Correspondence: Fight club

By Moristotle

Allen Crowder is fighting at 5:00 p.m. today, Las Vegas time. I saw the poster shown below at the fitness center yesterday morning:

I didn’t make it to the gym today. That makes five years in a row.

Other crimes of Sheriff Arpaio’s (besides those mentioned by Paul Krugman, in his NY Times article, “Fascism, American Style,” August 28) were described in Jim Rix’s true-crime exposé Jingle Jangle: The Perfect Crime Turned Inside Out.
    Excerpt from Jingle Jangle:

The sheriff of Maricopa County for three years, Joe Arpaio had become quite the celebrity. He fancied himself, as the title of his book modestly suggested, The Toughest Sheriff in America. Frequently in the press and occasionally on TV, the sheriff promoted his own brand of toughness. One such promotion involved pink underwear. Significant numbers of monogrammed jail underwear were being smuggled out of the Madison Street Jail. Apparently it was prized as a status symbol on the outside…of the jail, of course, not the pants. As a deterrent, Arpaio ordered that all county issued underwear be dyed pink. But this plan backfired big time. The street value for the now pink underwear skyrocketed. Enter entrepreneur Arpaio. I guess part of being tough is recognizing that when you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. In three months Arpaio sold $420,000 worth of pink underwear. This money was used to finance other toughness programs, such as the neon VACANCY sign set atop Tent City and full page newspaper ads appearing while the     Super Bowl was in town to warn revelers what would be in store for them if they didn’t behave.
    Arpaio seemed to relish his notoriety in an article illustrated with a picture that was captioned “Ray Krone is wearing pink underwear in the jail of the ‘Toughest Sheriff in America’” and showed Arpaio proudly displaying a pair.
    But pink underwear was the least of the toughest sheriff’s toughness. To keep costs down, Arpaio located some baloney at a rock bottom price. No matter that it had turned green and was unfit for human consumption. While it lasted this baloney was lunch day in and day out for the jail population. It made good press when Arpaio boasted that each inmate could be feed for thirty-five cents per meal. At one time or another coffee and cigarettes were banned.
    “I’m tired of hearing about rehabilitation and education. Jail,” said Joe Arpaio, “should be punishment.”
    Indeed, Arpaio had found a way to use education as punishment. He limited TV to only three channels: the Disney Channel, C-SPAN and an educational channel broadcasting a college course given by Newt Gingrich. This cruel and unusual punishment caught the attention of Washington. There was also concern about rumors of beatings within Arpaio’s jails. But the sheriff’s department survived the justice department investigation.
    Sheriff Joe was not without local critics as well. An article in The Arizona Republic, “Innocence No Obstacle for Sheriff,” reported Arpaio’s desire to have the names of the approximately two thousand people arrested and booked into his jails each week published in the newspaper as a deterrent. Arpaio expressed little concern that most of these arrests were for misdemeanors that were usually resolved with a fine or that many were released without ever being charged with a crime, leaving only a handful that would ultimately plead to or be convicted of a felony. When someone suggested that “probable cause” does not equal “probable guilt,” the sheriff replied, “Maybe?”
    The newspaper declined Arpaio’s offer, perhaps concerned about the huge awards Maricopa County had already paid to citizens who had been brutalized while in jail. One settlement in the millions went to the family of an individual who died while in the custody of Arpaio’s deputies. The settlement could have been much higher, but death was determined to have been the result of a beating and unrelated to any adverse reaction to the teachings of Newt Gingrich.
    The public, however, seemed enamored of its sheriff. “Presumption of innocence” is one of those bantered about, lofty phrases that, if practiced by a politician, adversely affects public opinion. The reality seems to be that the public presumes that anyone who presumes innocence is weak. Tough sheriff Joe Arpaio enjoyed an eighty-four percent approval rating. [pp. 90-91]

Excerpts from Paul Krugman:

As sheriff of Maricopa County, Ariz., Joe Arpaio engaged in blatant racial discrimination. His officers systematically targeted Latinos, often arresting them on spurious charges and at least sometimes beating them up when they questioned those charges....
    Once Latinos were arrested, bad things happened to them. Many were sent to Tent City, which Arpaio himself proudly called a “concentration camp,” where they lived under brutal conditions, with temperatures inside the tents sometimes rising to 145 degrees.
    And when he received court orders to stop these practices, he simply ignored them, which led to his eventual conviction — after decades in office — for contempt of court. But he had friends in high places, indeed in the highest of places. We now know that Donald Trump tried to get the Justice Department to drop the case against Arpaio, a clear case of attempted obstruction of justice. And when that ploy failed, Trump, who had already suggested that Arpaio was “convicted for doing his job,” pardoned him.
    By the way, about “doing his job,” it turns out that Arpaio’s officers were too busy rounding up brown-skinned people and investigating President Barack Obama’s birth certificate to do other things, like investigate cases of sexually abused children. Priorities! [read more]

I decided to stop calling the bathroom the “John” and renamed it the “Jim.” I feel so much better saying I went to the Jim this morning.

I worked on a game prior to the presidential election to help get out the vote and in support of immigrants’ rights. It was sponsored by an Arizona political group that was formed to fight Sheriff Arpaio. The game let you whack Arpaio, Trump, and David Duke with a sandal.
    The game got a ton of press – including on NBC and in the NY Times. Sadly, it wasn’t enough to sway the election.
    Anyway, it’s interesting to me that I;ve worked on two different projects that specifically had some kind of connection to how big of a dirt bag that man is.

I changed my car horn to gunshot sounds. People get out of the way much faster now.

Teach your daughter how to shoot, because a restraining order is just a piece of paper.

Grateful for correspondence, Moristotle