Conduct Unbecoming

Recently, a video taken from the dashboard camera of a South Carolina State Trooper captured a disturbing incident. After a traffic stop and a rudimentary car search, a trooper found an open container and firearm in the backseat of a vehicle. When he instructed one of the three suspects to place his hands on the car, the suspect fled on foot. During the ensuing chase, the trooper yelled, “You better run, nigger, because I’m fixin’ to kill you.” [Article from The State] Now, there are two key problems with he trooper's outburst: One, there is no place in law enforcement for derogatory racial epithets; two, there is no place in law enforcement for death threats.

The use of a racial epithet by a law enforcement agent while in uniform doing official business is deplorable. It reflects poorly on the organization, the political entities they represent, and most importantly the judiciary. Even if an incident like this is handled summarily by supervision, damage is done to anyone who wears the uniform of the agency in question. Put into question is their ability enforce the law without regard to race, class, religion, etc.

Furthermore, a death threat made to a suspect during the course of an investigation is absolutely unacceptable. Citizens need to able to trust and respect law enforcement. Without that trust and respect how are citizens expected to pull over for a blue light and cooperate with authorities? How can citizens be expected to trust that law enforcement has the greater good in mind during the carrying out of their duties?

The fallout from this incident demonstrates impact of one trooper in uniform with blue lights flashing saying, “You better run, nigger, because I’m fixin’ to kill you.” First, the governor, Mark Sanford, has replaced the top two officials responsible for the South Carolina State Highway Patrol. This move was applauded by current and former troopers of both races who were tired of the nepotism and corruption they perceived as infesting state law enforcement.

Subsequently, since the poor actions of one trooper in uniform reflect poorly on the entire agency, all the practices of the Highway Patrol have come into question. Video of troopers using their vehicles to chase suspect who are on foot have surfaced. While this may be standard procedure of many law enforcement agencies, an agency where a trooper says, “You better run, nigger, because I’m fixin’ to kill you,” this practice begins to look like a human rights violation. As a result, the state senate and the Federal Bureau of Investigation has become involved. [Article; Article; Article]

Ultimately, the South Carolina State Department of Public Safety and its subdivision, the South Carolina Highway Patrol, have a lot of work to do to clean up after this, but this incident is not endemic to the highways of South Carolina. Law enforcement everywhere has to understand that while there are many good men and women with uniforms and badges the sinister proclivities of a few tarnishes the image of the majority who perform their duties with professionalism and respect.

sans nostalgia

There is some music for which I have no nostalgia:

Onomatopoeia

Currently I have the album 10,000 Days by Tool in heavy rotation. After being introduced to Lateralus, Tool's previous album, by Zetetical when we shared an office, I have continued to follow Tool and count myself as a fan. I cannot seem to get enough of their brand of progressive metal. Who can argue with exquisitely crafted music with thought provoking lyrics written in un-common time signatures?

I however have not given myself over to the progressive metal genre completely. While I appreciate the energy and complexity of the music, when I listen to a group like Mastodon; the vocals bug me. Maybe I am off base about (prog-)metal, but I do not think that vocals need to be screamed all the time. Sure, you can scream some, or even a lot, but not all the time. The screaming detracts from excellent musicians playing intricate, complex rhythms and melodies in the rest of the song.

Refraction

Considering that this is Black History Month, it may be appropriate to commemorate a couple of interesting, but over-looked anniversaries that occur in February: The Battle of River's Bridge and The Orangeburg Massacre. These are two events separated by over one hundred years took place in the backwoods of South Carolina not far from my home.

The Battle of River's Bridge

The Battle of River's Bridge took place in the first week of February 1865 along the Salkehatchie River in near the border of Bamberg and Colleton Counties. After burning Atlanta to the ground, cutting a swath of destruction to the sea, and taking Savannah; General William Tecumseh's forces split in two to ravage the heart of secessionist movement, South Carolina. The next stop after Savannah would be Columbia, the city where infamous meeting to form the Confederate States of American took place. By cutting inland and moving due north, Sherman's forces could irreparably sever the supply lines between the coastal and inland cities.

The left (western) flank made its way north and was met by part of the CSA army entrenched with the primary objective of preventing the US army from advancing beyond the Salkehatchie River or at least delay them long enough for reinforcements to get to Columbia. Legend has it that it was a particularly cold Southern winter in 1865 and no one expected the US troops to wade through the cold, black waters of the Salkehatchie swamps; but they did. The US army fought the CSA across a series of trenches, laid down corduroy roads, and slashed and burned their way through the CSA positions. Next, they would rendez-vous with the right (Eastern) flank and take Columbia on 16 February, 1865, and subsequently was burned on or about 17 February, 1865. It was the right flank who, during the early stages of the Carolinas campaign started redistributing abandoned lands along the coast to former slaves in what would become part of the "forty acres and a mule" reparations directive/legend.

Sherman's "scorched earth" approach to war, while dehumanizing to those who stood in the way, was integral to defeating the Confederacy, re-unitining the states, and freeing many a Negro slave. The best practice Sherman employed in this approach was the "Sherman Necktie." Knowing that railroads were crucial to the CSA's infrastructure and that iron was in short supply, General Sherman had his troops not only tear up railroad tracks, but also heat the rails to warp and bend them sometimes leaving the iron tied around trees.

Some may weep at the torching of Atlanta (1864) and Columbia (1865), or cringe at the melted rails and incinerated fields. Not I.

The Orangeburg Massacre

A little more that one hundred years after General Sherman's troops marched through the sea islands, swamps, and pine forests of the South Carolina Lowcountry and three years after President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1965, there stood in the city of Orangeburg, South Carolina, a whites-only bowling alley. During the first week of February, 1968, a small number of college students from the two historically Black colleges in Orangeburg, Clafflin and South Carolina State, decided to take a stand against this illegal establishment which operated with impunity.

Each night the number of students protesting grew as did the law enforcement agencies mis-handling the situation. On 8 February, 1968, the youngsters started a bonfire. That evening after allegations by law enforcement that the group was armed and detritus was thrown at law enforcement, law enforcement opened fire at what was actually an unarmed crowd. Three young men, two of whom where students at South Carolina State-- my father's alma mater-- died as a result of law enforcement shooting bullets into the crowd. This dark night in Black Civil Rights history is often over-looked or omitted.

It terrifies me to look back at this incident considering that it took place less than forty miles from where I grew up. To think that only forty years ago my parents, who graduated from college in 1963, were teachers in so-called "separate but equal schools," is sobering.

Grassroots

Today on the A train, I was approached by a young brother attempting to sell his rap CD. "Excuse me. Do you listen to rap music?" he said in a very respectful manner. I nodded. He then went on to explain how he was selling his CD: "No bootlegs, all original tracks, laid down professionally in a studio." While impressed by his professionalism and modesty, I turned down the $5 U.S. CD. My annoyance with having my asocial commute interrupted precluded my from giving the kid a real chance. Not to mention is was the second time I had see this aspiring rapper on the subway humbly peddling his wares.

Afterwards, I realized that I should have shelled our the $5 U.S. and purchased the CD. This young man was doing something that seems to be lost in modern rap music: working the streets the hard way. I miss the days when popular rap was the voice of the people and MCs earned there "street cred" by getting play on student radio and doing shows on the rough side of town. When there distribution came from spending a day on the A train trying to get people to give their tape a listen. This young man was helping to put the grassroots back into rap.

I am not going to pretend that I do not bob my head of tap my feet to the latest one hit crunk wonder put out by an Atlanta based record label with a main line to Viacom. I do. But I miss the days when rap music was about more than champagne, automobile customizations, and mansions. I am not saying that a Negro cannot dream, but do we really need to "make it rain"? Is the value of a Colored man really determined by his "ice"?

pkgadd -d /var/tmp

Few things amuse Systems Administrators more than double entendre:

[edited for length and content]

On Wed, 30 Jan 2008, Black Wilmar wrote:

...I thought you were going to insinuate that I used a pkg to install Samba. I laugh at your package, and substitute my own! ....

Black Wilmar

On Wed, 30 Jan 2008, Ranting Nerd wrote:

Don't pkgrm me, bro!

Ranting Nerd

On Wed, 30 Jan 2008, Zetetical wrote:

This is making me very insecure.

Zetetical

Setting up Java. Please wait...

I have recently been going through the exercise of installing Solaris 10 08/07 OS on an x86 system. In my line of work, it does not hurt to practice working with different operating systems on various hardware. The desire to be frustrated, bewildered, and enraged prompted me to do this on a work issued Dell Latitute D620 running Dell A08 BIOS with an Intel 945GM Graphics controller.

The most challenging part of the install for this and the previous release of Solaris 10, is figuring out the proper BIOS settings to prevent the install/OS from getting wedged on start-up. The combination for a Dell Latitute D620 running Dell A08 BIOS is to disable multi-core support, turn off speed step, and disable the PCMCIA port.

The true beauty here is that when you go back and boot to Windows XP SP2 from the GRUB menu, the laptop proceeds to run like the bits have been dipped in molasses. This begs from the BIOS to have multiple hardware profiles to choose on start up, alas the Dell Latitute D620 running Dell A08 BIOS does not contain this feature.

A little poking around on the internet and a well crafted web search yields the solution to the multi-core and speed step problem: Add "-B acpi_user_options=2 kernel/unix" to the kernel line in GRUB, /boot/grub/menu.lst. Most directly, it is a user added comment to the official Sun hardware compatibility list (HCL) for the Dell Latitute D620.

Ultimately, the point here is that I do not recommend multi-booting very different operating systems in general and on laptops in particular. I do this to occasionally practice installing, configuring, and manipulating operating systems not necessarily running operating systems for any kind of mission critical services. All in all, it makes for an interesting, quiet Saturday night alone.