The Progressive Puppy

Another trigger-happy Texas cop, another black man shot.

A 23-year old man, Robert Tolan, pulls into his own driveway in an upscale neighborhood in Bellaire, Texas.  He and his brother get out of the vehicle and walk toward their house. 

They're laughing and talking, it's dark outside - and suddenly a spotlight hits the men and they are accosted by a stranger who accuses them of stealing the car.  There is an altercation.  The stranger pulls a gun and starts firing at the men.

The stranger is a Bellaire police sergeant.  He is white.  The brothers are black, one of whom owns the vehicle that the officer thought - thought - might have been stolen. 

In fact, the vehicle is registered to the man the cop just gunned down. 

From the Houston Chronicle:   A Bellaire man remains hospitalized this morning after he was shot outside his home by a police officer who incorrectly thought he was in a stolen car, officials said.  Relatives of the wounded man, who is black, said they believe race played a role in the shooting.  The shooting happened about 2 a.m. when a 2004 Nissan Xterra pulled up to a home in the 800 block of Woodstock near Evergreen... "It's a typical case of racial profiling," said Mike Morris, Tolan's uncle.  He said Robert Tolan and his brother, the other man getting out of the car, didn't realize they were dealing with a police officer because a spotlight was trained on them.  Tolan — who lives at his parents' home that county records show is worth more than $300,000 — was taken to Ben Taub General Hospital, police said.

The young man's father, Bobby Tolan, is a former professional baseball player for the Cincinnati Reds.  Tolan says of his wife:  "She's very upset. We could have lost our son."  (Their son is currently in stable condition at the hospital.)  Bellaire Assistant Police Chief Byron Holloway insists that his officers do not engage in racial profiling.  Still, you gotta wonder...  If two young white males had been getting out of their car and going up to a 300K home, would this policeman have been so anxious to confront them?  Wouldn't he have checked the license plate number to make sure it was the stolen vehicle?  The incident is being investigated by the Harris County District Attorney's Office.  The shooter's officer's name has not been released.

Watcha Gonna Do, Bad Boys? Ask Barry Cooper

I've seen enough Cops episodes to know that Fox's crime fighting reality series isn't  my cup of tea.  The times I've watched the program it seems that for every truly despicable character taken down (hard) by the (not camera-shy) police officers, there's a sad, bewildered, or downright pathetic suspect on the receiving end of Cops' equally roughshod treatment.  Seeing drug-addled Americans beg dull-eyed law enforcement types for another chance, or frantically trying to explain why a crack pipe was discovered on their person, is not my idea of entertainment.

But now there's a new brand of gotcha justice in town.  KopBusters, an upcoming reality series that's already found a place in my heart due to its title, is the brainchild of former Texas drug enforcement officer Barry Cooper, whose Never Get Busted Again DVD enjoyed success far beyond its (presumably intended) core audience of cannabis devotees.  From Raw Story:  "Austin, Texas-based Cooper's latest project is not nearly so benign, and will likely generate for the former drug warrior an army of enemies in law enforcement.  KopBusters is a reality TV program that aims to sink crooked officers."  (Hmm.  It's sounding better and better.)  From NGB:  KopBusters rented a house in Odessa, Texas and began growing two small Christmas trees under a grow light similar to those used for growing marijuana.  When faced with a suspected marijuana grow, the police usually use illegal FLIR cameras and/or lie on the search warrant affidavit claiming they have probable cause to raid the house.  Instead of conducting a proper investigation which usually leads to no probable cause, the Kops lie on the affidavit claiming a confidential informant saw the plants and/or the police could smell marijuana coming from the suspected house...  The team of eleven freedom fighters wore red "Free Yolanda" shirts as they clashed with the police demanding answers for the illegal raid and the drug plant.   (Yolanda Madden is an Odessa, Texas resident currently serving time in prison after narcotics were planted on her subsequent to a local drug sting.)

KopBusters is scheduled for release this summer.  (On its website, KB has posted over sixty video clips of law enforcement officers engaged in police brutality.)  Raw Story has an exclusive trailer from the show, here.  And this is courtesy CBS-7 News:

Sign Language Around the World

 A clever global trekker has posted his collection of unusual signs encountered on his travels. 

There are wildlife crossing signs with silhouettes of animals I can't identify.  There are the not-quite-right translations into English; the undecipherable, but undeniably urgent, postings in another language; the mundane, the odd and the obscure.  All worth a peek.

But the very best are the ones with "universal" stick figures designed to transcend all cultural barriers.  Like the one on the right which I assume is the worldwide warning not to feed your daughters to the alligators.

Purity Pledges Don't Work: File This Under "No Surprise"

Who didn't know this? When teens make a solemn vow to refrain from sex, it doesn't work out very well. 

According to a study released yesterday, teenagers who pledge to remain virgins until marriage are just as likely to have premarital sex as those who do not promise abstinence.  Perhaps the more important finding is that those teens who make such pledges are significantly less likely to use condoms and other forms of birth control when they do have sex. The percentage who took precautions against pregnancy or sexually transmitted diseases was 10 points lower for pledgers than for non-pledgers.

"Taking a pledge doesn't seem to make any difference at all in any sexual behavior," said Janet E. Rosenbaum of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, whose report appears in the January issue of the journal Pediatrics.

This is only the latest set of findings that have shown abstinence education is ineffective. In 2005, a study by Yale and Columbia University researchers found that “adolescents who pledge to remain virgins until marriage are more likely to substitute high-risk sexual behaviors that increase the likelihood of transmitting sexually transmitted diseases.”  And in a recent study by the Centers for Disease Control, researchers found that teenagers who take “virginity pledges” are more likely to enjoy oral and anal sex, and they are just as likely as other students to be infected with sexually transmitted diseases. Eighty-eight percent eventually have premarital intercourse. While abstinence-only programs show little evidence of sustained effect on a student’s sexual activities, they do reduce the use of contraception, including condoms, when sex does take place.

As reported by the Center for American Progress in May of this year, "The large-scale failure of these program is at least partially attributable to the fact that they are purposely, indeed transparently, dishonest. Of the 13 federally funded programs studied in a minority staff report by the Committee on Government Reform, just two provided students with accurate medical and scientific information, a finding that was consistent with a U.S. Government Accountability Office study released two years later."

In addition to all the federal dollars devoted to this silliness, the rightosphere has made a lucrative cottage industry out of abstinence -- there are the so very creepy father-daughter purity balls, not to mention the dozens of designs for no-sex jewelry (go ahead, google "abstinence jewelry" and see what crops up).  Heck, K-mart sells sweat pants with "True Love Waits" embroidered across the ass. (Because nothng says "I won't screw you" like pastel letters flashed all over my butt).

This case is closed, folks.  Abstinence education is a waste of money and under the Bush years, it was a colossal waste -- literally hundreds of millions of dollars were spent on this nonsense.  Federal funds for abstinence only education programs have increased from $73 million in 2001 to $204 million in 2008.  And It's not just that it doesn't work -- it's harmful and dishonest.

President-elect Obama, I know you've got a lot on your plate, but somewhere on the "to do" list, please write in: NO MORE federal funding for abstinence miseducation.

Bush Administration Disliked Religious Leaders?

Associated Press reports that David Kuo, who served as deputy director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, is disputing the notion  that the Bush administration was dominated by religious conservatives and catered to the needs of a socially conservative voting bloc:

"The reality in the White House is - if you look at the most senior staff - you're seeing people who aren't personally religious and have no particular affection for people who are religious-right leaders," Kuo said.  "In the political affairs shop in particular, you saw a lot of people who just rolled their eyes at ... basically every religious-right leader that was out there, because they just found them annoying and insufferable.  These guys were pains in the butt who had to be accommodated."

The key phrase here is "who had to be accommodated."  Had to be.  Accommodated.  Whether or not George W. Bush and his gang of incompetents liked the shrill evangelicals who dictated public policy for the past eight years is irrelevant.  It doesn't matter if (as Kuo insists) they rolled their eyes at right-wing Christians or even snickered behind their backs.  The fact remains, religious conservatives convinced the GOP, the media, and a majority of Americans that they were solely responsible for electing the worst president in the history of our country, and George W. Bush showed his gratitude by embracing their narrow social agenda.  It matters not one whit that Dubya may have found that embrace distasteful.  He was beholden, and he gave them what they wanted.  Now compare that with President-elect Obama, who appears to be genuinely fond of some religious nuts (and you'll be able to think of two right off the bat) but is unlikely to let them influence his decision-making.

Judge to lesbian mom: No cohabitation, or lose your child.

Angel Chandler and her partner of nine years are not allowed to sleep in the same house because a Tennessee judge has deemed their relationship sinful and the only way Chandler can retain custody of her daughter is for the two women to maintain separate households.  ACLU's Matt Coles provides the backstory:  Angel Chandler and Joseph Baker divorced ten years ago.  They had two children, a daughter, now 13 and a son, now 15.  They had joint custody and visitation with both children.  Ms. Chandler began seeing the woman who became her partner nine years ago, and Mr. Baker married the woman who is now his wife in 2003.  Earlier this year, Ms. Chandler and Mr. Baker went to family court to get approval for a modification of their parenting plan.  Following usual procedure, the court ordered an evaluation of both homes.  The evaluation said that Ms. Chandler’s partner was a positive influence, and had a parent-like relationship with both of the children.

Well, it turns out that evaluation wasn't good enough for his holiness George Robert Ellis of Tennessee's 28th Judicial District, who invoked the states antiquated "paramour law" to force the two women to live apart.  (And Chandler's ex-husband hadn't even asked for the restriction!)  Now Chandler is appealing Ellis's decision with the help of ACLU attorneys.  A brief has been filed with Jackson's Court of Appeals to overturn the ruling.  Angel Chandler says that the judge's forced separation been disruptive to her family:  "We lived together in a stable, functioning family, and this was rather shocking to all of us.  This is about the person we choose to be with, not about what my ex-husband asked for or what's in the best interest of the children.  The judge decided to interfere, and it's had a very negative affect in our lives." 

Hedy Weinberg, executive director of the ACLU of Tennessee, writes: "Unfortunately, this case is an all-too-familiar example of how unfairly lesbian and gay parents are treated in custody and visitation proceedings.  All the children's health and welfare organizations have long recognized that lesbian and gay parents are just as capable of being good parents as straight couples, and their children are just as well adjusted."

Defenders of the paramour law are quick to point out that the restrictions also apply to unwed heterosexuals.  (Which is true, even though those cases are not as aggressively  enforced.)  But then straight couples have an option that's not available to Chandler and her partner.  They can get married.