Going to Get Ugly

photograph by mirandapablo

The Associated Press scooped all the L.A. papers this morning, following up on a rumor that the gang member who stands accused of killing high school football star Jamiel Shaw might be – wait for it – an illegal alien.

A spokesperson for the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency said the alleged killer may or may not be an illegal alien, and that they may not know for sure for awhile.

The accused killer, Pedro Espinoza, had just finished serving a four month prison term the day before Jamiel was shot. He was serving a sentence for brandishing a weapon and resisting arrest.

So, just to recap, this story now

• Has a youth-on-the-right-path narrative
• Has a youth-on-the-wrong-path narrative
• Contains brown-on-black violence
• Includes a gang member
  
• Includes a star athlete
  
• Has an immigration thread
• Has a prison system thread
  
• Is happening during a spike-in-crime
  

and to top it all off with a big dollop of symbolism, the victim was a student at a high school named Los Angeles.

With the new information about the accused's immigration status, it would be naive to think that Shaw's death will not immediately become a rallying point for anti-immigrant hatred. I predict Lou Dobbs will begin to talk about it in approximately 14 seconds.

Never mind that Espinoza has not been, you know, convicted.

Another aspect likely to be overlooked, due to a combination of Los Angeles's current fog of fear and the coming tsunami of talk show immigration rhetoric, is the total uselessness of the prison system. If Espinoza is indeed the killer, this is someone committing a murder the day after he got out of jail. Taking him as an example – though he's certainly not unique in this sense – it's pretty clear that our prisons do little to discourage recidivism.

It seems to me that the whole concept of imprisonment as a solution to criminal behavior is based on a principle that imprisonment prevents people from committing crimes again. If prisons are not discouraging repeat offenses, what's the point?

Maybe one might think the reason for prisons is just to satisfy a sort of primal need for revenge. But if that's all we require of a post-conviction system, we could put convicts in the stocks and throw rotten fruit at them and then be done with it.

No, imprisonment must have some other goal. But whatever that goal is, it's not being accomplished – and at a cost to California taxpayers of over $10 billion per year, growing 9% annually.

That's one tenth of the state's revenues.

The Things That Matter

photograph by slimmer_jimmer

Philosophers and scientists agree: there are two ways to prove a claim.

The first is to eliminate all possible other options.

As such, the Things that Matter is not a music blog. It is also not a blog for worship of the Democratic Party platform.

It is not a blog about what bag Paris Hilton is carrying. It is not a blog about what I ate for lunch.

It is not a blog that reeks with naked pretension. It is not a blog that weeps with hyper-sincerity.

It is not a blog aimed at the largest possible audience. It is not a blog written to maximize profit and minimize costs.

It is not a blog that is supposed to ingrain itself into the coveted 18-to-34 demographic. It is not a blog that is supposed to capture the imaginations of a generation.

That is not to say that any of those things are bad per se. But there are many voices shouting at those ears.

The second is to show what it is.

The Things That Matter is a project that my friends, acquaintances and I are undertaking.

We are of the opinion that we have creative and interesting insights into the fascinating environment in which we live. We hold many things dear: politics and policy, culture and art, science and philosophy, sports and media, ethics and economics.

We care deeply about these things and many others. We spend our waking hours analyzing them, in blogs, in conversations, in our internal monologues. By any account, we could be using this time in more profitable ways. But we can't help but feel that these things are very important and that they deserve our attention.

As a result of our intellectual devotion, we often come up with creative insights we wish to share. Thus arose this blog.

We are not especially qualified pundits, though many of us have served, are serving, or wish to serve as analysts, authors, journalists, and other organizers of information. No, we are just people who value intelligent commentary and think that we have voices that will add value to an enormous, open-ended conversation – a conversation about The Things That Matter.