|
|
|
|
|
[Sign Up Now] to Receive Our FREE Daily SCVTV-SCVNews Digest by E-Mail |
|
|
Inside Weather
Calendar 
Today in S.C.V. History April 23
1986 - COC board votes to allow Argentine cliff swallows to nest forever on sides of buildings [story]
|
Comment On This Story |
Opinion Section Policy
Read More From... RECENT COMMENTARY
Monday, Apr 22, 2024
Monday, Apr 22, 2024
Tuesday, Apr 16, 2024
Monday, Apr 15, 2024
Thursday, Apr 11, 2024
Tuesday, Apr 9, 2024
|
Tweet This
Facebook
Digg This
Bookmark
Stumble
RSS
Latest Additions to SCVNews.com
|
1986 - COC board votes to allow Argentine cliff swallows to nest forever on sides of buildings [story]
|
As Volunteer Appreciation Week approaches, the County of Los Angeles Department of Animal Care and Control wishes to extend heartfelt gratitude to all its dedicated volunteers who tirelessly contribute to DACC's mission of advancing the well-being of animals and people in the County.
 |
The Canyon Country Farmers Market will be celebrating their two-year anniversary Wednesday, April 24.
 |
The Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital Auxiliary presented a $35,000 check Monday to the Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital Foundation for the foundation’s Patient Tower Capital Campaign.
 |
The Acton/Agua Dulce Arts Council has announced a call for entries for "Creature Feature," a juried art exhibition, with a theme of any living creature.
 |
The Acton/Agua Dulce Arts Council has announced a call for entries for a juried exhibit open to all photographers, both professional and amateur.
 |
|
Recently I had the opportunity, along with spcaLA President Madeline Bernstein and Inland Valley Humane Society & SPCA President Nikole Bresciani, to meet with NBC 4 reporter Kathy Vara to discuss the current challenges facing animal sheltering organizations.
 |
As city manager for 12 years now and a longtime resident of Santa Clarita, I am always proud to see how our community continues to grow.
 |
The city of Santa Clarita’s Film Office released the list of six productions currently filming in the Santa Clarita Valley for the week of Monday, April 22 - Sunday, April 28.
 |
Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital is recognizing its valued volunteers during National Volunteer Week April 21-27.
 |
The regular meeting of the Saugus Union School District Governing Board will take place Tuesday, April 23, with closed session beginning at 5:30 p.m., followed immediately by public session at 6:30 p.m.
 |
|
|
The Santa Clarita Community College District Board of Trustees will hold a self-evaluation workshop Wednesday, April 24, beginning at 2 p.m.
 |
A Los Angeles County Sheriff's deputy, who was severely injured in October after an explosion and fire at a Pitchess Detention Center mobile shooting range, died Saturday, LASD announced Sunday.
 |
1974 - Gov. Ronald Reagan speaks at dedication of COC's first permanent building, the William G. Bonelli Instructional Resource Center [story]
|
1994 - Sand Canyon homeowner Eddie Murray sets MLB record for switch-hit home runs in games (11 times) [story]
|
|
|
|
Hello Auto Group has announced its partnership with the Santa Clarita Veteran Services Collaborative for the second annual Military Spouse Appreciation Event. This event, dedicated to honoring military spouses, will take place on Military Spouse Appreciation Day Friday, May 10, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Anthony Vince Nail Spa at 24250 Town Center Drive #140, Valencia, CA 91355.
 |
The Santa Clarita Artists Association has announced the 2024 scholarship award recipients. These deserving individuals have shown excellence in their high school art education and shared their plans to continue their artistic endeavors.
 |
The Valley Industry Association of Santa Clarita is set to ignite innovation and transformation with its VIA Workforce Development Conference 2024 at the Hyatt Regency Valencia on Thursday, May 16. Jorge Marquez, chairman of the Los Angeles County Workforce Development Board, has been added to the list of speakers appearing at the event. He will serve as the opening speaker at the conference.
 |
The city of Santaw Clarita will host the Free To Be Me Festival for its third year at an exciting new location. On Sunday, May 5, from noon to 3 p.m., celebrate Santa Clarita’s special needs communities and their families at West Creek Park, 24247 Village Circle Drive, Valencia, CA 91354.
 |
The Los Angeles County Department of Economic Opportunity and its regional partners have held the first of several upcoming rapid response events to urgently connect soon-to-be laid off local workers, impacted by the recent bankruptcy and closure of dozens of local 99 Cents Only Stores, to critical workforce services.
 |
Youth in Los Angeles County foster care as young as 13 can open their own checking and savings accounts without an adult co-owner through the Youth Access Banking program.
 |
REAL NAMES ONLY: All posters must use their real individual or business name. This applies equally to Twitter account holders who use a nickname.
6 Comments
But what if it were your son? Instant justice shouldn’t reign, and no one knows whether any crime was committed by this kid. He was black, wore a hoodie and maybe wasn’t afraid to shoot his mouth off, and that’s why some seem to think it was just fine for him to be killed.
NO ONE thinks it was “just fine for him to be killed.” State your sources. His death was tragic and preventable.
We has not shot for shooting his mouth off. He was shot by a man who was defending himself against Martin’s deadly and unprovoked attack against him. Martin was committing assault and battery and even told Zimmerman, “You’re going to die tonight.”
How was this “instant justice”? Would you have just laid there and allowed someone who’d just broken your nose and knocked you to the ground to repeatedly smash your skull into the concrete?
Why is Martin being promoted to sainthood? What are we teaching young people about violence? That it’s OK to attack someone… that the victim shouldn’t fight back and let you do whatever you want to them? That violence is an acceptable first response?
How’s that been working out so far in America? In Chicago, D.C., New Orleans, L.A…?
NO ONE is “promoting Trayvon Martin to sainthood.” State your sources. And yes, his death was truly tragic and preventable.
The reality is, we only know what George Zimmerman told us. Trayvon Martin is dead and cannot speak for himself.
Zimmerman had told so many different stories about what happened that night it’s impossible to find the truth.
http://www.hlntv.com/article/2013/07/02/george-zimmerman-trial-versions-story
And how do you know Martin wasn’t fighting back against Zimmerman’s attack? You don’t.
Just because Fox News doesn’t cover something, does not mean it does not happen.
“Why Don’t Black People Protest ‘Black-on-Black’ Violence?”
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/04/why-dont-black-people-protest-black-on-black-violence/255329/
Trayvon Martin is special because he was an unarmed teenager guilty only of walking home, who didn’t get a chance to stand his ground against an older man with a gun.
George Zimmerman was a vigilante judge and jury and murdered a young man based on prejudice and hatred instead of facts and waiting for the police as he was instructed. He knew he would be protected by his father the judge and Florida’s Stand Your Ground (SYG) law no matter what he did.
But how nice to see an ultra conservative white Christian lady like Arenson caring so very much about black crime in the inner cities.
For the first time ever.
And only because it seems conservatives think people can only care about one thing at a time. Only Trayvon Martin or only Chicago. Not both.
This will come as a shock to Arenson, but black groups have been working in inner cities to fight crime for decades.
But that isn’t reported on Fox News, so she wouldn’t know about it.
What is really happening in America? For starters, how about 1.6 million homeless children. How about 80% of Wal-Mart workers on food stamps. How about poverty. Hunger. Discrimination. Racial profiling. Corporate welfare. A deregulated Wall Street gambling with mortgages and pensions and crashing the economy. Companies outsourcing jobs and not paying taxes. Perpetual war. Gun violence. Institutional racism. Bigotry.
Blacks and whites do marijuana at the same rate. But blacks are 4 times more likely to be arrested than whites. Why?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/06/04/the-blackwhite-marijuana-arrest-gap-in-nine-charts/
The Koch brothers and American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) teamed up in 2005 with the National Rifle Association (NRA) to write and pass SYG laws to allow people to shoot first and not bother to ask questions at all. Vigilante laws. If you are “scared” you can shoot to kill, no worries.
(When will the NRA call for all young black males to be armed so they can stand their ground, the way they did for all school teachers to be armed after Sandy Hook? I’m not holding my breath.)
In Florida, where the SYG law was first enacted, homicides are up 300 percent. Now 31 states have enacted similar laws.
http://www.tampabay.com/news/publicsafety/crime/five-years-since-florida-enacted-stand-your-ground-law-justifiable/1128317
The Tampa Bay Times investigated Florida’s SYG law and found people who killed a black person went free 73 percent of the time; people who killed a white person went free 59 percent of the time.
http://www.tampabay.com/stand-your-ground-law/data
That is just the tip of the iceberg.
And a wake-up call. SYG must be repealed in all states, just for starters.
This, and more, is why Trayvon Martin is special.
Martin’s death was tragic and yes, preventable. But you are not paying attention to the relevant facts whatsoever. You’re only offering up more Liberal talking points in hopes that no one will pay any attention to the facts in this case and continue to holler, “Racism! Inequality! Hate! Intolerance!” You do so at your own peril, just like taking aspirin hoping it will cure cancer.
The SYG law had NOTHING to do with this trial. NOTHING. Neither the prosecution nor defense brought it up as it was in no way applicable. So your entire premise has no validity.
Second, you place 100% of the blame on Zimmerman, and completely ignore the reality of:
(A) Martin’s documented run-ins with the law, drug possession and use, bragging about fights he’d been in, stolen property in his possession, use of hateful and racist speech directed toward whites, brandishing firearms, and Tweeting about making the street drug “Lean”, comprised of Arizona Watermelon Tea and Skittles plus Robitussin cough medicine– two of which he coincidentally had in his possession that fateful night. Oh, and THC in his system from recent marijuana use. And yellow spots on his liver indicating abuse from the street drug “Lean”. Stop making this young man into some kind of holy saint. He had a LOT of problems, and they eventually lead him to HIS actions that night.
(B) Martin– younger, stronger, and larger– aggressively and physically attacking the older and out-of-shape Zimmerman– who did not have his weapon drawn and as far as we know had not even revealed it to Martin. THAT IS ILLEGAL. It’s called “assault and battery”, and when he broke Zimmerman’s nose and began bashing his head on the concrete telling him, “You’re gonna die tonight…” it because a deadly assault in which Zimmerman reasonably defended himself. (I suppose you would not have defended yourself?)
(C) You continue to call it bigotry with no factual support whatsoever, and an embarrassment of evidence to the contrary: Zimmerman is not white, his business partner is black, he had black friends in his home growing up– some of them living with him– and he dated a black girl. So lay off the ridiculous race card. It only makes you look ignorant or a racist propagandist like Sharpton and Jackson. (If there is another option, let me know.)
If you want to focus on the REAL problems, why even bother with the SYG laws? Is THAT the cause of the insane black-on-black murder epidemic across America? Is THAT the cause of the horrific black-on-black murders raining down on Chicagoans on a daily basis (with their useless strict gun control laws)?
Your arguments are without merit. If you are serious about stopping murder, you need to deal with the underlying causes: fatherless black children, rampant abortion that teach children that some lives aren’t worth valuable anyway (if they are inconvenient, kill them), corrupt officials and unions who siphon government money away from education and societal programs for their own selfish use, removing the free exercise of religion from schools and the public square– ensuring that children will be surrounded with people with no moral compass, a persistent and growing welfare state where the government– to get their votes– instructs the young in entitlement and dependence (plantation mentality) instead of encouraging entrepreneurship and personal responsibility.
You seem passionate about this, as I am, but we must deal in the realities and not just what our uninformed emotions are dictating to us. Everything else is just applying a band-aid to a spurting arterial wound. And people die that way.
EJody, don’t lecture me on reality when it is clearly missing from your response and from Betty Arenson’s column. Or are YOU Betty Arenson?
1. Reality is not “liberal talking points.” What about white-on-white crime? Happens in the same numbers. Black-on-black crime is just white supremacist code. Which is what Arenson’s column is.
2. Stand Your Ground was indeed the focus of the trial. I am so tired of right-wing lies about this fact.
a. Jury instructions from the judge: “If George Zimmerman was not engaged in an unlawful activity and was attacked in any place where he had a right to be, he had no duty to retreat and had the right to stand his ground and meet force with force, including deadly force if he reasonably believed that it was necessary to do so to prevent death or great bodily harm to himself or another or to prevent the commission of a forcible felony.”
b. Jury instructions link: http://media.cmgdigital.com/shared/news/documents/2013/07/12/Zimmerman_Final_Jury_Instructions.pdf
c. Zimmerman’s team chose to not use the procedural portion of SYG as their defense, but the substantive portion of SYG was used in the jury instructions.
d. According to Juror B-37, Stand Your Ground was key to reaching their verdict.
3. Trayvon Martin was not on trial. He was the murder victim. He had committed no crime.
4. Zimmerman had a gun and outweighed Martin by 50 pounds. He was well-versed in SYG, and his father is a judge. Martin had Skittles.
But you won’t find these facts or reality on Fox News or any other right-wing “news” outlet.
Your concern for the fate of black inner city youth in Chicago, for the very first time, is touching. But it is the number one topic on white supremacist Internet sites. You can conflate the two different circumstances all you want, I don’t think you give a rat’s behind about either one.
Why don’t you right-wingers talk about George Zimmerman’s criminal past and history of violence, his anger management, domestic violence, restraining orders, arrests, violence against a police officer, drug use, and incest (he molested his cousin for 10 years)?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2013/05/28/george-zimmermans-relevant-past/
Zimmerman is a scumbag that got away with murder, and mark my words, he will do it again.
Besides, it’s hard to take you and Arenson seriously on the black experience when I see the same talking points as yours on Stormfront.org.