It's in the game
Ed O’Bannon and a group of a dozen former and current major college athletes are suing the NCAA and gaming company EA Sports for unauthorized use of their likenesses on NCAA-sponsored video games. The lawsuit has caused the Southeastern Conference to end their licensing agreement with EA. The Des Moines Register’s Andrew Logue feels “caught in the middle” as he’s a consumer and he just wants to “plug in (his) console(s), tune out any sort of legal wrangling, and lock (his) favorite team into Dynasty Mode.”I’m not a gamer, but I know exactly how he feels. I like cheap shit and I felt like I was caught in the middle when Walmart’s garment factory in Bangladesh collapsed, killing more than 430 people.
---
I am not an attorney-- though I sometimes play one on the internet-- and yet it seems as if President Obama provided Edward Snowden with a strong legal defense last week. By acknowledging that the American people deserve to have a “dialogue” about the NSA program, in effect arguing that there was a public interest in the details of the program, wasn’t he also acknowledging that the information should not have been classified?
---
Now that Michael Bloomberg and Ray Kelly’s racist “stop-and-frisk” policy has been ruled unconstitutional, let’s examine the good that came of it: Between 2004 and 2011, these “stop-and-frisk” stops of mostly black- and brown-skinned men (90% of the overall total) produced enlightening results of just how non-dangerous these profiled characters really are.
Even though these were supposedly the “right” individuals to target, less than two percent of these unconstitutional stops led to the uncovering of a weapon. Nearly nine-tenths of all stops did not lead to other law enforcement action (such as an arrest or a summons), and that’s even taking into account that “other” action would include draconian drug seizures and charges.
The first question to pose is why the NYPD thought it could engage in policing that was clearly racist. (The judge in the case pointed out in her verdict that the department has been given “actual and constructive notice since at least 1999 of widespread Fourth Amendment violations” occurring with this approach to community policing.) The results of their defiant efforts nonetheless beg a second question: Why is New York City law enforcement still fighting to continue tactics that have proven so futile?
Rejoice White Establishment, you can now take a deep breath, relax your shoulders, and un-clutch your purse. Unless the guy is packing a parcel of Skittles and an iced tea, you’re aces.
posted by CM @ 11:13 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home