Margolin gets it right

 

I’ll admit it. I was wrong. Boy, was I wrong. Dallas City Council Member Ann Margolin will complete her tenure with style, grace and a demonstration of leadership and courage not seen on this council for some time and certainly not from a council member representing District 13.

Much to the relief of every other person on the council today, Margolin came out in support of Ursuline Academy’s desire to construct a soccer field, with lights, on its campus located at the southwest corner of Walnut Hill Lane and Inwood Road in Northwest Dallas.

City Council Member
Ann Margolin

After she announced her support and received much-deserved plaudits from her colleagues for her decision, the council voted 14-0 (Tennell Atkins was absent today) to approve the project. Which illustrates one of the many problems with how things get done (or, in many cases, not done) by our City Council. If Margolin had opposed the idea, the vote would not have been 13-1 in favor because council members never, ever, vote on zoning issues according to the way they believe. They vote according to the whims of the council member who represents the property under consideration. Thus, if Margolin had opposed the lighted field, which I incorrectly predicted she would, then it would have been defeated. Instead of "Do the Right Thing," the Dallas City Council’s motto is "You Scratch My Back, I’ll Scratch Yours."

Opponents of the field came out with a bunch of bogus studies about safety and glare from the lights, but, as one of Ursuline’s neighbors, who supported the project, said in a video shown to the council today, "I hate to say this, but (the opposition) really has nothing to do with lights."

The neighbor who said that was black.

I first came in contact with the blatant racism inbred in the people who live in this neighborhood a little more than 20 years ago. Then Dallas Mayor Steve Bartlett led a group of Dallas business leaders on a trade mission to Mexico. One of the business leaders accompanying Bartlett was Lee Roy Mitchell, the founder and board chairman of Cinemark Theaters, which, although headquartered at that time in an office building on the northeast corner of Walnut Hill Lane and Greenville Avenue, did not have one single theater in Dallas or the surrounding area. Bartlett asked Mitchell why this was so and Mitchell told the Mayor the company could not find any property within the Dallas city limits that fit its economic viability model. Bartlett promised Mitchell he would find him a suitable location to locate a theater.


Lee Roy Mitchell also felt the
racist wrath of this neighborhood

And the mayor fulfilled that promise. The property he chose was a long-abandoned K-Mart, whose only use was as a shelter for drug addicts, located just north of Forest Lane on Inwood Road. However, when Bartlett and Mitchell jointly announced Cinemark, a Dallas company, was going to finally locate a theater in Dallas, the neighborhood residents — much the same ones fighting Ursuline — came out in huge numbers to oppose the theater chain’s plans.

At the time, I was a partner in what I still regard as the world’s greatest crisis consulting firm and Cinemark hired us to advise it on how to proceed and how to properly present its side of the story to a public, which, outside the immediate radius of the proposed location, overwhelmingly supported the project.

One day the opposition staged a huge media event outside the proposed site and, of course, I was there to advise Cinemark. At one point, I engaged a small group those protesters, who didn’t have a clue who I was or what I was doing there, and asked them why they were so opposed to the theater. One of the women in the group said, as though she was letting me in on their conspiracy, "Because it attracts those kind of people."

"Those kind of people?" I asked in honest astonishment. "Those kind of people? You mean like people who enjoy going to movies? Hey, I’m a card carrying member of those kind of people."

"No, no, no," another one said in a tone meaning I needed to lower my voice. "You know (and she nodded her head at two back individuals standing about 25 yards away), those kind of people."

It was then I realized it wasn’t the theater they opposed, it was the thought of blacks driving through their neighborhoods, especially at night.

That’s why the words of the black gentleman on the video ("I hate to say this, but [the opposition] really has nothing to do with lights.") was so right on the money and so appropriate coming from him. Lights mean games played at night and these racists residents — 21 years later — still fear blacks driving through their neighborhoods at night. Forget the bogus studies about safety and glare — this is what it all boiled down to.

And that’s why I squealed in delight when the first person to congratulate Margolin after she came out in favor of Ursuline’s request was D-Wayne Carriedaway who announced that he was anxious to attend Ursuline’s home games at their new soccer field.

But, for once, racism was defeated at City Hall today and I applaud Margolin for leading the charge. She displayed far more courage than her predecessor did when the same issue came before the council 12 years earlier.

Bush-Perry kill more than wars do

383: The total number of U.S. soldiers killed in the First Gulf War, Somalia, Panama and Grenada.

387: The total number of U.S. civilians killed by lethal injection by governors Bush and Perry.

One Love

One love, one heart, let's get together and feel all right.

Elvis's Dallas No-Tell Motel; inquiring minds (especially mine) want to know more

I am currently reading Alanna Nash's biography of Elvis Presley called Baby, Let's Place House. and came across this paragraph:

"On the way to play his Vegas dates that August (1975), he again had trouble breathing on the plane. It made a forced landing in Dallas, and after recuperating in a motel for several hours, he continued on."

She did not cite a source for this information in the book's Endnotes. Does anyone have any additional details about this episode?

Tea Party shows its true colors

It's time to call the Tea Party and other like-minded souls out in the open. The Tea Party is nothing more than the Ku Klux Klan without the outfits.

How many people of color has anyone ever seen at a Tea Party rally? There's a reason for that.

The Tea Party and its followers try to mask their true beliefs behind false ideology, but yesterday all that was stripped away when they hurled racial epithets at Democratic Congressmen as they prepared to vote on health care reform.

Let's face facts here: The Tea Party and others that espouse its philosophy are not against health care reform or big government. They are angry for one reason and one reason only: A Black Man is occupying the White House. That's it in a nutshell. If it were anything else, why aren't they celebrating the fact that President Obama enacted the biggest tax cut for middle-income Americans in U.S. history? They can't because it's not his policies they are against, it's him. It makes absolutely no difference what he proposes, these racists will be against it.

People keep telling me we have made great strides in overcoming institutional racism in this country and, indeed we have. I see it every day in the intelligent young people -- the members of my son's generation and those younger. Racism, you see, can't be inherited; it has to be taught.

But, unfortunately, it still exists among many, people like Newt Gingrich and his ilk who continue to villify President Johnson for passing landmark civil rights legislation.

It's time to call the Tea Party out in the open. It's time for these people to explain why they have discarded political discourse for outright hatred and abuse. It's time to force them to take the hoods off and expose them for the racists they really are.

Connelly nails it again

In the opening pages of his novel The Scarecrow, author Michael Connelly has a scene in the newsroom of the downsizing Los Angeles Times in which an editor tells a reporter who has just been pink slipped:

"The newspaper is supposed to be the community’s watchdog and we’re turning it over to the puppies. Think of all the great journalism we’ve seen in our lifetimes. The corruption exposed, the public benefit. Where’s that going to come from now with every paper in the country getting shredded? Our government? No way. TV, the blogs? Forget it. My friend who took the buyout in Florida says corruption will be the new growth industry without the papers watching."

There goes another great idea

I was going to yell, to scream, to stand on the mountaintops and hoist the flags from the valleys down below -- in another words I was prepared to raise the roofbeams with my voice-- to emphatically deny -- put all those vicious rumors to rest -- that I was the heretofore unidentified partner in Carrie Prejean's sex tape. And then I learned she flew solo before the cameras. Oh, well. I would give the former Miss California a hand, but apparently she already gave herself one -- on camera.

How moral are you?

Take this survey and find out.

Circling the Cuckoo's Nest: Research + Common Sense Supports Gun Control Laws

In case I ever wondered whether anyone reads this musings of mine, I quickly learned the answer when I wrote this piece about the number of handguns used in Dallas homicides and argued that is was evidence that more stringent gun control laws, perhaps a banning of handguns, was needed. Boy, the gun nuts are out there. The problem, however, is that they use arguments that they did not (because they could not) support with statistical evidence. I'm surprised they didn't drag out the tired old Second Amendment issue that has already been decided against gun advocates in the courts (Stevens v. U.S., United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit, 1971; Quilici v. Village of Morton Grove, U.S. Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit, 1982).

The big argument of the pro-gun people, judging from the responses I had were (1) Texans should have the right to defend themselves against bad guys and (2) the tired old "if guns are outlawed only outlaws will have guns" (a theory brilliantly and hilariously debunked by Dallas author Richard Condon in his novel The Venerable Bead.)

One person wanted to know how many of those handgun victims were suicides, as though suicides shouldn't count. Well, they don't count as homicides so the direct answer to this person's question is "none," but, still, a suicide victim is another life tragically lost. According to Arthur L. Kellermann, MD, MPH; Frederick P. Rivara, MD, MPH; Grant Somes, PhD; Donald T. Reay, MD; Jerry Francisco, MD; Joyce Gillentine Banton, MS; Janice Prodzinski, BA; Corinne Fligner, MD; and Bela B. Hackman, MD, in their study, Suicide in the Home in Relation to Gun Ownership, appearing in The New England Journal of Medicine, Vol. 327, No. 7, August 13, 1992, pp. 467-472, residents of homes in which a gun is present is FIVE TIMES more likely to experience a suicide than residents without guns.

What about the self defense argument? Well, according to Arthur Kellermann and Donald Reay. "Protection or Peril? An Analysis of Firearm Related Deaths in the Home," The New England Journal of Medicine, vol. 314, no. 24, June 1986, pp. 1557-60, a gun kept in a home is 43 times more likely to kill another member of that household or a friend of someone in the household than it is an intruder. Another study (FE Zimring, Firearms, violence, and public policy, Scientific American, vol. 265, 1991, p. 48), proves that the use of a firearm to fend off an assault actually increases the victim's risk and injury and death. This study also examined 743 gunshot deaths in a city comparable to Dallas during one year and discovered only two of them involved an intruder in a home and only nine others were determined by the police and courts to be "justified." An astounding 624 of these homicides were the result of arguments among family members. According to FBI Uniform Crime Reports, only 1.02 percent of shooting deaths each year are the result of someone defending themselves. Research by Dr. Arthur Kellerman (Arthur Kellermann et. al., "Gun Ownership as a Risk Factor for Homicide in the Home," The New England Journal of Medicine, October 7, 1993, pp. 1084-1091) has shown that keeping a gun in the home carries a murder risk 2.7 times greater than not keeping one. That is, excluding many other factors such as previous history of violence, class, race, etc., a household with a gun is 2.7 times more likely to experience a murder than a household without one, even while there was no significant increase in the risk of non-gun homicides.

As for the argument that when guns are outlawed only outlaws will have guns, according to FBI statistics, at least 340,000 handguns are stolen each year from those who purchased them legally. That's they way outlaws get the guns -- they steal them from those who purchased them for foolish notions like self-defense. If these guns were never owned in the first place, that would be 340,000 handguns per year that would not fall into the hands of the outlaws. The reason outlaws have so many guns is because they are sold first legally, then stolen. Yes, there will be ways to get guns illegally, if they are banned, but when they become illegal, availability goes way, way down and the prices go way, way up.

As for the argument of a handgun being the great equalizer for a woman against a male attacker, that's an argument that's probably best handled by women. And it already has been. The following organizations have come out with public endorsements of gun control legislation: American Medical Women's Association, General Federation of Women's Clubs, International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union, League of Women Voters of the United States, National Council of Jewish Women, National Organization for Women, Women's National Democratic Club, Women Strike for Peace, Women's Action for New Directions, Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, and the YWCA.

In the headline I alluded to a common sense argument. Here it is: In this country, in order to own and operate an automobile, the automobile in question must be registered and the driver must have a license. Each year that car must be inspected and re-registered and the driver must pass a series of tests to obtain a license. Doesn't it make sense, at a minimum, to require the same of gun owners? We desperately need a national system for registering guns and ammunition and licensing gun owners. Background checks should be conducted on everyone wishing to purchase a gun and anyone convicted of a felony should be prohibited from owning one, as well as those committing certain misdemeanors and juvenile crimes. One thing I agree with the National Rifle Association about is that there should be much stiffer sentences for those committing crimes involving guns.

So, yes, all of you who still adhere to the frontier ethic of vigilante justice and taking the law into your own hands, I've heard your arguments, but the statistics don't support them.

Finally, there was one responder who asked shouldn't I be more concerned about the number of abortions performed each year versus the number of people killed by handguns. I don't want to change the subject into why I support a woman's right to chose whether to have a medical procedure performed -- that's for another day -- but let me tell this person what I am really concerned about. I remember while working as a reporter for United Press International coming across a police story in which a 6-year-old boy accidentally killed his 3-year-old brother. It seems the children were playing in their parents bedroom where the father kept pistol in a holster slung over the bedpost. That story broke my heart. So if you want to know who I'm really concerned about, who I really want to protect, it's that 3-year-old boy whose life was wasted and the 6-year-old whose life was shattered because of a gun. Think about that for a while and then come back to me with your pro-gun arguments.

What was O.J. actually found guilty of

I am absolutely convinced O.J. Simpson killed his ex-wife Nicole and her friend Ronald Goldman. Beyond a reasonable doubt. I don't care what the jury found 13 years ago, I know he did it and I am convinced a majority of Americans feel the same way. I bet a majority of Americans have often said publicly or to themselves, "If I had been on the jury, O.J. would not be making a tour of U.S. golf courses right now. He would be behind bars where he belongs."

And I'm also betting some of those folks served on the jury in Simpson's most current trial in Las Vegas, a trial in which the jury ruled yesterday (ironically, 13 years to the date he was acquitted of murder) he was guilty of armed robbery, kidnapping and a 10 other charges. I'm not questioning his guilt or innocence this time around because I really didn't follow this latest case that closely. But, from what little I did read, I would say I had "reasonable doubt" -- that perhaps he was just trying to recover property he felt rightly belonged to him. (After writing that previous sentence, I am sure some sociologist could argue that was the same motive that drove him to kill Nicole.)

Simpson's attorney, Yale Galanter, said much the same thing after the verdict was announced. “I don’t like to use the word payback,” Mr. Galanter said. “I can tell you from the beginning my biggest concern was whether or not the jury would be able to separate their very strong feelings about Mr. Simpson and judge him fairly and honestly.”

Simpson's sentence will be announced in another month, Dec. 5. He could get anywhere from five years to life in prison on the kidnapping conviction, between two and 30 years on the armed robbery charges. The other charges involve conspiracy to to commit robbery, burglary, assault and coercion. The fact that a weapon was involved in these last four charges adds additional years to the minimum sentences. Something tells me the sentence will fall into the 10-15 year range, unless the judge feels like I do: If justice had been served 13 years ago, Simpson would not have been free to commit the Las Vegas crimes.

How many of me are there?

Want to know how many people share your name? I thought so. But for those who do, just click here and you can find out. Well, maybe not exactly. From what I gather this site bases its information on statistical probabilities. In fact, in its FAQ section, in answer to the question "Does the program really know how many people have the same name as me?", the answer is: "No. The program returns an estimate based on available data. It should be considered a 'ballpark figure'. It will usually return an answer in the right general area, but the chances of the figure being exactly right are very low." With that in mind, the program said only six people share my name, nine share my son's name (although if I used his middle name instead of his first name, he may be the only person alive with that name), and my granddaughter may be unique in the whole U.S. of A., the only one with her first and last name. But I already knew she was one of a kind.

Oh, how true it is

A week or so ago I wrote about filmmaker Ilana Trachtman and her documentary "Praying with Liore." Tonight the film was screened before a packed crowd at the Angelika Theater and after the showing, Ms. Trachtman made a short presentation about how she came to make the film and what she has learned traveling around the country presenting her picture. One of the things she said she learned really struck a responsive chord with me. She said: "There are really only two types of people in this world. Those who have special needs and those who will have special needs."