My office manager’s husband was stopped again yesterday for no reason — second time this week. It usually only happens once a month. The police searched the entire vehicle and of course found nothing, because he’s a successful businessman with no criminal record.
Then again, he is a dark-skinned Latino.
Whenever he gets stopped, he remains polite but firm and does not give the police any reason to arrest him. He allows them to search the vehicle because he knows if he says no, they will find some reason to hold him, go and get a warrant, and do it anyway. After an hour or so, they have to give up and let him go.
He is a building owner and manager in New York city, so he often travels in work clothes so he can make repairs to his buildings. He may not dress in a suit and tie every day, and that is part of the problem. Fortunately, he does not wear a hoodie.
When police want to pull over a car, they must have a “reasonable suspicion” that a violation of the traffic code is taking place. That’s so easy to find, though. You swerved a bit, you forgot to turn your signal on when you changed lanes (even if no one was behind you), and in this case, his license plate was obscured by snow.
Once you’re stopped, they can hold you if you “fit a profile” or if they “smell marijuana” (which they do a lot of). I had a case a while ago where my client’s car was pulled over for being suspicious because “there were many people in the car, it was from New Jersey, and it was driving on a road known to be used by drug traffickers.” Mainly, route 80, the biggest highway coming from New York city, which everyone takes. A car full of people from New Jersey in a tourist area like the Poconos, just over the New Jersey/Pennsylvania border? Clearly suspicious.
Oh, did I mention all the people in the vehicle were black?
This particular person, however, gets stopped along the 100-mile corridor between New York city and his home here, so it’s not just one police department doing this. That’s even worse, though, isn’t it? It says this is systemic.
And it’s not always racism as much as it racial profiling, if you see the distinction. I’ve had many cases where black cops pull over black drivers for stupid reasons, too.
Some people scoff at this, and say everyone is overreacting. These people are always white.
“Yeah, gimme a pack of Marlboro Lights.”
“Sir, this is a Foot Locker. We only sell shoes here.”
“What? But that’s illegal! You have to sell me cigarettes!”
So we find another gross injustice and example of discrimination in American society.
This has brought about some questioning from the media. “How can a business decide to not sell a legal product?” asks a reporter from Fox News. (Ha ha! I really didn’t need to add the “from Fox News” part, did I?)
Anyway, Miss America pageant contestant and Fox News “reporter” Gretchen Carlson was quite upset about CVS’s decision to no longer sell cigarettes.
"Businesses need freedom!" Fox News continually shouts. "A business owner shouldn't have to answer to anyone about their internal decision-making … Except when they decide things we here at Fox don't like. That's different."
I think the real reason Fox is so upset is because President Obama applauded CVS for taking this position. And as we all know, if Obama is in favor of anything, Fox News is legally required to oppose it.
I anxiously await the day Obama proclaims that "breathing is good."
I mean, seriously, what’s the point?
Nothing you say will change their minds. But yet, there was a debate on TV between scientist Bill Nye and creationist Ken Hamm. 
As I predicted, Nye made Hamm look like an idiot, and Hamm and his followers claimed that they won handily. That’s easy to do when facts don’t matter.
If people want to believe that the earth is only 4000 years old and dinosaurs roamed with cavemen, fine. Go ahead and believe in whatever silly thing you want to. This is America, and you have every right to do so.
But I think it is also inherent on us to start treating these people with disdain in the same way we treat racists. Let’s call them out. Let’s challenge them. Let’s make them outcasts.
Like racists, these people are hurting our society. They are filling their kid’s heads with nonsense and destroying their future. Worse yet, many of them are trying to force us to teach their mythology in our science classes. (Next: astrology and alchemy!)
So I applaud Nye for at least making this public and getting people to talk about it. Sure, he didn’t plan on changing anyone’s mind, but the more we expose these people, the better.
Whenever I see some conservative politician’s ad about “Real America” it always shows a bunch of white people on a farm somewhere, even though the vast majority of Americans live in cities and suburbs, never see a farm, and are more and more not even white. As I said in a previous post, “Real America” to me is a bustling city full of all sorts of different cultures, races and religions living together in relative peace and harmony.
So I thought the Super Bowl Coke ad was wonderful. It showed Americans, singing “America the Beautiful,” and making its point that we are all Americans, no matter what we look like, who we love, or what our native language may be.
So here it comes. Warning: Irony Alert. A lot of Irony Alert.
Some conservatives thought the ad was an insult. They complained, often with misspelled words and poor grammar, that if you can’t speak English you shouldn’t be considered an American.
Michael Patrick Leahy over at Breitbart complained that Coke had used this song, which is about brotherhood and bringing people together, in a divisive manner. He complained that it didn’t fit our American ideals of “e pluribus unum.” That latin phrase literally means “out of many, one.” Or, to use simpler words, we are stronger together than we are as individuals and no matter what we are as individuals, we are all accepted and part of the whole.
Best were the “patriots” who whined that Coke had ruined “our National Anthem” (which is, of course, “The Star Spangled Banner”).
So yeah, I don’t get the complaints. They think this ad is tearing us apart from what America really means when to me, it is exactly what America means.
While working on my next novel, I spent some time researching conspiracy theories. Why do otherwise reasonable people believe in them, and especially the ones that are so easily debunked?
What I found was that conspiracy theories provide a comforting way to explain evil in the world. Like people who find comfort in their religion, conspiracy theorists find comfort in knowing that evil can be explained, that it’s done by someone else, and therefore they cannot be held responsible. It’s a simple answer to a complex world.
Belief in grand conspiracies is not limited to political view. I have some liberal friends who are convinced that George W. Bush masterminded the 9/11 attacks, aliens are hidden in Area 51, and that the moon landing never happened. They are just as convinced in their view, despite all evidence to the contrary, as the right-wingers who are certain that Obama was born in Kenya, that the government is going to take everyone’s guns away, and that something illegal happened in Benghazi. (I still haven’t figured out what exactly they claim is the conspiracy with that last one, but they’re convinced it’s one nonetheless).
At a press conference yesterday, one of the loonies grabbed the mike and warned us all that 9/11 was a government plot. Gee, thanks, Crazy Man! Without you telling us, we would have never have taken such a claim seriously. Your wonderful presentation has turned believers into all of us.
If you find yourself as one of these believers, please ask why you are so willing to accept these things without proof. (Ha ha! I’m joking, of course. These guys all think they have “proof” and we’re just too stupid to see it — or more likely, we’re all part of the conspiracy, too! Dun dun DUN!)
Now do not read this post to mean that I think there are no such things as conspiracies. Of course there are — businesses conspire to set prices, drug pushers conspire with police officers to make sales and not be arrested, and so on — people conspire every day. I am referring to the huge major Illuminati-type of massive conspiracies that logically just cannot exist.
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