Murder Statistics
Nate Silver likes to keep busy during a non election year. He issued a report recently, Black Americans Are Killed At 12 Times The Rate Of People In Other Developed Countries. The Silver report was published June 18. The various internet content recyclers only picked up the story a day or two ago.
“If you’re a white person your chance of being murdered every year is 2.5 out of 10,000… If you’re a black person it’s 19.4, so almost eight times higher…. the murder rate for white Americans is similar to the murder rate for people living in Finland, Chile or Israel. The murder rate for black Americans, on the other hand, is similar to the rate found “in developing countries that are war zones even, like Myanmar, or Rwanda, Mexico, Brazil, Nigeria, places that have vast disorder.”
If there is one thing you can find on the internet, it is statistics. Since we are dealing with totals, not averages, the numbers used in this post should be fairly reliable. There might be some under reporting, or questions about how to deal with mixed race people. For the purposes of this post, we are going to take the numbers at face value.
The numbers used today are from 2013. The population of the United States was 316,128,839. Of this total, 77.7% are white, and 13.2% are black. There are 5.88 times as many white people as black people. There were 245,632,107 white people, and 41,729,006 black people. For purposes of this study, these numbers will be rounded off, to 316m total, 246m white, and 42m black.
Expanded Homicide Data Table 6 was produced by the FBI. For white people, there were 3,005 murders in 2013. This is 12 per million. For black people, there were 2491 murders in 2013. This is 59 per million. These numbers are different from those quoted by Nate Silver.
Who is committing these murders? For the white people, 2,509 (83%) were killed by a white person, and 409 (13%) were killed by a black person. (These numbers will not add up to 100%, as there are “other” and unknown killers.) For the black people, 189 (7%) were killed by a white person, and 2,245 (90%) were killed by a black person.
Pictures are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”.
The B-52s
There used to be a chinese restaurant, on the Atlanta Highway, called Hunan House. One night, a few people shared a flaming volcano, and formed a band. The b52’s played their first show at a valentines day party in 1977. They were named for a bouffant hairstyle.
The b52’s were Ricky Wilson, his sister Cindy, Kate Pierson, Fred Schneider III, and Keith Strickland. The Wilsons and Mr. Strickland were from Athens. Miss Pierson and Mr. Schneider were from New Jersey. Planet Claire was the ancestral home.
Fred had lived in Atlanta before he moved to Athens. He stayed in an apartment on Monroe Drive, across from S&M clutch and brake company. PG knew some of his neighbors, and once rested his feet on a rug, formerly owned by Fred Schneider.
Somebody had connections, and The b52’s were playing shows in New York before long. They released a 45 on db records, “Rock Lobster” and “52 girls”. The first of the girls mentioned…there are only 23 named…is Effie. There was a famous whorehouse in Athens named Effies.
One night, they played a show at the Big Dipper, on Ponce de Leon Avenue. The Big Dipper was a former Maryland Fried Chicken, and is now something else. After the show, either Kate or Cindy was in the parking lot, talking to a local character named Beulah. As was his way, Beulah was talking about Mick Jagger this, Mick Jagger that. Finally, Kate had enough. ” Fuck Mick Jagger. One day Mick Jagger will come see me, me, me.”
The b52’s were a fun band. Ricky had an unusual style on guitar, and Kate played a farfisa organ. The girls always wore big hair wigs. Fred was somewhere up front singing.
On Labor Day, 1978, PG saw the b52’s in Piedmont Park. There was a third girl that day, Wendy, who wore an inflatable beach float, and danced. The only songs PG is sure they did were “Downtown” and “Rock Lobster”. A few months later, PG saw the b52’s at the Agora ballroom. The Brains opened.
Sometime in late 1979, the eponymous first album came out. It became a hit, with dance clubs all over playing “Planet Claire”, “Dance this mess around”, and “6060-842”. In the summer of 1980, PG talked with a former Athenian in a hostel in Cannon Beach, Oregon. He mentioned that Cindy was the only heterosexual in the band.
The years went by, and more albums were released. On October 12, 1985, Ricky Wilson died of AIDS. He is buried in Oconee Hill Cemetery, behind Sanford Stadium in Athens. He sold bus tickets at the Grayhound station in downtown Athens before he hit the bigtime.
The band continues to this day. At some point, “Love Shack” was released, and became a hit. It is probably the best known b52’s song today. This is a repost. Pictures are from The Library of Congress.
A Study Of Cusswords On Twitter
There was a link on facebook to a Gawker situation, Do You Live in a “Bitch” or a “Fuck” State? American Curses, Mapped. The article has a series of maps, with unappealing red and blue splotches embedded. Each map is dedicated to a cussword: asshole, bitch, cunt, damn, darn, faggot, fuck, gosh, motherfucker, and shit. Red splotches means a word in a particular region, while blue splotches mean the phrase is less popular. Only three of the Carlin seven words are studied.
We only know that the words are being used on twitter. The technology is not advanced enough to determine if the words are used as a compliment, or an insult. Are these wirty dords employed as nouns, verbs, or modifiers? Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient only goes so far.
“Jack Grieve, a professor in Forensic Linguistics at Aston University in England, has been tweeting out maps of the U.S. with geotagged data from Twitter that show where in the country we are using which swearwords. Almost a billion tweets, from October of 2013 to November of 2014, were collected by Diansheng Guo at University of South Carolina, totaling nearly 9 billion words.” In other words, this is based on tweets. Peeps who communicate in 140 character segments are a tiny subset of the overall population. The utility of this group as a representative sample is questionable.
The results are amusing. Cunt is popular in New England, and not so popular in the south. This designation for vagina apparently has a latin root… cunnus also gave us cunnilingus. There was a tasteful comment exchange The 3 Legged Horse Quite disappointed with the lack of cunt usage in my area. tortfeasor “Tell me about it.” —Random desperate guy
There is a 333 mile wide zone around the southeast states, from Virginia to Texas. In this region, shit, bitch, and fuck are popular. Fuck and faggot enjoy great popularity with California tweets. New England and Utah are full of 140 character assholes.
On his twitter page, @JWGrieve, round 2 has started. The words analyzed here are bastard, crap, douche, fuckboy, hell, pussy, slut, whore. The shit/fuck/bitch belt shows a propensity for pussy and hell. Slut is popular in Seattle, and the Texas rudder.
Jack Grieve has a website, where the cusswords are undigitized. He discusses other projects. “Here’s a map of the alternation between LOL and haha on Twitter, ignoring all of the other ways of signalling laughter, including variations on these two forms. This map clearly shows that regions with high LOL percentages also tend to have large African American populations. … So it appears that white speakers are taking the lead here and that African American speakers are resisting the incoming form haha.”
Mapping Lexical Spread in American English is another study. It studies the top rising words on twitter, for 2014. The winner is fuckboy, which is not a compliment. This noun is popular in New Jersey, Central California, and parts of West Texas.
“Identify emerging words from 2014 based on an analysis of a multi-billion word geocoded corpus of American tweets. The team at USC are in the process of compiling a multi-billion word corpus using the Twitter API, consisting of almost all geocoded Tweet from the US and the UK since 2013. These tweets come from the approximately 2% of users who are tweeting from a geo-tracking mobile device. The analysis presented here is based on a 8.9 billion word corpus of American Tweets from October 2013 to November 2014.The corpus contains approximately 980 million Tweets from 7 million users from within the contiguous United States. We first extracted the 67,000 words that occur at least 1,000 times in the corpus and identified rising words by correlating word relative frequency per day to day of the year using a Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient”
Pictures are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”.
Eleven Thoughts About Communications
When you publish a list like the one below, you are placing a target on your back. Above the bulls-eye is the word hypocrite. PG does not claim to take all of these suggestions. What follows is a goal to work for, not a script for situation comedy. This is a repost.
When in doubt, shut up.
A halo is best worn over one ear.
If you want to be forgiven, forgive. If you want to be understood, understand.
There are few situations that cannot be made worse with anger and loud talk.
You have two ears and one mouth. Listen twice as much as you talk.
A douche is a hygiene appliance. The verb form refers to using this device for cleaning purposes. Neither the noun, nor the verb, is appropriate as an insult.
A sentence has one period, placed at the end. Do not place a period after every word to make a point. You should find another way to show that you really, really mean it.
Not everyone enjoys the sound of your voice as much as you do.
Ass is a noun. It refers to either a donkey, or a butt. It is not an adverb, nor an adjective. Do not place ass between an adjective and a noun.
Before you “call out” somebody for “racism”, drape a towel over your mirror.
The third commandment says to not use the word G-d “in vain”. The G word should only be used for worship, and respectful discussion. Improper uses include expressing anger, swearing, selling life insurance, and pledging “allegiance” to a symbol of nationalism.
Pictures are from the The Library of Congress.
The Planned Parenthood Video
At some point yesterday, a video was released by The Center for Medical Progress. . It showed a secretly recorded luncheon with an official with Planned Parenthood. This official seemed to be discussing the sale of fetal body parts. Heads began to explode in teabagistan.
PG heard about it on twitter. He checked with Mr. Google. The sites reporting on the video included TOWNHALL, The Daily Caller, Breitbart, and the blaze.
@chamblee54 Has anyone checked with snopes? This sounds far fetched and many reporting on it are not dependable @nickmiller Featured in @WORLD_mag Highly reputable news outlet.
Madworld I believe the ONLY reason abortion is legal in the US is because the biotech/medical/scientific community profits from baby parts. Mad scientists get to experiment baby parts and slip them into drugs/vaccines. Also, the CDC recently officially recommended circumcision, because baby foreskin, like aborted baby parts, is a profitable commodity with various uses–including cosmetics (look up foreskin fibroblast cells). Sadistic perverted sickos. Our govt will allow any sickening procedure if corporations will profit from it. (Comment at the blaze.)
As soon as you could say snopes the internet fact checkers were weighing in on the story. Planned Parenthood issed a press release. While the video may have a grain of truth, it sensationalizes a common medical practice. There is an ongoing ethical discussion about these practices. These issues will not be resolved by tabloid videos.
The best observation might be at Little Green Footballs. “The sentence I put in bold explains the section of the video where they do talk about money, specifically “$30 to $100 per specimen.” This is not a “purchase price” for the specimens — it’s for transportation and other incidental fees. Anyone who thinks human body parts would be sold for the ridiculously low price of $30 to $100 is (not to put too fine a point on it) a gullible idiot.“
Yeah, Obama’s a Communist The “doctor” explains that there is a price range of $30-$100 per specimen. Since the abortion is already paid for, that disparity of pricing no doubt covers differences in quality. So yeah, you get what you pay for. (Comment at The Daily Caller.)
The luncheon in the video took place July 25, 2014. Why was this video released nearly a year later? Is it a coincidence that a nuclear deal with Iran was announced on this day? The video was somehow released, and was all over digital dingbat land within minutes. How this happened might be an interesting story. Pictures for this voyage to the underbelly of the internet are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”.UPDATE: Part Two.
Blue Tail Fly
Q: What does “Jimmy crack corn” mean, and why does he not care?—Matt, Columbus, Ohio
PG was trolling stupidquestion.net when there was a convergence of stupidity. (The site does not exist in 2012.) All his life he had heard “Blue Tail Fly”, and been embarrassed. And there, in (pardon the expression) black and white, was someone who wondered the same thing.
It seems as though “Blue Tail Fly” started out as a minstrel song. For those who don’t know, minstrel shows were white people putting on black makeup, and imitating African Americans. Minstrelsy is not well thought of these days.
The story of BTF involves a slave named Jim. A fly bit the pony the old massa was riding, the pony was offended, and threw the old massa off. He was hurt landing, and died. Jim still has to crack corn, but he doesn’t care anymore, because old massa has gone away.
Dave Barry took a poll once to find out the stupidest song of all time. The overwhelming winner/loser was “MacArthur Park”. The combination of over the top show stopping, while singing about a cake left out in the rain, makes this ditty a duh classic.
In the spirit of corny convergence, the video is a karaoke version featuring Donna Summer . Miss Summer is a talented singer, who happened to connect with Giorgio Moroder. Lots of singers could have hit the big time by fronting those records. Donna Summer hit the jackpot.
For a proper post, there needs to be a third stupid song. This is not about stupid bands, singing about being D U M B. Even though they totally don’t belong, there is a video of the Ramones included. PG saw the Ramones at the Agora Ballroom in 1983. This was after their prime, and before a homeless man caught the Ballroom on fire.
We still need a third stupid song, and PG wants to get this posted with as little research as possible. Just like some writer was once given twenty minutes to write a song, and he decided to do the worst song he could think of. The result was “Wild Thing”. PG used to have a 45 of someone who sounded like Bobby Kennedy singing “Wild Thing”. This video (of the Troggs performing “Wild Thing”) has the late Casey Kasem, and Portuguese subtitles. Let the good times roll.
This is a repost. Pictures are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”. This was downtown Atlanta in 1941.
Witch Part Two
PG went to a poetry reading on May 21, 2015. It was a very positive night. Nobody reading was angry, or at least none of the poems were angry. The star performer went on last, and that was that.
PG wrote Witch abut the evening. There was soon a comment on facebook. “i am frequently misgendered throughout this article and it makes me angry.” PG went back, and tweaked the gender references in the post. There is only so much you can do.
The only indication that PG had seen about trans status was a line about pronouns on twitter. The poet said that their pronouns were they and their. The last thing the poet said in the reading was “I am a fricking witch.” Maybe this was a clue.
A few days later, PG went to a building to work. A group was going to use the building… a former elementary school, now used by artists … and the grounds, for a party. In exchange, some people from this group were to come by and work in the building. Although PG had misgivings about the party, he was happy to make a contribution by working in the building. The job this Sunday afternoon was painting a room.
The story of the poet was told. PG was using he/him pronouns to describe the poet. One of the other painters was “aggressive” in objecting to this. PG protested, but wound up not using he/him pronouns. At least that is what PG remembers. The “aggressive” painter says that PG continued to use he/him pronouns. Two people do not always remember a dispute the same way.
The concept of using a plural pronoun like they, to describe a single person, did not make sense to PG. Apparently, this is a common practice. PG appreciates that gender based pronouns can be problematic. However, PG does not feel that redefining they, for use in describing a singular person, is a good solution to the problem.
The rest of the afternoon went by. PG gave the “aggressive” painter a ride home after the work session. PG did not think much more about the incident.
On thursday, the “aggressive” painter sent PG a facebook message. One of the other painters identified as trans. The “aggressive” painter said “You played the role of oppressor … with your intolerant remarks.” The message exchange got nasty and nastier. The “aggressive” painter lost control of their temper, and said some hateful things.
In the week before the poetry reading, PG had tried to promote the appearance by the poet. This mainly consisted of placing notices in facebook groups. PG was irritated that his reward was to be chewed out by the pronoun police.
The poet had said things on twitter that made PG question any trans status. The overall sanity of the poet also came into question. After the incident with the “aggressive” painter, PG kept an eye on the poet’s twitter feed. There was little information about trans status. Most of what PG saw had to do with a cross country poetry reading tour.
A few weeks after all this, the poet had a long series of tweets. Twitter monologs run in reverse order, and can be a lot of trouble to read. PG left a tweet. “don’t you have blog/facebook acct? Your twitter monolog would be much easier to read in order instead of scrolling backwards”
The next few days were quiet. PG went to the poet’s twitter page. You are blocked from following @johnmortara and viewing @johnmortara’s Tweets. And so ends the story. The spell check suggestion for @johnmortara is mortarboard.
UPDATE:Read Poetry and Eventually Die was hacked by by Mr.dexter.305. Pictures are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”.
Feed The Hamsters
Is arrogance etymologically connected to air head? ~ I am glad it only takes one hand to work a mouse. ~ What you say about Jesus says more about you than it does him. ~ Sin? Sin like love was a word hard to define. It came in two bitter but vastly different flavors. The first lay in violating the taboos of your tribe … The other meaning of sin was easier to define because it was not molded by the murky concepts of religion and taboo: Sin is behavior that ignores the welfare of others. Robert Heinlein ~ @postcrunk white men get called racist for behaving with the autonomy of a black man ~ I have always felt that Donald’s primary talent is media manipulation. The last two weeks either shows that he has lost the touch, or that using the media is uglier than I thought it was ~ we will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security ~ A brief consultation with Mr. Google does not show a source for that quote. ~ The following replies are approved. To see additional replies that are pending approval, click Show Pending. Warning: These may contain graphic material. ~ @chescaleigh @KidFury @crissles @gracyact @SholantyTaylor “busy organizing a klan rally” that is not right ~ Google ads has a sick sense of humor. ~ @ChrchCurmudgeon If Trump wins the election, this country will have hell toupée. ~ In discussion forums, a troll is anybody who tells the truth ~ All I see is a blank space. Facebook is not working again. ~ Whoops! There was a problem previewing this document. ~ @alwaystheself Then again, maybe France’s black population is safer if the CIA thinks they don’t exist. ~ If you ask where your phone is, don’t be surprised if they say you are talking on it. ~ donald trump anagrams into pot drum land, plot and drum, rum dot plan d ~ @MarkEglinton @thedavidcrosby the truest words spoken on the twitter forsaken platform that is g-d since its inception. ~ The spell check suggestion for retweeted is regretted. ~ There is a point beyond which perseverance can only be termed desperate folly. Karl von Clausewitz ~ how many have died from gunshots while america was fussing over an obsolete flag? ~ You are going to go to the puniteniary ~ 9 Facts That Show White-on-White Crime Far Exceeds Black-on-Black Crime and How Media Outlets Conceal It ~ EPISODE 21: BLOODLINES (6.5.2015) ~ I, Racist ~ 8 Truths About Race That Every White Person Needs to Know ~ 3- Feed the hamsters that power your server. It is irritating when you look at where a picture should be, and see a blank space. Then you see the comments, and wonder what they are talking about. ~ @WernerTwertzog Whatever does not kill me, is disappointing. ~ Blakes needs to stock up on popcorn. ~ @VeryShortStory If storytelling is his bag does it matter if it is paper or plastic? One is renewable but costs much more to ship. ~ @whitman632 Poetry allows one to exhale with passion. ~ THE LAND OF HEART’S DESIRE ~ #FreeTheNipplesAndTheVowels ~ Post Has Been Removed The post or object that you liked has been removed by its owner and can no longer be liked. ~ Post Has Been Removed The post or object that you were commenting has been removed by its owner and can no longer be commented on. ~ forgive me if I sound ignorant. but what is a troll? ~ We should have a contest. Someone copy an informational email. Then see how long it takes someone else to look it up on Snopes. ~ ask them which one cleaned up the place ~ Join us in our effort to change our world with Empowering Narratives. Share this empowering narrative on your social network of choice and ask others to do the same. ~ I have numerous issues with the culture of attitude mongering, aka positivity fascism. Unfortunately, this article does not have many practical suggestions for improvement. ~ pictures from The Library of Congress. ~ selah ~
Recovering Shoney’s
Lately PG and Uzi have missed a bunch of Sunday afternoons. Either someone is doing something, or it is raining, or it is too hot, or someone falls asleep watching tv and doesn’t wake up until dinnertime. Today was a return to normalcy.
Since it looked like possible rain, the first idea was to go to Little Five Points. If rain comes, you can hang out inside somewhere. You need to park the vehicle first. All the side streets have signs saying that parking is for residents only. The Carter Center was next. Jimmy said it was ok to park there.
Uzi decided he wanted to walk up North Highland Avenue towards the Plaza. Manuel’s was still open, with the threatened construction not yet begun. The buildings behind Druid Hills Baptist Church were not so lucky. About this time the rain clouds were going away, and the sun was out. It got hot. This is Georgia, and it gets hot in July.
Before long it was back in the vehicle, and dinner negotiations started. PG was driving toward the Piccadilly on Howell Mill Road. Uzi mentioned a buffet he knew. It was off I85, south of I285. PG was up for an adventure. Any concerns about Uzi’s directions were tactfully overlooked.
The freeway was crowded with people trying to get on I20. Once you got south of that, it was clear sailing to the airport. Uzi said to get off the freeway at Riverdale Road. PG drove down for a little while, and Uzi said that this was the wrong road. PG took a wrong turn, or two, and found himself in the middle of the airport. Finally, a freeway entrance appeared, and PG turned onto I85 south.
Uzi said to exit onto Old National. Once again, this was not the correct exit. PG went down a few roads, while Uzi tried to get directions on his smart phone. PG pulled into a gas station, and stopped. Uzi played with the smart phone. PG tried not to think about the iron bars on the gas station windows. Finally, Uzi got directions. The route was backtracked. PG went south on I85.
The magic phone said to get off at exit 66. Even though the phone said to turn right, Uzi said to turn left. The buffet was a recovering Shoney’s. It was open on Sunday.
The cashier lady asked you to look at the buffet before you paid for your meal. There were signs asking you not to waste food. The vittles were better than most buffets. PG ate more than he should, got on I285, and was not run over by the crazy drivers.
James Baldwin And The Six Letter Word
In the spring of 1963, KQED filmed a show, “Take this hammer”, about James Baldwin. The snippet in the video above seems to have been the last three minutes of the show. Here is a transcript. Mr. Baldwin discusses a six letter insult. The n-word is more about the speaker, than the spoken of. A 2010 blogger had this to say.
What resonated with me about this particular video though, is the universal experience we’ve all had being referred to, thought of as, or called something we inherently are not. Not because of something we’ve done, mind you – but because of the way others “interpret” us. Those of us that “transgress” gender norms are often given titles and names that don’t fit who we are – but are more representative of the fears and desires of others. I’ve often felt that people’s projections of me are oftentimes just that – their projections. However, Baldwin’s ending sums up a solution to this perfectly: “But you still think, I gather, that the n****r is necessary. Well he’s unnecessary to me – he must be necessary to you. Well, I’m going to give your problem back to you…you’re the n****r, baby…not me.”
It is now 2015. (All discussions of race must mention the year.) The TV show was fifty two years ago. A few things have changed. To many white people, overt expressions of racism are seen as bad manners. The n-word is taboo in polite company. The overall attitudes may not have changed, but most white people are careful how they say things.
African America is keeping the n-word alive. But it is still about the speaker, not the one spoken of. When people say the nasty word, they are talking about themselves. African Americans are now the people James Baldwin is talking about. This is a repost. Pictures are from The Library of Congress. These men are Union soldiers, from the War Between the States.
A few weeks ago, this blog published a feature, James Baldwin And The Six Letter Word. At the center was selection of James Baldwin talking about the n word. There was a transcript available, which makes today’s exercise a lot easier.
Mr. Baldwin was discussing this nasty word, and offered an insight into who the user of this nasty word was really talking about. Now, there is another nasty word being casually tossed about these days. This other nasty word is racist. What would happen if you took Mr. Baldwin’s talk, and substituted racist for nasty? It is an interesting way to look at things. What follows is not a perfect fit, and may be offensive to some. A few times, it is very close to the truth.
Who is the racist? Well i know this…and anybody who has tried to live knows this. What you say about somebody else (you know) anybody else, reveals you. What I think of you as being is dictated by my own necessities, my own psychology, my own uhm fears…and desires. I’m not describing you when I talk about you…I’m describing me.
Now, here in this country we got somebody called a racist. It doesn’t in such terms, I beg you to remark, exist in any other country in the world. We have invented the racist. I didn’t invent him, white people invented him. I’ve always known, I had to know by the time I was seventeen years old, what you were describing was not me and what you were afraid of was not me. It had to be something else. You had invented it so it had to be something you were afraid of and you invested me with it.
Now if that’s so, no matter what you’ve done to me I can say to you this, and I mean it…I know you can’t do any more and I’ve got nothing to lose…and I know and I have always known you know and really always..…I have always known that I am not a racist…but if I am not the racist…and if it is true that your invention reveals you…then who is the racist?
I am not the victim here. I know one thing from another. I know that I was born, am gonna suffer and gonna die. And the only way that you can get through life is to know the worst things about it. I know that a person is more important than anything else. Anything else.
I’ve learned this because I’ve had to learn it. But you still think, I gather, that the racist is necessary. Well he’s not necessary to me, so he must be necessary to you. So I give you your problem back. You’re the racist baby, it isn’t me.
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