Martha Stewart and the Boston Bombing; andrew j. offutt, RIP; Tarquin and the Poppies; funeral games; and officers of the state and citizens of a republic.

View 772 Wednesday, May 01, 2013

I don’t do breaking news, but sometimes a breaking story triggers a thought. The breaking news is that three suspects have been detained in matters related to the Boston Marathon bombing. I put it that ambiguously because the exact connection with the bombing isn’t clear, but television is showing them shackled and in civilian clothes being perp-walked into a courthouse. Presumably we will learn what they are charged with.

Early reports said that they were charged with lying to federal agents about removing property/evidence from the room of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. The early report didn’t say anything about being charged with removing anything, only for saying they had not removed anything. This may well have been incorrect – early reports often fudge things – but it reminded me of the Martha Stewart case. Ms. Stewart was charged with lying to a federal officer by denying that she had done something that was not a crime even if she had done it. The conclusion to draw from the Martha Stewart case is that you should not cooperate with any federal officer for any reason whatever, lest you end up in a jail cell. When I was growing up we were taught that the authorities were our friends and we had a civic duty to cooperate with them; but surely not at the peril of being sent to Club Fed because you said you hadn’t done something that wasn’t a crime to begin with? Unless you have perfect memory, you are likely to get a detail wrong. If you have a detail wrong, you can end up in jail.

As this story breaks the story is more clear cut, involving a backpack and laptop being removed from the room, with the backpack eventually being recovered from a junkyard. I haven’t heard anything about the laptop. The story on the news is that the three new suspects found firecrackers whose powder had been removed in Tsarnaev’s room, and removed those as well.

The question here is not trampling on the rights of the suspects, two of whom appear to be “undocumented” or “expired document” immigrants aka illegal immigrants, but the wisdom of the Martha Stewart prosecution. Once Washington proves beyond doubt that they can get you once they decide to do it, you need to think twice about cooperating with the feds for any reason. That conflicts with normal civic habits – which is the point. When you set out to prove that you have arbitrary power and intend to use it, it sends a message. The message in this case is that cooperating with the feds may have a very bad outcome; lawyer up and plead the fifth, even if all they ask you is for the time of day.

This is of course not a favorable attitude for a republic, and actually it’s even worse for the plebiscitary democracy a lot of intellectuals hope we will evolve into. But that’s another essay.

We await actual charges in the Boston Marathon case. We can predict that the authorities will do almost anything to avoid attention on the fact that the Russian repeatedly warned us about Tamerlan Tsarnaev.

Death by database.

<http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2314048/Tamerlan-Tsarnaev-placed-U-S-terrorist-watch-list-multiple-warnings-Russian-authorities-FBI.html>

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Roland Dobbins

We were told that the Patriot Act and the Bush-Cheney security actions had made this sort of thing impossible. Has something changed since January 2009?

andrew j offutt, RIP

Andrew Jefferson Offutt, 78, of Haldeman Heights, passed away on April 30, 2013 at his home after an extended illness. He was born August 16, 1934 in Louisville, KY, the son of the late AJ and Helen Spaninger Offutt.

Offutt spent his childhood years in Taylorsville, Ky.  He graduated the University of Louisville in 1955, which he attended on a Ford Foundation scholarship. He began a full time writing career in 1969 and published more than fifty books.

Offutt served two terms as President of the Science Fiction Writers of America, and was a consultant to Writers’ Digest Criticism Services. He was Guest of Honor at more than eighty science fiction conventions.

Offutt is survived by his wife of 56 years, Mary Joe (Jodie) McCabe Offutt and four children: Chris (Melissa) of Oxford, MS; Jeff (Jian) of Fairfax, VA; Scotty Hyde (Jim) of Bowling Green; and Melissa of San Diego, CA. Other survivors include five grandchildren; Sam, James, Stephanie, Joyce and Andrew Offutt.  He is also survived by his sister, Jane Offutt Burns, of Lubbock, TX.

Chris

I never approved of his preference for lower case spelling of his name, and sometimes teased him about it. He was an old friend and was Treasurer when I was President of SFWA, and remained Treasurer for some years until he became President. We only met at conventions, and over the years the times when we were at the same convention became fewer and fewer, but we generally found time for a short meeting when we did. Farewell old friend.

I was looking around the old View column and came upon http://www.jerrypournelle.com/archives2/archives2view/view476.html which has the story of Tarquin and the Poppies.  At one time everyone knew that story – it was taught before eighth grade – but I expect it is not so much known now.  If you have a moment it is worth your time. Further down as some other items from the time that are still rather current.

Dear Jerry.

While I share your dismay at the disappearance of Greek and Latin from core curricula, I am proud to report that the Classical spirit lives on in this university’s response to the Olympian tragedy that overtook the Boston Marathon,

Harvard has just staged funeral games in memory of the fallen:

http://vvattsupwiththat.blogspot.com/2013/05/the-funeral-games.html

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Russell Seitz

A story of the land of the free.  Of course California is further along the road than many. but here is what the rest of you have to look forward to in this brave new world that has such people in it.

http://www.today.com/health/parents-police-removed-our-child-after-we-sought-second-medical-6C9708419

It is, I suppose, the business of the state to protect the innocent, unless they are not yet born; and mere parentage does not allow one to question the duly appointed authorities, lest children be harmed (so long as they have been born). Child protection services have a job to do, and they must do it. And yet, one wonders. If the people are not qualified to make their own decisions should they be allowed to vote? If one is not qualified to question the experts, then how is one qualified to choose them?  And where does egalitarian democracy lead us? History would say rule by bureaucrats who have qualified to hold their jobs, and who can form unions. The public schools might be an example.

Freedom is not free. Who shall pay the prices? But if you limit freedom in the name of some higher end such as the protection of children from their parents, where is the end of that? The state wants a monopoly on all the means of violence, and puts the protection of its officers ahead of almost anything else: the Long Beach Police who shot a man dead on the front porch of his friend where he had gone because he felt impaired to drive and was playing with a garden hose nozzle as if it were a pistol have been found to have acted within policy, although at no time had they made their presence known to the man who was playing with the hose nozzle.  One has no right to sit on the front porch and play with a toy pistol. Best to shoot him dead before he harms an officer of the state.  And had the parents of the child resisted, in this land of the free–

Freedom is not free. Free men are not equal. Equal men are not free.

And on that score

“They wanted to keep Mr. Curtis in custody while they built a case. They knew early on he wasn’t the right guy, but they fought to hold on to him anyway.”

<http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/original-ricin-suspect-was-held-despite-evidence-pointing-to-another-man/2013/05/01/ad4dab40-b192-11e2-bbf2-a6f9e9d79e19_print.html>

Roland Dobbins

Criminal justice experts said the political pressure from Washington to solve the ricin case would have been intense, particularly since the president was targeted and it occurred around the same time as the Boston Marathon bombing. Some experts said the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks taught law enforcement officials to do everything possible to prevent attacks, even if it means arresting the wrong person.

“There would have been unlimited armchair quarterbacking if he was the guy and more letters went out while they continued to investigate him,” said Chris Swecker, who retired as chief of the FBI’s criminal division in 2006. “When the stakes are this high, they have a sense of urgency to move faster.”