Category: St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Recently, a couple left a child in a car in the summer heat here in St. Louis and the child died. Because the woman was a pediatrician and the father a researcher at Washington University, I told my beautiful wife and my child’s wonderful mother that, they probably wouldn’t face charges because they were doctors. Had they been less, they would be going to jail for child something-or-other, the charges society dishes out when it’s shocked and appalled how the lower classes treat their kids.

Sylvester Brown of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch expresses the same sentiments.

I think our prosecutors like to come down like a hammer on crimes of negligence without tempering their “justice” (enforcement of laws) with a little mercy because it’s easier to up conviction rates on “crimes” that shock society/juries/defense attorneys into seeking plea deals. And it’s not so tedious or dangerous for law enforcement to shackle these poor souls than to go out and get people who intentionally harm one another because those who intend harm tend to be better armed and more dangerous.

Apparently, the reporter is ignorant of that place of business:

The Overland Police Department this afternoon sent out a plea for help in solving an armed robbery that happened at a toy store last Wednesday by sending out a photograph and video of the gunman.

An armed robber held up Priscilla’s Toy Box at 10210 Page Avenue in the city at 8:55 p.m. on Aug. 15, according to police.

Friends, that’s not a children’s toy store. So I hear.

UPDATE: Well, I guess someone at the paper noticed, as the word “toy” has gone down the memory hole.

On a book, perhaps, but certainly on a law:

A Cole County judge on Wednesday struck down a new law that would have allowed more midwives to help deliver babies in Missouri.

Circuit Judge Patricia Joyce declared the law unconstitutional. The law was attached to a health insurance bill, and Joyce said the title of that bill was too narrow to encompass midwifery.

Good to see that the Post-Dispatch is impartial on the matter. On one hand, we have:

While a doctors’ association praised the ruling, home-birth advocates promised to appeal it. Mary Ueland, who lobbies for midwives’ interests, said she was confident the Missouri Supreme Court would uphold the law.

A dreaded lobbiest, a paid spokesperson for a vile interest group. And on the other side:

The state’s largest physicians’ association, the Missouri State Medical Association, has fought the changes. Jeff Howell, the association’s director of legislative affairs, said Wednesday that the new law would have “significantly lowered the standard of care for childbirth services, and we just don’t think that’s acceptable.”

An association of physicians and its director of legislative affairs. In other words, a someone who lobbies for physicians’ interests.

Perhaps the Post-Dispatch doesn’t think its readers know any other words or thoughts aside from those it presents to them. Perhaps it’s right.

You know what those of us with credible city experience call this:

Police were at a loss to explain why thieves removed the license plates of 32 vehicles in the Skinker-DeBaliviere neighborhood in the city’s West End over the last few days.

A slow night.

And special good kudos for this insight that the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

“This is the first I’ve heard of anything like this,” Sgt. Al Nothum, spokesman for Troop C of the Missouri Highway Patrol, said of the rash of license plate thefts.

“Maybe the thief is taking the plate to get to the tab later, but then, why not snip the tab off instead of taking just as much time or more to unscrew the plate?”

Wholly guacamole, the stunning ignorance on display here is twofold:

• The St. Louis Post-Dispatch runs to the Highway Patrol for a comment? Of course the Highway Patrol hasn’t heard of this. Stealing license plates/tags is a local offense; you would call the City of St. Louis police department or whatever municipality you live in when you discover someone in the Central West End has stolen your tabs
• The state Highway Patrol is obviously unaware that the Missouri Department of Transportation recommends putting the registration tabs in the center of your license plate these days specifically to prevent people from cutting off the corners of license plates if the registration tabs are there.

Cut crisscrosses in your registration stickers, the thieves will snip the corner of the plate. Put the registration stickers in the middle of the plate, the thieves will steal the plates. Got any more good ideas, public officials?

St. Louis Post-Dispatch columnist Sylvester Brown weighs in on the Scooter Libby thing by finding a racial angle:

I wonder how Kimberly Denise Jones reacted when she heard about President George W. Bush’s recent decision to wipe away the prison sentence of I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby.

Jones, better known as the diminutive rapper “Lil’ Kim,” and Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff, have something in common. The 4-foot-11 rap star was convicted in 2005 on three counts of perjury and one count of conspiracy. In March, Libby was convicted of four felony counts — perjury, obstruction of justice and making false statements to FBI agents.

Let’s compare the whiteys to oranges. Scooter Libby was convicted of perjury for remembering a conversation differently than someone else did, and the testimony was in an investigation that revealed no crime occurred. Li’l Kim, on the other hand:

Lil’ Kim was convicted of lying about a shootout between her entourage and a rival rap group outside a Manhattan radio station. Security photos and witnesses contradicted Lil’ Kim’s claim that she saw nothing.

So the color of the convicted is the only difference in the cases?

I lack nuance, I guess.

The front page of the Sunday St. Louis Post-Dispatch and an Flash-enhanced online rendition finally take a land developer to task.

Well, no, not “finally,” since this land developer is only guilty of urging lawmakers to pass a tax incentive package that he’ll take advantage of.

The Post-Dispatch wets itself in joy whenever a developer throws citizens out of their suburban homes using eminent domain or when a developer strong arms the city into co-signing a loan from which the developer can (and often does) walk away. To say nothing of tax incentives, which the Post-Dispatch thinks is a good idea to lure any private retail, condominium, or sports endeavor to the city.

I don’t know why the paper decides to unload on this developer who acquired all the properties legitimately, although not obviously. Because he’s one man who’s white buying land in poverty-stricken areas? Because he live in St. Charles and hasn’t made the proper show of buying a downtown loft?

Who knows? All I know is that it makes all other Post-Dispatch pieces that laud crony capitalism absurd and hypocritical.

Sign says Allen Cab has gone out of business:

The Allen Cab Co., whose owner was recently found after a seven-day disappearance, appears to have closed.

A makeshift sign hangs on the front door of the building along 17th Street that once bustled with about 120 drivers and 100 cabs. It reads: “Sorry, we’re closed. Contact the Metropolitan Taxicab Commission for further questions. Thank you, #321.”

In another breaking report, we find that Nelson’s Haberdashery is Out to Lunch – Back at 1:15!

Police shoot 15-year-old. The headline leads one to think that just maybe the police do this routinely to keep in practice. Perhaps the officers were mistaken and were scheduled this week to shoot a 16-year-old, but they all look so adult these days.

Any precipitating circumstances. Not really, if you’re a Post-Dispatch reporter:

St. Louis police shot and killed a 15-year-old after the kid jumped out of a fleeing truck and pointed a handgun at an officer Friday afternoon, said Chief Joseph Mokwa.

Just a normal kid in the street, cut down by an insensitive police force.

What, you accuse me of hyperbole? Here’s how the Post-Dispatch characterizes the urchin in the last paragraph:

Mokwa said the truck had been rented in outstate Missouri, but police were unclear why the victim was inside it. Police were still seeking the driver of the truck.

Perps who pull guns on the police are victims to our friends at Lee Enterprises, apparently.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch profiles a veteran for Veterans’ Day. Lest we think the paper might lavish some attention on an American veteran or, hell, even an ally who fought with the Americans in some war or another, don’t worry: the Post-Dispatch sepia-tones an opposing soldier from World War I:

On this Veterans Day, consider that rarest of veterans, Walter Heiman of University City.

First, he’s 105 years old and a World War I veteran.

Second, in WWI, he wore the field-gray uniform of the German army.

Funny, I don’t think the paper would have profiled a Confederate soldier or a Nazi soldier with the same affection, but World War I is just forgotten enough that the paper hopes we can help celebrate all sides and all veterans the same. Or maybe it hopes we can celebrate our opponents and keep them close to our hearts at all times.

Here’s the headline: Teen student shot by officer is charged with two felonies.

Note how the teen student’s major role in this headline is to be shot by the officer, and then passive-voicedly charged with two felonies. What, pray tell could those felonies be? Illegal Larceny of Government Rounds By Secreting Them Upon One’s Person Or In One’s Body? Failure to Be Dead From Government Shooting? Here’s the handy lead to shed some light on it:

A Westminster Christian Academy student who was shot in the leg by police during a confrontation at his school Wednesday has been charged with two felonies.

Well, a confrontation. Perhaps the young man exchanged words with the policeman. Perhaps he tried to speak truth to power or to enlighten the policeman to the policeman’s oppressive role in the existing order.

I guess the Post-Dispatch does get to the point eventually:

The officer fired at Vincent – first grazing his leg and then striking it – as the student sat on a curb on the campus with a .410-gauge shotgun, according to Creve Coeur police Capt. Bob Kayser.

Witnesses said Vincent, who had not been in school that day, was pointing the shotgun toward his head and that he had earlier sent a text message to another student, saying he was planning to kill himself.

After police arrived, they began talking to the teen, who threatened to kill himself, Kayser said. At one point, Vincent lowered the shotgun and pointed it at the officers, who told him to drop it, Kayser said. An officer shot him when he did not.

So, this isn’t just the teen student shot by police; this is the teen student who brought a gun to school to commit violence upon himself or others.

(More fun with the Post-Dispatch and its love of passive voice here, here, here, and here. More coming to a newstand near you tomorrow.)

Sylvester Brown, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, writes in a cites a couple of things in the column entitled Blaming blacks is popular with some, but it’s perilously naive:

A few weeks ago, an NPR “Morning Edition” segment featured interviews with Emmy Award-winning correspondent and author Juan Williams and writer John McWhorter. Black leaders “excuse crime and poverty,” said McWhorter, while Williams chided leaders who embrace the “notion of victimhood.”

And:

In his commentary last week, New York Times columnist Bob Herbert described the “indications of a culture of failure . . . boys saying it’s a ‘rite of passage’ to go to jail . . . or kids telling other kids that if they’re trying to do well in school, they’re trying to ‘act better than me’ or ‘trying to act white.'”

But watch the subtle shift to the straw man:

This diatribe – that the black man is inherently flawed, violent and savage – is older than the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria. Heck, a twisted interpretation of Noah’s curse on the dark-skinned descendants of his son, Ham, offered biblical rationale for dark servitude.

Brown cites his opponents who chastise individuals (leaders and boys) and a man-made, man-maintained, and (to some extent) man-chosen construct (culture) and then promptly attributes to them to an unchosen and uncontrollable factor (race). In doing so, Brown not only mischaracterizes his opponents’ views, but also strips the people whom his opponents criticize for the behavior the opponents criticize.

Well-played, sir! Illogical and, if intentional, duplicitous.

As I mentioned previously, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch earlier this year had a mad-on for the local charity Gateway for a Cure, run by Lou Sengheiser (sample article here).

Now, another charity that wanted to raffle off a house has run into trouble:

A new $175,000 home or $125,000 and 40 smaller prizes guaranteed to make the $100 ticket at least pay for itself would have seemed a temptation for even a non-gambler.

But the Waterloo Sports Association’s idea of making someone lucky person’s dream come true while raising substantial funds for its youth sports programs fizzled.

The Waterloo City Council approved the WSA’s idea last November and for weeks the house raffle was the talk of the town.

Unfortunately, people were just talking, not buying tickets.

“We had 3,500 tickets, and we finally gave up when we couldn’t even sell 300,” said Rich Grove, who headed the WSA fundraiser.

We at MfBJN are waiting with bated breath to see if the St. Louis Post-Dispatch goes after the Waterloo whomever as crooks, or if Lou Sengheiser was just lucky.