Category Archives: murder
Iranian Conventional Arms Embargo
As part of the Obama nuclear agreement, Iran made a last minute pitch to end the conventional arms embargo. Grinning Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif got what he wanted and more. The deal calls for the E.U. to also lift sanctions on the Iranian Republican Guard and the Quds Force.
At least 500 Americans were killed in Iraq by Iranian made Explosively Formed Penetrators. EFP’s are a more sophisticated version of improvised explosive devices or IED’s.
Frederick Kagan of the American Enterprise Institute explains here “Why They’re Cheering in Tehran”.
No Sanctuary for Kate Steinle
Illegal immigrant Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez has served 181 months in prison over 15 years. He’s been convicted of seven flelonies and deported five times. After serving each of his various terms was returned to Mexico and then sneaked back over the border for more of the same.
The Lopez-Sanchez round trip crime tour came to an end April 15. Rather than ship him back to Mexico again, a local sheriff released him onto the streets of San Fransisco. At that point Lopez-Sanchez would have been untouchable, San Fransisco being a Sanctuary City. But he claimed he found a gun and shot 32 year old Kate Steinle while she walked with her father.
Here’s Michael Daly’s account in a Daily Beast story slugged The Murder Shaking San Francisco’s Liberal Soul.
A memorial for Kate Steinle was held on Thursday. Family and friends told stories of an adventurous, exuberant, and uncommonly kind young woman. They had a phrase for the sunny, uplifting impact she seemed to have on everybody, wherever her wide travels took her:
“The Kate effect.”
Climate of Fear
The Islamic Caliphate is capturing and holding territory in Anbar province and Syria. ISIS murdered 262 people in Palmyra over Memorial Day weekend. If past behavior is any guide, antiquities there could be doomed. President Obama called the defeat of Ramadi a “tactical setback”.
In a commencement speech at the Coast Guard Academy last week the president hinted at his military priorities. He named climate change the top national security threat.
Cartoon Punch Down
If somebody tells you you can’t draw something, the proper response of any self-respecting cartoonist is to draw that thing. Bosch Fawstin did exactly that and won first prize in the “Draw Mohammad” contest a week ago. In his cartoon a sword wielding Mohammad says, “You can’t draw me”, to which Fawstin responds, “That’s why I draw you.”
He also drew a response. Two heavily armed would be jihadis were gunned down by a cop with a pistol as they tried to turn “Draw Mohammad” into a “Charlie Hebdo” style massacre.
Doonesbury creator Garry Trudeau’s approach is different from the Fawstin way. He explained it in his acceptance speech for a Polk lifetime achievement award last month. It’s the punching bag theory of cartooning. He says that satire must always punch up at the powerful and never punch down at the powerless.
Now they tell me. There are rules for satire.
I like Doonesbury but haven’t liked its politics ever since the entire cast cheered Nixon’s wage/price controls back in the early 70’s. But that’s no reason to not appreciate a good cartoon. Doonesbury has been like an ongoing play with well developed characters who grow over time. It’s witty too. Most of the time.
Steyn Punch Down
Mark Steyn, on the other hand, hates Trudeau’s guts. So I picked out some of the good stuff from his column A Contemptible Man Strikes Down:
“The Polk Award is named after a journalist shot dead at point-blank range in 1948 while covering the Greek civil war. So you might have thought it would be in ever so mildly bad taste to use the opportunity of a Polk acceptance speech to piss on the graves of a group of journalists similarly murdered. Nevertheless, that’s what Mr Trudeau did:
Charlie Hebdo, which always maintained it was attacking Islamic fanatics, not the general population, has succeeded in provoking many Muslims throughout France to make common cause with its most violent outliers. This is a bitter harvest.
Ah, so Charlie Hebdo is to blame for provoking ordinary, peaceful, moderate Muslims into supporting the Allahu Akbar guys who killed them.
Traditionally, satire has comforted the afflicted while afflicting the comfortable. Satire punches up, against authority of all kinds, the little guy against the powerful. Great French satirists like Molière and Daumier always punched up, holding up the self-satisfied and hypocritical to ridicule. Ridiculing the non-privileged is almost never funny—it’s just mean.
Mothers Day in Baltimore
Nothing is more embarrassing than having your mom smack you upside the head and drag you home in front of your fellow rioters. Toya Graham didn’t want to see her son become another Freddie Gray . Her solution upstaged President Obama who condemned the violence in Baltimore, blamed Republicans, and called for more spending.
