Sunday, April 05, 2015

It's alway lies.

North Carolina candidate for Sentate Steve Wiles lives a life that is a lie. He is a political homophobe who use to be a crossdresser named Miss Mona Sinclair. His life is a life. He is a hypocrate. All he stands for is cast in ruin. Yet he still has hope...

“I think that everyone has their own choices to make and I’m fine with everyone making their own. For me, from a religious standpoint, just for my life, for me, it just was not something that I wanted to continue. Of course it was an embarrassment, but you know, you move on. You live life, and you change, and you make yourself what you want yourself to be. And that’s where I am now.”

Things would be different if he had been an opely gay cross-dressing politician, but he hid his past and will not admit to being gay (yet). I’m sure time will out him. As for trust… there should be none.

Instagram and censorship

I’m an Instagram fan. I have several accounts and follow a wide range of people, some with photography talent, and some who just tell the story of their lives. I have a simple means of determining what like and don’t like. I swipe past photos I don’t like. I heart photos that like. On occasion, I find a photo that I don’t like because I am offended by it, but I swipe past. On occasion, I’ve stopped following. It seems simple. I don’t need somebody else to determine what I can see.

Why is it that Instagram censors its feed? Buzzfeen addresses this in Why did Instragrm Delete these women’s photos of their bodies?

Last December, the company announced that it has 300 million users who upload more than 70 million photos and videos every day.

Attempting to enforce community standards at such a scale will no doubt inevitably result in accidental takedowns and confusion. But the frequency with which Instagram takes down photographs involving the female body and expressions of feminism has provoked controversy – and suggests a broader tension between the network and its users.

I looked at each photo and honestly cannot see why any of them were deleted. I don’t need to be protected from these images. Lighten up Instagram, quit pushing people to Tumblr.

If only justice worked this way

“When you think you are high and mighty and you are above the law, you don’t have to answer to nobody. But I got news for them, everybody who played a part in sending me to death row, you will answer to God,” - Anthony Ray Hinton

After 28 years, Anthony Ray Hinton was freed from prison after spending half his life on death row. He believes God will sort things out. If only justice worked that way…

The people who stole his life will feel no pain or judgment. There is no recourse, even when we can see that people, through incompetence or malevolence, violated his rights. Nothing will happen. No one will be held accountable. Looking to God is an impotent promise that serves only to comfort the victim.

I tend to look at the systemic issues related to cases like this and try to figure out what change can be made to prevent these types of things from happening. I thing prosecuting black man for capital murder in Alabama might be something that requires oversight. Eliminating the death penalty is another option. What I would like to see most is an independent federal investigation of the case. What put this man on death row and was the case manipulated so that he could not get a fair trail?