Update no.693

Update from the Heartland

No.693

23.3.15 – 29.3.15

Blog version:  http://heartlandupdate.blogspot.com/

To all,

The follow-up news items:

-- Police Chief Timothy Longo of Charlottesville, Virginia, announced the results of their five-month investigation into the allegations of a brutal fraternity house gang rape at the University of Virginia, featured in the Rolling Stone article: “Gang Rape on Campus” (19.November.2014) [678].  They found no evidence that the alleged assault had occurred. The gang rape described in Rolling Stone magazine unraveled under scrutiny, as the accuser’s version of events was challenged by her friends, members of the fraternity and sexual assault advocates.  The sad reality remains this whole kerfuffle has diluted the fact that such assaults do occur, are dreadfully under-reported and should be handled dramatically different from contemporary practice.  Very sad . . . all the way around!

-- The Army charged Sergeant Bowe Robert Bergdahl, USA, with desertion and misbehavior before the enemy, after a year’s review of the evidence in his case. The Haqqani Network had held Bergdahl since his capture on 30.June.2009.  He was traded for five Taliban leaders held at the Guantánamo Bay detention facility on 31.May.2014 [651]. 

Circa 10:40 [A] CET, Germanwings (GWI) Flight 4U9525 – an Airbus A320-211 aircraft – impacted a mountain in the French Alps at 6,800 feet and 400 knots, near the village of Prads-Haute-Bléone.  The flight departed Barcelona, Spain (BCN), enroute to Düsseldorf, Germany (DUS).  The flight track seemed odd to me, given the departure and destination airports; however, I checked the flight path of GWI Flight 4U9525 for the week prior to this event.  The route was virtually identical except for one flight that took a route well to the west, presumably to avoid weather.  The final descent to impact was on course, without any apparent track deviation and at a higher than normal but still moderate descent rate.  Normally, at cruise altitude, the pilots would have the autopilot engaged; uncommanded disengagement would set off numerous alarms and warnings.  Late this week, multiple news sources reported information from the investigation team that the pilot was locked out of the cockpit and the aircraft soon thereafter began a slightly faster than normal descent to impact on a mountainside in the French Alps.  The chief prosecutor assigned to the case, Brice Robin of Marseille, France, publicly stated First Officer (co-pilot) Andreas Lubitz, 28, of Montabaur, Germany, acted with intention “to destroy the aircraft” and murdered 144 other innocent passengers and five other crewmembers.  Lubitz had 630 total hours flight time with 100 hours in type, an Airline Transport Pilot (ATP) certification, and 18 months experience.  Robin based his public statement on data contained on the Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR).  The Flight Data Recorder (FDR) has not yet been recovered.

            Based on the publicly available evidence, prosecutor Robin is most likely correct in his assessment.  The tragic loss of innocent lives in what amounts to a suicide-by-aircraft makes the event monumentally insufferable.  Yet . . .

            We cannot recover what has been lost.  My concern in this tragedy, we must avoid over-reaction to the facts – the same concern I had after Tucson (8.1.2011) [473], Aurora (20.7.2012) [554/55], Sandy Hook (14.12.2012) [574], et al.  We cannot and must not design our security systems and processes to stop a single, mentally ill perpetrator intent upon destruction.  The weapon is not the issue.  The mental illness of the perpetrator is the only issue.  Somehow, we must find the means to protect the privacy and dignity of the individual, while some form of filtration process allows us to intervene and treat mentally ill citizens before they become a menace to innocent people.  Requiring another crewmember in the cockpit when one of the pilots has to leave will hardly fix this circumstance.  Another crewmember can be overcome just as the door was in this case.  Some cockpits have a firearm allowed.  This whole tragedy boils down to mental health screening, intervention and treatment of individuals in critical positions, and to a lesser degree all citizens, for that matter.

On Wednesday, 25.March.2015, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its ruling in the case of Alabama Legislative Black Caucus v. Alabama [575 U.S. ___ (2015); no. 13-895], rejecting the state’s latest gerrymandering redistricting effort.  Oddly, this ruling comes not quite two years after the Court’s struck down an important provision of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA) [PL 89-110; 79 Stat. 437] {§4(b) of VRA; Shelby County, Alabama v. Holder [570 U.S. ___ (2013)] [607]}.  Discrimination based on any one or combination of the social factors is insidious, corrosive and destructive to the most basic of principles that founded this Grand Republic.  The process of maturation is very slow and painful.  Shelby County was wrong two years ago.  By slimmest of flipped margins, the Supremes took one small step forward with Black Caucus.

On Thursday, 26.March.2015, Governor Michael Richard ‘Mike’ Pence of Indiana signed into state law Senate Bill 101 – AN ACT to amend the Indiana Code concerning civil procedure [Senate: 40-10-0-0; House: 63-31-6-0], the so-called Religious Freedom Law.  Among other things, the law prohibits “a governmental entity from substantially burdening a person's exercise of religion, even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability, unless the governmental entity can demonstrate that the burden . . . .”  First, the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution already prohibits government from injecting itself in religious matters, which makes this law redundant.  As with most laws, the devil is in the interpretation of the law by prosecutors in enforcement and by the courts with respect to the constitutionality and applicability of the law.  Governor Pence publicly claimed the law was not a discrimination law and the law does not apply to private organizations or conduct.  He is correct in that there are no such words in the law.  Yet, I find the words of Governor Pence and the SB101 law to be disingenuous at best and downright deceitful at worst.  Governmental actions can be offensive, or defensive, or passive-aggressive, id est, the government can take action against private acts of discrimination in the public domain, or it can choose not to act when presented with acts of discrimination in the public domain.  No one can predict how the state government will react to this law.  Yet, to me, there is little doubt as to the intent of the IN SB101 law. At the end of the day, this law allows the state to stand back as long as private actions are based on religious beliefs and the law offers no definition as to how those beliefs might be determined.  Therefore, almost anything can be claimed in the name of religion and the state will be ‘powerless’ to interfere, especially if they choose to use SB101 as the justification for inaction.  The IN SB101 law is precisely about state-sanctioned discrimination.  Full stop!  I cannot imagine this law withstanding legal challenge and judicial review.

Comments and contributions from Update no.692:

Comment to the Blog:

“The Constitutional Convention folks are not organized and/or effective. Therefore, what they want is scary but unlikely to come about. After all, they cannot even say with any authority how many states are on board their train wreck. Even if they get through several phases of their notion (unlikely), they would still need approval by three quarters of the states. I refuse to believe that so many legislators are compromised or insane, even now.”

My response to the Blog:

            The Constitution has stood us in good stead and survived a horrific civil war, numerous challenges, political divisions, societal traumas and even a seriously ill-advised amendment.  Even the remotest potential to cast it aside for a “better” document is too much risk for me to comprehend.  As I read Article V, it is the state legislatures that would approve changes proposed by a constitutional convention, and frankly I do not trust state politicians any more than I do the federal version – they are simply too susceptible to money.  And, to me, money is just another form of royalty and the divine right of kings.  No thank you; I say we stay with what we know works.

My very best wishes to all.  Take care of yourselves and each other.

Cheers,

Cap                        :-)