Back in March I blogged about yet another example of cops out of control -- the murder by cop of a 73-year-old black man, a cancer survivor, who was hosting a family cookout in front of his humble home in Homer, Lousiana.
Officer Tim Cox, and Officer Joey Henry showed up at Bernard Monroe's house to speak with the elderly man's son Shawn (he had a record, but didn't have any current warrants against him). The younger Monroe ran toward the house and Officer Cox pursued him and...
[T]he elder Monroe had started walking toward the front door, carrying only his drink bottle, to try to intervene. When Monroe got to the first step on the front porch, the witnesses said, Cox opened fire, striking him several times as adults and children stood nearby.
"He just shot him through the screen door," said Denise Nicholson, a family friend who said she was standing a few feet from Monroe. "After [Monroe] was on the ground, we kept asking the officer to call an ambulance, but all he did was get on his radio and say, 'Officer in distress.' "
As Monroe lay dying, the witnesses said, the second police officer, who has not been publicly identified, picked up a handgun that Monroe, an avid hunter, always kept in plain sight on the porch for protection. Using a police-issue blue latex glove, the officer grasped the gun by its handle, the witnesses said, and then ordered everyone to back away from the scene. The next thing they said they saw was the gun on the ground next to Monroe's body.
Well, here we are in August (the shooting was on Feb. 20) and there have been at least two investigations. Did anything come of this? The update is the two officers are moving on to other jobs. No one with a badge did any time for the slaying of an unarmed, elderly black man.
"Tim Cox told me he is moving to St. Tammany Parish and I think will be training canines for police departments," Colvin said. "I don't know what Joey Henry is going to do."
Both officers had been on paid administrative leave after the shooting, which is still under investigation by the FBI and state police.
"They should have been gone," said Rev. Willie Young, head of the Claiborne Parish NAACP, on Wednesday. "I don't think taxpayers should have been paying their salaries all this time."
Hat tip, Tasered While Black.
From the Los Angeles Times' L.A. Episcopal leaders nominate 2 openly gay, lesbian priests as bishops:
Episcopal Church leaders in Los Angeles today nominated an openly gay priest and an openly lesbian priest as bishops, becoming one of the first dioceses in the national church to test a controversial new policy that lifted a de facto ban on gays and lesbians in the ordained hierarchy.The nominations of the Rev. John L. Kirkley of San Francisco and the Rev. Canon Mary Douglas Glasspool of a Baltimore-based diocese are likely to further inflame theological conservatives in the U.S. church and their global partners in the Anglican Communion, who have repeatedly warned about the repercussions of such action.
The two are among six nominees who will face election for two assistant bishop posts at the diocese's annual December convention in Riverside.
The Diocese of Los Angeles, which represents 70,000 Episcopalians in six counties, is widely regarded as one of the most liberal in the U.S. church of 2.1 million members. Its bishop, the Rt. Rev. J. Jon Bruno, is an outspoken advocate of gays rights in the church.
"I affirm each and every one of these candidates and am pleased at the wide diversity they offer this diocese," Bruno said in a statement...
Read more details about this at the Los Angeles Times.
Queer Music Heritage is both an entertaining and informative website and a radio program produced and hosted by JD Doyle. The program is part of Queer Voices on KPFT 90.1 in Houston. The website has archives going back to 2000 with lots of photographs and transcripts from the radio program.
There are also quite a few cover scans of albums by gay and lesbian recording artists, artist spotlights, and many other features.
http://www.queermusicheritage.us
More below the fold.
One of my favorite sections of the website is about Camp Records, a company that produced gay novelty records in the mid-1960s.
The Most Outrageous (and Queerest) Record Label of the 60s
by JD Doyle
Almost nothing is known about the mysterious 60's record label Camp Records. They released an album and 10 45 rpm records of gay parody songs, most done with effeminate voices.
[...]
The artists singing most of the songs were uncredited, or with names obviously made up, like Byrd E. Bath and B. Bubba, but one name stands out, Rodney Dangerfield. That name credited on one of the songs, and possibly another. This would have been very early in Dangerfield's career, as his website bio says he decided to devote his career to comedy at age 40, which would have been in 1961. But I don't think it was the comedian we know; just a prop name used for the release. Dangerfield disclaims any knowledge of it...
In addition to historical information, the Camp Records section includes scans of the various album and 45 covers and digital music files that can be downloaded.
It is important to keep in mind that these records were marketed to a gay audience through specialty magazines of the era, such as Vagabond and Drum. They were not intended to be hateful nor disparaging toward gay men.
It seems that ads for Camp Records disappeared from these publications after running for only a few of months in 1965. At the same time, distributors of erotic books and magazines began to sell items that were much more explicit. It could have been that the magazines used the sale of these records to establish that they sold items that had a "redeeming social value" and thereby hoped to avoid obscenity charges. Once obscenity laws bega began to change, the novelty products were no longer needed -- and took up space for more profitable x-rated items. Or, perhaps Camp Records simply went out of business.
Regardless of my speculation, these records are certainly unique and have a place in recording history. It is admirable that JD Doyle has taken the time to document them on his website.
Crossposted at AlbumArtExchange Blog.www.GayTalkRadio.org
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