There are two types of false courage found out there in the mean streets, and both can prove deadly: Bottle courage, and pistol courage.
Two men were recently sent to prison for separate murders, sentenced to what prisoners call “Buck Rogers Time,” a term used to describe a release date so far in the future it boggles the mind, and both were the result of false courage at play: Cases where the otherwise cowardly (or at least sane) being fooled into thinking they were bad-assed dudes.
In one case, two men were leaving a bar’s parking lot when one man’s vehicle clipped the other’s pickup truck. The men, both with one drink too many according to witnesses, got into a verbal altercation. Sober, it probably would not have gone any further, but alcohol-fueled thinking took over and one man punched the other in the face; the man fell, struck his head on the curb and died.
In the other case two supposedly grown men argued over the price of a downtown parking space and the argument turned physical. The parking lot attendant evidently got the best of the fistfight but the other dude had a gun in his trunk — a gun he was licensed to carry.
So, instead of taking the ass-kicking like a man and walking off (in spite of the fact his girlfriend had witnessed it), he got his gun and smokes the other guy … who, it turns out, also was strapped.
Absent pistol courage coming into play the fight might not have even happened. But toting a gun around emboldens some men, especially young men, and they begin to think they are King Kong, Superman and Doc Holiday all rolled into one.
The shooter tries to convince the jury it was self-defense but they didn’t buy it … no one saw the other guy pull his gat.
I submit that minus inebriation and gun permits that allow folks to walk around packing heat, four lives would have been saved. Now there are two men dead and the two men that might as well be, at least for the next couple of decades. Maybe they’ll wind up as cellmates. Idiots.
Foreclosure Woes
Tea Partiers loudly call for less government regulation, to get the feds off our backs, but in some cases more regulation is what is needed, not less — and the foreclosure crisis is a prime example.
Wall Street was allowed to rape the American homeowner with shady financial instruments and the government stood idly by and did nothing. And indeed, pension plan managers became enablers in the criminal scheme by buying the bundled mortgages.
And now lenders are compounding the crime by throwing people out of their homes with little or no regard for the consequences — for the families or the actual properties. It would be far better to allow families that can no longer afford their high payments to stay in the homes to at least protect them from being stripped or vandalized; when that happens there is no value left for anyone.
But the lenders are, in spite of assurances to the feds they are attempting to adjust mortgages, playing dirty tricks and hardball.
Our home is underwater, meaning that is no longer worth what we paid to have it built. Under the bailout rules we qualify for mortgage reduction … but getting what was promised is another matter. It’s been virtually impossible to negotiate due to the bad faith on the part of our lender.
My wife is very good with numbers and keeps impeccable records; she even volunteers with the IRS each year to do tax returns of elderly citizens and others. Yet, despite her bookkeeping acumen we still had to hire a consultant to get what we, by law have coming.
The lenders play a game: They ask for a bunch of documents, and when you respond they try to find some flaw or fault with them … failing in that they ask for more documents, more bank statements, more financial forms until the average homeowner throws up their hands in disgust and just walks away from the process.
But they’ve met their match in my wife and our consultant. We are rounding third and headed for home. With his help, we’ve crossed every “T” and dotted every “I” requested.
The Law Sometimes is an Ass
The Ohio Supreme Court, in a 5-2 decision, recently upheld the constitutionality of a 2007 state law that mandates the firing of school employees that have “serious” criminal convictions in their past. In the case before the Court the conviction was for drug trafficking in 1976 … 21 years before the employee was hired.
In Ohio (and all other states) teachers have always had to undergo background checks, but the 2007 law required that all school employees, secretaries, mechanics, janitors and bus drivers also had to undergo such scrutiny … and I don’t have a problem with that. What I do have a problem with is blanket firings.
When the law first went into effect 23 employees of the Cleveland Municipal School District — all with good work histories — were fired, as was the individual who filed suit in the case that lead to the recent decision. However, the State Board of Education soon realized the law was Draconian, and issued a clarification that stated conduct which occurred over ten years in the past could be viewed in another light and that local boards could decide on a case-by-case basis … which was what the law should have originally stated.
However, the Court ruled that since the person was fired before the clarification was issued they were out of luck. Supreme Court Justice Robert Cupp wrote for the majority, “Unfortunately, delay is often an inherent characteristic of the rulemaking process. The effect that the delay had on [the terminated employee] career is regrettable.”
“Regrettable”? “Regrettable”? A life, a career and perhaps a whole family is ruined and all the Court can say is “regrettable”?
When lawmakers leave no room for fairness, and the Court then backs them up, they turn the law into an ass, and make us a worldwide laughingstock.
From Cool Cleveland correspondent Mansfield B. Frazier mansfieldfATgmail.com. Frazier’s From Behind The Wall: Commentary on Crime, Punishment, Race and the Underclass by a Prison Inmate is available again in hardback. Snag your copy and have it signed by the author by visiting http://www.neighborhoodsolutionsinc.com.