The case of the disappearing files of Jan Brewer's criminally insane son
Amy Silverman and Paul Rubin in New Times:
Ronald Brewer […] was deemed criminally insane in 1990, following a July 1989 arrest and subsequent indictment for the sexual assault and kidnapping of a Phoenix woman. According to a Phoenix Police Department report dated July 29, 1989, Brewer, then an unemployed 25-year-old, forced his way into a woman’s apartment on West Indian School Road and threatened to hurt her “real bad” if she didn’t engage in sexual acts, including performing fellatio.
[…]
Those details are not available for public inspection at county Superior Court — even though in a typical criminal case, they probably would be. On January 9, 2009, Superior Court Judge Pendleton Gaines sealed the entire case file at the request of Ronald Brewer’s attorney.
On December 1, 2008, President-Elect Barack Obama nominated then-Governor Janet Napolitano to be the head of Homeland Security. Her successor? Secretary of State Jan Brewer. Brewer assumed office as governor on January 21.
The timing is curious.
And that’s not the even the juicy part.
Phoenix Newspapers (a.k.a. the Arizona Republic) filed a motion in July asking the judge to reconsider his January 2009 sealing order.
That motion also is under wraps. The court docket suggests that a ruling by the judge is pending.
The docket also strongly suggests that Ronald Brewer has several times over many years attempted to gain permanent release from his confinement at the state hospital in Phoenix, and has successfully won temporary release at various times.
7:26 AM
Democrats are doing triage to save the House, the NYT reports
Arizona makes only this cameo appearance:
In some of the most conservative districts in the nation, several Democrats appear to be emerging in stronger positions, largely because Republicans nominated candidates who appear to be weaker. Even Republicans conceded that Representatives Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona, Walt Minnick of Idaho and Larry Kissell of North Carolina were no longer as vulnerable as once assumed.
8:44 AM
Nat'l Geographic's 'Border Wars'
A recent review of the TV docu-series ‘Border Wars,’ which appears Wednesdays at 8 pm on the National Geographic channel questions the producers' intent. From L.A.Times:
…accidentally or not, “Border Wars” plays like advocacy work masking as law enforcement propaganda. First there is the imbalance in scale between the officers and their targets. The show highlights not only the organization required to track illegal activity, but also the depth and organization of the illegal systems themselves. In one scene, an agent tears open a trash bag filled with all the provisions a border crosser would need for a long journey, provided by the people who steer the grueling trips. It’s as thought-through as any of the agent’s high-tech tools.
“Border Wars” documents an environment where practically everyone is criminalized. When a body is found floating facedown in the Rio Grande, the voiceover narration notes, “Agents can only speculate if the young man was an immigrant trying to cross or a drug smuggler.”
[…]
The immigrants, who are almost never named, are portrayed as threats, though hardly any effort is made to distinguish among them or their goals. The drug busts captured in other segments of the show at least deliver a sense of righteous victory, but the scenes where people are captured — with teams of agents assisted by all-terrain vehicles and helicopters with heat-sensing cameras tracking down packs making their way through harsh Texas ranchland — are far more emotionally ambiguous.
Read more here.
2:58 PM
Unplug now
It’s Labor Day- shouldn’t you be outside grilling something instead of hanging here online? From Portfolio.com:
Smartphones and the growth of social media makes us all too available all the time. That’s why disciplined unplugging can be key to sanity, creativity, and productivity.
The Pew Center for Internet Research says the Web has made information “abundant, cheap, personal, and participatory.” It has given us information we need, when and where we need it. We now have the ability to keep connected despite being such a mobile world, with tighter ties with far flung friends and family. (Free Skype calls to Europe, anybody?) Some have called the Web an external hard drive for humanity, or even a sort of collective consciousness.
[…]
…We are collectively distracted online, or on our devices, and we do ourselves long-term harm, not good (such as missing our greater evolution and calling or engaging in meaningful personal connections). To paraphrase Emily Yoffe in Slate: We’re running in endless circles chasing information that doesn’t matter.
[…]
Give your body back its full range of motion: Do you know the physical signs of a right-handed desk worker? Overdeveloped forearms, deeper downward curve of fingers, wide ass, Thoracic spine curved forward rounded shoulders, head forward with a hump at C7, strain in the right neck and right arm from ear holding and mouse movements, lower-back strain. Don’t be that person. Daily use of full range of motion in all your joints, even opposition motion: This mandates getting off the devices and out from the screen. Get back in nature: Once you unplug, you may choose to take another step. Get back into the natural world. Take a real unplugged vacation. Go camping or into a remote cabin or the seashore.
[…]
Read more here. Or better yet, turn off and get out. Happy holiday.
5:40 AM