"Criminal charges were possible, but identifying individual shoppers in Friday's video may prove difficult, said Detective Lt. Michael Fleming, a Nassau County police spokesman."

Why is it so darned difficult? Put them on TV, run them, let the public see them. See if someone comes forward. Check the credit slip names of the first five hundred purchases and get pictures of the people who signed the slips. If they tried that hard to get in they didn't leave empty handed! Pull them in for questioning if they will not talk outside. Ask if anyone was with them. See who lawyers-up. This is a homicide investigation, not the theft of a pack of gum. As an aside I consider that wrong but I wouldn't be as aggressive on looking for the perp. This wasn't a crowd that trampled the guy, this was three to five people who knocked him down and went over him. Others probably stepped on him but once the frenzy was there they were being pushed by the crowd. Look at the other workers in the store that were hurt trying to rescue him. Look at the ire when the store was closed. I never go to this kind of thing because I have said for 40 years they are dangerous. Mobs kill!

"Other workers were trampled as they tried to rescue the man, and customers stepped over him and became irate when officials said the store was closing because of the death, police and witnesses said."

But as reprehensible as this is, the police are not without blame. Why do I say that? Look at the statement of the spokesperson.

"This crowd was out of control," Fleming said. He described the scene as "utter chaos," and said the store didn't have enough security.

Really? The store needed more security? This was not a shoplifting or someone getting hostile. This was a mob. Should the store prepare for a homicidal mob? What security would have stopped them? Billy clubs? Mace? Guns? Should store security be armed? If there had been ten armed police there (and there probably should have been with that large of a gathering) could they have prevented this? Were there calls earlier to police, before the store opened? How long after the call did the first officer get on the scene? Was it treated as a priority or was it set to age to see if it would go away? And finally, why hasn't a reporter asked these questions and reported the answers.

I have a scanner and in York City I hear at times the police dispatcher tell an officer this has been aged twenty minutes! The officer is to go and see if the problem has resolved. They are holding a ticket for twenty minutes to see if the problem will go away! Why?

Did someone call before the store opened and complain that the mob was getting unruly and the police took the wait and see attitude? I don't need to know this answer but the people of Nassau County should. I am asking the questions for them. The media should be doing a time line on this, when did each event happen? Why the media? Because they are to be the watchdogs and they are the only ones with the ability to get the information. The police will lawyer-up with their union representatives if it even looks like citizens want to check and make it difficult. The police officials will circle the wagons to defend against attack. All of them will point fingers at Walmart who if you are really honest probably has done nothing significant wrong or left undone anything they could have done. I worked the polls on election day. I saw what I would call a hostile mob at one time during that day. I was concerned. One trigger and it could have easily gotten nasty.

My guess on this is the man who was killed committed one error. He didn't get out of the mob's way in time. That mob was just as dangerous as a herd of stampeding cattle and with about the same mental level. He may have dropped a key or a pen and bent to pick it up. He may have seen something on the floor that could haven been a hazard and bent to pick it up to protect others. We may never know but he paid for that with his life. If you want to see the violence with which this mob was being driven, note that they bent the door frames.

I would love to have the police dispatcher radio tape for two hours before and two hours after the event. I would like to go through and log the calls, to, from, time, content. I would like to know. Why? Because this could happen other places! My thought on any event like this is to learn from it. If we do and learn to prevent or make it less likely to recur and Jdimytai Damour may not have totally died in vain. If we bring to justice the ones who cared so little for their fellow man that a cheap DVD was worth more than his life, maybe Jdimytai Damour will not have totally died in vain. If we make people, the police, whomever more responsive, maybe Jdimytai Damour will not have totally died in vain.

Jdimytai Damour should have lived to see his children grow up, and see his grandchildren and their children. Jdimytai Damour will not because of greed and lack of caring about each other. I apologize to the family of Jdimytai Damour for using his name repeatedly but I want someone to see it enough that it burns in their mind. I want Jdimytai Damour to be more than a nameless, faceless person in a poorly written story in AP. I want people to remember Jdimytai Damour as a fellow human being that got trampled by people in a hurry.

***UPDATE 11/30/2008***

A quote from a union leader appeared in another story. "New York's largest grocery workers union on Friday urged federal, state and local authorities to investigate what it called 'Wal-Mart's failure to provide a safe workplace.'"

He continues his meaningless and uninformed tirade. "'This incident was avoidable,' said Bruce Both, president of United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 1500. 'Where were the safety barriers? Where was security? ... This is not just tragic; it rises to a level of blatant irresponsibility by Wal-Mart.'"

I agree with Bruce Both that this should be investigated but Both's comments and thrust fly in the face of getting to the truth, learning how to prevent a repeat and in compassion to the family. Let's face it. Both and his union have not been able to unionize Walmart. He and his union don't get to line their pockets with the union dues from those wages. Let me assure you, that is big buicks, usually about two hours a month of pay from each worker. Union leaders decry management living off the backs of the workers but let's face it, they do too. He makes no indication he had first hand information or even second hand information about the situation. He asks where the barriers were, the security. Justice would have been better served by him just keeping his mouth shut. But he isn't interested in justice, he is interested in JUST US, the union. I believe his members should realize that if something is good for one local and not for the union the local will be sacrificed down to the last job. I know that first hand. The article continued.

"Wal-Mart said it had added additional internal security, third party security, more store associates and had worked closely with local police.

'We also erected barricades. Despite all of our precautions, this unfortunate event occurred,' Hank Mullany, a Wal-Mart senior vice president, said in a statement.'

The Walmart manager was there. He helped with the preparations. Nobody who was there is questioning his statement. I would tend to believe it more than Both's who wasn't there and has as big an ase to grind as anyone from Walmart. In addition, Both can be irresponsible and go to excess with no possible repercussions. It helps his stature. The Walmart manager does not have that luxxury. If he overstates now it will most likely come back to haunt him.

Did Walmart not do enough? I don't know. I will bet Hank Mullany is asking himself that question now and a year from now will still be doing it. I pray for him. Hank has the distinction now of having something in common with a battlefield commander who looses a man. No matter who or what is blamed he will probably always question, did I miss something.

A point for Proposition 8, a law that disallows for gay marriage in California, is that it is nontraditional.  Marriage by definition, does have some understanding of the attachment to a man to a woman.  It is the only way to naturally reproduce and create more progeny (like we, as a nation, have any problems in that department).  It can be argued that children are best off under the combined tutelage of a man and a woman to achieve full development.  I think you need to take that case by case, as with most things. 

Against Prop. 8, I think it is ridiculous as an African American to practice discrimination in any way.  I'm not perfect, but I am rational enough to know that if I realize something is unfairly putting another down, even if I disagree with the principle, I should not throw stones from glass houses.  I still get discriminated against weekly, how can I force another to feel that same sentiment of unrest?  There is some worry on my part of the slippery slide.  How far do we go with individual liberty.  Should elder men be able to marry little boys?  Can a grown woman marry ten 12-year old girls if all partys comply?  Yes? No?  It gets complicated, but I know one thing.  We're headed down that road anyway.  Let's embrace our reality rather than fight it and cause undue pain.  Let's walk into the future with open minds, while remembering the values taught to us in our youth.  Let's not judge people, let's judge actions if we must judge at all.  Till next time.

Our economy is a very delicate yet wondrous thing. The better it does the happier we are and the worst it does the worse things are for us. When we can make money easily the thought "How am I going to pay the bills" never even crosses our minds. I'm going to dig deep and open this up, so you'll know how this happened and we all can work together to prevent this from happening in the future.

Unwise Spending

Our real estate markets around the United States were at a all time high for a while there. People saw that houses were going up, up, up. Everyone started to try to get their hands on a piece of land of their own. Theres nothing wrong with that at all but mortgage brokers need to set the limits. They saw this crowd approaching and said, "Lets lower the cost and interest so more people will buy houses." They were right. When they went and did this more people saw that the housing was getting better and better and prices were getting cheaper and cheaper. They sought to get into this figuring it was a better time then ever to get a house. More people went and bought houses and the prices went up because of Supply & Demand and the interests went up along with it. now the people who had bought this houses cheap were in a bad spot. They couldn't afford the interest rates. They defaulted on their loans that they took to buy the houses and this hurt the economy.

Why? How could that cause this mess were in?

Were in this now because the brokers got greedy. People stop spending money because they couldn't afford it and that made it so the economy got a little worse. Then others saw the economy declining and thought, oh no, I better start saving money. This all lead to where our economy is now. Banks seeing all these foreclosures of all the properties they loaned money for stopped giving as many loans continuously harming our economy. The Brokers are the ones that put us here, they didn't know what they were doing so we must educate our young so they know not to do what we've done, we must keep the integrity of america going strong.

If You Want To learn more go to: How Our Economy Got This Way

Cool chick, writing warrior and friend, Blogging Naveen, recently shared Campbell Brown’s fabulous commentary, So what if Obama were a Muslim or an Arab?  It’s worth the read, but, should you be short on time, the title alone communicates the crux of the message, “When did Arab and Muslim become dirty words?”  

Sure, in 1961 some people thought being Catholic would be an insurmountable barrier to the White House.  0bviously, JFK’s win proved it was not.  And now it seems, I don’t know, silly or crazy, to think that anyone was even concerned.  But they were.  Catholicism and potential ties to the Vatican were feared.  Unnecessarily.  It leaves me sad to think that in the last 40+ years instead of becoming more enlightened we’ve just switched up which religion we slander.  Brown eloquently and accurately points out that, “we've all been too quick to accept the idea that calling someone Muslim is a slur.”

I consider one of the best hours of television to be the West Wing episode that followed 9/11.  It was simple, yet profound.  When I hear ‘Muslim’ or ‘Arab’ so casually used and accepted as a means to diminish or malign I think of the mess hall scene.  The White House has been attacked and is in lockdown.  Josh and Donna are left to entertain a group of touring teens who are trying to understand the events of the day.  Josh explains to his room full of students (and a home audience of xenophobes) that radical Muslims who support jihad against America, or Islamic extremists, are to Islam as the KKK is to Christianity.  Meaning, they are both fringe elements. 

Now, I don’t know any KKK members (that I’m aware of!) but I know a heck of a lot of Christians and I wonder, how would you feel, if every time someone referred to you as a Christian, the implication was that you might be a Klan member?  I know it’s an absurd idea, but so is the implication that being Muslim is an automatic link terrorism.

Sigh.

Yeah, yeah, I know.  Obama is Christian, not Muslim.  But, so what if he were?

But I've got a few political thoughts of my own.  This campaign has raised for me some interesting questions.  I feel like assumptions have been made and taken for granted.  I can't help but wonder, would be saying the same thing about these men, and lady, if their personal histories were reversed.  

The point is to ask yourself, WHAT IF...?

What if the Obama/Biden vs McCain/Palin tickets and personal histories were switched around? Would the country's collective point of view be different?  It’s something to consider…

What if the Obamas had walked five children across the stage, including a three month old infant and an unwed, pregnant teenage daughter?

What if John McCain was a former president of the Harvard Law Review?

What if Barack Obama finished fifth from the bottom of his graduating class?

What if Obama had left his first wife after a severe car accident disfigured her?

What if Obama met his second wife in a bar and had a long affair while he was still married?

What if Michelle Obama was the candidate's wife who became addicted to painkillers and acquired them illegally through her charitable organization?

What if Cindy McCain graduated from Harvard?

What if Obama had been a member of the Keating Five? (The Keating Five were five United States Senators accused of corruption in 1989, igniting a major political scandal as part of the larger Savings and Loan crisis of the late 1980s and early 1990s.)

What if McCain were a charismatic, eloquent speaker and Obama had difficulty reading from a teleprompter?

What if Obama were the candidate whose military experience included discipline problems?

What if Obama were the candidate known to display publicly a serious anger management problem?

What if Michelle Obama's family had made their money from beer distribution?

What if McCain graduated from Harvard with a Juris Doctor (J.D.), Magna Cum Laude (that means "top of class")?

What if Palin earned duel BA’s in History and Political Science from the University of Delaware and a Juris Doctor (J.D) from Syracuse University College of Law?

What if Obama ranked 894 of 899 in the United States Naval Academy

What if Biden spent 1 semester at Hawaii Pacific University, 2 semesters at North Idaho College, 2 semesters at the University of Idaho, 1 semester at Matanuska-Susitna College, then finally three semesters at University of Idaho earning a B.A. in Journalism

I heard on the news this morning about California residents living in their cars. I have my doubts that it is completely necessarily economically related. While there are truly those in need, I believe the lagging economy gives panhandlers and conmen more ammo to target good people, and that is sad. 

Forgive my cynicism, I am more than willing to help someone if they need it, but if I see that they aren't even putting forth effort to bring themselves out of the financial mire, then I am going to be skeptical of their sincerity when they ask me for help.

An example of this kind of scenario is the other day when I was going to take public transit. A woman stopped me and asked for money after she had just spent someone else's money that she panhandled, on beer. I'm thinking to myself "you must think I'm a real idiot"

I fully understand jobs are scarce, but even in 1929 people at least made the effort to look. If I see a sign that says "will work for food" I at least know they're willing to try, like any normal human being. Panhandlers that just go from place to place begging without even making an effort to be successful themselves, I just can't feel sorry for.

I'm lost today because the truth is not available.  The truth of what is going on in the world economically either doesn't exist in one place or is simply being covered-up.  The reasons for the economic collapse seem varied, vague, and vacuous.  And in a scientifically-based world such as ours, this is difficult to fathom.  The truth appears to be hidden, unknown, and maybe even lost.

But is it?  Is it really hidden?  Or is it right in front of us just waiting for us to recognize it? 

For a long time, people have allowed others to control their actions, people have justified their indecent and immoral acts through ignorance and deceit, people have contributed, both knowingly and unknowingly to a political, social, and economic system that oppresses, dominates, and exploits - and it's all justified because we all need to live, we all need to feed our families, we all need to survive.

As Tolstoy points out, it is our need to survive that enables the people in power to "hypnotize" us into doing their bidding, to make it seem as if our actions are not our own and are the State's or the City's or the Company's actions instead.  And so we commit horrible crimes and do the work of the wealthy and the powerful because we think the consequences of these actions will come down on someone else.  In the meantime, we barely eek out a living for ourselves and our families.

We also have many false ideas about our situation.  We have unusually unwavering faith in people with money and power and we often think of them as omnipotent and omniscient and so must have our best interest in mind.  Even if they do keep a great deal for themselves, they'll also always make sure we get what we need in order to survive.  And they don't just make mistakes, I mean, look at how stable things are around us.  This is what many thought before this economic depression, either consciously or subconsciously.

Now that we're in a depression, we're beginning to see that maybe those people with the money and power were too few and did not have the best interest of society in their mind and actions.  Maybe it is as many philosophers and scientists have stated before, that those in power really only cared about themselves and their own families and friends.  Knowing that we realized this too late, we're stuck to deal with it and we still do not have the information we need in order to make informed decisions.

The current depression is not caused by peculiar nuances of large financial institutions.  Rather, it is ultimately caused by our ignorance, by our refusal to learn about and acknowledge the truth, by our insistence that our economic, political, and social society is good for everyone and everything when we know that this is not true.

Will we lose jobs?  Yes.  Is there anything we can do to stop it?  Yes. 

We can start telling people the truth about our situation, the truth that we are in the position we now find ourselves, if we are working people without ownership of the means of production, we do this because we fear the consequences of not doing it: starvation, struggle, poverty, ridicule, not being able to take care of our families, etc...  We do not work because it is best for society.  No.  We do not work because it is a public service that is needed and without it the society will fall apart.  No.  Our motives for working have nothing to do with altruism or doing the right thing.  No.  No.  No.  We work because we fear the alternative.  Recognizing this and professing this to others is all we have to do if we want our situation to change.

"A man cannot be placed against his will in a situation opposed to his conscience.

"If you find yourself in such a position it is not because it is necessary to anyone whatever, but simply because you wish it. And therefore knowing that your position is repugnant to your heart and your head, and to your faith, and even to the science in which you believe, you cannot help reflecting upon the question whether in retaining it, and above all trying to justify it, you are doing what you ought to do.

"You might risk making a mistake if you had time to see and retrieve your fault, and if you ran the risk for something of some value. But when you know beyond all doubt that you may disappear any minute, without the least possibility either for yourself or those you draw after you into your error, of retrieving the mistake, when you know that whatever you may do in the external organization of life it will all disappear as quickly and surely as you will yourself, and will leave no trace behind, it is clear that you have no reasonable ground for running the risk of such a fearful mistake."

Leo Tolstoy in "The Kingdom of God Is within You" 1894

It’s bad enough that we all have been dealing with the effects of the recent economy that experts argue was brought about by the mortgage crisis. Now we have to worry about bailing out rich cats that seem to not know when enough is enough. Don’t get me wrong, I would definitely be in favor of the bailout if I knew that the money was going to benefit some of those very unfortunately people who have lost their homes, but do you really think that the banks are calling them back now that they got there money to come back to their houses. If you’re buying these lie, I have something else to sell to you.

I say this bailout was a bad idea for the fact that it is being given to the exact same people who got us in this mess.  First of all I am very skeptical of all the so called bad mortgages that were given out by the banks.  

I think all of us have been to the bank a time or two and we can safely say that these people are not dumb.

There is no way that you can ever convince me that these mortgages and business loans that were given were done by accident. The  truth s that their were given intentional because at the time the banks were greedy and were more interested in making money themselves that they just simply did not care about the consequences,

Don’t think either that the people who were given these bad loans were random applicants, oh no, the recipients of theses loans were associates of bank employees, not poor minorities like some of you have heard. Here is one example of how the greed based scams worked. An associated of an employee would apply for  a  mortgage knowing that he would be able to refinance months later, sometimes two or three times. Then he would take the money from the refinance and purchase out right another home in his brother, sister, mother, or other friend’s name.

That all knew that eventually they world default on all loans, but do you think they cared? Heck no!

They just blamed it on the economy. Who did this you might ask? The bankers, the owners and everyone in the middle.

Now that they continue to pull off their scam they have moved on to another scam and that is to ask for a bailout. As far as I am concerned, don’t bail them out, trust me their will be people readily available to provide bank services the right way as soon as they disappeared.

Since we bailed out the banks because they were irresponsible with their finances, I think we all need to ask them for a bailout in return. How do you think they will response? I think the same way they do when you are a second late on a deposit and you two cents floating; they overdraft you.