Riding the Subway with Daniel Perry
Ridership on the NYC subway currently stands at 65% of pre-pandemic levels. And while the numbers of people have increased in the last 2 years, it remains a fraction of what it used to be. Why?
The answer is safety. People don’t feel safe riding the subway. One in five say they would ride more often if there were “fewer people behaving erratically.”
The 150+ felonies/month occurring in/on the system include being pushed onto the tracks, shot, and accosted. Homeless drug addicts are regular riders.
When Jordan Neely began his threatening rant May 1 on a subway ride with a number of other riders, everyone there was relieved when former marine Daniel Perry rose to the occasion, and with help of two others, took Neely down with Perry putting a choke hold on Neely. News reports say Perry held the choke hold for 15 minutes, but the video shows it lasted maybe 2 minutes.
In any case, Daniel Perry was arrested and arraigned with bail set at $100,000, then indicted by a grand jury for 2nd degree manslaughter for which he now awaits trial.
Certainly it’s a sad story when someone dies in these situations, but instead of thanking Perry – he’s arrested for a felony. So, he must come up with the money to mount a legal defense, be put in an unwelcome, time and life consuming way of life and wait to defend himself at a trial. The story is a white killed a black. “The white is guilty” in the major media.
Instead of the city learning that maybe they should hire several hundred ‘Daniel Perrys’ to be present on subway platforms and random cars to the knowledge of regular riders and those who would do great bodily harm, the city de-incentivizes anyone from coming to the rescue of imminent danger to others by arresting him.
Recognizing we are where we are and Perry must deal with the real situation of the legal system, it’s a sad day in America when defense of self and others requires this type of personal sacrifice – without trial.
Having said all that I add that the greatest thing we have built into our legal system is “innocent until proven guilty.” Our news media has ignored that underlying principle for too long.
There are too many other examples of ‘justice’ miscarrying.
In January 2019 Nick Sandmann, 16, a Kentucky high schooler waiting with his classmates for their bus at the Lincoln Memorial was confronted by an Indian beating a drum. He stood there and while he didn’t back down, he also said nothing and looked at the drummer eye to eye as the drummer taunted him. The national media jumped on his ‘demeaner’ and characterized him as a bigot. From the media’s perspective he had two strikes against him to start with. One, he had just participated in The March for Life, and two, he was wearing a MAGA cap. A year later he won a defamation suit against CNN, but not before bearing an added onslaught of social media battering – and even death threats. No one, especially a minor, should have to weather that kind of blacklisting, bullying, and abuse.
Also In January 2019, Jesse Smollett, an actor and singer, staged a fake hate crime against himself in early morning Chicago and later made false police reports regarding the incident. The media bought the Smollett complaint hook, line, and sinker. Why, because he was supposedly attacked by two white guys wearing MAGA hats. He was a victim of white supremacy. In December 2021, Smollett was convicted of five felony counts of disorderly conduct for creating the hoax; he was sentenced in March 2022 to 150 days in county jail. He has since been released on bond while his case is on appeal.
Then there was Kyle Rittenhouse, the 18-year-old charged in the August 2020 killing of a protestor at a Kenosha, WI riot. Again, in its rush to build on the guilt of Rittenhouse, a white who killed a black, mainstream media had him spending the rest of his life in jail for not only murder, but a hate crime. Again, there was another side of the story, which the media did not care about to wait for to report on, and Rittenhouse was acquitted after spending over a year in prison awaiting trial.
The escapades of the FBI in recent years from arresting non-participants in the January 6, 2021, breach of the Capital Building, to arresting protesters outside abortion clinics, to harassing parents who spoke out at local school board meetings, to sending 40+ armed agents with a search warrant to descend on Mar-a-Largo over documents held by former president Trump. Trump has snice been charged and the media has spent days talking about the time Trump will spend in jail. Guilt under the 1917 Espionage Act is cited for the charges. It’s obviously motivated by politics, not the law or precedent.
Is it any wonder 64% of us have no confidence or trust in our media?
We do have a good sense of state-controlled media in places like N. Korea and China without state-controlled media. Our media has an accepted narrative and skews its reporting to support that narrative.
When it comes to reporting, a white vs. a minority is guilty until proven innocent.
Too many journalists are now so biased they’ve become irrelevant.
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Have a great and prosperous week.
Hug somebody.
References:
https://nypost.com/2022/07/24/safety-is-no-1-concern-among-nyc-subway-riders-mta-survey/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jussie_Smollett
SPIDER Bites
This week’s trivia question: What country did the US buy Florida from? The answer to last week’s highest grossing movie ever: Avatar. It grossed $2.9B. 2nd is Avengers Endgame – $2.7B, followed by Avatar: The Way of Water and Titanic. Adjusted for inflation, Gone with the Wind, Star Wars, and The Sound of Music top the list.
Let’s see. Two counts of tax evasion on income exceeding $1.5M in both 2017 and 2018 are misdemeanors – and lying on a gun application is handled with a diversionary program which will eventually be expunged from the record are normal charges and punishments in these types of cases. Supposed normalcy goes further: the DOJ doesn’t find the sources of the income for which taxes weren’t paid and no one has ever gone to jail for lying to the FBI. I just can’t see why some people are upset after a thorough, 5-year, DOJ investigation into potential wrongdoing. Go Hunter, artist extraordinaire whose talents have been compared to Michelangelo and Houdini.
The 2nd observance of our new federal holiday of Juneteenth last week closed federal offices, banks, stock markets and the Post Office. The holiday commemorates June 19, 1865, when the slaves in Galveston, Texas were told about the Emancipation Proclamation. It was not a state holiday in Florida. Head of the African American history center (Riley House) in Tallahassee, Althemese Barnes, and supporters lobbied the legislature in 2021 not to make it a state holiday and prevailed. Barnes says it’s not Florida’s history because the announcement was made on May 20 here. Florida is not so different. Only 18 states have adopted the federal holiday with permanent state-paid status for its employees. Maybe you didn’t know the feds declaring a holiday doesn’t make it universal, that State Legislatures control their states. It’s a republic.
Ocala has the only Safe Haven Baby Box in the state where parents, guardians or strangers of newborns can drop off their child anonymously without any consequences. Six months ago, an infant was found in the box. Shortly thereafter baby Zoey was adopted by a childless Ocala couple and is reportedly thriving.
It’s like a broken record. AT&T announced it will be closing its flagship store in downtown San Francisco August 1. That follows the closing of two big downtown hotels – the Hilton San Francisco and Parc 55.
You know lithium is vital in building EV batteries. Most of that lithium used here has been mined in China, but also places like Australia, Chili, Argentina, and Zimbabwe. In February the Biden administration announced it was awarding $35M of the DoD appropriation to Canadian company, Lithium Americas, to develop and open a lithium mine in northern Nevada. Oops, Indians there say its their land and oppose the mine for tribal and environmental reasons. Despite legal challenges citing the National Historic Preservation Act, the National Environmental Policy Act and the Federal Land Policy and Management Act, you can be assured the tribes and four environmental groups will lose this one – the trucks are already rolling for the open pit mines. BTW, the process of extracting lithium from hard rock and deep-down brine lake deposits, is estimated to require 500 tons of material to create 1 ton of lithium in the Nevada mine, will require millions of gallons of water, and emit significant amounts of CO2.
Researchers at Cambridge U. have demonstrated a method of capturing CO2 from exhaust and from the air itself to create renewable energy. It needs more work before it can become commercially viable but shows some real promise. It’s nice to know there’s at least some people who are trying to solve emissions problems from a where we are perspective. “Making lemonade.”
I guess everything and most organizations are playing politics these days. Last week the AMA came out with a recommendation that BMI – body mass index – no longer be used by physicians because it’s racist. So, obesity is supposedly no longer relevant to your health. That’s not only wrong, but it’s also ignorant and stupid – and I’m not a physician.
