Andy Borowitz on the Next Big Idea in Florida

19 Comments Post your own or leave a trackback: Trackback URL

1. Mom/speducator says:

   July 15, 2013 at 9:20 pm

   Thought this had to be the Onion.

   Reply
   • Veteran Educator says:

     July 15, 2013 at 9:41 pm

     Yeah, really. Years ago, my parents retired to AZ and I spent a lot of time visiting them there. It really felt like the lawless wild west then. You could purchase a gun and ammo at your local grocery store and carry it with you anywhere, concealed or not –and many folks did. I swore then that I would never move to a red state (though they weren’t called that yet.) My parents couldn’t take it anymore after about 7 years and moved back home.

     It would be nice if people were ethical enough to be able to function on the honors system. Unfortunately, they are not. And the worst culprits are not the needy and poor, but the greedy and rich.

     Politicians would not repeal laws because that would make their jobs as lawmakers superfluous.

     Reply
     • Robert Rendo says:

       July 16, 2013 at 8:07 am

       So what happens if someone really mentally unstable or at the breaking point of a dire situation acquires one of those “grocery store” guns? Then what?

     • patriciahale says:

       July 16, 2013 at 9:52 am

       @Robert R. Then you get Jared Loughner and the carnage at the Safeway, (My Safeway, I might add.)

2. Rangoon78 says:

   July 15, 2013 at 11:00 pm

   The continued vilification of George Zimmerman may provide a catharsis for a segment of society; but, he was tried by a jury and found not guilty of murder and not guilty of manslaughter. Are teachers really going to add their name to the continued witch hunt?

   Teachers unions urge federal action against George Zimmerman

   And here is the letter that AFT President Randi Weingarten sent to AFT members:
   Last night, a Florida jury acquitted George Zimmerman, a man who killed an unarmed teenager in cold blood. While we believe in the rule of law and while the jury has spoken, the implications of the acquittal are profound. It is disappointing that a racially profiled, unarmed African-American young man can be shot dead with no consequences for the perpetrator.
   Urge Attorney General Eric Holder and the U.S. Justice Department to continue their investigation.
   http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/07/15/teachers-unions-urge-federal-action-against-george-zimmerman/

   Reply
   • dianerav says:

     July 15, 2013 at 11:04 pm

     Rangoon, anyone who is bully boy enough to kill a teenager can deal with vilification. That the least we can do to express our outrage that he walks.

     Reply
     • Rangoon78 says:

       July 16, 2013 at 1:23 am

       Diane it looks like you’ve come down on one side of this issue. I guess I have too.

       I followed the case through the trial. A great resource was criminal defense attorney Jerilyn Merritt over at her blog talkleft. I think she did some fine work. FWIW

       Jerilyn:

       It is unfortunate when any 17 year old loses his life, whether to illness, accident, suicide or murder. It is indeed a tragedy for the family he or she leaves behind. But when a 17 year old physically attacks another person, breaking his nose and banging his head against a cement surface, the other person is allowed to defend himself. Once charged, it became the job of the jury to decide whether a reasonable person in his situation would have believed that deadly force was necessary to prevent great bodily harm from that attack.
       http://www.talkleft.com/story/2013/7/15/2534/37292/crimenews/Lawyers-Rea…

     • Veteran Educator says:

       July 16, 2013 at 7:59 am

       I live in a city where, for decades, the Guardian Angels have patrolled the streets and mass transit system, creating a reassuring presence for citizens and averting crimes. They are unarmed and most often travel in pairs. Many years ago, when they initially began their work here, I worried about them being unarmed, but this is how the beat cops have operated in England for decades and, as it has turned out, the Guardian Angels have had a great track record using that approach in my big city, too. That even gave way to the birth of unarmed Neighborhood Watch groups here as well.

       When an ordinary citizen goes out to patrol the streets alone and carries a gun, he has an altogether different plan of action –and there is a very good likelihood of that gun being used. That’s what my family and I hated about the gun laws in AZ, when my parents went to live there in their golden years. Such lax gun laws are likely to lead some people to interpret them according to their personal beliefs, such as by inferring that racial profiling and vigilantism are permitted –and if later called on it, then feign self-defence.

       Even if it was truly self-defence, someone who went out prepared to avert crimes would probably have been more likely to shoot to injure rather than shoot to kill a child. While the law itself is problematic, I think that from the outset Zimmerman was playing by his own rules. (And, yes, I followed the trials and didn’t agree with the jury decisions about Casey Anthony and OJ either.)

     • Robert Rendo says:

       July 16, 2013 at 8:04 am

       Rangoon78,

       Defending himdself: yes.

       But why is it that this country feels so compelled to defend itself with guns? TM did not have a gun.

     • Lisa Tromley says:

       July 16, 2013 at 8:54 am

       Rangoon:
       You’re leaving out an important detail: Zimmerman followed Martin after being told not to. How would Martin know why this older guy was following him? Maybe he thought Zimmerman was going to hurt him? By following Martin after being told not to by a police dispatcher, Zimmerman brought about the circumstances of Martin’s death fulfilling the requirement for manslaughter.

     • mathcs says:

       July 16, 2013 at 9:31 am

       Thank you Lisa. Those that defend Zimmerman and his actions always leave out the first part of what happened.

       Does anyone remember the video or picture that came out shortly after Zimmerman killed Trayvon that showed him going into a police station? I don’t recall seeing any cuts or anything on the part of Zimmerman’s face that was shown.

     • patriciahale says:

       July 16, 2013 at 9:54 am

       @Rangoon. The only evidence that Trayvon Martin “attacked” Zimmerman comes from Zimmerman. The dead boy didn’t get a chance to tell his story.

   • Chiara says:

     July 16, 2013 at 7:31 am

     For someone lecturing on facts, maybe you should check your source.
     Zimmerman’s lawyer said his nose was broken. He refused x rays. It was never established.

     Reply
3. KrazyTA says:

   July 16, 2013 at 2:02 am

   Diane: this is just like trying to use verifiable facts, logic and experience when talking to the charterites/privatizers. Or trying to get a regular poster on this blog to express the slightest sadness at the recent unnecessary deaths of over 1,000 Bangladeshi workers.

   You can’t make headway. All you get is Michelle Rhee expressing “no regrets” for causing the mouths of dozens of her students to bleed or Arne Duncan fulminating against others for his own furious promotion of high-stakes standardized testing or Bill Gates inventing out of whole cloth the myth of 98% of teacher evals bearing nothing but the single word “satisfactory.”

   But your blog makes a huge difference for the majority in this country who are willing to read, listen and consider. We need to be reminded that those with the loudest voices and biggest megaphones keep turning up the volume because they have very little of worth to say.

   In this case, it is literally [not figuratively] impossible to verify one way or another who initiated the physical confrontation and who cried out for help. Period. But a teenager would never would have been killed had the family and friends of the killer insisted to an immature young man with no training and a lethal weapon that he not go looking for trouble in the area where they lived. It takes a village to screw up too.

   Thank you again for your patience. This is what Gandhi might have said had he lived in the age of the internet: “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then they invent kerfuffles, then they send out the trolls in droves, then you win.”

   🙂

   Reply
4. Rangoon78 says:

   July 16, 2013 at 8:50 am

   Paraphrasing Veteran Educator :

   “The jury acted within the letter of the law, I guess, if you want to be official about it, and acquitted Mr. Zimmerman of both second-degree murder and manslaughter charges,” said legal scholar Jeffrey Frazier about Zimmerman’s culpability in the events of February 26, 2012, which, trial or no trial, have been pretty clear all along, right? “Mr. Zimmerman did not violate any Florida state laws—although, please, give me a break—and is an innocent man, I suppose, if you’re sticking to the strict legal definition of that word.”

   “And thus, this trial was properly conducted in full accordance with the U.S. justice system,” Frazier added. “For whatever that’s worth.”

   http://www.theonion.com/articles/zimmerman-found-not-guilty-technically-but-cmon,33124/

   Reply
   • Veteran Educator says:

     July 16, 2013 at 2:46 pm

     If anything good came out of this terrible tragedy at all it’s the fact that the American public was finally made aware of the stealth American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), which had been crafting right-wing legislation for nearly 40 years, like “Stand Your Ground” and charter school and voucher laws, to the benefit of conservative politicians and corporations.

     But, yeah, c’mon. A child should not have had to die for Americans to learn about the horrendous law that probably incited his murder, and the covert corporate sponsors and lawmakers who’ve been outsourcing their dirty work to ALEC for decades to create such despicable legislation.

     Reply
5. Rangoon78 says:

   July 16, 2013 at 2:39 pm

   Diane, I am disappointed with your reply. I thought a Doctor of Education would stay above name calling on this issue of life and death. Zimmerman yet lives on; but, he will live in fear. I fusee this is The America we deserve.

   The subject is obviously closed and it’s your blog. I will slink away. I leave you with this:

   The interview of George Zimmerman juror B-37 on Anderson Cooper last night was extraordinary for the detail the juror provided about the deliberations process.

   Shorter version: Zimmerman acted in self-defense. He was credible. Race was not a factor — the jurors never even discussed race. Martin attacked Zimmerman. 5 of the 6 jurors believed Zimmerman was screaming. The sixth wasn’t sure, she thought it might be Martin. Zimmerman did not act from ill-will or hatred. If anything he was over-eager to help others, which is indicative of a good heart.

   http://www.talkleft.com/

   Reply
   • Veteran Educator says:

     July 16, 2013 at 3:00 pm

     Oh, please. This is not as black and white as you suggest. And the juries were right about Casey Anthony, OJ, William Kennedy Smith and Michael Jackson, too, right? (Yep, watched all those trials and came to very different conclusions from the juries.) And good ole George W really beat Gore, too, huh? I don’t think anything was definitively decided by the courts in these situations.

     Reply
   • dianerav says:

     July 16, 2013 at 3:51 pm

     Rangoon, just a good-hearted man who packed a gun and killed an unarmed boy. Happens all the time. Maybe people shouldn’t carry guns unless they are law enforcement officers. That would suit me. Then the two guys would have punched each other out, and there would be some bruises, some hurt feelings, and a live teen instead of a dead one.

     Reply