Posted on 11/08/2006 2:41:16 PM PST by CondorFlight
Now that the election is over and this can't be considered just an election ploy :
Rumors are said to have been circulating in Durham to the effect that Nifong might consider (legally) going after a couple of bloggers; that if he deals with a couple of them the rest will be intimidated and fade away.
This is just a heads up; so that if anything untoward happens, everyone will know about it in advance and be able to make the connection. The rumors are well-sourced.
Time to speak up, with all deliberate speed
Kristin Butler - Posted: 11/10/06
Like hundreds of you, I cast my first ballot as a resident of Durham this Tuesday. And like nearly all of you, I was shocked and dismayed by the outcome of that election. It's hard to imagine what-if anything-49 percent of Durham residents were thinking when they voted for District Attorney Mike Nifong, who has disgraced this community before a national audience.
But even as we acknowledge Nifong's electoral victory, Duke students should continue to reject the ignorant, counterfactual and deeply offensive logic embraced by many of his proponents.
To see what I mean, consider this statement from Harris Johnson, a Nifong supporter and longtime Durham resident: "[Nifong's victory] just goes to show that justice can't be bought by a bunch of rich white boys from New York… no matter how much money you have, Durham is owned by its citizens."
Surprisingly, Duke's own Associate Professor of Literature Grant Farred advanced a similar argument in his Oct. 27 letter to the Herald-Sun. Citing many students' decision to register to vote locally this fall, Farred wrote:
"Duke students are notorious in their disconnect from the 'black' city of Durham". The plan here is not to act in Durham or for the general good of Durham, but to act against the non-Duke Durham community." Farred concludes that "the goal of these new, expedient and transient members of Durham's political community is to repair the damage done to historic white male privilege by voting against" Mike Nifong.
Both of these arguments boil down to the same insinuation: that Duke students aren't "real" Durham residents, and we have no place in this town's political determinations. Well, Professor Farred and Mr. Johnson, I have news for you: We are very much citizens of this community, and one electoral defeat will not keep us from continuing to demand our rights as such.
Let's face the facts. We spend at least 70 percent of each of our four college years in Durham, and during that time we're subject to the same local laws, taxes and responsibilities as everyone else.
What's more, fully 15 percent of undergraduates and the vast majority of graduate and professional students actually live in Durham neighborhoods, paying rent to Durham landlords and living alongside long-term residents.
A boon to the local economy, all 12,085 Duke students spent approximately $92.5 million here during the 2005-2006 school year-and that's a conservative estimate. It's not even possible to calculate the number of community service hours Duke students devote to Durham each year; suffice it to say that the number is safely in the tens of thousands.
Still, we do know that Duke students, while studying at a university the tuition and fees of which nearly exceed Durham's average yearly income, nonetheless managed to donate 80,000 of their own dollars to this community in 2005. So let's not avoid the important question any longer: Are these not the "badges and incidents" of citizenship?
How much longer will Durham residents continue to disregard our participation in the residential, economic and civic activities of this community, all of which predated our recent claim to political enfranchisement?
And most important of all, will fellow Durham residents ever stop treating us like second-class citizens in a community that we-along with generations of alumni, faculty and staff before us-helped build?
Unfortunately, 49 percent of Durham voters answered "no" on Tuesday, leaving us with some very serious problems for the next four years. Chief among them is a district attorney who thinks it's acceptable to target Duke students because our "rich daddies" can buy us "expensive lawyers."
Note also that Nifong is joined by a police force whose officers-prominent among them Sgt. Mark Gottlieb, a lead investigator in the lacrosse case-exhibit what attorney Bill Thomas called "a real pattern of arresting Duke students on less serious charges while not arresting non-Duke students on much more serious charges."
Most frightening of all, three of our classmates will face a politically motivated prosecution this spring despite overwhelming evidence suggesting their innocence. Never forget: Collin Finnerty, Reade Seligmann and Dave Evans could spend decades of their lives in prison if convicted of first degree forcible rape, first degree sexual offense and first degree kidnapping.
And given that 49 percent of voters supported Nifong's deeply troubled candidacy this week, our classmates' chances of getting a fair trial before a Durham-based "jury of their peers" have never looked so bleak. That's why I hope we students will set aside our post-election blues and continue to assert-in as bold and visible a way as possible-our full, unqualified status as Durham citizens.
Let's come out and say it: We are owed some basic fairness under the law. Our attempts to defend the rights we are afforded are not assertions of "historical white male privilege," but rather, of our identity as contributing, concerned members of this community.
And as victims of Durham's "political process," we are more than justified in our attempts to influence it through whatever legal means are available.
If that reclamation threatens people like Harris Johnson and Grant Farred, then so be it. But as Nifong himself said, the lacrosse case "remains a Durham problem, and it demands a Durham solution."
It's time to say that we're from Durham, too, and we fully intend to participate in that "solution."
Kristin Butler is a Trinity junior. Her column runs every Friday.
http://www.newsobserver.com/1185/story/509350.html
No gong for Mike Nifong -- yet
Steve Ford, Staff Writer
If the oddball election to fill the district attorney's post in Durham really was a referendum on the Duke lacrosse case, then we might reasonably conclude that the citizenry thinks Mike Nifong has no business prosecuting three athletes on charges of rape.
Nifong won, but polled less than a majority of the votes -- 49 percent. So, as The N&O's news articles have pointed out, more people wanted to give him the hook than to keep him in office. And somebody would have been hard-pressed to vote against Nifong for any reason other than a belief that the lacrosse players are being railroaded.
Does it amount to some kind of travesty, then, that Nifong is set to continue as D.A.? Not in my book.
That's not to say anybody should be comfortable with Nifong's performance in the case that has drawn scads of unwanted attention to Durham, Duke University and their uneasy co-existence.
But to throw him out of office on the sole basis of that performance would have had the effect of substituting the judgment of voters for the judgment of jurors. That's no way to settle the question of whether a crime occurred and, if so, who was responsible.
We have trials to settle such things, and we insist that matters of guilt or innocence be decided according to very specific rules meant to safeguard the rights of both accusers and defendants. What we don't do in this country is decide the merit of criminal charges at the polls.
The mix of politics and criminal justice can be volatile, verging on toxic. And in fact, among the multitude of criticisms aimed at Nifong is that he went overboard in pursuing the rape charges last spring, in the midst of a heated primary campaign, in order to gain favor with many Durham voters. That the accuser is black and the defendants white suggests who it was that Nifong supposedly was trying to impress.
Nifong won that primary and, with nobody else on the ballot at that point, must have figured he was good to go for his first elected term. (He'd been appointed when his predecessor was named to the bench.)
But as the three players were indicted, the investigation -- headed by Nifong himself -- came under more and more scrutiny. It turned out to have been notoriously slipshod. Photo lineups used flawed procedures. The alleged victim was allowed to offer a grab bag of conflicting accounts as to what had happened to her. Defendants' lawyers claimed that alibi evidence was ignored.
All the while, Nifong became more and more vulnerable to the accusation that he was hanging tough just because he had dug a hole for himself from which he had no graceful escape.
With the players' advocates, including many Durham voters aligned with Duke, burning to get even, it was no surprise to see challengers to Nifong materialize. But the challengers were phantoms, in a way. County commissioner Lewis Cheek agreed to have his name put on the ballot after a petition drive, but said he wouldn't serve if elected. Republican Steve Monks mounted a write-in campaign that clearly didn't have a chance.
If Cheek had won and declined to take office, a new D.A. would have been appointed by Governor Easley. Our editorial page staff considered whether to endorse Cheek, but decided that this was a candidacy with one purpose -- to short-circuit the lacrosse case prosecution. In our view, that wasn't a good enough reason to support him.
Nor did we feel Nifong had earned our seal of approval. In this contest, our opinion boiled down to a preference for letting nature take its course.
Where nature's course will lead for the protagonists in the ongoing criminal justice drama is anybody's guess. What's certain is that for the charges to be upheld, the accuser will have to wrangle her jumbled accounts into a coherent story and then withstand withering cross-examination. She'll have to explain embarrassing evidence such as the video that supposedly shows her performing an exotic dance at a strip club during the same time frame, just days after the alleged attack, when she was telling doctors and nurses she was in severe pain.
Nifong's instincts to stand up for someone who claimed she was victimized, setting aside stereotypes that might have led others to scoff at her claims, may have been noble. But his duty all along has been to seek justice, which means treating defendants fairly as well. As we've said on this page before, if at any time he loses confidence that he can prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, he should let the charges drop.
If the case goes to trial, at least jurors will make the decisions on the basis of all the available evidence and on the strength of testimony under oath. That's better than decisions being made outside the courtroom by the public at large, which likely would have been the effect if Nifong had lost.
Meanwhile, given the persistent questions about Nifong's handling of the case, the N.C. State Bar -- which oversees the conduct of this state's lawyers -- ought to be gearing up to take a look. If the case turns out to be house of cards, the man who built it should have some explaining to do.
Editorial page editor Steve Ford can be reached at 919-829-4512 or at sford@newsobserver.com
Author: try__ton__x reply
what do i say? humm .. well after looking at that video and going to http://www.blackviewtube.com/home.html and watching the same 3 or 4 sec.
i'd say this guys is more in the market of trying to get the whole video, rather than having the whole video.
and now that i've taken a better look at the video... this might be a shocker.........
But that aint the main stage at The Platinum Club. The main stage at the Platinum is more like a PIT. stairs on two sides leading down onto the Main stage, were the customers are more like looking down at the dancers.
I did not go into the VIP area(for reasons i'm sure you can understand, S.T.D.'s and what nots) so i'm not sure if there is a stage located in that VIP part of the club... some clubs do have mini stages in the VIP areas.
Posted: 11/11/06 11:57 PM
http://forums.go.com/abclocal/WTVD/thread?threadID=137558
So do I.
Thanks for your nice remarks. :>
Tryton is probably right on the money about the guy trying to get the video.
He has been right about everything else, LOL!
Maybe if that is not the Platinum, it could be the one in Smithfield.
Doesn't she do Diamond Girls?
This young lady has written a very impressive column, and I admire her.
For the record, Grant Farred is black.
These author isn't just a moron; he's a super-moron.
S/be "this" author.
No big deal, but I beg to differ on this one. Captain Queeg had a breakdown, driven to it by the pressures of command. The movie is more subtle: in the closing scene Jose Ferrer argues that Fred McMurray, the supposed good guy, was in part responsible for the mutiny by virtue of leaving Queeg so isolated. The movie retells the oft told tale of the pressures of command, expecially at sea where Captains can become incredibly isolated. Ultimately the same happened to the explorer and a great commander of men, Captain Cook. The movie Twelve O'Clock High addresses the same issue, with Gregory Peck (Frank Savage) suffering a similar breakdown.
Nifong definitely does not belong in such august company. He is a genuine sociopath, i.e., evil, one who pursues his own ends regardless of consequences, deliberately distorts objective realities, ignores norms of his profession and society and takes zero responsibility for his actions. It is hard to think of who to cast in Nifong's role - a movie is definitely on the cards
We've raised our girls to not see the color of someones skin..no way will we send them to such a racist and dangerous environment.
You're right. It wouldn't be safe to be 'color blind' in Durham. Sad.
It's quick. But the first thing I thought of was that she looks pretty big. I'm still wondering if they could all fit in that bathroom.
Kerry Sutton disgusts me. How she can support Nifong is beyond me. I hope Matt Z. fires her although I know it's expensive to change lawyers.
Same goes for Dan F. and Williams.
I meant it more as a joke, and just in reference to his actual paranoid behavior. Picture him pouring through the signatures on the Cheek petition, for instance, and finding the names of the other members of that animal control committee, and then what he said and did about it. It reminds me of Queeg.
Boarding a ship with Liefong in command would be even stupider than getting into a car with Teddy-the-hiccup behind the wheel.
I expect the three lax boys were raised to not see color. That's the impression I got from the GMA interview with the one black player on the team.
Kids raised in such a way have no street smarts when it comes to this sort of thing. If the boys had had any, they would have seen the potential for trouble carried by even letting these women through the door.
In Los Angeles last week, a 51 year-old black fireman was awarded $2.7m because his co-workers put dog food in his spaghetti sauce. Why would they do such a thing, you might ask. It seems they were all on a volleyball team, and this guy, who is quite tall, was a star player and played up along the net. He always would keep saying, while playing, "C'mon, feed the big dog, feed the big dog. I'm the big dog, feed the big dog", meaning get the ball to him. This went on for a long time so, as a joke and in the spirit of affection for him, as he was well-liked, they played this joke on him. They "fed the big dog." $2.7m.
I wouldn't send my kid to Duke, either.
Each boy represented by either of these lawyers, and there may be others, should fire that lawyer immediately, no question. Butch Williams has been interviewed on TV a time or two and impressed me as being about as sharp as a marble anyway. I wonder if the NC Bar has an affirmative action program whereby applicants "of color" are allowed to meet a lower standard of performance on their bar exam.
"Hey, it's legal ... really. [Nifong on pool]
One reason pool halls acquired a bad name goes back to when billiard tables often were located in "pool" rooms, aka betting parlors. Believe it or not, there's nothing wrong with two players having a friendly wager on their game of pool, according to Durham's chief assistant district attorney, Mike Nifong.
"Specifically, what makes something gambling in North Carolina is that the activity has an element of chance that determines the outcome of the game, as opposed to the element of skill," Nifong said. "For instance, card games are considered gambling because, although skill might be important, chance is more important. On the other hand, a pool game would be more skill-determined than chance-determined."
Then again, while the two people playing may wager, spectators may not bet on the game under state law, Nifong said.
If wagering happens in Durham poolrooms, it is discreet as there's not a lot of money being flashed around."
The Herald-Sun, May 06, 2001
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