Wednesday, July 23, 2014

Frivolous Lawsuits, Funding Terrorism and Cultural Appropriation

I decided to write about these three things today but didn't think it would be right to just mention one of them in the title. I heard about each of these things last night from the television and since none of them require a full page I figured I'd just include them all, in order, in one post.

There is a Portland, Oregon man who was convicted of beating a man to a bloody pulp and received a 100 year sentence. The man was/is a pimp and assaulted a customer who refused to pay for the services of one of the working girls. One can almost assuredly assume the man has a long criminal record since a 100 year sentence is normally given in the victim dies. The report I heard did not mention that the victim died so I'm guessing the harsh sentence is because of the assailant's history. Either that or the judge found the crime particularly heinous.

This fine, upstanding purveyor of adult companionship beat his victim and then kicked the man over and over with his Nike shoes, leaving the man badly injured. (Of course, you can bet that there are those who will say justice was served since he didn't pay his tab but that's another story for another day.

Anyway - the pimp serving the 100 year sentence is now suing the Nike Corporation because he says he was "not warned that the Nike shoes could be used as weapons." He's asking for $100 million in damages. According to the inmate/plaintiff: "under product liability there is a certain standard of care that is required to be up-held by potentially dangerous product...  due to the fact that these defendants named in this Tort claim failed to warn of risk or to provide an adequate warning or instruction it has caused personal injury in the likes of mental suffering."

In other words - "I didn't assault that man. My Nike shoes did it!" It's one of the most blatant examples of a time-wasting, frivolous lawsuit I've ever seen. And I spent my career working in federal prisons - I know about frivolous lawsuits. "My shoes assaulted that man" is just as ridiculous as "I didn't shoot that man - my gun did," which anti-gun zealots want people to believe. I wonder how they now feel about Nike shoes...?


President Obama recently approved $47 million in "humanitarian aid" to the Palestinian Authority, the Palestinian government that recently formed an alliance to co-govern with the terrorist group Hamas. It's not the first monetary aid he has given to the Palestinians but it's the first since Hamas began a war on Israel, our closest ally in the region. Certainly there are casualties in Gaza, as well as refugees fleeing the fighting. But the UN and the Red Cross and other organizations are out there to help them without the United States giving millions of dollars to Israel's enemies. What kind of alliance is that? What kind of friend are you if you give monetary support to the enemies of your friends? You can bet Hamas will be helping themselves to at least part of the $47 million. After all - they have to fund their war somehow.


Finally, with the controversy about the Washington Redskins' name and logo becoming a big story in the last several months, I want to bring another such atrocity to your attention. I learned last evening of a minor league baseball team that belongs to the New York Mets. They are based in Las Vegas and the team name is "Las Vegas Area 51s. They use the logo... you're not going to believe how bigoted they are... they use a drawing of a space alien as their logo! I kid you not!


Can you believe it? Just look at those images! Not only are they stereotyping other life forms strange to us but the team is using their image without their permission. And who is to say that this particular image is representative of all extra-terrestrials? It's certainly not a lifelike image so it's obviously degrading to the aliens. And the aliens didn't even have a say. Shame on you Las Vegas 51s - and shame on you too, New York Mets. You should know better.

Personally, I'm thinking of hiring a civil rights attorney to file a lawsuit on behalf of the aliens, in their absence. Someone needs to speak out for them. They're not properly represented here on Earth - as is evident by the gross misuse of their image for a baseball team. You can bet that it won't be long until someone decides to use Martians for a logo. Because Americans have proved themselves over and over to be bigots and cultural appropriators. And now it's even spreading to outer space...!



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