West Papuan independence

This is a fascinating, almost surreal article about a West Papuan activist and a Wyoming mercenary aiming to mount an insurrection for West Papuan independence from Indonesia.

Tom Brady vs. a Little League team

This is an insightful analysis of "Deflategate", the scandal involving the New England Patriots' cheating by deflating the footballs they played with.  The author points out the racial double standard in US pro sports, whereby Richard Sherman, after making a good play and bragging about it, is demonized as unsportsmanlike (not to mention thuggish and apelike), while Tom Brady, after shitting on the very principle of sportsmanlike conduct by repeatedly, calculatedly cheating, receives little criticism.  The author also cites an all black Little League team from Englewood, Chicago who was stripped of their national championship due to a minor technical violation.  (The rule the team broke was recruiting from "outside their zone", which is absurd considering that the Englewood neighborhood is a very transient place of school closures, public housing relocation, and people moving in and out as their fortunes change.  I imagine it would be almost impossible to field an entire team of kids just from the neighborhood that stayed in exactly the same place for a whole year.)  Anyway, those big bad Chicago pre-teens had to be made an example of, so they were stripped of their title, though no one would ever think of robbing the poor little millionaires on the New England Patriots of the titles they've won while systematically cheating.

Documentary on wealth gaps

This documentary was made back in 2006.  I like it, though the filmmaker could have articulated his argument better, more concisely.  The scenes where he interviews Milton Friedman show that he doesn't have a very nuanced, clear idea of exactly what's wrong.  The filmmaker is instinctively aware that something is wrong, but the details escape him.  I can relate--the guy is probably about my age, and much of the nuance of my understanding of the current economic system has developed in the years since 2006.  Props to the Chicago wealthy heir, who is the one rich guy other than the filmmaker who is at least aware of and thinking about the implications of wealth disparities and gentrification.

Insights on law and order

Here are two articles from the Root.  One argues that the US system of treating the police force of each municipality as a being unto itself has led to incompetent and unaccountable police work across the nation.  The article recommends a more standardized national system to train and certify police officers.  This echoes much of what David Simon argued about Baltimore's police department in an article I linked to some time ago.

The second article points out that systemic racism in the US justice system is exceedingly lenient on white offenders that end up being truly dangerous (giving the example of Dylann Roof's going free after multiple episodes of stalking, trespassing, and possession of hard drugs).  It contrasts this with the many well-publicized recent cases in which black men who have committed no crime are incarcerated or killed by the police.

Journalism's death knell?

This is a sad article about a British paper that has essentially admitted that it is cutting back its ability to do good journalism in the name of maximizing profits by cutting staff.  In this vein, it is now incentivizing its remaining staff to write fluffy articles that attract more readers and thus generate ad revenue, as opposed to labor-intensive, well-researched, important articles.  I think it's a story that's been playing out in newspapers around the world for the last decade or three.

Gang affiliation?

This is a fascinating article on the laws in California that allow prosecutors to enhance charges for minor crimes if they claim that the defendant is in a gang.