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Lousy justice, Ferguson, and Staten Island

Douglas Starr, a medical journalist, has done a series of pieces for the New Yorker on medicine and justice.  In the latest piece, he shows how medical evidence -- how technology -- can fail the system and end in serious errors hurting innocent people.  He reveals the extent to which our justice system is failing you and me, Michael Brown and Eric Garner -- and, of course, the unfortunate many who are convicted and jailed as a result of carelessness or just plain lousy work. 

One recent one particular case and one particular D.A.'s office in near Philadelphia. It is described in familiar language as "a classic organizational error: a series of small slip-ups that cascaded into an important mistake." Of course, all too often prosecutors are loathe to admit possible errors in a case they think they've wrapped up.  But more often it's just, well, carelessness or the lack of concern about someone else's life going to hell.

The meetings showed [District Attorney Risa] Ferman that, even in a busy office like hers, she needed to create a step in which everyone could pause during certain complex or high-profile cases and have someone else take a fresh look at the evidence. She and her staff made structural changes, creating two new staff positions to offer independent review of such cases, and to serve as ombudsmen for attorneys who might have concerns. At the same time, the Montgomery County Detective Bureau formed a new division specifically to investigate cases involving violent crime and technology. Kerns, meanwhile, did not get off completely. He agreed to a plea deal with the Commonwealth in which he would spend fifteen years as a registered sex offender.

Howard Spivak, the deputy director of the National Institute of Justice, said that there’s “real excitement” about the results of these experiments. It won’t be easy for blame-free analyses to become the norm: unlike the transportation and medical industries, the legal system is inherently adversarial and resistant to self-evaluation. Yet the need for such reviews confronts us every day. As the recent U.S. Justice Department report on Ferguson has shown, the shooting of Michael Brown and the subsequent riots did not occur in a vacuum: systemic racism and revenue-oriented policing set the stage. Other cases, such as that of Eric Garner, who was suffocated by a New York police officer, also suggest the need for system-oriented analysis.

“You have to look at a whole range of questions,” Doyle told me. “What was the policy wisdom of criminalizing revenue offenses like selling loose cigarettes? Who made a command decision to clean up that corner? Did the officers get trained in deëscalation, and in the proper takedown techniques? Was there a better way to do this than the way it was done?" ...NewYorker

Sure.  Just takes time, effort, and -- in many cases -- the willingness to face down racism in the system no less than inadequate training.

Majority now side with Obama

Is this (maybe) a breakthrough in American attitudes towards using the military to settle diplomatic disputes?

By a nearly 2 to 1 margin, Americans support the notion of striking a deal with Iran that restricts the nation’s nuclear program in exchange for loosening sanctions, a new Washington Post-ABC News poll finds. ...WaPo

It goes without saying that the support for a deal depends on the deal being effective.

Support outpaces opposition across nearly all demographic and political groups, with liberals (seven in 10) and Democrats (two-thirds) the most supportive. At least six in 10 independents and moderates also back the broad idea of a deal with Iran.

Republicans are about evenly divided on an Iran deal, with 47 percent in support and 43 percent opposed. ...WaPo

The Post suggests that the Netanyahu visit may not have been very popular. But the majority continue to believe Congress has and should continue to have final approval over any nuclear deal. 

Nor is Obama seen as personally successful in his dealings with Iran.  The beat, sustained by media on the right, goes on, but the public is less credulous.

Presidents and Alzheimer's: seems Reagan's onset may have come earlier

Perhaps well before his first term as president.

A medical study of both Reagan and Bush 1 were not undertaken as a potential "gotcha" political effort but as a way of detecting the disease in its earlier stages with the goal of improving treatments and the longevity of its victims.  George H. W. Bush is not seen as a victim of Alzheimer's.

... A clever new analysis has found that during his two terms in office, subtle changes in Mr. Reagan’s speaking patterns linked to the onset of dementia were apparent years before doctors diagnosed his Alzheimer’s disease in 1994.

The findings, published in The Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease by researchers at Arizona State University, do not prove that Mr. Reagan exhibited signs of dementia that would have adversely affected his judgment and ability to make decisions in office.

But the research does suggest that alterations in speech one day might be used to predict development of Alzheimer’s and other neurological conditions years before symptoms are clinically perceptible. ...NYT

The results are somewhat disturbing for anyone who isn't that good at remembering names or who has a tendency to speak or write repetitively.  Targeting verbal abilities has led researchers to find very early symptoms of the disease in the writings of at least two famous authors.  The study, in fact, has depended on having evidence readily available from authors and presidents in published books and transcripts. 

And, of course, bloggers and others online, though none are mentioned in the Times article.

Putin's nothing compared to you-know-who

This comes from Reuters, via Political Wire, and is what I call political barf:

A new Reuters/Ipsos poll finds that 34% of Republicans called President Obama an imminent threat to the United States, versus 25% who ranked Russian President Vladimir Putin and 23% who viewed Syrian President Bashar al-Assed as that dangerous.

Barf, yes.  But also a measure of the intelligence and, may we add, the"patriotism" of America's right. And that's "al-Assad," fellas.

Net neutrality under fire

Seriously.  "Net neutrality" may turn out to be a short-lived piece of romantic nonsense in a world dominated by corporate interests.  "We The People" may be lucky just to hang on for the ride. 

Powerful forces -- the courts, Congress and its hold on the purse strings, the incoming president in 2017, and procedural rules at the FCC -- are standing in the way of net neutrality.  The fight is far from over, according to a report at The Hill.

If the rules survive in court, make it through the gauntlet of Congress and are left intact by the next president, procedural rules at the FCC could end up being their undoing.

The agency has an internal provision saying that any application for regulatory exemptions are automatically granted if they are not acted upon within one year — a measure that was intended to prevent the agency from ignoring petitions.

For now, given the FCC’s current makeup of three Democrats and two Republicans, any company asking for exemptions to the net neutrality rules are likely to be rejected.

But if that should happen to change — for instance, if a Democratic president is unable to move their nominees through a GOP-controlled Senate after the current commissioners’ term expire — the agency could be stuck in a 2-2 deadlock, which would automatically grant an exemption, known as forbearance.

“It’s not too far out there,” former Rep. Rick Boucher (D-Va.), who helped write the 1996 law undergirding the FCC’s authority, recently told The Hill.

“In that circumstance, if a forbearance petition is filed and they don’t act on it, it could be deemed granted.” ...TheHill

In other words, from the people's viewpoint, the system fails. You can have a temporary win, but the real power remains in corporate hands.

America's government doesn't like education, prefers training

There really is a difference between education and training. 

Both are valuable.  Both should be available, even urged, for everyone at all stages of life. In fact, one of the most valuable aspects of a liberal arts education is that it teaches the importance of self-education that, in turn, enhances the ability to self-govern.

Training is valuable, but mostly for giving us specific skills for specific jobs.  As our lives lengthen, we need and want more opportunity than a limited set of skills offers.  A range of skills and a rich education give us necessary power to deal with over-reaching corporations and their unblinking supporters within government. A well-educated constituency asks the right questions and demands answers.  Any disparagement of any part of education should be, in itself, a red flag.

From President Obama on down, public officials have cautioned against pursuing degrees like art history, which are seen as expensive luxuries in today’s world. Republicans want to go several steps further and defund these kinds of majors. “Is it a vital interest of the state to have more anthropologists?” asked Florida’s Gov. Rick Scott. “I don’t think so.” America’s last bipartisan cause is this: A liberal education is irrelevant, and technical training is the new path forward. It is the only way, we are told, to ensure that Americans survive in an age defined by technology and shaped by global competition. The stakes could not be higher. ...FareedZakaria,WaPo

Anthropology and history are just a couple of the many intellectual disciplines that lead people to ask difficult questions of their representatives in government.  Governor Rick Scott would rather not have to answer those questions or deal with open minds. Dumbing us down makes us easier to use and less likely to challenge

Training alone doesn't build a society that has vision, hope, and (particularly evident as we find ourselves with a government that doesn't govern), a self-governing society.  As we focus on developing skills that are useful largely to the corporate world, we give ourselves over to the dominance and values of a narrow (if powerful) sector of what the world has to offer. 

Zakaria hardly has to remind us that we have fallen behind other countries now quite alarmingly in both "liberal arts" and technology, failing to understand that -- if we want the kind of continuing education that feeds a nation's progress -- we need to insure that students have both training and an intellectual grounding. Without a mix of skills, we are putting our ability to govern ourselves at risk. 

"Are putting..."?  We already have put ourselves at risk, and we see evidence for that in Rick Scott's Florida as well as on Capitol Hill.

For most of human history, all education was skills-based. Hunters, farmers and warriors taught their young to hunt, farm and fight. But about 2,500 years ago, that changed in Greece, which began to experiment with a new form of government: democracy. This innovation in government required an innovation in education. Basic skills for sustenance were no longer sufficient. Citizens also had to learn how to manage their own societies and practice self-government. They still do. ...Zakaria,WaPo