Showing posts with label Crime. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Crime. Show all posts

Monday, September 14, 2009

Richard Aborn For Manhattan District Attorney

http://twitter.com/paramendra/status/3987278881
Richard Aborn for Manhattan District Attorney
Richard Aborn - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Richard Aborn | Facebook
Richard Aborn: A Narrow Victory
Richard Aborn Still Making Inroads in Manhatten's DA Race ...
Richard Aborn | The New York Observer



Richard M.Image via Wikipedia

Last Tuesday I showed up for an Aborn event near Union Square. I almost missed it. I thought it was on Wednesday. Lucky for me I logged into Facebook and there was a reminder or two. So I showed up.

I like to stick to following presidential level politics. Local races do not excite me to the same extent. But I had been noticing for months all my Obama 08 friends seem to be excited about this one guy: Richard Aborn. But I stayed away. District Attorney is not even Mayor. That was getting too local for me. But I wanted to check the guy out for the sake of my friends. So I showed up. Once at the bar I realized I had been to the same venue for a few other events by a few other organizations.

I was looking forward to seeing some friends - Faina showed up - and get a feel for Aborn. Also events like this draw interesting people, people you want to connect with. You end up in interesting conversations.

I showed up curious. I left excited. This is a local race, but this guy's election has national implications. You can be a white male like Aborn is and be working for equality for blacks. You can be a male and be taking stands against sexism. That is not odd at all. That is progressi

G. V.Image via Wikipedia

ve.

This is a guy who has prosecuted violent crimes for a living. He is not some soft on crime clown. This is a tough on crime guy who wants to make sense. Racism does not make sense.

From having met him only one evening, I am telling you, this guy is impressive, he is promising. Also from what I have been hearing, he is going to win tomorrow. I would not be surprised if he ends up in some federal position in about four years. You will be glad you got to know him and vote for him today.

It was an amazing evening. I went in. Jeff Kurzon - the first time I met Jeff Kurzon was near a Mahatma Gandhi statue - was greeting people as they streamed in. Kurzon's beard was gone. I made a blade gesture to my beard to tease. Last I had seen him was at the Bill Thompson event at Bombay Palace, and he was sporting a beard then. Good to know Jeff is now officially an Aborn staffer. By the time he helps push Aborn to victory, he will be a ripe cadidate for another high flying private sector lawyerly job, granted that is what he wants. Jeff used to work for the same law firm the Obamas worked for in their youth, its New York office. That was so impressive to me when I first found out. I have seen a halo around his head since.



Jeff introduced me to someone from "Brooklyn," and I am thinking this guy still thinks I am in Brooklyn. The NYPD drove me out of Brooklyn!

"I have seen you before!" I teased the person I was introduced to. Then Jeff introduced me to an author. His book was about to show up on Amazon.

Barackface: Jeff Kurzon's Living Room, Union Sqaure, Times Square ...
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My jaw dropped when Jeff took six months off work and went state hopping for Obama. He started in his native New Hampshire. He ended up as far as California. Then one day I spotted him in a corner at the Irish Rogue. I did not know he was going to be there. So I was visibly, excitedly surprised.

"You are back!"

Jeff Kurzon takes public service seriously. Like Aborn he has progressive white guy ideas on race, that touchy, touchy topic that many people don't know how to talk about.

Then one day Obama's sister showed up in New York while Jeff was in NH. I ended up one of her 10 friends on MyBO. Jeff emailed me saying he was jealous. Then Obama showed up in Harlem. Jeff rode in the car with the future president. They went downtown together. I emailed Jeff. I was jealous. But I was only half serious. The guy deserved the ride. He practically quit his fancy job for Obama. I am surprised he is not ambassador yet. Ugh, maybe after Obama's reelection.

And of course Jeff was on stage for the biggest rally in US presidential campaign history to date: that Washington Square Park rally. Oprah broke that record soon after, but it was a record while it lasted.




I bumped into Deanna Tilley before I bumped into Jeff Kurzon. The video at the top of this blog post comes from one of Deanna's Facebook status updates earlier today.

After having worked the room a little, I spotted this middle aged black woman in a corner. I had run out of people so I walked over to her and said hello. Ends up she is a grad school friend of Aborn's wife. She said she was a "housewife." My mass media trained mind was about to blurt the phrase "Desperate Housewife," but I resisted. Social media makes more sense on such topics.

Aborn showed up. The "housewife" kept nudging me to go say hello. I waited for an opening. Then I was standing in front of Richard Aborn. He was approachable.

I also moved here from the Midwest, I said teasingly. I once showed up for a county fair in Indiana, and I was the only nonwhite person at the fair. It is not like anyone bothers you, but you notice. Aborn is originally from Iowa. Iowa elected Obama. Then Iowa went ahead and legalized gay marriage, before California, before New York. So much for coastal progressivism.

I chatted with Aborn. I told him I was from Nepal. Told him I was a tech entrepreneur when he asked what I did. Then I told him I had read nothing about him to that point, and that I was there because all my Obama friends were so excited about him. Then his wife showed up, and he introduced. My wife, he said.

"I just met your friend Jackie!" I said. The wife got impressed.

Then something happened that really impressed me. A staffer looking woman approached Aborn. Eric will introduce you, she said.

"What do you want me to say?" Aborn asked her. I was touched. This guy was not short on words to speak, but the respect he showed for his staffer won me over. She briefed him. Later I got to talk to her. She was a consultant. I got her card: Jacqui Samuels, Samuels Consulting. Aborn approached us. This was after the speeches had been done, Eric Schneiderman had spoken, Bill Perkins had come and gone. He remembered me as the guy form Nepal. I was impressed. I was bragging to Jacqui I had more than 20,000 followers on Twitter. I offered to send out a few tweets for Aborn.

"Are they all from New York?" Aborn asked. It was like JFK and LBJ are watching a man land on the moon. And LBJ, ever the politician, goes: "If only he were a Negro!"

"No. All over the world. But many are from New York," I said.

Then it was one on one. This was my time with Richard Aborn. I told him now I was excited about him. I am all about tough on crime, I said, but the part that really got me is the one about your progressive ideas, I said. I don't know if I got too excited, or Aborn wanted to sit and chat with some chips, he reached out for chips and salsa at the nearby table.

In the aftermath the husband of someone Aborn sits on the Board of something or the other - interfaith dialogue something - and the wife walked over and the three of us had chips and salsa for a while.

The evening slowly wound down, and I walked away determined to blog and tweet for Aborn.

The guy got me excited.



At one point a George said he had seen my Jordan Thomas video. Jordan showed up. He said he had not seen that video to the end himself. The video is an hour, and it is "raw," like George said.

Towards the end I approached someone from having seen him at many political events.

"You run for office, right?" I said.

This was Brian Kavanagh, a member of the New York state assembly. He represents Union Square, Lower East Side. I guess I was in his district.

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Thursday, June 04, 2009

Rape Evidence And The NYPD











Black Cop Shot Down In Harlem By White Cops: The Race Angle

The way to cure this malaise is to shoot for a NYPD that is about half female at all levels.

Op-Ed Columnist - Is Rape Serious? - NYTimes.com When a woman reports a rape, her body is a crime scene. She is typically asked to undress over a large sheet of white paper to collect hairs or fibers, and then her body is examined with an ultraviolet light, photographed and thoroughly swabbed for the rapist’s DNA. It’s a grueling and invasive process that can last four to six hours and produces a “rape kit” — which, it turns out, often sits around for months or years, unopened and untested. Stunningly often, the rape kit isn’t tested at all because it’s not deemed a priority. If it is tested, this happens at such a lackadaisical pace that it may be a year or more before there are results (if expedited, results are technically possible in a week). .... this isn’t justice; it’s indifference. ..... The report found that in Los Angeles County, there were at last count 12,669 rape kits sitting in police storage facilities. More than 450 of these kits had sat around for more than 10 years, and in many cases, the statute of limitations had expired. ..... There are no good national figures, and one measure of the indifference is that no one even bothers to count the number of rape kits sitting around untested. ..... a broad distaste for rape cases as murky, ambiguous and difficult to prosecute, particularly when they involve (as they often do) alcohol or acquaintance rape. ....... “They talk about the victims’ credibility in a way that they don’t talk about the credibility of victims of other crimes” ...... one shining exception: New York City has made a concerted effort over the last decade to test every kit that comes in. The result has been at least 2,000 cold hits in rape cases, and the arrest rate for reported cases of rape in New York City rose from 40 percent to 70 percent ........ Some Americans used to argue that it was impossible to rape an unwilling woman. Few people say that today, or say publicly that a woman “asked for it” if she wore a short skirt. But the refusal to test rape kits seems a throwback to the same antediluvian skepticism about rape as a traumatic crime.
Op-Ed Columnist - After Wars, Mass Rapes Persist - NYTimes.com a new foreign policy agenda is emerging around issues like poverty, genocide, climate change and a topic that until recently was hushed up — sexual violence. .......... mass rape as an element of warfare in Congo, Darfur, Bosnia, Rwanda, Liberia — but the lesson here in Liberia in West Africa is that even when the fighting ends, the rape continues ......... the 14-year civil war in Liberia, from 1989 to 2003, when as many as three-fourths of women were raped .......... so many of the girls are pre-teens. ...... the best way to deal with rape — whether in Darfur or Liberia, or even in the United States — is to demystify it, dismantle the taboos, and address it directly ........ Congo and Sudan, where the brutality is particularly appalling ...... even when wars end, mass rape continues by inertia. ...... Liberia’s president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the first woman elected a president in Africa, has sent strong signals that rape is intolerable.
Well: My Brief Life as a Woman The side effect that surprised me most were the hot flashes — not that I got them, I was expecting that, but by how intense they were. They often woke me in the middle of the night and made me sweat so much that I drenched the sheets. In midwinter I’d walk our miniature poodle, Bijou, wearing shorts and a T-shirt. I sometimes felt as if Deb could fry eggs on my chest. (It’s also a bit disconcerting when your hot flashes are fiercer than your wife’s.) ...... certainly under-represented in the arts. Where are the great hot flash novels or movies? How come there’s not a Web site or magazine called “Hot Flash Monthly”? ....... Not only was I temporarily menopausal, but it appeared that I was also turning into a teenage girl from the early 1970s. ........ my six months of hormone therapy ...... my lifelong sense that the world of women is hormonal and mysterious, and that we men don’t have the semblance of a clue. ........ when your significant female other bursts into tears at the drop of a dinner plate or turns on you like a rabid pit bull — whether she’s pregnant, having her period or in the throes of menopause — believe her when she blames it on the hormones.

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