Monday, November 12, 2007

Color of Change

Matt Stoller - in three posts today - and Markos (following up on Jane Hamsher last night) have noted the fast rise and significant influence of Color of Change.

And quoted Jill Tubman:

NAACP: 500,000 members, almost $20,000 raised for Jena 6, 0% of funds disbursed to families and lawyers to date

Color of Change: 400,000 members, over $200,000 raised for Jena 6, 100% of funds disbursed to date

As African American Political Pundit points out, which of these organizations looks more competent, effective and credible in terms of black leadership to you?

Troy Anthony Davis hearing Tuesday

Tomorrow the Georgia Supreme Court will hold a hearing for Troy Anthony Davis, convicted of murdering Savannah police officer Mark MacPhail in 1989 and sentenced to death, to determine whether the recanted testimony of seven of the nine witnesses in the case should be heard in a court of law.

I have to say that after reading the three AJC pieces in anticipation of the hearing, I do understand how hard it must be for the MacPhail family.

But it would be even worse if the real killer’s still free and the wrong man is behind bars. This from today’s AJC story:

Davis’ lawyers will tell the justices that the new testimony not only exonerates Davis in the murder of Officer Mark Allen MacPhail, but also implicates another man: Sylvester Nathaniel Coles.

Otherwise known by his nickname “Redd,” Coles still hangs out in Davis’ old Savannah haunts. On those streets, according to affidavits, he is considered a thug.

“Since Mr. Davis’ trial, substantial evidence has surfaced that shows not only that Troy Davis is innocent, but that Sylvester “Red [sic]” Coles murdered Officer MacPhail,” Davis’ lawyers wrote in a document filed with the Board of Pardons and Paroles. It is an assertion they repeat in their motion before the state Supreme Court.

This is a tale of two families:

In the summer of 1989, Troy Davis was almost 21 and living at his mother’s house in Cloverdale, a modest subdivision of tidy lots where the residents, mostly black, all knew each other.

His name had appeared five times on charge sheets in the Chatham County court system. The most serious charge: carrying a concealed weapon. He paid a $252 fine.

One police report said Davis’ alias was R.A.H. - “rough as hell” - a reference to his street acumen. His family says Rah was short for Raheem, his acquired Muslim name, which means “compassion” or “merciful” in Arabic. That’s how his family describes him.

His mother, Virginia Davis, said her son stayed at home to take care of a sister suffering from multiple sclerosis and left $80 on her dresser every payday, even though his minimum wage salary was meager. He wanted a better job, a decent life.

Mark MacPhail already had the stability Davis craved. The former Army Ranger was a Savannah police officer, happily married and the father of two: newborn Mark Jr. and 1-year-old Madison.

MacPhail was only 13 when his own father died of a heart attack, and he was especially close to his mother, Anneliese MacPhail. On dark days after his father’s death, he tried to cheer up his “Mumsy.” He would put on her clothes or an old hat to make her smile.

We all want justice:

The families of both MacPhail and Davis say they will pray for justice Tuesday.

But their prayers could not be more different: One asks for Davis’ death sentence to be imposed; the other that it be overturned. The first would close the murder case of Mark Allen MacPhail forever; the other would open it up all over again.

Rudy’s pale male campaign brigade

Via Pam Spaulding, who quotes Matt Yglesias’ blinded by the white:

Ann Friedman notes that Rudy Giuliani doesn’t only have the most male-dominated staff of any presidential candidate, he takes the prize for whitest campaign staff as well, clocking in at a striking 100 percent white. Phoenix Woman terms Team Rudy bad for diversity, but only Giuliani among the major contenders has child molesting priests and mobbed-up former police commissioners in his retinue. It’s only diversity in the racial and gender senses that he’s lacking.

ALSO FROM PAM: Liddy Dole, MIA.

Super Google

Bob Cringely’s not talking Sprint rumors, he’s imagining Google winning the 700 MHz spectrum auction and buying a credit bureau:

...once the spectrum is won and the network is built, say by 2010 or 2011, Google will have a very different relationship with the other mobile operators. That’s because Gphone (its a network service, understand, not a device), like Gmail, will be free.

Think for a moment of the impact a free mobile phone service will have on the mobile phone market. Why would I continue with Verizon or AT&T or Sprint or T-Mobile or Alltel or whomever if I could get the same or better service for free? Yeah, but the way to make the service free is by running ads on it and those ads would be contextually linked somehow to where or who you were calling and isn’t that creepy, especially for business customers?

Yes and no. Like Gmail, Google can sell a higher-end product probably minus the ads. People might find they actually LIKE the ads if Google does its job really well and isn’t too intrusive. The ultimate result, of course, is near-total Google dominance of the mobile ad space and - this is REALLY big - transferring some significant portion of the market caps of all those mobile operators right onto Google’s hips. Thanks to consumer parsimony and telephone number portability, Google over the course of a couple years would become the dominant U.S. mobile operator. And no matter what handset or protocol those customers use, the ads will be there and Google will be raking in the dough.

Which brings us back to the credit bureau. It would be very much in Google’s interest to own one of the big three credit reporting agencies, because your mobile phone number is the most practical supplement for the Social Security number as a financial identifier.

Take all the web usage and YouTube video data Google has been acquiring about us all, glue it to our data down at the credit bureau, tie it to our mobile phone number and our mobile activity, then use the resulting product as both an information service and a database for targeting ads and you have Super Google - the most valuable company on Earth and entirely based on metadata.

Allen found guilty of soliciting gay sex

The three-man, three-woman jury deliberated nearly 3 1/2 hours:

A Florida lawmaker who tried to pass tougher public lewdness laws was convicted Friday of agreeing to pay for gay sex with an undercover officer in a men’s park restroom.

Republican state Representative Bob Allen faces up to 60 days in county jail and a $500 fine for soliciting prostitution. That is a second-degree misdemeanor. The Merritt Island Republican was accused of peering over a stall at Titusville officer Danny Kavanaugh, then agreeing to pay $20 to perform oral sex on the policeman.

I’ve been emphasizing surprising evidence of how few gay people are found in these mens room stings but activists in Daytona point to another problem:

David Perreault, a local activist for gay rights, said Thursday night’s arrests have created a setback.

“There’s so much bigotry towards the gay community that people who would otherwise live a gay life live a straight life because that’s what’s accepted,” said Perreault, a retired police officer and former prosecutor. “They live in the shadows to find intimacy and love.”

Perreault said he personally finds sex in a bathroom “revolting.” But he understands how some gay people might see that as an option in a town where gay people are harassed both subtly and openly.

The Rev. Beau McDaniels of Hope Metropolitan Community Church said she can understand why some local gay and bisexual people go underground. It’s a conservative area where people’s sexual preferences can ruin their careers, she said.

“If people would learn to accept people as God accepts them, we wouldn’t have this issue,” McDaniels said. “When you’re told it’s wrong and bad, you hide. This will drive us deeper underground.”

SEE ALSO: A touch too far: public lewdness laws.

My corpus callosum is bigger than yours

A study in Canada has found genetic differences between gay and straight men:

Magentic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scans taken of heterosexual and homosexual men have found that the posterior corpus callosum is larger in gay men.

Neuroscientist Doctor Sandra Witelson said “The size of the corpus callosum is largely inherited suggesting a genetic factor in sexual orientation. Our results do not mean that heredity is destiny but they do indicate that environment is not the only player in the field.

“While this is not a litmus test for sexual orientation, this finding could prove to be one additional valuable piece of information for physicians and individuals who are trying to determine their sexual orientation. Sometimes people aren’t sure of their sexual orientation.”

Dr. Witelson also suggested that the size of the corpus callosum, along with test scores on finger dexterity, visual spatial and language could predict in 95 percent of cases a person’s sexual orientation.

You’ve got to love the notion that if we “aren’t sure” of our sexual orientation, that’s how we can figure it out.