Odds & Ends:

1. Timoshenko Update: This continuing saga of the killing of NYPD Detective Russel Timoshenko was commented about in Blog postings of 16 November 2008, and two on 15 July 2007 (here and here). Dexter Bostic, the gunman who actually fired the bullets at Timoshenko, was sentenced to life without parole on the murder conviction and some consecutive sentences for the attempted murder and weapons violations. Bostic's accomplice, Robert Ellis, was convicted on the weapons charge, and got the 15 year maximum. Accomplice Lee Woods got a mistrial; his retrial has started.

Bostic is still whining about the injustice of the system. The only thing that is missing is Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton complaining about how the system is biased against b-l-a-c-k people. But I really didn't expect them to show up. After all, the judge who heard the case and imposed the sentence, Hon. Plummer Lott, is also an African-American.


2. Yesterday I went to a Continuing Legal Education seminar, in order to fulfill my CLE requirements for my license to practice law. As with any other CLE course, price and timing were my primary factors in the selection. It could have been any topic, but in this case the topic related to diversity in the workplace. I fully expected all of the usual leftist liberal crap about affirmative action, and I expected a full deck of race cards to be played out.

Surprise! Diversity in the workplace was touted by most of the panelists as being the economically optimal choice (as opposed to the good progressive liberal thing to do). This is the message I have been delivering to my students for many, many years. And one African-American attorney came out point blank and stated that new associates in a law firm will not succeed if they carry around an attitude of entitlement! Much welcome evidence that Fat Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson and the rest of them do not necessarily represent the views of the African-American community at large.


3. Speaking of Fat Al, he's now making a big stink about a cartoon that appeared in the New York Post. I personally don't see what is so racist about it. Comparing Barack Hussein Obama to a chimpanzee? Hey, they did it to George W. Bush! I don't have the time or the inclination, but someone ought to go through all of the cartoons that have appeared in the Amsterdam News, the NYC newspaper whose target audience is the b-l-a-c-k community. If the Amsterdam News is held to the same standard to which Sharpton and the NAACP now seek to hold the N.Y. Post, then I would have no objection!