Friday, July 19, 2013

Just The Facts Ma'am


Unless one has lived their entire life in a cave there is very little chance they have not heard that pithy phrase. And of course most know that it is attributed to Sgt. Joe Friday, played by Jack Webb on the 1960’s police drama, “Dragnet.” I still have that clip of Sgt. Friday, and his equally dispassionate partner, Bill Gannon, played by Harry Morgan of later MASH fame as Colonel Henry Potter locked in my head from seeing it so many times all those decades ago. And as I went researching that for this blog post I found it fortuitously even more germane than I imagined to the current subject, As Sgt. Joe Friday never said that. And isn’t that ironic, that I and probably many many more can both see and hear that video clip of Sgt. Friday dispassionately saying “Just the Facts Ma’am” in our heads when The facts are that he never said it: Nor did Harry Morgan. (You can find what Sgt. Friday actually said at: http://www.snopes.com/radiotv/tv/dragnet.asp)

Monday, July 15, 2013

Majestic Sophistry

 
So several have asked when I intend to blog about the Zimmerman - Martin issue(s). Rest assured I have blathered and ranted on about it ad infinitum and ad nauseam but the case, the trial and the issues have been far too multi-faceted and dynamic to put to ink before some other fascinating and/or maddening aspect came to light. I have however blasted off several email and twitter screeds to those particular commentators or "experts" who really got my goat. So here is a freshly minted response to Dr. Marc Lamont Hill. Dr. Hill is an extremely talented, erudite, and eloquent spokesman for the perpetual and eloquent intractably wrong. This is in response to Dr. Hills exceptional article "Travon Martin Was Put on Trial,"  found on the blog website: Black Enterprise.com (http://www.blackenterprise.com/blogs/zimmerman-not-guilty-verdict-marc-lamont-hill/)

And my response: