Crossing the Line with Strange New Laws

Something is wrong up in Raleigh; which is home to our State Legislature here in North Carolina. Some bizarre new laws are being proposed; and in some quarters embraced; that would have an adverse impact on many of the state’s citizens. Literally and figuratively they have crossed the line.

The new traffic ordinance would erase decades of traffic engineering studies and allow you to pass on a double yellow line on a blind curve if the car in front of you is not going as fast as you’d like. Yes, there are requirements in there somewhere about the percentages of speed required to avail yourself of the rule. Let's see how that works out.

I suppose the effect of that safety factor will have drivers using their cellphones as calculators to determine if they are in compliance. But generally people will just pass one another as they do now anyway. I don’t mind if they want to die; I just feel sorry for the ones who are in that oncoming lane and will be feeling the full impact of this foolishly considered piece of legislation. 

Then there is the brilliant move to a flat fee; paid annually; for gas taxes which have always been paid at the pump at the time of purchase. This has always been the fairest way to tax the roads; it’s referred to as a “Use Tax.” The little old lady down the street; who uses her car to attend church once a week and pays about $1.50 in taxes based on about 5 gallons of fuel at 30 cents per gallon tax for an annual total of $78; will now have to fork over $210 at the end of each year. Meanwhile someone with an SUV or pickup who uses 50 gallons per week for a tax of $15 at the pump for a total of $780 per annum will be getting quite a break!

Our local laws are also getting just as twisted. Only one week after the Charlotte City Council voted down a new Gender Friendly ordinance; which would have let you use the public restroom you felt most comfortable with on any given day; the City is now touting the success which the schools are enjoying in the same sex classrooms being tested in one of the city’s Magnet Schools. I am not making this up. Just so you know; the laws don't bother me half as much as the inconsistencies.

But, consistency and reasoning has flown the coop in the great state of North Carolina. I remember when I moved here about 16 years ago. The biggest case of county corruption involved the misappropriation of $1,500 by a local councilman. Sue and I laughed aloud that this item even made the news.

Since then we have had politicians resign in disgrace and scandal; and the former Mayor of Charlotte is currently under Federal Detention for trying to sell the city. And, as far as new laws are concerned, the biggest story when we moved here was whether or not the old Confederate flag would be removed from one of the local parks. Well, those days are gone; and we ain’t laughing anymore.

   

"Mayor For Life" by Marion Barry (2014)

Marion Barry will forever be remembered as the disgraced Mayor of Washington, D.C. The images of him taken during an FBI sting will long outlive anything else about the man. And that’s a shame, because before the fall came Marion Barry was one of the people manning the front lines in the battle for Civil Right.

Born in Itta Bena, Mississippi he was one of 10 kids. His father died when he was 4 years old and his Mom moved the family to Memphis, Tennessee looking for work.  It was as a paperboy that he first encountered racial prejudice, and the incident became a defining point in his life. As a young man he picked cotton, bagged groceries, and worked as a waiter. He was also a Boy Scout, earning the ultimate rank of Eagle Scout.

It was while working as a paperboy that he first became involved in a Civil Rights issue. He had entered the contest to win a trip New Orleans for getting a certain number of new customers on a route. He won, but was denied the prize on the grounds that New Orleans was segregated and it would necessitate the rental of a separate bus to transport the African-American paperboys who had won. The young Marion Barry boycotted his route in the black neighborhood, and convinced the other African-American carriers to do the same. The result was that the paper hired a bus and took them to St. Louis, which was integrated. Barry resumed his route. Remember that this was before Rosa Parks and the bus boycott.

BY the late 1950’s he was a graduate of LeMoyne College. While there he and his friends wanted to go to the fair in Memphis; which was segregated. They were denied admission to the Science exhibit. Though they left without incident this is what prompted Barry to join the NAACP and begin his long road as an activist for Civil Rights and the Right to Vote.

He also attained a Master’s degree in Organic Chemistry from Fisk in 1960. During this time he was arrested several times for his involvement in sit-ins and other demonstrations. He was soon involved in the Freedom Riders campaign to desegregate the bus stations in Interstate travel. After a long and protracted battle they were successful. Their accomplishment in getting the Voting Rights Act passed is something which is currently under fire as some folks advocate its repeal.

He went on to become the first chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and organized the voting registration drive in McComb, Mississippi. He lived with the local residents so he would have a better feel for what their lives were like.

In 1965 he came to Washington, D.C. to open a local chapter for SNCC. The bus fare increase was his first political action in D.C. He wouldn’t call it a “boycott” - he termed it a “mancott” instead.  This was really the first step in his journey to becoming the second Mayor in the city’s history. He quit SNCC when H. Rapp Brown became chairman in 1967.

I could go on and on in summarizing the accomplishments and career of this ultimately flawed politician. But I would be remiss if I were to only concentrate on the failures of his later life. His work in the aftermath of the shooting of Martin Luther King, when D.C. was literally in flames, helped to set up food banks and early education programs for the poor. His positive impacts cannot be overlooked when assessing the man as a whole.

His slide down the slippery slope of drug addiction; and recovery; as well as his re-emergence as a politician again after the fall; will ultimately be what this man is remembered for. And that’s a shame. For the legacy he amassed prior to that is far more important.

"Busted" by Wendy Ruderman and Barbara Laker (2014)

There are no good guys in this book; save for the authors, Wendy Ruderman and Barbara Laker, 2 reporters who won the Pulitzer Prize in 2010 for their searing expose of corruption on the Philadelphia Police Force. After that, everyone else is; how shall I say it; tainted. Even the victims aren’t quite squeaky clean. Of course, the worst offenders are the cops, who are paid to “protect and serve”, but in the end only served themselves.

You’ve seen this whole story before, in every major city across the country; vice cops on a crime spree of their own, similar to the antics of Vic Mackey on the TV show “The Shield.” The police charged with protecting us all have gone astray in the misguided war against drugs. This is a war which they will never win; and don’t really want to. There’s too much “loose change” at the bottom of the ladder to be “harvested.”As I said, there are no good guys here. 

There are the bodega owners, who make money selling everything from “loosies”; single cigarettes at about 50 cents each, making a pack cost $10; to the little plastic baggies for packaging weed and crack cocaine. The bodega owners claim that they are used for valuable coins and jewelry, but they know better than that. In a neighborhood where you sell “loosies” there are no valuable coins or jewelry. And the discarded empty baggies end up in the street right by the bodegas, where the owners can see the litter. Nope, no good guy there.

Then there are the people in the neighborhood; who are in need of work that just isn’t available. I can almost justify their claim to “just be making ends meet in the only way that we can”, except when “making ends meet” comes to include $200 Air Jordan’s for your kids; among other luxury items which are not a legitimate expense in the struggle to survive. These are the people who live a life of comparative wealth while feeding off the “sickness” of their neighbors. Nope; no good guys there.

The politicians who campaign for office on the promises that they will clean it all up; then take office and don’t even show their faces on that side of town until the next election; are no exception. They live a life of privilege and know full well that they will never, ever really do anything for the poorest of the poor. These are the ones who give false hope to the truly disenfranchised, with no intent to do anything but take the taxpayers money. I know you weren't expecting a good guy there.

Barbara Laker and Wendy Ruderman have written a very terse and to the point book. It’s based on their experiences in covering what became known as the “Tainted Justice” series in the Philadelphia Daily News. They each went; individually in most cases; to the worst parts of the drug zones in search of the veracity of the story they were told by a police informant, Benny; as in Benny Blanco from the Bronx.

Benny claims that he was used by a corrupt police officer; who, along with his fellow officers and at least one relative; had created a cottage industry by using a Confidential Informant to point out different drug houses. He would then make the buy, the officers would document it, and then they would raid the house. It sounds pretty straightforward.

But what if the cops began to use the raids to rob the dealers instead of arresting them for all of the drugs? What if they were raiding houses on the pretext that the Informant had pointed them out when he hadn’t? What if one of the officers involved was using the raids as an excuse to sexually assault some of the wives and mothers of the accused? Would you call the police?

These are the tough questions faced by not only Benny and the other victims, but also by a whole bunch of local store owners who were the victims of police raids in which their security cameras were destroyed by police officers, who then stuffed their pockets with cash from the register and carried off cases of cigarettes and other merchandise. The owners of these stores were largely immigrants who would never trust the police back in their homeland. And when faced by this type of behavior here, they just assume it is business as normal.

Ms. Ruderman and Ms. Laker both have tough rows to hoe as they try to track down the culprits; even fearing for their lives at times.  The hours spent on the story even take a significant toll on Ms. Ruderman’s marriage. This is a book which will take you from the newsroom of the Daily News to the file room of the police department, and then into the seedy streets of the very worst areas of Philadelphia.  

The two fearless reporters develop one lead after another, eventually building a case which rocks the police department and catapults them to a Pulitzer Prize. But; in the end; nearly 4 years after the facts were laid bare and the Pulitzer won, not a single officer has been disciplined beyond being assigned to desk duty. I say it again; there are no heroes here. This is a good, gritty account of the absurdity of the war on drugs.

"Gangster Squad" with Nick Nolte and Sean Penn (2013)

Los Angeles of the late 1940’s and 1950’s was a time of rampant corruption among the police department, as they battled the local gangsters, who in turn, battled the gangsters from out of town trying to horn in on what was then known in Loss Angeles as the “combination.” Mickey Cohen inherited the position of leading the pack after his predecessor met an untimely passing.

Long the subject of movies and books; some non-fiction, some fiction; the story of Mickey Cohen, and the Police department he fought, have both became legends which will outlive time itself. Movies such as “L.A. Confidential”, and “Mulholland Drive” both set the bar high for examples of the better films about Los Angeles during this period. And this film lives up to those in respect to facts and settings. The set designs, as well as the costumes, are all perfect, giving a feel of authenticity to the whole film.

Sean Penn and Nick Nolte are both believable in their respective roles as the gangster who knows  no rules, and the Chief of Police who is of the same mind, only on the opposite side of the law as the notorious gangster. As hey battle wits, and exchange gunfire, there is a begrudging respect built out of their mortal combat, but still, there can be only one winner in this winner take all drama based on true events. Directed by Ruben Fleischer from a script by Will Beal, this film will have you riveted to your seat from beginning to end.