Texas executed an innocent man
Antonin Scalia once said that no one had ever been executed in the US for a crime they didn’t commit. Well, the Columbia Human Rights Law Review is devoting its entire spring issue to the case of Carlos DeLuna, who was executed by the state of Texas in 1989 for the murder of Wanda Lopez. Their investigation reveals that another Carlos, Carlos Hernandez, actually committed the murder.
Many other glaring discrepancies also stand out in the DeLuna case. He was put on death row largely on the eyewitness testimony of one man, Kevan Baker, who had seen the fight inside the Shamrock and watched the attacker flee the scene.
Yet when Baker was interviewed 20 years later, he said that he hadn’t been that sure about the identification as he had trouble telling one Hispanic person apart from another.
Then there was the crime-scene investigation. Detectives failed to carry out or bungled basic forensic procedures that might have revealed information about the killer. No blood samples were collected and tested for the culprit’s blood type.
Fingerprinting was so badly handled that no useable fingerprints were taken. None of the items found on the floor of the Shamrock - a cigarette stub, chewing gum, a button, comb and beer cans - were forensically examined for saliva or blood.
There was no scraping of the victim’s fingernails for traces of the attacker’s skin. When Liebman and his students studied digitally enhanced copies of crime scene photographs, they were amazed to find the footprint from a man’s shoe imprinted in a pool of Lopez’s blood on the floor - yet no effort was made to measure it.
“There it was,” says Liebman. “The murderer had left his calling card at the scene, but it was never used.”
Even the murder weapon, the knife, was not properly examined, though it was covered in blood and flesh.
Other photographs show Lopez’s blood splattered up to three feet high on the walls of the Shamrock counter. Yet when DeLuna’s clothes and shoes were tested for traces of blood, not a single microscopic drop was found. The prosecution said it must have been washed away by the rain.
Awful. See also Cameron Todd Willingham.
Our real first gay president
There can be no doubt that James Buchanan was gay, before, during and after his four years in the White House. Moreover, the nation knew it, too — he was not far into the closet.
Today, I know no historian who has studied the matter and thinks Buchanan was heterosexual. Fifteen years ago, historian John Howard, author of “Men Like That,” a pioneering study of queer culture in Mississippi, shared with me the key documents, including Buchanan’s May 13, 1844, letter to a Mrs. Roosevelt. Describing his deteriorating social life after his great love, William Rufus King, senator from Alabama, had moved to Paris to become our ambassador to France, Buchanan wrote:
I am now “solitary and alone,” having no companion in the house with me. I have gone a wooing to several gentlemen, but have not succeeded with any one of them. I feel that it is not good for man to be alone; and should not be astonished to find myself married to some old maid who can nurse me when I am sick, provide good dinners for me when I am well, and not expect from me any very ardent or romantic affection.Despite such evidence, one reason why Americans find it hard to believe Buchanan could have been gay is that we have a touching belief in progress. Our high school history textbooks’ overall story line is, “We started out great and have been getting better ever since,” more or less automatically. Thus we must be more tolerant now than we were way back in the middle of the 19th century! Buchanan could not have been gay then, else we would not seem more tolerant now.
Pretty Latte Machine
"No human being is one dimensional. I’m sure there are plenty of people in the world for whom Mitt has performed kindnesses. I expect we’ll be getting to know every single one of them in these next few months, too, in heavily filtered television ads in which the men wear proletarian flannel and the women’s St. John blazers are kept safely in the closet. All I can say is they’d better be more likeable than their candidate—for his sake. In the meantime, there’s something very reassuring about this country reposing in those numbers, that the black guy with the weird name who’s been called everything under the sun is twice as likeable as the rich white guy. This is the America that drives the wingers crazy, but that the rest of us—the majority—live in, and love."
As Gov. of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney, according to National Journal:
- Almost shut down the Massachusetts Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth, which focuses on suicide prevention, because it used the word “transgender” in a press release.
- Abolished a hate crimes task force.
- Cut back distribution of an anti-bullying guide that included a section on gay teens.
- Cut suicide prevention funds.
- Had strongly supported anti-hate crime legislation and anti-bullying efforts prior to his 2002 election as governor, then switched gears to appease the right after taking office and preparing to run for president.
"I’m not sure I know what AirPlay is. Today we want to be on every screen. Today it’s a little bit clunky to get programming from the Internet onto the TV — not so hard to get it on your iPad. What’s hard is the plumbing, what wires do you connect, what device do you use. So the current Apple TV, the little thing, the hockey puck, really doesn’t do anything to help enable you to get Internet material on your TV."
It’s not so much that he hasn’t heard of AirPlay. It’s that he specifically states that Apple doesn’t offer the exact feature set that is AirPlay.
Airplay launched in 2010. It’s an extension of AirTunes, which launched in 2004.
apoplecticskeptic
"I’m still waiting for the moment when Romney actually tells the truth about something difficult. He could have said, “You know, I’ve been troubled by the Cranbrook episode for most of my life, and I feel relieved, in a way, that it’s come out now. I did a really stupid and terrible thing. Teenage boys sometimes do such things and deserve to be punished for them. What I most regret is that I never apologized to John and won’t be able to now that he’s gone, but let me apologize to his family and friends. Bullying is unacceptable under any circumstances. It is especially unacceptable when prejudice — against one’s race, ethnicity or sexual orientation — is involved. If elected President, I will try to atone for my teenage behavior by campaigning against bullying all across this country. What I did back then should be an example of how not to behave. I hope we can all learn from this. I know I have.”
Instead, Romney has a near perfect record of cowardice, obfuscation and downright lies. It shows enormous disrespect for the intelligence of the public."
Joe Klein: Romney’s Apology for Bullying Insufficient
Can you imagine?!
(via apoplecticskeptic)
(via apoplecticskeptic)
Paul Krugman on the immediate future of the Euro
1. Greek euro exit, very possibly next month.
2. Huge withdrawals from Spanish and Italian banks, as depositors try to move their money to Germany.
3a. Maybe, just possibly, de facto controls, with banks forbidden to transfer deposits out of country and limits on cash withdrawals.
3b. Alternatively, or maybe in tandem, huge draws on ECB credit to keep the banks from collapsing.
4a. Germany has a choice. Accept huge indirect public claims on Italy and Spain, plus a drastic revision of strategy — basically, to give Spain in particular any hope you need both guarantees on its debt to hold borrowing costs down and a higher eurozone inflation target to make relative price adjustment possible; or:
4b. End of the euro.
Richard H. Kirk - Information Therapy (1980)
I just returned from a week in Hilton Head & Savannah. I woke up one morning to find these two about 25 feet from my front door.
THE 5 BEST QUOTES FROM MICHEL GONDRY’S BEING JOHN MALKOVICH COMMENTARY
someone at Criterion got the brilliant idea of getting Spike Jonze’s close friend / arch-nemesis Michel Gondry to record the commentary track on their Being John Malkovich release. some legal shenanigans have prevented Criterion from using the entire track, but the selected-scene commentary that’s included on the disc packs an absurd amount of genius into its 57 minutes. Gondry isn’t shy about his bitter rivalry with Jonze — most of the track is a hilarious meta-commentary on the perils of jealousy among artists, as Gondry, to put it generously, gets a *bit* distracted from the task at hand.
this is something that you should really experience for yourself, so all the quotes i’ve included below have been plucked exclusively from the first 15 minutes of the commentary. it only gets more amazing from here. trust.
(note: best read with a very thick French accent. all of Gondry’s imaginative sentence structure has been kept intact)
Gondry on the opening credits:
“What the fuck? I didn’t do this movie! I’ve been tricked.”
Gondry discussing an encounter he and Spike Jonze had when they were struggling to get their first films into production:
“We run into the guy who did Buffalo 66 (Vincent Gallo), and he said he’s gonna retire from movies and become a lawyer. And he’s such an asshole, talking to us who are struggling to have a movie made and he’s complaining cause he has too much work? I felt like he was, uh… just an arrogant bastard. So everyone hate him after this commentary.”
Gondry on the introduction of Mr. Lester:
“I don’t know who this actor is, I bet he’s not alive anymore. It’s kinda gross to watch movies, everyone is dead… I remember watching the movie and thinking the shoes of the guy survived the guy, the guy was dead, but maybe his shoes were somewhere still functioning. Anyway, I’m supposed to be talking about this movie… who is this actor? [Gondry is told it’s Orson Bean] Is he still alive… [a few moments pass] Great news, Orson Bean is still alive.”
Gondry on the Malkovich portal:
“Charlie imagined more of a vagina, but Spike imagined more of an asshole, I guess it’s just a matter of taste.”
Gondry trying to get back on task:
“Jealousy is a very ugly feeling, and i hate to have this feeling, so the best way to get rid of it is to say to everyone, and this is retarded because everyone thinks i’m a bitter person, which i don’t think i am. Oh, here he’s finding the portal.”
(via ronenreblogs)
