Writing Life

With the elections less than three weeks away, the debate on Question #2 is heating up. That’s the slots question, i.e. amending the state’s constitution to legalize slot machine gambling in Maryland. The normally very conservative Washington Post editorial page has come out against legalizing slots (today, p. B06). And yes, I do mean the Washington Post’s editorial page which has been drifting (and surging) further right for the last ten years. Also, the Baltimore Sun wrote today that even if Maryland allows slots, it won’t be enough to close the budget gap, something proponents have said is a major reason to support their initiative.

To quote from the Sun’s piece

A year ago, state officials hailed the closing of the so-called structural budget deficit – a persistent gap between revenue and spending of as much as $1.7 billion – after Gov. Martin O’Malley and the General Assembly approved a package that included tax increases, budget cuts and the slots proposal that goes before voters this November.

Estimates then showed that when slots revenue fully kicked in, the expected $600 million a year in new revenue would be enough to keep the budget balanced for the foreseeable future.

But in a matter of months, the structural deficit has returned, to the tune of more than $800 million annually for at least five more years, even if voters approve slots, according to projections from the nonpartisan Department of Legislative Services.

In a fantastic editorial today, the Baltimore Sun has called for an end to the death penalty in Maryland. A key quote from the short piece is:

There is widespread agreement among law enforcement officials, prosecutors, defense attorneys and legal scholars that capital punishment does not deter crime, that it is unfair, arbitrary and capricious in its application and that it protects the public no better than a life without parole sentence.

I applaud the Sun for their stance.

My only qualification would be to ensure that if this is enacted, the courts and juries continue to put their most earnest efforts into determining guilt or innocence. I’d hate to see an innocent person sentenced to prison without parole almost as much as executing an innocent person.

Montgomery County Executive Ike Leggett flip-flopped and now supports slots for Maryland. Last I heard, there weren’t any slots slated for his county, but I’m sure he’ll take the money from those exploited in other areas.

Then, we have cop killers. No, not people who kill cops but police who take the law into their own hands and execute suspects who are already in custody in a jail cell. In Prince Georges County, another autopsy report shows again that a suspect in a cop killing was killed in his solitary jail holding cell. Guards have kept quiet and said various things, that is when they even speak with investigators. The Feds are investigating but we’ll have to wait and see.

Nice follow up in today’s Washington Post. Two highlights:

• “The measure … prohibits discrimination in housing, employment and public accommodations.”
• “But in interviews after the court’s decision, transgender people throughout the Washington region said Montgomery’s new law would be most meaningful in making the mundane details of day-to-day life a little bit easier. And they hope that it spurs action in neighboring jurisdictions.”

I find this new technology, or more accurately, it’s application, very disturbing. It glosses over the fact that what the mind believes is the truth might not necessarily be the truth. Research and evidence has shown for decades that people may truthfully believe something that didn’t happen. This happens all the time in witness testimony. It also doesn’t address what happens if the person is trying to be deceptive about what he/she believes.

If issues of guilt and innocence weren’t so important, I’d almost want to joke and reference the Monty Python witch detector from their Holy Grail movie. There, we see how easy it is to use machines and mental states to show that if a woman weighs as much as a duck, then she’ll float in water, … and thus she’s a witch. This new application of MRI technology is not much more scientific at the moment.

Equally disturbing is article writer Anand Giridharadas and his editors at the New York Times. The article’s second sentence says “Others view it as a silver bullet against terrorism that could render waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods obsolete.” Yet again they perpetuate the Bush & McCain axiom that one must say “harsh interrogation methods” instead of saying torture. The author and the Times are so bold as to say that waterboarding is just a harsh method by linking it with the words “and other”. By continuing to not call it what it is, they do a disservice to their readers and are coconspirators, albeit not in the room, with the U.S. torturers themselves.

After a Circuit Court panel of judges ruled that adding the word “primarily” to the slots referendum language would solve all the problems of the biased language, the Maryland Court of Appeals will take up the matter next Monday. Opponents of adding gambling to Maryland’s constitution and communities have said that the change doesn’t go far enough and advocate rewriting the entire text or throwing out the question altogether.

For more on this issue, see my previous posts.

According to CNN a study done by the city of Houston showed that 67 percent of suspects tasered by police were black. The study was commissioned by the mayor back in 2006 and was just released this past Monday. The article quotes Executive Assistant Police Chief Charles McClelland, who said “It’s not a racial issue. A Taser device is no different from a radar gun. It’s race neutral.”

This is one of the most pathetic and untrue explanations I’ve ever heard. A radar gun is used at a large distance where an officer can’t necessarily see into the vehicle being targeted. Depending on the technology used in the radar gun, it’s got a range from 1/4 mile up to 2 miles. That’s certainly not the same as a taser, which has a maximum range of about 35 feet in police models and about 15 feet in consumer models. Deciding to use a taser can be race neutral, but this report seems to poke large holes in that point of view.

Compounding this racial component, the study “also found that no policy exists as to how many times a Taser may be used on an individual.” Tasers are not non-lethal toys; they’re weapons that can and have caused unnecessary deaths of individuals.

We need more studies like this, here in Maryland and in every jurisdiction that uses these lethal weapons. Racial profiling in traffic stops was disregarded until studies showed it was true. Death penalty cases also are skewed toward minorities and the poor. Studies like this can help shine a light on these modern problems and push those who say there is no problem to confront the true reality.

In a great victory today, the Maryland Court of Appeals tossed out the anti-transgender referendum put forward by a Montgomery County hate group. Due to not gathering enough signatures, the appeals court said that the question should not, and will not, be included on the November ballot. The link above is to the great Free State Politics site. The Post also has a piece up, which will be published tomorrow (9/10).