That danged dog had better not drool on my Nabs. Even as I stood on the side of Interstate 85 in Spartanburg, S.C., on Thursday night, surrounded by three cops and a dog, that was my first thought. I had been pulled over nabbed, so to speak - while driving through the Palmetto State on my way to Atlanta in a rental car. I knew I wasn't speeding, so I wondered what creative reason the cop - - oops, make that cops; two more drove up before he reached me - would give for stopping me. [continues 782 words]
It was one of the catch-phrases that defined the decade of the 1960s. The refrain "Don't bogart that joint" was on a lot of lips in the 1960s. So were joints. The phrase was a hipster's way of admonishing pot-smoking compatriots not to hog the doobie -- smoking a marijuana cigarette and refusing to share it. Now, though, presidential candidates or members of their staffs seem intent upon placing former drug use on a par with murder, sedition and failing to rewind a videotape. [continues 501 words]
When Alan Muriera and Abdullah Jihad opened their boxing gym right smack in the middle of a neighborhood known for drugs and gangs, they expected to be attacked. And they were. "We got shot at the first day we went there," Muriera recalled. He and Jihad found out who the gunman was, confronted him and invited him to use the gym. He did and is now more likely to be throwing punches than lead. What caught the pair off-guard and possibly landed a knockout blow to their plans to transform the entire neighborhood, though, was the one-two punch from the man who leased the building to them. [continues 456 words]
Comedian Richard Pryor told a story of being caught in flagrante delicto -- if you have to ask, don't ask -- by his wife. Thinking quickly but not well, he asked "Who are you going to believe: me or your lying eyes?" Don't be surprised if you hear some police officers and their apologists ask the same question during the investigations into yet another videotaped beating of a black suspect. "Surprised," heck. A group known affectionately as the "yeah-buts" has already started their defense of this latest incident of police misconduct in Los Angeles. [continues 512 words]
Good morning, and welcome to America's highest -- not highest-rated, just highest -- TV game show: "Whose Dope Is It Anyway?" That's not really a TV show, but it is one of the questions the feds and Chatham County residents have been trying to answer since 5,000 pounds of marijuana went "POOF" in 2000. They want to know not only to whom the confiscated weed belonged, but also where it went. You might recall that some of it disappeared from a truck behind the sheriff's office and a ton - -- yes, a ton -- of it was removed from the landfill where sheriff's deputies are said to have buried it allegedly so drug dealers couldn't get their filthy hands on it. [continues 467 words]
Noted 20th-century philosopher Richard Pryor once told a funny but poignant story about filming a movie in an Arizona prison where most of the inmates were young black dudes. He talked, among other things, about a profound sense of loss, about how these strong young warriors could be out helping to build a better world but instead were locked up, victimized by "the man." After weeks spent getting to know these noble "warriors" -- one of whose heinous crimes had earned him a triple life sentence -- Pryor reached a different conclusion. He chucked his romanticism for their plight and gleefully proclaimed, "Thank God for prisons." [continues 434 words]
Darryl Strawberry and Robert Downey Jr. could probably use a drink right about now. The two celebrities -- one an ex-baseball star, the other a soon-to-be ex-movie star -- have waged very public, losing battles against drug addiction over the past several years. Because of their celebrity status, though, both were given breaks by the judicial system that Joe Schmo, bricklayer or carpenter, would have never received. Continual short sentences or probation or house arrest -- punishments that most people could serve standing on their heads -- and court-ordered treatment followed nearly each time Strawberry or Downey was busted. They were treated less like criminals and more like celebrities in a star-struck society. [continues 565 words]
