Or perhaps, as you say, she got the story completely wrong. I suppose I’ll shoot her an email and see where the statistic came from.

[She says where she got it from, a speech by another reporter. Even if one goes by the USA Today statistics *and* disregards the fines that are pending or delinquent *and* counts deaths that are not the fault of the coal mines in the denominator, Mencimer’s number is wrong. Moreover, it’s a mistake to just look at fines: mines are shut down during MSHA investigations, and the expense of that to coal mines as a deterrence far exceeds MSHA’s fining authority. — TF]

I found this link http://usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-01-09-mine-fines_x.htm which indicates that many mine companies are paying far less than the fines they are assessed.

Do you by any chance have any more current statistics as to fines paid vs. fines assessed?

[The USA Today story indicates that mine companies are winning appeals when MHSA oversteps its bounds and tries to scapegoat mines for fatal accidents without evidence of wrongdoing. It doesn’t change my underlying point or absolve the fact that Mencimer got the story completely wrong. — TF]

The police are in an impossible situation here. If they patrol an area vigorously, incidents like this just might happen on occasion. But if they don’t, they’re “neglecting the community”. A great example of this from a few years back: For one year’s Puerto Rican day parade, police patrolled, and were accused of being too hard on blacks and Hispanics. The next year, they hung back… only to get sued by women who were attacked by parade-goers for their failure to protect them.

The frustrating thing is, I don’t get the sense that there’s much appreciation of anything the NYPD does in certain neighborhoods. The practice of “jury nullification” tells me that there isn’t exactly the burning desire to fight crime, because it’s seen as little more than a racist justice system punishing black men for their “mistakes.” I could be wrong, but this is the sense I get.

So why bother? If the accusation of “racism” will fly hot and fast no matter what course of action you take – even if you take diametrically opposed courses of action – what does that say about the relationship ab initio? To me, it suggests dysfunctionality on a level that can’t be resolved.