance video and confirmed that the child was actually Shaniya.  The video showed Mario Andrette McNeill carrying Shaniya into a hotel room.  He has been arrested and charged with the little girl’s kidnapping.  McNeill admitted to taking the girl, though his attorney says he will plead not guilty to the charge.

Since then, authorities have arrested the mother.  Fayetteville police say Ms. Davis faces charges related to human trafficking as well as child abuse involving prostitution and the filing of a false police report.  The local newspaper reported that arrest documents indicate that Ms. Davis knowingly provided her daughter for sexual servitude and acts of prostitution.

All things being equal black children should be raised by black families.  The black community needs black children if the black community is to have a future.  But if black children are to have a future, they need to be in a safe environment, whether in the black community or not.  The need for the black community to have a future should never supersede any child’s safety.  The need for a child to be with his or her parent or parents should never put a child in danger.

Just three weeks after getting her daughter the mother is accused of one seriously heinous crime, the betrayal of the flesh and blood that she gave birth to.  Obviously, this mother has her own devils to deal with.  I actually hope she spends the rest of her natural and unnatural life tormented by the thought of what she may have done.  Unfortunately, at least at the moment, I don’t think she has much of a conscious to dwell on her contribution to this incident.

However, it appears Mr. Lockhart might actually be dealing with his demons of regret.  Just three weeks after he gives the little girl to the mother she turns up missing.  He is the parent that was most responsible.  Whatever led him to decide to give the girl to the poor excuse of a mother will haunt him for the rest of his life.  Now, Mr. Lockhart says all he wants is his daughter back.  It is truly unfortunate that his choices, whatever his reasoning may have been, ended up going so wrong.

Please keep Shaniya Davis in your thoughts today.

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Like most people, I have my prejudices.  I am a firm believer that, all things being equal or even a little skewed, children that are obviously black or children with African ancestry should be raised with an appreciation for the black community.  I believe that most white people are not familiar enough with the inherit problems of growing up black in America.  Most white people wouldn’t spend five minutes out of a week immersed in black culture with a few exceptions like music, comedy, and little else of substance.

The converse is very different.  Black people are automatically raised with an appreciation for the dominant community.  It is unavoidable.  It is the dominant community that holds the vast majority of the jobs.  It is the dominant community that controls the government and all sources of media.  It is the dominant community that controls so much of America.  You can’t turn on a television, walk by a magazine stand, or do much of anything else without seeing the influence of dominant America.  It is pretty difficult for black people to ignore the white community.

Therefore, in order for the black community to gain the type of compassion from the dominant community that it readily bestows on its own institutions, I feel that the more black people who grow up in the black community, the better chances we will have changing the issues effecting the black community.  Black kids should be raised by black people.  But this morning, I am reminded that there are always exceptions to any rule.

This morning, a little obviously black girl’s life may be in danger and there is a very good chance that she may have already been murdered, because her white father gave up his rights to custody and released her to her black mother.  Five year old Shaniya Davis is the daughter of a white man and a black woman, the product of a one night stand.  Her father, Bradley Lockhart, said that he has been raising his daughter for several years and recently decided to let her stay with her mother, Antoinette Nicole Davis.  Mr. Lockhart said that Ms. Davis struggled to make ends meet for years to make ends meet.  But the woman had recently obtained a job and a place of her own and decided to give her a chance to raise their daughter.  That was about a month ago.

Last week Ms. Davis called authorities in Fayetteville, North Carolina and reported that little Shaniya was missing.  Authorities began searching nearby wooded areas.  Ms. Davis’ current boyfriend was initially charged in the kidnapping.  But the charges were later dropped and he was released.

When the story made the local news, a hotel worker remembered seeing a child matching Shaniya’s description at a hotel about forty miles away in Sanford, North Carolina.  Investigators reviewed the hotel’s surveillance video and confirmed that the child was actually Shaniya.  The video showed Mario Andrette McNeill carrying Shaniya into a hotel room.  He has been arrested and charged with the little girl’s kidnapping.  McNeill admitted to taking the girl, though his attorney says he will plead not guilty to the charge.

Since then, authorities have arrested the mother.  Fayetteville police say Ms. Davis faces charges related to human trafficking as well as child abuse involving prostitution and the filing of a false police report.  The local newspaper reported that arrest documents indicate that Ms. Davis knowingly provided her daughter for sexual servitude and acts of prostitution.

All things being equal black children should be raised by black families.  The black community needs black children if the black community is to have a future.  But if black children are to have a future, they need to be in a safe environment, whether in the black community or not.  The need for the black community to have a future should never supersede any child’s safety.  The need for a child to be with his or her parent or parents should never put a child in danger.

Just three weeks after getting her daughter the mother is accused of one seriously heinous crime, the betrayal of the flesh and blood that she gave birth to.  Obviously, this mother has her own devils to deal with.  I actually hope she spends the rest of her natural and unnatural life tormented by the thought of what she may have done.  Unfortunately, at least at the moment, I don’t think she has much of a conscious to dwell on her contribution to this incident.

However, it appears Mr. Lockhart might actually be dealing with his demons of regret.  Just three weeks after he gives the little girl to the mother she turns up missing.  He is the parent that was most responsible.  Whatever led him to decide to give the girl to the poor excuse of a mother will haunt him for the rest of his life.  Now, Mr. Lockhart says all he wants is his daughter back.  It is truly unfortunate that his choices ended up going so wrong.

Long Vaccine Lines

Nothing Worth Saving

I was driving by Gateway Bank here in St. Louis, Missouri late last Friday and saw something seriously unusual.  It was about six in the evening, when the small parking lot next to the building is usually void of any vehicles.  But on that day, the lot was full of a fleet of what looked like rental cars.  Each car was new, freshly washed, and conspicuously generic.  My first thought was that the bank was on the verge of collapsing and the FDIC was swooping in.  I can’t remember the last time I saw a security guard monitoring this bank.  But on this particular day there must’ve been at least four guards protecting the cars and the people.  As I drove by I saw two of them standing on either side of the front door.

Not too long ago I heard an article on NPR about the FDIC and the way they move in on banks to try and keep them from going completely under.  They typically move in on a Friday night, flash their badges, and start their work auditing the bank to get an exact picture of where the bank stands.  In order to keep customers from making a run on the bank and making the situation worse, the FDIC moves with as much secrecy as possible and does its best to keep everything as normal looking as possible.

But it’s truly hard to hide the fact that an army of accountants and auditors and banking experts, not to mention a few security guards thrown in for good measure, just descended on this lone bank late on a Friday night.  My curiosity piqued, I took the time to drive around the block to take a closer look.  On the second pass, I saw guards three and four standing in the parking lot.  One would escort people arriving at the bank inside, the other stayed and watched over their cars.  There were a lot of white people showing up at this privately held bank in the heart of the black community.  That in itself was noticeable.

Early the next day, the scene was repeated.  The bank’s normal operating hours on a Saturday is something like nine o’clock to noon.  The parking lot was bursting at the seam with generic cars again.  I parked my car and approached one of the guards.  After I explained that I lived nearby and couldn’t help but notice the cars, I asked the guard for what the deal was.  Dude must’ve been bored and ready for any kind of conservation because he didn’t hold anything back.  He confirmed that the FDIC had arranged for the bank to be sold to an outfit on the other side of the state in Kansas City.  The bank was about to go under new management, but the FDIC was managing the transfer.

Gateway Bank was one of those success stories in which the black community had fought long and hard to make.  If you were a black person living in St. Louis during the sixties, you weren’t getting hired by the dominant community’s banks and you weren’t getting a loan to buy that dream house or that car you wanted.  Back in 1963, civil rights activists in St. Louis began protesting over Jefferson Bank & Trust Co.’s refusal to hire blacks for jobs.  Prospects for financial advancement in St. Louis were pretty slim for blacks.

Disenfranchised blacks opened up a bank with a mission that it would not discriminate against black people.  They soon were able to gain the support of the chairman of the board of the First National Bank of St. Louis.  With support from the white community, Gateway National Bank opened in 1965.  It was a collaboration between people in both the black and white communities.  Today, Gateway Bank’s single branch is now a branch of Central Bank of Kansas City, Missouri.  Gateway Bank had a troubled financial history and was on the FDIC’s list of problem banks since 2006.  The transfer of ownership cost the FDIC over nine million dollars.   This morning, it is business as usual at the bank that still has the name Gateway on its side.

Right now the number of bank failures this year is one hundred twenty three, indicating the worst financial climate in decades.  As the economy has soured with unemployment rising and home prices falling leading its only a natural result that loan defaults would rise as well.  And the FDIC expects bank failures to continue to cascade.  Banks have been especially hurt by failed real estate loans.  But banks that cater predominantly to the black community are especially at risk.  They are sucker bets for failure in an age where people in the black community are told to exercise self reliance.

The historic Gateway Bank could have survived with just a tiny sliver of a fraction of the funds the government gave to such institutions as General Motors and Bank of America and the like.  We know that those institutions, steep in their significance to the dominant community, are way too big to fail.  Institutions like Gateway that play a significant part of the black community don’t even come close to being something worth saving.

Joseph Paul Franklin

Joseph Paul Franklin is a serial killer convicted of several murders.  He is the man who admitted that he tried to kill Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt and advisor to former President Jimmy Carter and civil rights activist Vernon Jordon.  This man is believed to be a drifter with a love of violence who wanted to kill people he considered inferior such as blacks and Jews.  His primary target of choice was mostly black men with white women.  Despite being partially blind he was a proficient marksman, and killed most of his victims from a distance using a rifle.  He would plan his murders in advance several escape routes and techniques in which to leave no evidence.  He killed at random.  He was a follower of Nazism and held memberships in the American Nazi Party and the Ku Klux Klan.

In 1977, he started his murdering spree.  In August of 1977 he fatally shot Alphonse Manning and Toni Schwenn, a black man and a white woman.  Joseph Paul was trying to get away from a bank robbery he committed in Madison, Wisconsin, when he wound up behind a car being driven by Mr. Manning.  Wanting a speedy get away and was frustrated with the pace of Mr. Manning’s driving.  When Manning stopped and got out of the car, Franklin shot him and the woman he was with.

In October of 1977, Joseph Paul Franklin hid outside Brith Shalom synagogue in Richmond Heights, Missouri and used a Remington 700 hunting rifle and killed Gerald Gordon and injured Steven Goldman and William Ash.  After his capture and conviction, he was convicted of murder and sentenced to death by lethal injection in the Potosi Correctional Center in Potosi, Missouri.

In March of 1978, he claims he used a rifle to ambush pornographer Larry Flynt and his lawyer Gene Reeves in Lawrenceville, Georgia.  He claimed that it was in retaliation for an edition of Mr. Flynt’s Hustler magazine that featured interracial sex.  The confession came years after the shooting and there is no evidence to support his claim.

In July of 1978, he killed Bryant Tatum, a black man with a white girlfriend, with a shotgun.  In July of 1979, he killed Harold McIver, a black man who Franklin believed was trying to have sex with a few white women.  In August of 1978, he killed a black man at a Burger King in Falls Church, Virginia.  In October of 1979, he used a rifle to kill a mixed race couple, the black Jesse Taylor and the white Marian Bresette, in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.  In December of 1979, he killed the white fifteen year old prostitute Mercedes Lynn Masters in Dekalb County, Georgia, with a shotgun for having black customers.

He went on to kill a black man in Indianapolis, Indiana.  He killed Rebecca Bergstrom with a handgun in Monroe County, Wisconsin.  He tried to kill Vernon Jordan, Jr. after he had seen Mr. Jordan with a white woman in Fort Wayne, Indiana.  He killed fourteen year old Darrel Lane and his cousin thirteen year old Donte Evans Brown in Bond Hill, Cincinnati.  He killed the mixed race couple Arthur Smothers and Kathleen Mikula in Johnstown, Pennsylvania.  He confessed to killing two hitch hikers he picked up, Nancy Santomero and Vicki Durian in Pocahontas County, West Virginia after one of the them admitted to having a black boyfriend.  He killed two black men as they jogged with white women in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Joseph Paul Franklin was captured when he went to give blood at a blood bank, the nurse recognized his tattoo and called authorities.  He received several life sentences for his crimes in several states.  But in 1997 he was sentenced to death in Missouri.  This man has been linked to twenty murders, six aggravated assaults, sixteen bank robberies and two bombings.  He has confessed to eight murders, and has received several life sentences or death sentences for others.  He is currently being held on death row at the Potosi Correctional Center near Mineral Point, Missouri for a crime he committed more than thirty years ago.  He was recently featured on the MSNBC television program Criminal Mindscape where Veteran FBI criminal profiler Mary Ellen O’Toole interviewed the serial killer who admitted his mission was to start a race war in America.  He is still awaiting execution.

In October of 2002, John Allan Muhammad and his seventeen year old accomplice Lee Boyd Malvo started a twenty day crime spree that resulted in the murder of ten people and injury to four more.  The two men were arrested in connection with the attacks on October 24, 2002.  John Allan Muhammad was a member of the Nation of Islam in 1987 and later changed his surname to Muhammad.  His was put on trial for the murder of Dean Harold Meyers on October 9th of 2002 in Prince William County, Virginia back in October of 2003 and he was found guilty of capital murder the following November.  Four months later he was sentenced to death. On November 10, 2009, at 9:11 PM Eastern Standard Time, John Allan Muhammad was pronounced dead at Greensville Correctional Center in Jarratt, Virginia.