Thursday, July 30, 2015


News Clips For The Day


http://www.cbsnews.com/news/confederate-flags-placed-at-renowned-church-near-mlk-center/

Confederate flags placed at renowned church near MLK Center
CBS/AP
July 30, 2015

Photograph -- Confederate flags sit in the back of a police car outside Ebenezer Baptist Church Thursday, July 30, 2015, in Atlanta. AP PHOTO/DAVID GOLDMAN

ATLANTA -- Four Confederate battle flags were found on the grounds of the Ebenezer Baptist Church near the Martin Luther King Jr. Center in Atlanta on Thursday, and police and federal authorities were investigating.

Officer Gary Wade said a maintenance worker discovered the flags at 6 a.m. Thursday and notified the National Park Service, which operates The King Center.

Police said two men were caught on surveillance video arranging the flags around the property, CBS affiliate WGCL in Atlanta reported.

Groundskeepers were disturbed to see the flags in the morning, the Rev. Shannon Jones of Ebenezer Baptist said.

"Our grounds men were so upset, they took pictures and then they moved them," Jones said. But Park Service police later told workers the flags should be treated as evidence and not handled, he said.

No one saw who placed the flags, which weren't stuck in the ground but instead set neatly on top of it, Wade said.

A security guard saw a suspicious vehicle across the street from the church Wednesday night, but it wasn't clear whether that was related, Wade said.

A conference on the role on black churches in social justice issues has been going on in Ebenezer's facilities, Jones said.

King once preached at the historic Ebenezer Baptist Church, which is near the new church where the congregation now meets and where the flags were placed.

The King Center complex is near the eastern edge of downtown Atlanta. It is centered on Auburn Avenue, once a bustling center of commerce for Atlanta's African-American businesses and residents.

The center and church are a short walk from the home of Martin Luther King Jr.'s maternal grandparents, where the late civil rights leader lived for the first 12 years of his life.

The shooting deaths of nine people at a historically black church in Charleston, South Carolina, in June spurred a national debate about the flying of the Confederate flag. Earlier this month, South Carolina removed the flag from a flagpole near its Statehouse.




“Four Confederate battle flags were found on the grounds of the Ebenezer Baptist Church near the Martin Luther King Jr. Center in Atlanta on Thursday, and police and federal authorities were investigating. …. Police said two men were caught on surveillance video arranging the flags around the property, CBS affiliate WGCL in Atlanta reported. …. No one saw who placed the flags, which weren't stuck in the ground but instead set neatly on top of it, Wade said. A security guard saw a suspicious vehicle across the street from the church Wednesday night, but it wasn't clear whether that was related, Wade said.”

So hate lives on. Hopefully the video footage will be clear enough to identify the two men and arrest them. The only good news in this story is that nobody was attacked and the church wasn’t burned or otherwise damaged. They can plant their flags all they want, but blacks and those whites who agree with them will still march together when issues come up. All that hate speech isn’t scaring them as it did in the early days after the Civil War.





http://www.cbsnews.com/news/jamestown-discovery-unearths-new-secrets-about-americas-past/

Jamestown discovery unearths new secrets about America's past
By/ Chip Reid/ CBS News/
July 29, 2015

Photograph -- jamestown-2.jpg, One of the skeletons recently uncovered by archaeologists at the site of the Jamestown colony./ CBS News
Play Video -- Cannibalism found in Jamestown

JAMESTOWN, Va. -- Archaeologists announced this week they have uncovered remains of four people, buried at the first permanent English settlement in America, in Jamestown, Virginia.

"In this grave was Captain William West," lead archaeologist Bill Kelso showed CBS News. "Over here, Captain Gabriel Archer; a knight, Sir Ferdinando Weyman; and the first cleric, Robert Hunt."

They were four of the original English settlers who had come to forge a new life in a harsh New World.

Kelso and his team spent two weeks excavating these bones, opening up a 400-year-old window on America's beginnings.

"We found the evidence of lost leaders of the beginning of the colony," Kelso said. "I think it certainly puts a new emphasis on parts of that story that have never been known before."

They were part of Great Britain's upper class, as revealed by their burial inside what had been the 1607 church, and by signs of prestige -- including part of a silver sash and a captain's staff.

But the "Eureka moment" was the discovery of a silver box buried with Captain Gabriel Archer.

"It contained fragments of bone, probably human and two pieces of lead," Kelso explained. "This is what's called a reliquary and probably Catholic, at least in origin. And here you are sitting at Protestant Jamestown.

"It says something about ... There was kind of a secret Catholic cell that was here, in Protestant Jamestown, maybe wanting to take over ultimately."

If status and intrigue are revealed in what they were buried with, who they are can be found in their bones.

Lead forensic archaeologist Doug Owsley determined the men ranged in age from 24 to 39, and had painfully bad teeth -- which may have contributed to their demise.

"That's the beauty of archaeology, that's the beauty of the human skeleton," Owsley said. "By finding those bones, you can just basically talk to them and let them tell you their story."

It's an unfolding mystery with more discoveries yet to be unearthed.




“Kelso and his team spent two weeks excavating these bones, opening up a 400-year-old window on America's beginnings. "We found the evidence of lost leaders of the beginning of the colony," Kelso said. "I think it certainly puts a new emphasis on parts of that story that have never been known before." They were part of Great Britain's upper class, as revealed by their burial inside what had been the 1607 church, and by signs of prestige -- including part of a silver sash and a captain's staff. But the "Eureka moment" was the discovery of a silver box buried with Captain Gabriel Archer. …. "It says something about ... There was kind of a secret Catholic cell that was here, in Protestant Jamestown, maybe wanting to take over ultimately." If status and intrigue are revealed in what they were buried with, who they are can be found in their bones.”

About cannibalism at Jamestown, there had been reports in the past, but a 2013 archaeological discovery uncovered a teenaged girl whose body had been apparently carved up for food. Very sick and sad. The whole story of the first Thanksgiving was part of their first seasons of starvation there, partly due to drought. Earlier information when I was in school stated that the wealthy people in the colony refused to work.
See this website: http://historicjamestowne.org/history/pocahontas/john-smith/. The famous John Smith quotation “He that will not work shall not eat” is evidence of their starvation problems. See the article below on the overall subject of cannibalism in human history. In prehistoric times it’s not uncommon and not confined to “deepest darkest Africa,” where the “primitive people” live, as some may suspect. It was often practiced on prisoners of war or human sacrifices, and not just in times of starvation. It hasn’t always been taboo, as it is now.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/columnists/cannibalism-and-america-the-right-to-eat-arms/article11716453/

Cannibalism and America: The right to eat arms
Tabatha Southey
Special to The Globe and Mail
Published Friday, May 03, 2013; Last updated Sunday, May 05, 2013

Bone fragments excavated from a dump last year at an early site of Virginia’s Jamestown colony prove that during the winter of 1610, known as “the starving time,” the first permanent British settlers in North America practised cannibalism.

According to Doug Owsley of the Smithsonian National Museum, markings on the skull of a 14-year-old girl from the period support reports that numerous cases of cannibalism – and one of prosecuted murder and then (the man salted his own wife, for heaven’s sake) cannibalism – took place.


Police in Slovakia say a would-be cannibal has been arrested after being seriously wounded in a gunbattle with officers in an undercover operation. A policeman was also wounded.

Crime

Video: Slovak cannibal suspect arrested after gunbattle

Horrific as it is, I’ve always had a certain begrudging respect for those who resort to cannibalism under desperate conditions: I forgot to buy an avocado for the lentil salad I made this week and considered calling it quits.

Mostly I am glad these grisly findings are recent, so this story has not, like the various tales around Thanksgiving, become part of the American origin myth. I’m sure eating one’s fellow colonists made sense at the time. It’s just a good thing it never made it into the Constitution. If it had, Americans would now be arguing for their constitutional right to eat people – and of course actually be eating people, just as their founding, salting fathers intended. This would be particularly bad for us, because we’re Canada: We’d be America’s freezer.

Eventually, I imagine, opposition would arise. With the “starving time” being well over, the argument would go, and there being so many alternatives to dining on Americans available to Americans, maybe some modest restrictions could be put upon the practice of devouring humans – cadaver background checks, for example.

A school barbecue gone horribly awry might spark outrage for a while and some people would say, “We need to stop eating people! This is insane! No other country in the world eats people the way we do! Why, just this week a five-year-old boy ate his two-year-old sister! When do we just say no?”

To which the National Cannibalism Association would say, “Stop politicizing this!” while lobbying hard against a bill outlawing six-foot-long locking barbecues with manacles in the lids. “Cannibals don’t kill people,” their slogan would run. “They just eat people – do some research. And accidents happen.”

Mostly, NCA spokespeople would blame video games: If the nation’s teenagers spent less time playing video games, they would be less plump and delicious-looking. The novelty song Purple People Eater would be banned, as well as Maneater by Hall and Oates – along with the rest of the Hall and Oates catalogue (no one would be able to explain why, but the bill would sail through Congress).

The airwaves would be filled with ads warning that if cannibalism were more regulated, life would just become more difficult for people who like to eat people for sport. “Why punish the leisure cannibals?” some almost decadently paternal-looking actor would ask, looking sagely into the camera, holding some sage. “My grandaddy taught me how to eat people,” these ads would usually begin, and the nation’s (uneaten) hearts would melt.

Some politicians might tentatively suggest that the framers of the Constitution had included only the right to eat other people’s arms, and what have you, in the event that another “starving time” should occur. Their intention was well-regulated cannibalism, not the great smorgasbord of citizenry that America had become. These politicians would face primary challenges, and braising. Their opponents would only have to cite Leviticus 26:29 (“You shall eat the flesh of your sons, and you shall eat the flesh of your daughters”) to lock up the race.

An alliance would be formed between People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and the NCA because, PETA would claim, the chief beneficiary of cannibalism is animals. Turkeys would get off easy at Thanksgiving, where custom would dictate that the oldest or most wayward or most annoying member of the family would be ceremonially consumed.

If you think American Thanksgiving is fraught with familial strife now, imagine those NCA-sponsored “Ask yourself, is that turkey any louder and more obnoxious than your brother-in-law Dougy?” mailouts arriving in September.

And where would the NCA get its funding for these projects in this scenario, you ask?

Well, from gun manufacturers, of course.





http://www.cbsnews.com/news/valerie-harper-rushed-to-hospital/

Valerie Harper rushed to hospital
By/ Antoinette Bueno/ ET Online/
July 30, 2015

Photograph -- Actress Valerie Harper speaks onstage during The Survivor Mitzvah Project: A benefit for Holocaust survivors at Webster Hall on May 9, 2015, in New York.
/ Noam Galai/Getty Images
Play Video -- Valerie Harper, Kellie Pickler join forces for lung cancer campaign


Valerie Harper suffered a health emergency Wednesday night, when she was taken away by ambulance during a performance of her musical "Nice Work If You Can Get It" at the Ogunquit Playhouse in Maine.

The fire department confirms to ET that it received a call at 8:56 p.m. about an unconscious 75-year-old female backstage, and that she was taken to York Hospital. According to Ron Corning, anchor and correspondent at ET's affiliate in Dallas WFAA, around 9:40 p.m., the artistic director of the musical announced to the audience that the ambulance seen on the side of the lawn was for the 75-year-old actress, and that she had fallen ill and wouldn't be performing.

The director then said, "She wants all of you to know after some fluids and rest she hopes to be right back here on stage later this week."

However, a source close to the situation tells ET, "Just know it's very bad."

Corning also spoke to the art tech on site, who said that Harper has not been well all week.

"The Mary Tyler Moore Show " star only appears in the second act of the play, and is set to perform through Aug. 15.

Harper was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer in 2013, after previously beating lung cancer in 2009. In April, she told ET that her cancer has not spread to other parts of her body, though pointed out that contrary to reports, she has not been "cured."

"In a way, it's a positive thing to know that a year's gone by and it's nowhere else in my body," she said. "So, I am cancer free from the neck down, so far."




Clearly Valerie Harper hasn’t lost her sense of humor, as she makes this wry description of her current health. If she does die I will be sorry, because her comic partnership with Mary Tyler Moore as her friend and then later in her own TV show “Rhoda,” set in Minneapolis was exquisite. She then moves back to NYC (leaving MTM in Minneapolis) and meets her handsome hubby Joe. Wikipedia says that show ran in 1974 to 78. My, time does fly! I wonder why there are no reruns of these on MeTV now?





http://www.cbsnews.com/news/uc-irvine-california-college-ask-students-pick-from-6-genders-in-application/

California college will now ask students to pick from 6 genders
CBS News/
July 30, 2015

Photograph -- Students walking on UC Irvine campus in California.
/ CBS Los Angeles

LOS ANGELES -- Students at a California college weighed in on a change in the application process, and a decision has been made.

Beginning this fall, students at UC Irvine will have the option to self-identify about their sexual orientation on all university admissions forms, reports CBS Los Angeles.

The new form will ask students to pick one gender from six different choices. Prospective students will be asked to choose between male, female, trans male, trans female, gender queer/gender non-conforming and different identity.

CBS Los Angeles spoke to students at UC Irvine about the change.

"I feel like this is just a way of including everyone," said Augustine Pimentel.

"I don't mind; everybody do what they want. I don't want to judge people," says Nizar Hakim.

"I feel like people should have their freedom to be called what they want to be called," said Donna Taqawi.

Beyond the political or social reasons, some saw the financial reasons too.

"A lot of those questions when you're applying to graduate school or any sort of school are important for financial aid opportunities you can have," said Joanna Laird to CBS Los Angeles.

In a statement, Janet Napolitano, the president of the UC system said: "UC is working hard to ensure our campuses model inclusiveness and understanding. I'm proud of the work we've done so far, but it doesn't stop there. We must continue to look at where we can improve so everyone at UC feels respected and supported."

It wasn't the question itself that concerned one UC Irvine mom, but the reason why it was being asked.

"I don't know why they're asking it. I'd like to know their reason for asking it," said Elane Streets.

School officials told CBS Los Angeles the answers will be voluntary and not impact on the decision-making process for admissions.




I became a member of the UU Church within the last few years, and we have quite a few LGBT members. I am so out of touch on the matter that I had never heard that grouping of types before, and was kind of surprised at the need to organize around the matter. Of course, being gay or LGBT has always been a source of real problems for such people. Like black men, gay men have occasionally been beaten up by gangs of straights, or even killed. It arouses a lot of hatred in some people. I suspect they feel threatened by such people, and of course some cases of males actually raping a straight man have occurred.

I have always been INDEPENDENT as all get out, but not gay, and never did I feel that I “was” anything other than a female. The trans-genders have been the most confusing to me, though I must say that if an athlete can transform himself into a strikingly beautiful woman as Bruce Jenner recently did, who am I to argue against it? I definitely don’t believe it is sinful or even mentally ill. There have been efforts to get all the LGBT issues defined as mental illness, especially by the Christian Churches, but that has stopped among reputable psychological professionals now. There is no more psychiatric “treatment” for gayness except for some churches.

The student comments at the UC Irvine campus are pretty tolerant. Of course the issue isn’t new anymore and folks have developed tolerance where there was none before the Women’s Liberation Movement. There was a huge amount of new discussion among women about their sexuality in general in the 1970’s and it began to emerge into the mainstream society. Most gays were not tortured or beaten when I was young, but some definitely were and they were harassed cruelly, as they still are today, especially in schools. I’m like Rodney King. “Can’t we all just get along?”





http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/white-house-says-will-review-cecil-the-lion-petition/ar-AAdJtmH?ocid=iehp

White House says will review 'Cecil the Lion' petition
Reuters
July 30, 2015

Video available.

WASHINGTON, July 30 (Reuters) - The White House said on Thursday that it will review the public petition to extradite the American dentist who allegedly killed "Cecil," a Zimbabwean lion.

The petition has exceeded the required 100,000 signatures, and the White House has said it will respond to all petitions that meet that level.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest said it is up to the Justice Department to respond to an extradition order.

The incident is currently being investigated by Zimbabwean authorities and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

In this frame grab taken from a November 2012 video made available by Paula French, a well-known, protected lion known as Cecil strolls around in Hwange National Park, in Hwange, Zimbabwe.© Paula French via AP




Is a man who really wants to go about and kill beautiful animals as often as this dentist has done it of fully normal psychology? Hunting for food or, in prehistoric times, for hides to sleep on and use as clothing, makes sense, but this kind of thing just shows how callous and cruel these people are. They need to demonstrate their wealth, perhaps, as traveling around the world is costly, but more likely they feel insecure in their manhood and killing fills that gap. The article uses the term extradite, so presumably he is hiding out in some other country until this scandal blows over. I do hope they find him. His wealthy and self-satisfied life should be disrupted and inconvenienced, if not ruined totally.




https://www.yahoo.com/politics/donald-trump-amuses-us-to-death-donald-trump-with-125374247406.html

Donald Trump amuses us to death
Matt Bai
National Political Columnist
July 30, 2015

Photograph -- Donald Trump with Jesse Ventura, then governor of Minnesota, in 2000. (Photo: Reuters)

All right then, let’s do this. If we have to talk about Donald Trump, because apparently the subject will not just go away on its own, then let’s talk about him, even if it means going back on a vow I made 16 years ago.

This was back in 1999, just like the Prince song, when I was a junior political correspondent at Newsweek, and Trump was pretending to run for president for the very first time. His venue then was a complete train wreck called the Reform Party, which for a brief moment, believe it or not, was a pretty big deal in American politics, but by that point was ripping itself in half.

Founded by Ross Perot in 1995, Reform was then led, nominally, by the wrestler-turned-Minnesota-governor Jesse Ventura, a populist libertarian with whom I spent an inordinate amount of time in those days. But Pat Buchanan, the disenchanted social conservative, had decided to stage a hostile takeover so he could use the party’s ballot line to run for president again — an eventuality Ventura was so determined to stop that he would have gladly thrown his support behind any half-wit degenerate who came through the door with some cash and a plausible resume.

And in walked Donald Trump.

He said he was serious about running, anyway, and he invited me to Manhattan, where I got the private tour of his penthouse in Trump Tower, with the marble walls and the faux Greek statues and the massive scale model of his looming residential towers, overlooking unobstructed views of his looming residential towers. You know, pretty much the kind of decor you or I would choose, if we had a limitless budget and no discernible taste and a yawing hole in the part of our psyche that parental love might normally fill.

We rode in Trump’s stretch limo with his then girlfriend, the supermodel Melania Knauss. (She was lovely.) We attended a dinner where I sat with Alec Baldwin and a former Miss Universe. (She was lovely.) About two hundred times, Trump pointed out all the ordinary New Yorkers who called his name as they passed and pointed out how much they adored him. He beamed for every camera in the zip code.

It was, in short, a garish spectacle, and none of it seemed to have very much to do with running for anything other than more attention, and I wrote what any normal person would have considered a biting, dismissive account of the whole charade. (This included the odd fact that Trump steadfastly refused to engage in handshakes, though perhaps he’s gotten over that.)

After the story came out, I got a call on my foot-long cell phone as I was walking down the street.

It was Trump. I braced myself.

“You’re an unbelievable writer!” Trump shouted. “That was a great piece!”

That call kicked me in the stomach, because I realized Trump had gotten from me exactly what he came for. I promised I would never again let myself be used for brand promotion masquerading as politics, which I considered then — and consider now — to be a very serious business.

But you know, when your entire industry is happily allowing itself to be used, I guess you have to acknowledge the orange-haired elephant in the room.

Donald Trump amuses us to death
Oh yes, I know, Trump is a legitimate obsession because he is the “Republican front-runner.” Look at the polls. Only an arrogant elitist would avoid covering everything the front-runner says and does just because you think him insufficiently qualified.

Except that Trump isn’t a front-runner for anything. That’s like saying the utility infielder who hits .460 in the first two weeks of April is a likely MVP candidate. It’s like saying Michele Bachmann and Herman Cain were front-runners in 2011. (Oh wait: We did that, too.)

It’s July. Trump’s plurality in these polls basically comes down to a tiny subset of professed Republicans who will actually talk to a telemarketer, who can’t keep any of these other droning candidates straight, and who find politics in general to be a soul-sucking enterprise.

Trump draws crowds because he is a genuine celebrity and a world-class entertainer. Politics is tedium and sameness, like network dramas in the age before cable. Trump is reality TV, live and unscripted.

And let’s drop all the pretense: That’s why we in the media hyperventilate over his every utterance, too. I’m not saying, as the Huffington Post does, that Trump’s candidacy shouldn’t be covered as a an actual candidacy. Only that, if there were any real proportion here, Trump would merit about half the coverage he gets, and we wouldn’t constantly be baiting him to hurl some new, headline-making epithet.

We can say we do this because we have some somber responsibility to vet the leading candidate, but the truth is we are operating in a precarious and insecure moment where nothing matters more than the almighty click, and anything with Trump’s name on it gets a ton of them.

Guess what? He knows that, too.

This is Trump’s peculiar genius: leveraging one kind of celebrity into another, so that he never really goes away. He didn’t get to be an iconic real estate developer by building nicer buildings than everyone else; he did it by leveraging his money into cachet as a man-about-town and then renting out his name to foreign investors. He took his act to TV because he understood that he was perfectly situated to leverage his fame as a billionaire into even more fame as a TV boss.

And now it’s on to the next thing: leveraging his TV audience into a booming political brand, which is probably an idea he got from watching his friend and future secretary of state, Sarah Palin.

Trump’s juggernaut isn’t an actual campaign, with an agenda or a strategy. It’s great programming. And this is exactly — I mean, exactly —what the social critic Neil Postman warned of when he wrote a phenomenal little book called Amusing Ourselves to Death in 1985.

Postman’s essential point (as I’ve written before, both in this column and in All the Truth is Out, my own book on the subject of trivial political coverage) was that our news and politics were veering ever closer to the dark vision of Aldus Huxley in Brave New World. He warned that the line between TV entertainment and real events would become so porous that the nation would soon be unable to distinguish between them, and as a result our public discourse would become a series of meaningless story arcs rather than an informed debate over the consequential business of government.

Do I worry that Trump is the realization of Postman’s worst fear? No. And yes.

Trump himself doesn’t worry me. That’s because I don’t think for a moment that he wants the job. What Trump wants — craves, actually — is relevance. The man has a clinical phobia of obsolescence. He puts his name on every building he owns just to make sure people will have to speak it out loud.

He has no plan for actual governance and no ambition to actually govern. It’s possible that his daily barrage of insults and diatribes, each more outrageous than the last, is really a kind of self-sabotage, as if he’s trying to figure out how awful he can be before the show starts to lose viewers. Even if Trump managed to get the nomination (which he won’t), the broader electorate would recoil at the things he says, and he’s probably counting on it.

image
What does worry me is that Trump really is a proven visionary. He’s brilliant at seeing the next ego-leveraging opportunity. He’s the first interloping network star to jolt a presidential race, but no way is he the last.

Trump is pointing us the way of certain European countries, as my former New York Times colleague Frank Bruni brilliantly noted last week, when he very aptly compared Trump to Italy’s Silvio Berlusconi. What Trump is doing, and it’s a twisted kind of public service, is showing all of us how easy it is now to successfully manipulate a media in economic distress and a presidential process that caters, more and more, to an ever-dwindling bloc of extremists on either side.

Somewhere out there right now is some business magnate or TV celebrity, someone whose resources and audacity may vastly exceed his intellect or compassion, whose ambition may be more of the Napoleonic variety than the P.T. Barnum kind, who’s better skilled than Trump at making demagoguery look like a half-palatable governing vision.

And that person is probably sitting by a pool ringed with limestone goddesses, watching all this unfold and asking the question any of us might reasonably ask in that situation.

“Hey, why not me?”




“All right then, let’s do this. If we have to talk about Donald Trump, because apparently the subject will not just go away on its own....” This is a writer after my own heart. This is the crux of how I feel about repetitive Donald Trump comments and comments about him. There is one thing I feel sure of -- none of the intelligent people in the US will vote for Trump. He’s a silly egotist who has been running for president since 1995 when he ran against another nutter, Ross Perot. His ego level demands that he be President of the United States. The kind of people that I would vote for are running because they want to help the USA with some of our problems, and they have some kind of education or work background that tells me they can actually win – and then solve those problems! Donald Trump is just like his buddy Sarah Palin, in my opinion – both are very shallow people with no expertise for being President. I think after this I won’t clip another Donald Trump article until he says or does something that makes him more believable.




http://www.cbsnews.com/news/freddie-gray-death-documents-reveal-citys-lapses-in-response-to-baltimore-violence/

Documents reveal city's lapses in response to Baltimore violence
CBS NEWS
July 28, 2015

Photograph -- A protester holds a sign as clouds of smoke and crowd control agents rise, shortly after the deadline for a city-wide curfew passed in Baltimore, Maryland April 28, 2015, as crowds protest the death of Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old black man who died in police custody. REUTERS/Eric Thayer TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY REUTERS
Play VIDEO -- Freddie Gray autopsy results leaked


BALTIMORE -- It's been three months since unrest took over the streets of Baltimore. Now we're getting an inside look at confusion at the top levels of Baltimore leadership.

Thousands of emails sent by city officials were obtained by CBS Baltimore's partners at The Baltimore Sun.

Those emails show a breakdown in communication between city leaders as violence erupted in the streets. Rioting and looting broke out after the funeral of Freddie Gray, a black man who suffered a fatal spinal cord injury in police custody.

As police struggled to control crowds and businesses burned, emails from inside City Hall obtained by The Baltimore Sun detail communication breakdowns between leaders.

In a tense exchange, the transportation director, William Johnson, writes: "This issue needs to be corrected unless I am the only person who finds this unacceptable."

"In hindsight, yes, you could have done something better. We know that. You're not human if you can't look at the before you and say I could have done this better, I could have done that better," said Baltimore City Councilman Brandon Scott.

Police officers were under-equipped. An order for riot gear was placed as they were being attacked.

Baltimore City Police CFO Thomas Moore writes: "Working on having 200 shields delivered from manufacturer for tomorrow delivery. Wednesday latest."

"We have to make sure that every 'i' is dotted and every 't' is crossed, and I think those lessons were learned," said Sen. Catherine Pugh, (D) Baltimore.

Emails also indicate concern about the mayor's lack of visibility on the day of the uprising.

Maryland businessman David Cordish writes: "...a visible presence of leadership walking the streets, the mayor arm and arm with business, clergy and political leadership would go a long way."

Pastor Jamal Bryant says everyone struggled to keep up.

"While we were at Penn and North, over in East Baltimore, a senior center is on fire. All of it was up in the air for everybody," said Bryant.

The city is now reviewing its procedures during the riots.

The emails also reveal the mayor wanted to lift the citywide curfew on Saturday, May 2, but the governor's office said no and the curfew was maintained through Sunday.

The emails also indicate police were monitoring social media to look for possible threats or chatter about more demonstrations.




“Now we're getting an inside look at confusion at the top levels of Baltimore leadership. Thousands of emails sent by city officials were obtained by CBS Baltimore's partners at The Baltimore Sun. Those emails show a breakdown in communication between city leaders as violence erupted in the streets. Rioting and looting broke out after the funeral of Freddie Gray, a black man who suffered a fatal spinal cord injury in police custody. As police struggled to control crowds and businesses burned, emails from inside City Hall obtained by The Baltimore Sun detail communication breakdowns between leaders. In a tense exchange, the transportation director, William Johnson, writes: "This issue needs to be corrected unless I am the only person who finds this unacceptable." "In hindsight, yes, you could have done something better. We know that. You're not human if you can't look at the before you and say I could have done this better, I could have done that better," said Baltimore City Councilman Brandon Scott. …. The city is now reviewing its procedures during the riots. The emails also reveal the mayor wanted to lift the citywide curfew on Saturday, May 2, but the governor's office said no and the curfew was maintained through Sunday. The emails also indicate police were monitoring social media to look for possible threats or chatter about more demonstrations.”

The trouble with the kind of furious rioting that happened in Baltimore is that whether or not it is justifiable, it needs to be controlled. Sometimes police have to wait until the rioters get tired of burning buildings and looting. The racial divide had been escalating in this case due to multiple death reports on the news from city after city with the same deadly results from city after city over the last 9 or so months, at the hands of police. In addition, that particular case in Baltimore was sheer cruelty on the part of police. It stank! Pointless and egregious abuse is more evil than murder, though it frequently precedes it. A woman before she is raped one night in her home is often cut with a knife, burned with a cigarette, etc., and then finally when the inhuman being who has done that is tired of her fear and agony, he then kills her.

What those cops did to the man after he was dragged into the police van was to “take him for a rough ride.” Though one observer on my G+ contact list said that he thought the police officer who put his knee in Gray’s back, supposedly an attempt to control his fighting back, was probably the one who actually broke his neck. That’s very likely, but he had been roughly thrown into the floor of the vehicle with his hands in cuffs so that he couldn’t grasp the handholds there, and then driven over bumpy terrain. It was assumed that the ride was what broke his neck. However it wasn’t part of “controlling” him, but a means of “punishing” him. One officer said that “rough rides” like that were frequently done out of anger to suspects who had displeased the cops. ("Yackety yak," "Don't talk back!")

Things like that arouse such rage and hatred in the members of an unpopular minority – usually blacks or Hispanics – that the violence of their response when they do start to react is frightening, I know. It is also justifiable – not the ideal response, of course, but very understandable. After Martin Luther King was shot, first Chicago began to riot, then numerous other cities on both coasts followed suit. I was in a bus going from Chapel Hill, NC to my home in Thomasville. I had a radio and was keeping up with it. The girls on the bus in front of me and I talked about it. We were both white, but we certainly didn’t want King dead. He was the peaceful leader, after all. This country has never been the same after that.