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Comments Posted By KevenSeven

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Sometimes a Cigar is Just a Cigar: Sparkman Committed Suicide

How can a thing be a cover-up but not a conspiracy?

I suppose that by definition, a conspiracy is a thing that more than one persons do, while a cover-up can be the act of a single person. We will set that distinction aside.

So, tell me: how can a thing be a cover-up but not a conspiracy?

» Posted By KevenSeven On January 12, 2010 @ 5:07 pm

Thank you.

I did take it personally last night when the response to my comment was “what are you smoking?”

I over-reacted.

» Posted By KevenSeven On January 12, 2010 @ 4:59 pm

And if anyone could point me to one news hound who is following up on this, I would back off my conclusion.

» Posted By KevenSeven On January 12, 2010 @ 4:56 pm

Oh, and the only plausible motivation for a cover-up: to keep the census workers comfortable. That is just about worthy of discussion.

Almost. But I would caution you to consider the repercussions when the truth gets out (and it always does).

I return to my point: what independent investigator out there is calling bullshit on the FBI’s conclusions?

I’m sorry. Nobody is doubting the veracity of this report except some woo woos.

» Posted By KevenSeven On January 12, 2010 @ 4:55 pm

OK, so you did not use the word “conspiracy”.

What else would you call it if the State Police and the FBI somehow cover up a murder and call it a suicide?

It is a lot like a “conspiracy”, but it is not a “conspiracy”?

Look. Go ahead and express opinions. Feel free. You are of the opinion that this was murder.

But don’t complain when you get challenged to back it up.

» Posted By KevenSeven On January 12, 2010 @ 4:51 pm

Sue,

We are talking about the FBI here, not the LAPD.

You have to be ready to believe that the FBI is covering up the murder of a Federal employee.

I just don’t buy it.

» Posted By KevenSeven On January 12, 2010 @ 4:45 pm

Oh, for pity’s sake.

Sparkman was aware of the hostility toward Federal workers, and took out life insurance that would not pay off in the event of a suicide.

He chose a convoluted way to off himself because he was broke and sick and wanted to provide money for his kids.

Occam’s razor.

» Posted By KevenSeven On January 12, 2010 @ 4:43 pm

Our 500th Post!

Darn!

And so close!

Hey, I want you to know that Beyonce had just about the best music video of all time…….

» Posted By KevenSeven On January 10, 2010 @ 7:18 pm

Words that make you cringe

Ah, but Clinton was the first Black president, yes?

» Posted By KevenSeven On January 11, 2010 @ 8:39 pm

Sorry about your shoulder.

And we are all Negros, after all. We are all descended from the same tribe of original humans who were living in what is now South Africa, what, 100k years ago? Every person living on the planet is as black as those people were. Even Pat Buchanan and that troll of a sister of his.

» Posted By KevenSeven On January 11, 2010 @ 7:09 pm

The freaking FBI says it was a suicide. This is not fucking Bull Connor we are talking about here.

» Posted By KevenSeven On January 11, 2010 @ 6:47 pm

I have read a news report that covered the report, and this was most of it.

» Posted By KevenSeven On January 11, 2010 @ 6:27 pm

You do what this guy did:

Put the noose around your neck, then (loosely) duck tape your hands together.

He was on the ground. How do you strangle when you are on the ground?

By relaxing your legs.

And why were there no indications of any struggle? No bruising of his hands in a struggle?

Who does not struggle as a noose is put over one’s head?

» Posted By KevenSeven On January 11, 2010 @ 5:58 pm

It was suicide.

» Posted By KevenSeven On January 11, 2010 @ 5:55 pm

Ah, bite me.

» Posted By KevenSeven On January 11, 2010 @ 5:52 pm

I was wrapping up a spirited round of argument with a bit of sarcasm there.

And I don’t think it is all that racist to have assumed that Obama was going to get 95% or better of the AA vote.

» Posted By KevenSeven On January 11, 2010 @ 3:43 pm

Yes, she got me with that.

Bloody kitties.

» Posted By KevenSeven On January 11, 2010 @ 1:16 pm

Ya see what I’m sayin’!

» Posted By KevenSeven On January 11, 2010 @ 1:09 pm

That’s two of us, sister.

Jesse is all right and all, but he is hardly the most honest man in the civil rights movement.

I think Al Sharpton got into the business to make Jesse look good.

» Posted By KevenSeven On January 11, 2010 @ 1:08 pm

How many of us rejoiced at the election of a Black man as president?

Was that not racist of us to think about his skin color in our exuberance in getting him elected?

Why was it not racist to WANT a Black man finally elected president?

» Posted By KevenSeven On January 11, 2010 @ 12:02 pm

History is the reason that I do not want to see “Negro” banned in all contexts.

Although to reference a currently living AA (or anybody post 1968) as a Negro is insensitive, at dead minimum.

» Posted By KevenSeven On January 11, 2010 @ 11:28 am

I gotta get the hell out of here and go get some work done.

This, this is what I like! A real debate!

And my damned kitties are just fucking fine, thanks!

» Posted By KevenSeven On January 11, 2010 @ 11:12 am

No, I also do not agree that simply using the word Negro is default racism.

» Posted By KevenSeven On January 11, 2010 @ 11:09 am

Possibly the people leading those groups are not easily offended. They have an institutional memory of far, far worse.

» Posted By KevenSeven On January 11, 2010 @ 11:07 am

nellie says:

Okay, let me throw a big fat wrench into the works here.

What about the N-word in rap music?

——————–

A fair point. My neighbor is AA, in an area not known for AAs. We are on the best of terms, he and his wife procreated at just the same point in life that my wife and I did, we are about 12 years ahead of them in life.

At one point he was listening to some rap on his car stereo, and I told him I did not understand rap, that it all sounded like “niggah this and niggah that, and the bitches and the hos”.

He took no offense, although he might have been taken aback by my willingness to use the word in conversation. But he was a pro football player. I am sure he has heard it all.

And he has educated me somewhat about rap, and its rap, so’s to speak.

» Posted By KevenSeven On January 11, 2010 @ 11:03 am

Oh, God.

Knock it off.

I said that I don’t know that Reid is a racist.

I don’t know that he knows that the term is offensive to some people.

There is not a breathing AA who does not find the N word offensive, although I don’t remember people excoriating Tarantino for the line “This is not dead nigger storage” (Pulp Fiction).

Please, stick to debating the points that I am making, not the ones you want to debate.

Without the ability to see inside Reid’s head, I am not prepared to accept the charge that he is any sort of racist, regardless of how racist we can agree his comments were.

» Posted By KevenSeven On January 11, 2010 @ 10:54 am

I thought I read you to say that it was some young AAs.

I doubt very much that a majority would have been up in arms about this last week.

Next week? Perhaps so.

» Posted By KevenSeven On January 11, 2010 @ 10:48 am

Um, I think my first two paragraphs are indeed a comment on this whole thing.

My definition of racism is the same as yours. I am not sure that Reid’s comments rise to racism.

And I wonder if we as progressives might consider what battles we want to fight? People getting bent about any indication that some old fart is an old fart is perhaps an excessive expenditure of energy, especially when outrageous expressions of flaming racism pass us by every day of the year.

» Posted By KevenSeven On January 11, 2010 @ 10:45 am

Oh, well, you won’t get me arguing with the last paragraph!

I would like to see the average age of the Senate drop by 30 years.

Obama is the first man elected president who is younger than am I. I’m pretty jazzed about that. And him being colored. Ooooops.

» Posted By KevenSeven On January 11, 2010 @ 10:41 am

I’m down with all that. Did Reid know that using the word would piss off a minority of black folk?

I don’t know. I am not going to call him a racist without that knowledge.

I have always thought of the term as a rhetorical way to reference race relations in the Jim Crow years. I think it is handy for that purpose, but you are persuading me to avoid it.

And I don’t like seeing the language trimmed unnecessarily. The French do that. ONe of the few things that they do that I don’t care for.

» Posted By KevenSeven On January 11, 2010 @ 10:38 am