The Smithian

May 15th, 2013

We’ve kind of enlisted the help of the gangs…If your goal is not gang eradication, which none of us knows how to do, but instead violence reduction, and you enlist the gangs as aids, then you begin to change the physics of the neighborhood…We’re doing it with the cooperation of the gangs because they’re so powerful—they control some of the neighborhoods. We get them into classes and training, and we say, if you help us stop the violence, we’re not going to hold your past against you. Everyone agrees we should keep the kids safe… [bloodshed wasn’t just the result of gang identification and drug disputes, but also personal grudges and simply] the power of the barrel of a gun…If you don’t give them a way to exert power legitimately, they’ll do it another way.

Connie Rice, Los Angeles civil rights attorney

In 2003 police brass asked Rice to help them formulate a new strategy for coping with LA’s…gang violence. The effort resulted in the Office of Gang Reduction and Youth Development, an initiative housed in the LA mayor’s office that includes recreational programs at night in city parks, intervention with preteen youth in neighborhoods with high gang membership, and appeals to former and current gang leaders to stop retaliatory violence. There’s…an experiment underway to offer…children of gang members a…college education if the kids stay out of gangs.

May 4th, 2013

thesmithian

'Documents that investigators recovered from the Black Guerrilla Family detail how its new members are taught to target specific [correctional] officers. Look for women, they are told, with “low self-esteem, insecurities, and certain physical attributes.” The manipulation of young female officers often starts with a smile or a brief conversation, said a former inmate very familiar with the gang’s tactics. Then the inmate slips the guard a few hundred bucks in exchange for bringing him a pack of cigarettes. “Once that door is open, you find your way in,” said the former inmate, who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of safety concerns. “It’s a hustle game.”'

May 2nd, 2013

thesmithian

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They…met in the first grade and were discovered in the early 1990s at the Greenbriar Mall in Atlanta by Jermaine Dupri, who molded them into the first commercially successful teen-oriented hip hop act. Mr. Kelly died on Wednesday after being found unresponsive in his home in Atlanta. He was 34…Mr. Kelly’s mother, Donna Kelly Pratte, said he had been using cocaine and heroin before his death.

more.
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art: Kelly, on the right.

They…met in the first grade and were discovered in the early 1990s at the Greenbriar Mall in Atlanta by Jermaine Dupri, who molded them into the first commercially successful teen-oriented hip hop act. Mr. Kelly died on Wednesday after being found unresponsive in his home in Atlanta. He was 34…Mr. Kelly’s mother, Donna Kelly Pratte, said he had been using cocaine and heroin before his death.

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art: Kelly, on the right.

May 1st, 2013

thesmithian

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The exhibition “Man Made: Jean-Michel Basquiat” offers a comprehensive view of his short career, from simple works on paper in marker and crayon from 1979 to large highly-finished canvases from 1987, the year before he died at age 27 of a drug overdose.

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The exhibition “Man Made: Jean-Michel Basquiat” offers a comprehensive view of his short career, from simple works on paper in marker and crayon from 1979 to large highly-finished canvases from 1987, the year before he died at age 27 of a drug overdose.

more. and more.

April 26th, 2013

thesmithian

“The history of Greenwich Village…is littered with the corpses of those who drank themselves to creative ruin or death, overdosed on various drugs, committed alcohol- or drug-fueled murder or suicide, or partied themselves into oblivion.”

more.

“The history of Greenwich Village…is littered with the corpses of those who drank themselves to creative ruin or death, overdosed on various drugs, committed alcohol- or drug-fueled murder or suicide, or partied themselves into oblivion.”

more.

April 19th, 2013

thesmithian

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…based on a true story…a…father whose wife suffers from a crack…addiction, and his efforts to protect his…daughter

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April 19th, 2013

thesmithian

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While apologists…may have seen Whitey as “a bad good guy,” Cullen and Murphy paint a different picture. He did not keep drugs out of Southie. He extorted money from dope dealers. He is charged with killing fellow gangsters and innocent bystanders alike. We are not talking Robin Hood here.

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While apologists…may have seen Whitey as “a bad good guy,” Cullen and Murphy paint a different picture. He did not keep drugs out of Southie. He extorted money from dope dealers. He is charged with killing fellow gangsters and innocent bystanders alike. We are not talking Robin Hood here.

more.

April 19th, 2013

thesmithian

'“To call the Zetas evil, I wouldn’t want to do that,” [Brooklyn-born prison priest Rev. Robert] Coogan said. In a country where the government is corrupt, the church is weak and business tycoons exploit workers while protecting lucrative monopolies, he said of the group’s vicious behavior, “It’s what they were taught...This is a society that oppresses people,” Coogan went on. “If the economy worked for the common good, there would be no Zetas. There would be no [drug] cartels.”'

In a Mexican prison run by the country’s most feared criminal syndicate, a Brooklyn-born priest struggles to save the most hardened souls.

April 10th, 2013

thesmithian

‘…From the 1980s until the birth of the Tea Party…the religious right and the secular left waged an existential struggle for the soul of American society…’

…Issues related to sexuality, drugs, religion, family life, and patriotism were particularly vexing, and many people over 40 can recall the names of battlefields such as Mapplethorpe, needle exchange, 2 Live Crew, and the flag-burning amendment. But the left won a smashing victory in the 2012 elections, including the first victories at the ballot box for gay marriage. These triumphs…give the left confidence that it will ultimately prevail on most issues in the Social Theater. The power base of the religious right is older, white, rural Protestants, a group that immigration, demography, and urban renewal have consigned to play an ever-shrinking role in American presidential elections. Both sides are now likely to shift several divisions and…task forces over to the Economic Theater of the culture war, where the single most important battle of 2012 was fought—the battle over marginal tax rates for the rich. The left won that battle on January 1, when the House of Representatives voted to raise tax rates for the rich, but victory in the overall war is far less certain. Economic issues such as taxation are moral issues—no less so than social issues like gay marriage—and neither side has full control of the key moral foundations that underlie economic morality: fairness and liberty.

more.

March 31st, 2013

thesmithian

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‘A drug arrest does not require anything other than getting out of your radio car and jacking people up against the side of the liquor store. The problem is that that cop that made that cheap drug arrest, he’s going to get paid. He’s going to get the hours of overtime for taking the drugs down to…[the evidence control unit]. He’s going to get paid for processing the prisoner down at central booking. He’s going to get paid for sitting back at his desk and writing the paperwork for a couple hours. Then the case is going to get called to court and a prosecutor’s going to sign his overtime slip for two, three hours to show up for a case that’s probably going to be stetted [dropped] because it’s unconstitutional. And he’s going to do that 40, 50, 60 times a month. So his base pay might end up being half of what he’s actually paid as a police officer. Meanwhile…In Baltimore, the clearance rates—our percentage of arrests for felonies—for rape, murder, robbery, auto theft, for the things that make a city unlivable—are half of what they once were. Our drug arrest stats are twice what they once were. That makes a city unlivable. It creates a criminal atmosphere that has no deterrent. It makes a police department where nobody can solve a fucking crime.’

more, from David Simon of The Wire regarding a new documentary.

‘A drug arrest does not require anything other than getting out of your radio car and jacking people up against the side of the liquor store. The problem is that that cop that made that cheap drug arrest, he’s going to get paid. He’s going to get the hours of overtime for taking the drugs down to…[the evidence control unit]. He’s going to get paid for processing the prisoner down at central booking. He’s going to get paid for sitting back at his desk and writing the paperwork for a couple hours. Then the case is going to get called to court and a prosecutor’s going to sign his overtime slip for two, three hours to show up for a case that’s probably going to be stetted [dropped] because it’s unconstitutional. And he’s going to do that 40, 50, 60 times a month. So his base pay might end up being half of what he’s actually paid as a police officer. Meanwhile…In Baltimore, the clearance rates—our percentage of arrests for felonies—for rape, murder, robbery, auto theft, for the things that make a city unlivable—are half of what they once were. Our drug arrest stats are twice what they once were. That makes a city unlivable. It creates a criminal atmosphere that has no deterrent. It makes a police department where nobody can solve a fucking crime.’

more, from David Simon of The Wire regarding a new documentary.

March 27th, 2013

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Despite the passage in late 2012 of a new state ballot initiative that prevents California from ever again giving out life sentences to anyone whose “third strike” is not a serious crime, thousands of people—the overwhelming majority of them poor and nonwhite—remain imprisoned for…offenses so absurd that any list of the unluckiest offenders reads like a macabre joke…Have you heard the one about the guy who got life for stealing a slice of pizza? Or the guy who went away forever for lifting a pair of baby shoes? …How about the guy who got life for possessing 0.14 grams of meth? This…monster of a mandatory-sentencing system is…the legacy of a series of complex political choices…California’s Three Strikes law has its origins in a terrible event from October 1993, when, in a case that outraged the entire country, a violent felon named Richard Allen Davis kidnapped and murdered an adolescent girl named Polly Klaas. Californians were determined to never again let a repeat offender get the chance to commit such a brutal crime…

more.

Despite the passage in late 2012 of a new state ballot initiative that prevents California from ever again giving out life sentences to anyone whose “third strike” is not a serious crime, thousands of people—the overwhelming majority of them poor and nonwhite—remain imprisoned for…offenses so absurd that any list of the unluckiest offenders reads like a macabre joke…Have you heard the one about the guy who got life for stealing a slice of pizza? Or the guy who went away forever for lifting a pair of baby shoes? …How about the guy who got life for possessing 0.14 grams of meth? This…monster of a mandatory-sentencing system is…the legacy of a series of complex political choices…California’s Three Strikes law has its origins in a terrible event from October 1993, when, in a case that outraged the entire country, a violent felon named Richard Allen Davis kidnapped and murdered an adolescent girl named Polly Klaas. Californians were determined to never again let a repeat offender get the chance to commit such a brutal crime…

more.

March 26th, 2013

thesmithian

'The millennials’ relationship with money seems quite simple. They do not have a lot of it, and what they do have, they seem reluctant to spend. Millennials are buying fewer cars and houses, and despite their immersion in consumer culture, particularly electronics, they are not really spending beyond their limited means. Their credit-card debt has declined, most likely because many millennials cannot get a credit card, and in part because they know they cannot afford to spend now and pay back later. “They have this risk aversion that we’ve seen with millennials since they were teenagers...It’s declining alcohol use, declining drug use. I mean, declining sex.”'

March 12th, 2013

thesmithian

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…Pryor relates two life-changing experiences…first is his trip to…Africa…he brings the audience up short with a…revelation that leads him to forswear ever again calling another black person the “N-word.” The second, of course, is his near-fatal freebasing accident…

the film was released on this day in 1982.

…Pryor relates two life-changing experiences…first is his trip to…Africa…he brings the audience up short with a…revelation that leads him to forswear ever again calling another black person the “N-word.” The second, of course, is his near-fatal freebasing accident…

the film was released on this day in 1982.

February 25th, 2013

thesmithian

‘…Why exactly are the bills so high?’

…What are the reasons, good or bad, that cancer means a half-million- or million-dollar tab? Why should a trip to the emergency room for chest pains that turn out to be indigestion bring a bill that can exceed the cost of a semester of college? What makes a single dose of even the most wonderful wonder drug cost thousands of dollars? Why does simple lab work done during a few days in a hospital cost more than a car? And what is so different about the medical ecosystem that causes technology advances to drive bills up instead of down?

much more, here.

February 23rd, 2013

thesmithian

It’s as if Mexicans subconsciously decided that their drug-related violence is a condition to be lived with and combated but not something to define them any longer. Mexico has signed 44 free trade agreements—more than any country in the world—which…is more than twice as many as China and four times more than Brazil. Mexico has also greatly increased the number of engineers and skilled laborers graduating from its schools.

more.

It’s as if Mexicans subconsciously decided that their drug-related violence is a condition to be lived with and combated but not something to define them any longer. Mexico has signed 44 free trade agreements—more than any country in the world—which…is more than twice as many as China and four times more than Brazil. Mexico has also greatly increased the number of engineers and skilled laborers graduating from its schools.

more.