The below AP story approaches the issue of shopping from a completely different angle, but it does highlight one of the most pervasive frontal lobe deficits that brain injured people have: the difficulty in making decisions. Almost anyone who works with brain injury survivors can tell anecdotes of the horror of the super market aisle for those with brain damage.
If given a forced choice, like on most neuropsychological exams, brain injured people can do surprisingly well. But makes those choices open-ended, or as in the story below about beverages, provide an “explosion of choices” and the brain injured person will virtually shut down. Sometimes the act is to buy nothing. Other times it is to try to buy everything.
The point in the below story that really stood out for me was the point it makes that the more choices offered, the fewer beverages are purchased. Based upon that piece of information, it may be that we all have a vulnerability to being overwhelmed by too many choices, but in the brain injured, that vulnerability becomes a disability of decision making. That disability is not just about soda pop, but about almost every choice that a person has to deal with on a daily basis. Ultimately, that disability can virtually stall a human life.
Attorney Gordon Johnson
http://subtlebraininjury.com
http://tbilaw.com
https://waiting.com
http://fishtail.tv
http://vestibulardisorder.com
http://youtube.com/profile?user=braininjuryattorney
g@gordonjohnson.com
800-992-9447
©Attorney Gordon S. Johnson, Jr. 2008
Date: 8/11/2008 2:18 PM
BC-Measure of a Nation-Distracted Republic/2190
Eds: Also moved in advance. Multimedia: This story and all past installments of the Measure of a Nation series – which includes stories, videos and animations _ are packaged in an interactive in the _national/measure_nation folder. AP Video.
Distraction 2008: Freedom of choice _ or from it?
By TED ANTHONY
EDITOR’S NOTE — This latest chapter of “The Measure of a Nation,” a yearlong series of multimedia story packages about the presidency and the 2008 election as seen through the prism of the culture, assesses the absurd amount of choices the average American has today — and how a leader might cut through the clutter and capture the nation’s attention.
By TED ANTHONY
AP National Writer
LOS ANGELES (AP) — On blistering days in Los Angeles, drive northeast on the 110, exit at Highland Park and pull into a roadside grocery called Galco’s. Then walk in and say, “I’m thirsty. Can you point me to the soda-pop aisle?”
This question may get you laughed out of the place. Because at Galco’s, the soda pop is in most every aisle. The place is a soft-drink nirvana containing 500 varieties of fizzy beverage from all corners of the planet.
Root beer? They’ve got three dozen kinds. Perhaps your palate craves a bottle of Cheerwine or a cold Inca Cola. Choose between soda sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup or cane sugar, flavored artificially or naturally, colored pink or red or green or blue or purple. And that doesn’t include the 475 varieties of beer and the 60 kinds of bottled water.
The choice is yours, if you can handle it. The store, now known as Galco’s Soda Pop Stop, is an exuberant explosion of the vaunted notion of freedom of choice, one of the ideals that supposedly makes America what it is.
It is wonderful. It is also intimidating. And in an election year, it’s something the next president needs to understand.
The two-century focus on what America’s founding fathers called “the pursuit of happiness” — coupled with the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century and the rise of consumerism in the 20th — has birthed a landscape of options as dizzying as it is liberating. Bed and Bath, it turns out, aren’t nearly enough. These days, we’re much more concerned with Beyond.
A mere generation after the three broadcast networks ruled, a Comcast digital cable package hands you up to 250 channels of programming. Today’s average supermarket sells more than 45,000 items, the average Wal-Mart Supercenter more than four times that. On a single afternoon this month, eBay had 14.9 million auctions going, and Amazon was offering listings for 22.7 million books. By the end of last year, the Web had more than 108 million distinct pages to visit from the comfort of your lap.
John Nese, who built Galco’s into a promised land of sugary beverages, has thought a lot about choice in America. He offers two assessments.
The first: “People want choices. People want the opportunity to make their own decisions.”
The second: “They come in and they look and they go, ‘We’re overwhelmed. We don’t know what to buy.'”
The notion transcends simple consumerism. It also is the dilemma facing whoever wins November’s election. With options beyond our great-grandparents’ dreams, is freedom of unlimited choice really a freedom at all?
In a universe of unprecedented static, how can an American leader lead?
___
DRIVEN TO DISTRACTION
Mermaid Treasure looks just like Blue Jewel. Waterscape and Cool Dusk could be identical twins. And try distinguishing Seven Seas and Southern Evening from 10 paces away.
At the Home Depot in Gibsonia, Pa., no less than 372 shades of blue paint are available, not counting the many blue-greens and blue-purples also offered in a section of swatches nearly as long as the distance from the pitcher’s mound to home plate.
This cross-section of American choice illuminates the multiple levels of decision-making required to negotiate today’s consumer landscape, in this case before the painting even begins:
—Which store? There are four paint dealers within a mile of the Gibsonia Home Depot and at least 13 more within a 10-mile radius.
—Which brand? There are at least five to choose from.
—Which consistency? Pick from matte, eggshell, satin, semi-gloss and gloss.
—Which color group? Basic colors like blue, red and green are mere gateways to the real color choice.
—Which shade? Time to negotiate the hundreds of names that sound like either ice-cream flavors (Lavender Ice, Cloudberry) or small coastal communities (Little Pond, Wickford Bay).
That’s more than a million ways to paint a door. And as powerful as the human brain is, its bandwidth is ultimately limited. By focusing on smaller choices, by continuously sifting through the categories and subcategories of things like color preference and Google results and spam, could it be that our multiple options are controlling rather than liberating us?
“Since Reagan, the ideology in the United States has been that choice is good and more choice is better. And to the extent that you can give people more choice in every area of life, you are improving their well-being,” says Barry Schwartz, author of “The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less.”
But “nobody has the time or the expertise to make informed choices about everything,” Schwartz says. “When options are presented, people have a tough time just ignoring them.”
In 2000, according to the American Psychological Association, a study found that shoppers given the choice of picking a jam from smaller and larger assortments preferred choosing from the bigger assortment. Yet they were more likely to actually buy some jam if they had fewer options. Excessive choice, in effect, short-circuited them from engaging more deeply.
Now take that notion into the public realm. If too many choices drive us to distraction, how do
es that affect how we perceive government?
“It’s wonderful that we can sit down in our living room and order 20,000 things. In a superficial way, we are more informed than people used to be. But it’s hard to get our attention, and I don’t see any way of turning that around,” says Edward C. Rosenthal, author of “The Era of Choice: The Ability to Choose and Its Transformation of Contemporary Life.”
His assessment is bleak. By 1900, people’s faith in established institutions like church and government began a slow wane, and Americans struggled to find their bearings. Thus did consumer choice gradually become fetish. Today, anyone who questions unfettered choice risks being accused of condescension and, worse, ignorance of market forces.
This is the landscape an American leader faces. The option becomes, “Follow me — unless you have something more interesting going on.”
And accurately or not, today’s citizens often think that they do.
___
LEADING THROUGH STATIC
“The only way we’re going to solve our problems in this country is if all of us come together,” Barack Obama said this month. Weeks earlier, John McCain said that “we are fellow Americans, and that shared distinction means more to me than any other association.”
Unity is big in 2008. It means more voters. But can we come together? These days, beyond 9/11 or Katrina or rising gas prices, what exactly is that “shared distinction” we like to think unites us?
To inspire voters, campaigns use strategies such as microtargeting — mining data and finding voters’ preferences, then customizing the message for each. But when candidate becomes president and prospective voter becomes mere citizen, those intricate techniques melt away.
What’s a leader to do? Christine Riordan, a leadership expert at the University of Denver, prescribes simplicity.
Just as paying attention to a leader is a consumer choice, Riordan says the leader can benefit from deploying marketing principles as well: An uncluttered message rings clearer, particularly when it’s accompanied by tight focus on content, packaging and image.
Debating whether there’s too much information out there, Riordan says, is beside the point.
“There’s no way we’re going back to the times of Zachary Taylor,” she says. “”It’s not, ‘Is too much information bad?’ It’s how do you manage within an environment that does provide all information and will continue to provide all information?”
Today, candidates and leaders must tailor core messages for the 75-year-old newspaper reader and the 19-year-old who communicates using blogs and Facebook. What’s more, to have any chance of cutting through the clutter, the leader has to seem sincere and authentic to both demographics, not to mention all the Gen-Xers and Boomers in between. He or she has to be all the flavors of root beer at once.
Consider House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Like many politicians before her, she went on “The Daily Show” last month to match wits with Jon Stewart, be made fun of and maybe make a point to a coveted audience of hyper-aware, media-savvy Americans. She didn’t tank, but she appeared painfully overeager.
To neutralize the static, she needed the kind of banter that Stewart and NBC anchorman Brian Williams had a couple of nights later. It was amiably contentious and brimming with pop-culture cues. It was also just plain fun, a key element in capturing the “Daily Show” demographic’s attention.
“With more choices out there, if leaders want to bring issues to the attention of the public, they have to bring it into our venues and speak it on our terms,” says Adam Schiffer, a political scientist at Texas Christian University who studies voter behavior and the media’s role in politics.
“Institutions are breaking down and there are going to be new ways of doing things. But the cream can still rise. The signal can still make it through the noise in this new environment,” he says. “You don’t need 90 percent of the public informed on the issue and following it closely to get your policy passed.”
Exhibit A is Al Gore, who has been practically pleading Americans to pay attention to the environment for nearly a generation. He finally succeeded.
What helped him punch through the static? He made a movie.
___
SAME DIFFERENCE?
Across the continent from Galco’s and the dizzying choices of Los Angeles, another town struggles with its choices. But the options are different.
In this community, people are choosing their kitchenware, not from Pottery Barn or Crate & Barrel but silver or pewter. They’re choosing new clothes, not from Wal-Mart or Nordstrom but from the 40 or so fabrics at the local millinery. They’re choosing transportation, not Jeep or Toyota but feet or horse.
And they’re choosing sides: loyalist or rebel, status quo or treason.
Colonial Williamsburg is a city deliberately frozen in time, on the cusp of the American Revolution, when it was Virginia’s capital. Walking its 18th-century streets, seeing actor-interpreters bring revolutionary-era Virginians back to life, you could believe that the choices here were far fewer.
Yet for its era, Williamsburg was a cosmopolitan town, bustling with a merchant class and a spread of consumer goods that presaged modern America.
It also was crackling with revolutionary activity. Its citizens wrestled with their responsibilities and seizing their future. They confronted a lot of static and still managed to participate in the birthing of American democracy.
“Not everybody was running around yelling, ‘Yeah, yeah, liberty, death,'” says Dennis Watson, a Scottish-born American who portrays Williamsburg printer and newspaperman Alexander Purdie. “But,” he says, “this time they truly came together.”
There are lessons for us, and for our leaders, in the people of Colonial Williamsburg.
They, too, had choices far more abundant than their predecessors. They, too, struggled to manage their bandwidth and avoid letting distractions prevail. They may not have had XBoxes, but they had more options than most anyone outside of Boston or Philadelphia.
We are products of our age, too. If we can process 21st-century distractions and negotiate our lives, and most of us do, can’t we be active in our democracy, too? The ability to Twitter and to TiVo does not by itself preclude civic participation. Everyone has, well, a choice.
“This country is an experiment. And for it to have endured for this long, it requires the involvement of citizens — citizens making choices,” says Jim Bradley, who manages public affairs for Colonial Williamsburg.
It is tempting to imagine Williamsburg as a distillation of democracy, a representation of a time when leaders could be heard and citizens could be listened to, when a man could stand before a crowd, say “Give me liberty or give me death” and have it echo across the land.
That’s what Sherrie Bender of Houston, visiting Colonial Williamsburg on a recent day, means when she wonders, “Where are those conversations we had like Patrick Henry on the steps?”
They’re gone. In their place is something new and unprecedented but of the people nonetheless. To figure it out, we and our leaders are going to need a serious road map. More likely, we’ll just MapQuest it and go from there — if, that is, we don’t get distracted by everything we encounter along the way.
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.
Summary
Date: 8/11/2008 2:18 PM
Slug: BC-Measure of a Nation-Distracted Republic
Headline: Distraction 2008: Freedom of choice _ or from it?
Byline: By TED ANTHONY
Byline Title:
Copyright Holder: AP
Priority: r (4)
With Photo:
Dateline:
Editors’ Note: Eds: Also moved in advance. Multimedia: This story and all past installments of the Measure of a Nation series – which includes stories, videos and
animations _ are packaged in an interactive in the _national/measure_nation folder. AP Video.
Word Count: 2190
File Name (Transref): L0619
Editorial Type:
AP Category: a
Format: bx
Edit Mode : Cancel
EDITOR’S NOTE — This latest chapter of “The Measure of a Nation,” a yearlong series of multimedia story packages about the presidency and the 2008 election as seen through the prism of the culture, assesses the absurd amount of choices the average American has today — and how a leader might cut through the clutter and capture the nation’s attention.By TED ANTHONYAP National Writer LOS ANGELES (AP) — On blistering days in Los Angeles, drive northeast on the 110, exit at Highland Park and pull into a roadside grocery called Galco’s. Then walk in and say, “I’m thirsty. Can you point me to the soda-pop aisle?” This question may get you laughed out of the place. Because at Galco’s, the soda pop is in most every aisle. The place is a soft-drink nirvana containing 500 varieties of fizzy beverage from all corners of the planet. Root beer? They’ve got three dozen kinds. Perhaps your palate craves a bottle of Cheerwine or a cold Inca Cola. Choose between soda sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup or cane sugar, flavored artificially or naturally, colored pink or red or green or blue or purple. And that doesn’t include the 475 varieties of beer and the 60 kinds of bottled water. The choice is yours, if you can handle it. The store, now known as Galco’s Soda Pop Stop, is an exuberant explosion of the vaunted notion of freedom of choice, one of the ideals that supposedly makes America what it is. It is wonderful. It is also intimidating. And in an election year, it’s something the next president needs to understand. The two-century focus on what America’s founding fathers called “the pursuit of happiness” — coupled with the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century and the rise of consumerism in the 20th — has birthed a landscape of options as dizzying as it is liberating. Bed and Bath, it turns out, aren’t nearly enough. These days, we’re much more concerned with Beyond. A mere generation after the three broadcast networks ruled, a Comcast digital cable package hands you up to 250 channels of programming. Today’s average supermarket sells more than 45,000 items, the average Wal-Mart Supercenter more than four times that. On a single afternoon this month, eBay had 14.9 million auctions going, and Amazon was offering listings for 22.7 million books. By the end of last year, the Web had more than 108 million distinct pages to visit from the comfort of your lap. John Nese, who built Galco’s into a promised land of sugary beverages, has thought a lot about choice in America. He offers two assessments. The first: “People want choices. People want the opportunity to make their own decisions.” The second: “They come in and they look and they go, ‘We’re overwhelmed. We don’t know what to buy.'” The notion transcends simple consumerism. It also is the dilemma facing whoever wins November’s election. With options beyond our great-grandparents’ dreams, is freedom of unlimited choice really a freedom at all? In a universe of unprecedented static, how can an American leader lead? ___ DRIVEN TO DISTRACTION Mermaid Treasure looks just like Blue Jewel. Waterscape and Cool Dusk could be identical twins. And try distinguishing Seven Seas and Southern Evening from 10 paces away. At the Home Depot in Gibsonia, Pa., no less than 372 shades of blue paint are available, not counting the many blue-greens and blue-purples also offered in a section of swatches nearly as long as the distance from the pitcher’s mound to home plate. This cross-section of American choice illuminates the multiple levels of decision-making required to negotiate today’s consumer landscape, in this case before the painting even begins: —Which store? There are four paint dealers within a mile of the Gibsonia Home Depot and at least 13 more within a 10-mile radius. —Which brand? There are at least five to choose from. —Which consistency? Pick from matte, eggshell, satin, semi-gloss and gloss. —Which color group? Basic colors like blue, red and green are mere gateways to the real color choice. —Which shade? Time to negotiate the hundreds of names that sound like either ice-cream flavors (Lavender Ice, Cloudberry) or small coastal communities (Little Pond, Wickford Bay). That’s more than a million ways to paint a door. And as powerful as the human brain is, its bandwidth is ultimately limited. By focusing on smaller choices, by continuously sifting through the categories and subcategories of things like color preference and Google results and spam, could it be that our multiple options are controlling rather than liberating us? “Since Reagan, the ideology in the United States has been that choice is good and more choice is better. And to the extent that you can give people more choice in every area of life, you are improving their well-being,” says Barry Schwartz, author of “The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less.” But “nobody has the time or the expertise to make informed choices about everything,” Schwartz says. “When options are presented, people have a tough time just ignoring them.” In 2000, according to the American Psychological Association, a study found that shoppers given the choice of picking a jam from smaller and larger assortments preferred choosing from the bigger assortment. Yet they were more likely to actually buy some jam if they had fewer options. Excessive choice, in effect, short-circuited them from engaging more deeply. Now take that notion into the public realm. If too many choices drive us to distraction, how does that affect how we perceive government? “It’s wonderful that we can sit down in our living room and order 20,000 things. In a superficial way, we are more informed than people used to be. But it’s hard to get our attention, and I don’t see any way of turning that around,” says Edward C. Rosenthal, author of “The Era of Choice: The Ability to Choose and Its Transformation of Contemporary Life.” His assessment is bleak. By 1900, people’s faith in established institutions like church and government began a slow wane, and Americans struggled to find their bearings. Thus did consumer choice gradually become fetish. Today, anyone who questions unfettered choice risks being accused of condescension and, worse, ignorance of market forces. This is the landscape an American leader faces. The option becomes, “Follow me — unless you have something more interesting going on.” And accurately or not, today’s citizens often think that they do. ___ LEADING THROUGH STATIC “The only way we’re going to solve our problems in this country is if all of us come together,” Barack Obama said this month. Weeks earlier, John McCain said that “we are fellow Americans, and that shared distinction means more to me than any other association.” Unity is big in 2008. It means more voters. But can we come together? These days, beyond 9/11 or Katrina or rising gas prices, what exactly is that “shared distinction” we like to think unites us? To inspire voters, campaigns use strategies such as microtargeting — mining data and finding voters’ preferences, then customizing the message for each. But when candidate becomes president and prospective voter becomes mere citizen, those intricate techniques melt away. What’s a leader to do? Christine Riordan, a leadership expert at the University of Denver, prescribes simplicity. Just as paying attention to a leader is a consumer choice, Riordan says the leader can benefit from deploying marketing principles as well: An uncluttered message rings clearer, particularly when it’s accompanied by tight focus on content, packaging and image. Debating whether there’s too much information out there, Riordan says, is beside the point. “There’s no way we’re going back to the times of Zachary Taylor,” she says. “”It’s not, ‘Is too much information bad?’ It’s how do you manage within an environment that does provide all information and will continue to provide all informati
on?” Today, candidates and leaders must tailor core messages for the 75-year-old newspaper reader and the 19-year-old who communicates using blogs and Facebook. What’s more, to have any chance of cutting through the clutter, the leader has to seem sincere and authentic to both demographics, not to mention all the Gen-Xers and Boomers in between. He or she has to be all the flavors of root beer at once. Consider House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Like many politicians before her, she went on “The Daily Show” last month to match wits with Jon Stewart, be made fun of and maybe make a point to a coveted audience of hyper-aware, media-savvy Americans. She didn’t tank, but she appeared painfully overeager. To neutralize the static, she needed the kind of banter that Stewart and NBC anchorman Brian Williams had a couple of nights later. It was amiably contentious and brimming with pop-culture cues. It was also just plain fun, a key element in capturing the “Daily Show” demographic’s attention. “With more choices out there, if leaders want to bring issues to the attention of the public, they have to bring it into our venues and speak it on our terms,” says Adam Schiffer, a political scientist at Texas Christian University who studies voter behavior and the media’s role in politics. “Institutions are breaking down and there are going to be new ways of doing things. But the cream can still rise. The signal can still make it through the noise in this new environment,” he says. “You don’t need 90 percent of the public informed on the issue and following it closely to get your policy passed.” Exhibit A is Al Gore, who has been practically pleading Americans to pay attention to the environment for nearly a generation. He finally succeeded. What helped him punch through the static? He made a movie. ___ SAME DIFFERENCE? Across the continent from Galco’s and the dizzying choices of Los Angeles, another town struggles with its choices. But the options are different. In this community, people are choosing their kitchenware, not from Pottery Barn or Crate & Barrel but silver or pewter. They’re choosing new clothes, not from Wal-Mart or Nordstrom but from the 40 or so fabrics at the local millinery. They’re choosing transportation, not Jeep or Toyota but feet or horse. And they’re choosing sides: loyalist or rebel, status quo or treason. Colonial Williamsburg is a city deliberately frozen in time, on the cusp of the American Revolution, when it was Virginia’s capital. Walking its 18th-century streets, seeing actor-interpreters bring revolutionary-era Virginians back to life, you could believe that the choices here were far fewer. Yet for its era, Williamsburg was a cosmopolitan town, bustling with a merchant class and a spread of consumer goods that presaged modern America. It also was crackling with revolutionary activity. Its citizens wrestled with their responsibilities and seizing their future. They confronted a lot of static and still managed to participate in the birthing of American democracy. “Not everybody was running around yelling, ‘Yeah, yeah, liberty, death,'” says Dennis Watson, a Scottish-born American who portrays Williamsburg printer and newspaperman Alexander Purdie. “But,” he says, “this time they truly came together.” There are lessons for us, and for our leaders, in the people of Colonial Williamsburg. They, too, had choices far more abundant than their predecessors. They, too, struggled to manage their bandwidth and avoid letting distractions prevail. They may not have had XBoxes, but they had more options than most anyone outside of Boston or Philadelphia. We are products of our age, too. If we can process 21st-century distractions and negotiate our lives, and most of us do, can’t we be active in our democracy, too? The ability to Twitter and to TiVo does not by itself preclude civic participation. Everyone has, well, a choice. “This country is an experiment. And for it to have endured for this long, it requires the involvement of citizens — citizens making choices,” says Jim Bradley, who manages public affairs for Colonial Williamsburg. It is tempting to imagine Williamsburg as a distillation of democracy, a representation of a time when leaders could be heard and citizens could be listened to, when a man could stand before a crowd, say “Give me liberty or give me death” and have it echo across the land. That’s what Sherrie Bender of Houston, visiting Colonial Williamsburg on a recent day, means when she wonders, “Where are those conversations we had like Patrick Henry on the steps?” They’re gone. In their place is something new and unprecedented but of the people nonetheless. To figure it out, we and our leaders are going to need a serious road map. More likely, we’ll just MapQuest it and go from there — if, that is, we don’t get distracted by everything we encounter along the way.
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Looking Up …
Fatal shooting by police sparks Montreal riot
In a bizarre postscript to last Saturday’s story about the racial riots of the past, one of the world’s most peaceful countries had an outbreak of urban rioting this weekend. (See the below story on the Montreal rioting) Gun violence has always been remarkably lower in Canada, largely because of much tighter gun restrictions. But conflict between urban police and poor people has always been a trigger, regardless of where it happens.
One of the lost areas of brain injury advocacy is in police brutality cases. As primarily an accident lawyer, I have only consulted on these cases, but those innocent victims of police brutality often suffer the same type of permanent brain damage as my accident clients.
We hope that Montreal returns to the serenity of which we think of it, and the Canadian authorities can be trusted to find the truth of what really happened.
Attorney Gordon Johnson
http://subtlebraininjury.com
http://tbilaw.com
https://waiting.com
http://vestibulardisorder.com
http://youtube.com/profile?user=braininjuryattorney
g@gordonjohnson.com
800-992-9447
©Attorney Gordon S. Johnson, Jr. 2008
Date: 8/11/2008 11:28 AM
MONTREAL (AP) _ Rioting broke out late Sunday in a Montreal neighborhood where a young man was shot to death by police over the weekend. A police officer was shot in the leg, stores were looted and firefighters were pelted with beer bottles.
Several hundred officers in riot gear fanned out in search of a group of youths who ran off after torching eight cars parked outside a fire station in Montreal North, a multiethnic neighborhood with simmering tensions between residents and police. Fire trucks responding to the call in Montreal North were pelted with beer bottles, while at least three bus shelters were trashed.
The violence erupted following a peaceful community protest against the shooting by police on Saturday of three people, including an 18-year-old man, identified by his sister as Freddy Alberto Villanueva, who died of his wounds.
On Sunday, men and women of all ages crawled through the smashed windows of a pawn shop, a convenience store and a butcher shop, grabbing anything they could. They could be seen running down the street clutching TVs, cigarette cartons and slabs of meat.
Meanwhile, along the residential streets, riot-squad officers were forced to dive for cover at least three times, after blasts of what sounded like gunshots went off around them.
“I had a guy shoot a gun next to me, that’s how bad it was,” said Patrick Parent, who lives on the street behind the convenience store. “I ran home. It was terrifying.”
Parent, who has lived in the area for six years, said locals occasionally hear gunshots but that usually the neighborhood is quiet.
“I thought I would see this only on TV, never in real life,” he said.
Montreal police spokesman Ian Lafreniere said one police officer was hospitalized after being shot in the leg.
An ambulance technician was hit in the head by a bottle and a second police officer suffered minor injuries, he said. Both were released from hospital after treatment.
Montreal police Chief Yvan Delorme said the mob vandalized three fire trucks, the local fire station and broke into 20 businesses.
Three people were arrested for breaking and entering, one for drug possession and two others for charges still to be determined, he said.
Quebec provincial police have taken over the investigation into the shootings Saturday that sparked the riots.
City police said the officers were trying to arrest an individual in Henri Bourassa Park around 7 p.m when they were surrounded by a group of about 20 youths.
A few individuals allegedly broke away from the group and rushed the officers.
According to police, one of the officers then opened fire.
The officers were not wounded.
Provincial police spokesman Gregory Gomez del Prado said there were numerous witnesses to the incident, including people playing sports or just sitting in the park nearby, he said.
“It’s too early to say what happened exactly. We’re talking about the death of a man. It’s a major investigation.”
Villanueva’s sister, Julissa, said from nearby Laval that family members want answers.
“We only know what we see in the news, in the newspapers, that’s all,” she said, breaking into tears as she spoke about her brother, a student who wanted to become a mechanic.
Delorme, the Montreal police chief, said authorities would make efforts to mend the shaky relations between police and the community.
“We’re there to listen, to understand what happened (Sunday) night and to avoid these kinds of situations,” Delorme said Monday. “We have to feel safe in Montreal.”
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.
One of the lost areas of brain injury advocacy is in police brutality cases. As primarily an accident lawyer, I have only consulted on these cases, but those innocent victims of police brutality often suffer the same type of permanent brain damage as my accident clients.
We hope that Montreal returns to the serenity of which we think of it, and the Canadian authorities can be trusted to find the truth of what really happened.
Attorney Gordon Johnson
http://subtlebraininjury.com
http://tbilaw.com
https://waiting.com
http://vestibulardisorder.com
http://youtube.com/profile?user=braininjuryattorney
g@gordonjohnson.com
800-992-9447
©Attorney Gordon S. Johnson, Jr. 2008
Date: 8/11/2008 11:28 AM
MONTREAL (AP) _ Rioting broke out late Sunday in a Montreal neighborhood where a young man was shot to death by police over the weekend. A police officer was shot in the leg, stores were looted and firefighters were pelted with beer bottles.
Several hundred officers in riot gear fanned out in search of a group of youths who ran off after torching eight cars parked outside a fire station in Montreal North, a multiethnic neighborhood with simmering tensions between residents and police. Fire trucks responding to the call in Montreal North were pelted with beer bottles, while at least three bus shelters were trashed.
The violence erupted following a peaceful community protest against the shooting by police on Saturday of three people, including an 18-year-old man, identified by his sister as Freddy Alberto Villanueva, who died of his wounds.
On Sunday, men and women of all ages crawled through the smashed windows of a pawn shop, a convenience store and a butcher shop, grabbing anything they could. They could be seen running down the street clutching TVs, cigarette cartons and slabs of meat.
Meanwhile, along the residential streets, riot-squad officers were forced to dive for cover at least three times, after blasts of what sounded like gunshots went off around them.
“I had a guy shoot a gun next to me, that’s how bad it was,” said Patrick Parent, who lives on the street behind the convenience store. “I ran home. It was terrifying.”
Parent, who has lived in the area for six years, said locals occasionally hear gunshots but that usually the neighborhood is quiet.
“I thought I would see this only on TV, never in real life,” he said.
Montreal police spokesman Ian Lafreniere said one police officer was hospitalized after being shot in the leg.
An ambulance technician was hit in the head by a bottle and a second police officer suffered minor injuries, he said. Both were released from hospital after treatment.
Montreal police Chief Yvan Delorme said the mob vandalized three fire trucks, the local fire station and broke into 20 businesses.
Three people were arrested for breaking and entering, one for drug possession and two others for charges still to be determined, he said.
Quebec provincial police have taken over the investigation into the shootings Saturday that sparked the riots.
City police said the officers were trying to arrest an individual in Henri Bourassa Park around 7 p.m when they were surrounded by a group of about 20 youths.
A few individuals allegedly broke away from the group and rushed the officers.
According to police, one of the officers then opened fire.
The officers were not wounded.
Provincial police spokesman Gregory Gomez del Prado said there were numerous witnesses to the incident, including people playing sports or just sitting in the park nearby, he said.
“It’s too early to say what happened exactly. We’re talking about the death of a man. It’s a major investigation.”
Villanueva’s sister, Julissa, said from nearby Laval that family members want answers.
“We only know what we see in the news, in the newspapers, that’s all,” she said, breaking into tears as she spoke about her brother, a student who wanted to become a mechanic.
Delorme, the Montreal police chief, said authorities would make efforts to mend the shaky relations between police and the community.
“We’re there to listen, to understand what happened (Sunday) night and to avoid these kinds of situations,” Delorme said Monday. “We have to feel safe in Montreal.”
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.
Springfield riot through different eyes
At the core of what I do is a belief in advocacy, a commitment that began when I was a teenager, with its genesis in the civil rights movement which emerged from the ashes of the 1960’s inner city riots. I was in seventh grade the summer of the worst rioting. When I was in 8th grade, Sports Illustrated published a landmark story on the Black Athletes protest, a protest that made its way to medal podium at the Mexico City Olympics, where one of the heroes, Tommy Smith, stood with a black fist raised. For the Sports Illustrated story, click here. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1968_Olympics_Black_Power_salute
Illinois was core to my continued interest in civil rights while I was an undergrad student at Northwestern University near Chicago. I had a great fascination in the tragic development of the most segregated place in our country on the south side of Chicago. It has been more than a generation since those years, the El rides to White Sox Park, the slightly intimidating walk from the 35th St. El station to the ball park in the shadows of the Robert Taylor Homes, a housing project on a bigger scale and more tragic than Cabrini Green. During those years, Chicago was averaging more than 900 murders a year, most of those young black males. The Robert Taylor project was accounting for more than a quarter of that amount.
Today, the projects are gone in Chicago and the murder rate cut in half. Legitimate urban renewal has now come to the South Side. Its resurgence is one of the great miracles of my life time.
With that as my personal history, the below AP story was a surprise to me. I knew nothing of this early Illinois riot. This story again reminds me of my advocacy on issues broader than brain injury. My thoughts today are whether we are doing any better for the African American young men who are no longer on the streets of the south side of Chicago. Will the emergence of a great man such as Barack Obama make a fundamental difference so that finally the great assimilation into the American mainstream quality of life can occur?
Attorney Gordon Johnson
http://gordonjohnson.com
http://tbilaw.com
©2008 Gordon S. Johnson, Jr.
Date: 8/9/2008 4:07 PM
By CHRISTOPHER WILLS
Associated Press Writer
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) _ One hundred years ago this month, mobs of white residents tore through Springfield, hanging two black men, burning dozens of homes and businesses, and forcing families to flee. As the city commemorates the violence, the event inspires deep feelings among people from all backgrounds:
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Thomas Richmond understands history and racism, and wants to make sure his grandson understands them, too.
The retired history teacher took 8-year-old Panagiotis to a museum exhibit about the Springfield riot to show him how far America has come in the past century. He said blacks can’t truly understand where they stand in America today without knowing the past and how ugly racism can be.
“A child has to know where he comes from. He needs to know what this country is about,” he said.
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Tamara Douglass, a high school history teacher in Springfield for 14 years, has taken it upon herself to make sure her students hear about the riot, which until now has gotten little notice.
The story usually provokes a strong reaction, she said.
“They’re angry. They’re wondering why they have gotten into their teen years without learning about it,” Douglass said. “They’re shocked at what humans beings do to each other.”
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The riot in the hometown of Abraham Lincoln delivered an unpleasant message to much of the country, argues researcher Roberta Senechal de la Roche.
“White Americans in the North pretty much thought violence against blacks was a Southern thing. The Springfield riot really came as a bolt of lightning to Northern newspaper readers,” said de la Roche, author of the book “Sociogenesis of a Race Riot.” ”The question was, if it can happen in Springfield, maybe it can happen anywhere.”
Many of the rioters shouted about Lincoln during their rampage. “Curse the day Lincoln freed the slaves,” was one cry.
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To the Rev. Wesley McNeese, it made perfect sense for Springfield’s churches to have joint prayer services to mark the centennial of the riot.
Some in the city’s ministerial alliance fearing such services would open old wounds, but the group ultimately decided to go forward with eight “solemn assemblies” — one at each of the markers noting a key location in the violence.
Now black churches and white churches are holding joint social functions and inviting each other’s pastors to preach. McNeese, who leads the New Mission Church of God, thinks they can keep building on the good will.
“This was the right thing to do. There’s no question in my mind,” he said.
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The violence was shocking by itself. Even more shocking to 18-year-old Evan Preston was the macabre interest in riot souvenirs.
People kept chunks of the trees where men were hanged. They bought postcards showing the rubble of buildings destroyed by the mobs.
“They turned it into tourism dollars, this horror that occurred in their hometown,” said Preston, studying the riot in a summer program at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library.
“This would be like seeing a shirt that had the towers falling on 9/11 — people making money off the tragedy that everyone had to endure.”
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Murray Hanes, then a young man, watched as the Springfield mob hanged a man. He watched as they set fire to homes — with people still inside, he said decades later.
“The Negroes would come to the window and rush back — they didn’t dare come out for fear they’d get shot. They went back in. And anybody that I knew or talked to said there were Negroes in there that were burned up,” he said in an oral history recorded in the 1970s.
Hanes denied sharing any guilt for the violence and grew defensive at any questions about his role. “It’s a funny thing — I can understand why few people want to talk. You can see right away that you’re accused of participation just by assumption.”
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.
Medically Unfit Drivers – Part III
This week we have discussed the flaws that can be found within the CDL licensing system. The primary focus of this series of blogs has been how some individuals who are clearly not qualified to operate a commercial vehicle and who the government found to be fully disabled, are receiving CDL licensing.
The FMCSA (Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration),which works closely with the DOT, has five main requirements that determines whether an individual is eligible for a CDL license.
The rules are: (1) the driver needs to be at least 21 years old (2) the driver needs to able to read and speak English (3) the driver needs to have a valid commercial motor vehicle operator’s license (4) the driver needed to have completed the driver’s road test and (5) the driver must be physically qualified to drive which needs to be verified by receiving a medical certificate from a medical examiner claiming the driver is physical qualified to drive. See http://semi-accident.com for more information on the FMCSA regulations.
The GAO’s research found that there were many individuals who were driving without a medical certificate, the fifth requirement. Therefore, bureaucratic snafus have resulted in drivers having CDLs without meeting these clear cut requirements. As with the heparin debacle, http://heparin-law.com, it is clear that the U.S. government needs to make technological advancements so that they can assure these straightforward requirements are met before issuing or renewing commercial driver licenses.
The NTSB (The National Transportation Safety Board), which investigates transportation accidents, suggested additional requirements for CDL drivers. In 2006, 12% of commercial accidents were caused by the drivers having a heart attack, fatigue or another physical impairment. The NTSB agency concluded that by adding these eight requirements for a CDL, many more accidents could be prevented.
The NTSB’s Eight Suggestions are:
If the DOT adopts these eight recommendations from the NTSB, this could help eliminate accidents involving CDL license drivers who are not fit to drive.
The FMCSA (Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration),which works closely with the DOT, has five main requirements that determines whether an individual is eligible for a CDL license.
The rules are: (1) the driver needs to be at least 21 years old (2) the driver needs to able to read and speak English (3) the driver needs to have a valid commercial motor vehicle operator’s license (4) the driver needed to have completed the driver’s road test and (5) the driver must be physically qualified to drive which needs to be verified by receiving a medical certificate from a medical examiner claiming the driver is physical qualified to drive. See http://semi-accident.com for more information on the FMCSA regulations.
The GAO’s research found that there were many individuals who were driving without a medical certificate, the fifth requirement. Therefore, bureaucratic snafus have resulted in drivers having CDLs without meeting these clear cut requirements. As with the heparin debacle, http://heparin-law.com, it is clear that the U.S. government needs to make technological advancements so that they can assure these straightforward requirements are met before issuing or renewing commercial driver licenses.
The NTSB (The National Transportation Safety Board), which investigates transportation accidents, suggested additional requirements for CDL drivers. In 2006, 12% of commercial accidents were caused by the drivers having a heart attack, fatigue or another physical impairment. The NTSB agency concluded that by adding these eight requirements for a CDL, many more accidents could be prevented.
The NTSB’s Eight Suggestions are:
- 1. Doctors performing medical examinations for drivers are qualified to do so and are educated about occupational issues for drivers. In other words, it is essential that these examiners know what type of abilities (as opposed to disabilities) a driver must have. For example: ability to stay focused for up to 11 hours at a time, in high stress traffic situations.
- 2. Every prior application by an individual for medical certification is recorded and reviewed. That the applications and medical certifications, that were received over the previous years for a CDL license, are recorded and reviewed to further evaluate the licensing process.
- 3. Medical certification regulations are updated periodically to permit trained examiners to clearly determine whether drivers with common medical conditions should be issued a medical certificate. The recommendations call for giving medical examiners the regulations with respect to the abilities needed for commercial driving periodically so they’re certain what conditions disqualify an individual from obtaining a CDL license. For more information view: http://subtlebraininjury.blogspot.com/2008/07/gao-medically-unfit-truckers-part-ii.html
- 4. Individuals performing examinations have specific guidance and a readily identifiable source of information for questions on such examinations.
- 5. To structure the review process by the DOT, to prevent, or identify and correct, the inappropriate issuance of medical certification.
- 6. Provide mechanisms for enforcement authorities to identify invalid medical certification during safety inspections and routine stops.
- 7. Provide enforcement authorities with the power to prevent an uncertified driver from driving until an appropriate medical examination takes place.
- 8. Create mechanisms for reporting medical conditions to the medical certification and reviewing authority and to make sure that individuals, health care providers, and employers are aware of these mechanisms.
If the DOT adopts these eight recommendations from the NTSB, this could help eliminate accidents involving CDL license drivers who are not fit to drive.