ACLU Sues Philly Over 'Stop & Frisk'

The stats certainly don't look good:

"The lawsuit says pedestrian stops have more than doubled since 2005, to 253,333 in 2009. Of those pedestrians stopped, 72 percent were African-American and only 8 percent led to arrests.

'The majority of these arrests were for alleged criminal conduct that was entirely independent from the supposed reason for the stop and/or frisk in the first place,' the suit says.

The plaintiffs are seeking class status and rulings to prevent the police from conducting pedestrian stops based on race or national origin.

The suit also asks the court to order more police training, supervision and monitoring to ensure that 'stops, frisks, searches and detentions comport with constitutional requirements.'

'Mayor Nutter repeatedly promised that this policy would be carried out in a way that respected the Constitution,' said Mary Catherine Roper, a staff attorney with the ACLU of Pennsylvania. 'But instead of stopping people suspected of criminal activity, the police appear to be stopping people because of their race.'"

Emaw: We're the ones we've been waiting for

Emaw continues the conversation. Government is unsustainable, he agrees, but that's because our culture has become unsustainable:

"But we got ourselves into this mess. And we're going to have to get ourselves out. It's not going to be easy. I suspect that it will get much, much worse before it gets better. But I also think the best place to start is in your own neighborhood, in your own town, in your own city and state.

Democrats nor Republicans nor presidents nor senators will be able to help us. Relying on the government isn't the answer. We all need to pull together. Find people who need your help. There are a lot of great organizations and churches that are dedicated to feeding the hungry, housing the homeless, trying to heal the sick.

We need to focus on our responsibilities as citizens, not our rights. Make personal changes like eating better food and less of it. Using less energy (I personally have lowered my body temperature to 94 degrees).

Voting is nice. But it is more important to get out and help than it is to get out the vote."

There is, I should say, some small overlap between this and my contribution to this week's Scripps Howard column with Ben Boychuk. I'll be posting that later today.

Michael Smerconish's Weird Pervez Musharraf Column

This column is weird, even for Michael Smerconish. Pervez Musharraf is in town, so Smerconish takes him to vote:

"We discussed apathy, and I described voter turnout patterns in the U.S., explaining that in 2008, only 63 percent of those eligible came out to vote.

'In Pakistan, it's the opposite.

'It's the educated class which does not vote. You said you've always voted. Let me shock you by saying that I have never voted - except in the last eight years.

'Yes, in this, I did go to vote. Otherwise, before that, when I was not the president, I never voted,' he told me.

Why not?

'Because I thought it was useless going to vote like that,' he answered.

What Smerconish never says -- and this seems really relevant if we're going to lump discussions of democracy and Pakistan together -- is that Musharraf didn't need to vote because he had a bigger vote than the whole rest of Pakistan combined: He took power through a military coup! In fact, he still advocates the Army be given a formal veto power over democracy there!

None of this makes it into Smerconish's column. Instead, we're supposed to value American democracy a little more because, heck, a former Pakistani president seems to think it's kind of cool. Smerconish had the chance to interview somebody influential and important about a part of the world that's critical to current U.S. interests ... and he pulled a radio DJ stunt. Disappointing.

Say, Aren't Tasers Supposed To Be 'Non-Lethal'?

Because this is the second Philly-area man to die after a Tasering in recent months. Is anybody having second thoughts?

Serwer: Majorities Don't Last Forever

Adam Serwer pushes back against Dem despair:

"Democrats were slaughtered at the polls regardless of how subservient they were to the larger Democratic agenda -- maverick Sen. Russ Feingold was true to his liberaltarian character in opposing both TARP and the PATRIOT Act, and he lost to an empty suit with an R next to his name. Voting against the Affordable Care Act didn't make conservadems any safer -- more than half of Democrats who voted against the ACA lost their seats. The America that went to the polls in 2010 isn't any more 'real' than the one that handed Democrats the White House and the biggest majority in decades in 2008, but it was older, whiter, and more Republican. And even this far more conservative electorate balked at electing many of the most rightward Republican candidates in statewide races where their radical beliefs faced greater scrutiny from the press."

One More Thought About Bush and Kanye

I've got to admit, there's something a little weird -- and possibly post-adult -- about a world in which the former president of the United States says his "lowest moment" was being dissed by a rapper. George W. Bush clearly doesn't understand that the proper response is not to whine, but to compose his own diss track! Somehow, I have a hard time imagining LBJ being kept up nights because the Temptations were angry about Vietnam.

Tony Blair's Sister-in-Law Converts to Islam

Well. That's certainly provocative.

The picture of the blonde-haired Lauren Booth wearing a head scarf is certainly striking, but it's also striking to me that she seems determined not to buy into the dominant narrative about Islam as a religion that subdues women:

Women who are being abused by male relatives are being abused by men, not God. Much of the practices and laws in "Islamic" countries have deviated from (or are totally unrelated) to the origins of Islam. Instead practices are based on cultural or traditional (and yes, male-orientated) customs that have been injected into these societies. For example, in Saudi Arabia, women are not allowed to drive by law. This rule is an invention of the Saudi monarchy, our government's close ally in the arms and oil trade.

This probably too easily discounts the negative aspects of any religion -- but, of course, it's always the sinful people who distort a religion, not the religion itself that's at fault. But Booth is a very new convert, seeing Islam as a lens through which to criticize her society. It'll be interesting to watch her journey, and to try to figure out what -- if anything -- it means for the rest of us Westerners.