Daily Bafflements
Matthew Sweet traces the history of research into whether power corrupts, starting in 1870. It’s fascinating, running the gamut from Piritim Sorokin’s view that “the ruling groups are more talented intellectually and more deranged mentally than the ruled population,” to Sweet’s own contention that “It may be that rich people are better at disguising their true nature than poor people.”
Who’s looking out for the landlords?
Spare the Teen, Spoil the Rod
Teen bodies and teen sex are like psychological napalm triggering the worst-case-scenario meltdowns of parents, lawmakers, and prosecutors across the country. Certainly, having a sizeable chunk of the population besieged with explosive hormones, sporting a still-developing prefrontal cortex, cell phones, and an astounding ability to do dumb shit is a lot for any society to contend with.
The Schizophrenic and the California Brood Mare
The flourishing free market of sperm, eggs, surrogates, uterine transplants, and embryos has outpaced functional regulation and ethical consideration. Consumers, donors, and clinics are exploiting an under-regulated marketplace to get what they want (namely, babies and money), and the results are gruesome.
Christmas Card from a Drunk (and Twelve Hookers) in Van Nuys
The Los Angeles Police Department officers who handcuffed me and put me under arrest on the side of Interstate Highway 10 were very polite. They informed me of my rights and allowed me to sit in the front seat of their black and white—still cuffed—on the way to the Van Nuys jailhouse in the San Fernando Valley.
How to Shoot a Suspect in the Back, Reasonably
Beyond the racial prejudice of juries and district attorneys, a major—and frequently ignored—factor as to why county prosecutors fail to indict cops who maim or kill unarmed citizens is a handful of Supreme Court and federal cases that exalt police discretion over common sense.
Fear and Insanity in Michigan
Jason Brian Dalton, the alleged mass shooter who left six people dead in random street attacks this February, told police that he believed his Uber app was controlling his mind and body. According to Det. William Moorian’s report for the Department of Public Safety, Dalton, who worked as an Uber driver, claimed the company’s new logo appeared as “the Eastern star and a devil head popped up on his screen and when he pressed the button on the app, that is when all the problems started.”
Dalton claimed that the devil figure in the Uber app gave him assignments, providing him with general navigation, and then took over his whole body to the point where he didn’t need drive the car at all because the Prince of Darkness (under the cloak of Uber) was in control.
Really, Really Bad: Michael Jackson’s Bibliophilia
The British cable channel Sky Arts caused a fracas last month when they announced that Joseph Fiennes would be playing the late Michael Jackson in a one-off comedy about a road trip Jackson reportedly took with Marlon Brando and Elizabeth Taylor to escape New York City after the terror attacks of 9/11.
This Is Not a Simulation
Here’s what Gregory Merritt, a supervisor at the Los Angeles Department of Children and Family Services knew.
He knew that eight-year old Gabriel Fernandez had a BB gun bullet lodged in his chest but that he never received medical care.
Twilight of the Superpredators
In the early 1990s a conservative criminologist at Princeton, John J. DiIulio, scanned the horizon and predicted that a new superbreed of hoodlums was coming like a demographic tidal wave. Over a twenty-year span, DiIulio forecast, 270,000 juvenile offenders would roam the nation’s streets, looking to rob, rape, or assault law-abiding citizens.
Texas Foster Care Is an Unconstitutional Snake Pit
On January 8, the state of Texas filed to appeal U. S. District Judge Janis Jack’s December 2015 ruling that the Texas foster care system is a place where “rape, abuse, psychotropic medication, and instability are the norm.” Jack’s blistering 260-page report makes for brutal reading.
Waiving the Age of Reason
Most kids start to learn their multiplication tables in the third grade. Their storybooks—typically illustrated, with only a few sentences per page—begin to give way to short chapter books. A year later, they are taught the difference between sedimentary and volcanic rock.
