The Hemingway Report

Sunday, March 4, 2018

Statue of Marion Barry, controversial former mayor, unveiled in Washington

Bear in mind while Confederate statues are coming down they're erecting this one. If he wasn't a liberal politician he would have been behind bars. Oh wait...he was behind bars.

Remember this?

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A new statue of Marion Barry, a former mayor of Washington, D.C., is seen after its unveiling, March 3, 2018. (DC Council)

To some in Washington, D.C., he was a “living legend” who advocated for the city’s poor. To others he was a controversial figure remembered for being re-elected mayor despite serving a prison sentence for possession of crack cocaine.

On Saturday, an 8-foot-high bronze statue of former Mayor Marion Barry was unveiled on Pennsylvania Avenue in the nation’s capital, just blocks from the White House.

The statue, designed by artist Steven Weitzman, was ordered by the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities, Washington's Fox 5 reported. The estimated $250,000 cost was covered by a combination of public and private funds, the Washington Business Journal reported.

The move to honor Barry, who died at age 78 in 2014, may seem mystifying to non-Washingtonians. But among Barry's supporters, the statue is an appropriate tribute to a legitimate D.C. icon — a man so popular and influential that he walked out of federal prison and immediately began winning elections again with one of the most improbable comebacks in American political history.

"He was a living legend," said City Councilman Trayon White, during an appearance Thursday on an influential local radio show hosted by Kojo Nnamdi. "Marion Barry was an integral part of getting D.C. where it is today. ... To honor a man like that who touched so many people — it's right for the city.”

Marion Barry, a former mayor of Washington, D.C., who died in 2014, is seen in a photo from July 6, 2009. (Associated Press)

Not everyone views Barry so fondly. When the radio show started taking phone calls, the first caller blasted Barry as an "abysmal mayor" who presided over an era of corruption and mismanagement but now benefits from what the caller referred to as "convenient historical amnesia."

Wait. What? D.C. is erecting a statue to honor crack smoking Mayor Marion Barry who served 6 months in a federal prison? Talk about offensive statues.... #LiberalismIsAMentalDisorder
— Deplorable JP (@JP61926104) March 3, 2018

Regardless of the personal opinions on him, there's no denying that Barry had a massive influence on the capital city. With modern Washington undergoing widespread gentrification and large numbers of poorer black residents being priced out and leaving, Barry evokes an earlier time when the District truly was "Chocolate City" — one of the power centers of black America.

"Marion Barry was an integral part of getting D.C. where it is today."

- City Councilman Trayon White

He's right:

Despite his widely acknowledged personal failings, he is regarded as having enriched and elevated other black residents and partially credited with helping create the robust black middle class that populates both Washington and neighboring Prince George's County in Maryland.

City Councilwoman Anita Bonds, in an email to the Associated Press, recalled Barry's "magnetic personality" and credited him with directing 45 percent of government contracts to minority-owned businesses and launching multiple initiatives, "to uplift communities that were often overlooked and left out."

A local columnist in the 1990s coined the title "mayor for life" — a term which evokes something closer to a third world demagogue than a modern democratic official. But Barry's supporters embrace that nickname as a badge of pride, a symbol of Barry's lifelong connection to the city and its residents. A generation of black Washingtonians got their first paying jobs through one of Barry's summer youth employment programs.

Barry brought a legitimate and undeniable pre-politics resume as a pioneering civil rights activist. A Memphis native, Barry became heavily involved in the nascent civil rights movement as a university student in the late 50s and 60s, serving as the first chairman of the seminal Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. He moved to Washington in 1965 to run the SNCC office there.

Barry quickly became deeply involved in Washington's black community, founding a program to provide job training to unemployed black men and getting elected first to the school board, then to city council. In 1978, he became Washington's second elected mayor. He served three terms, which were marked by increasingly erratic behavior, corruption allegations and widespread suspicions of drug and alcohol abuse.

The 1990 sting and subsequent trial caused him not to seek a fourth term. He was sentenced to six months in prison for cocaine possession, although a deadlocked jury couldn't convict him on some of the more serious charges.

In one notorious episode, the Washington Post reported in January 1992 that inmates and a federal official claimed to have seen Barry engaged in a sex act with a female visitor in front of dozens of people. Barry denied the claims.

After his 1992 release, Barry immediately ran for and won a seat on the city council, then successfully ran for mayor again in 1994 and served one term. Barry left politics for few years, then ran for city council again and won in 2005, serving until his death in 2014.

Throughout his entire career, Barry was dogged by legal troubles, corruption allegations, drunk-driving arrests and a host of other issues that would have obliterated the career of most politicians.

But Barry's ultimate legacy and popularity might be summarized by the campaign slogan he adopted when he emerged from prison and dove straight back into politics: "He May Not Be Perfect, But He's Perfect for D.C."

Friday, March 2, 2018

Why you shouldn't have brain surgery in Barry's homeland

Kenyan hospital staff suspended after brain surgery on wrong patient

March 2 (UPI) -- Two hospital officials in Kenya have been placed on leave for an incident in which a physician performed brain surgery on the wrong patient.

Staff noticed the blunder hours into the craniotomy surgery when doctors could not locate a hematoma, which is a blood clot and was the reason for the surgery.

The mistake last weekend apparently was caused by a mix-up of the patients' identification tags'.

The neurosurgeon, two nurses and an anesthesiologist have been suspended. The patient who underwent surgery is recovering, officials said.

Lily Koros, the hospital's CEO said the medical center "deeply regrets this event and has done all it can to ensure the safety and well-being of the patient in question. We are happy to inform the public that the patient is in recovery and progressing well."

Koros has been placed on leave during an investigation, along with the hospital's director of clinical services.

The Left

So two can play at this game

Georgia Republicans honor their threat, pass bill punishing Delta for cutting ties with NRA

In a show of political strength, Georgia lawmakers on Thursday overwhelmingly approved a bill that was stripped of an earlier provision granting Delta Air Lines a lucrative tax break.

By passing the bill, lawmakers carried out the threat that Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle, R, made to Atlanta-based Delta earlier this week: if the airline did not restore discounted fares to members of the National Rifle Association, Republicans would strike down a $50 million sales-tax exemption on jet fuel from its larger tax-cut package. Delta, which is one of the state's largest employers, would have been the primary beneficiary of the exemption.

Cagle threatened Delta days after it announced it would stop offering discounted fares to NRA members amid the national gun-control debate after the deadly Valentine's Day shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. United Airlines, Best Western, MetLife and at least a dozen other companies also cut perks and discounts to NRA members.

"I will kill any tax legislation that benefits @Delta unless the company changes its position and fully reinstates its relationship with @NRA," Cagle tweeted on Monday. "Corporations cannot attack conservatives and expect us not to fight back."

The bill granting the jet-fuel tax exemption was easily approved in the House last week, and appeared to have wide support. Advocates said it would attract flights to Atlanta as opposed to other major airports, where jet-fuel taxes are charged. But in the days since Delta's announcement, other Georgia Republicans rallied behind Cagle, and the Senate Rules Committee on Wednesday voted to remove the jet-fuel exemption from the tax-cut package.

Cagle, who has served as Georgia's lieutenant governor since 2007, could weave the issue into his campaign in Georgia's upcoming gubernatorial race, in which he is considered the leading GOP contender to replace Gov. Nathan Deal, R. Deal this week said he would reluctantly support the measure because of the bill's broader cuts to the state's income tax rate, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Delta has not commented on the threat from Cagle, who says he is "a lifelong member of the NRA" and boasts that he has earned an A+ rating from the organization every year he has served in elected office. The airline could not immediately be reached for comment on lawmakers' removal of the tax exemption.

Delta at first resisted taking a stance, as companies with even the slightest affiliation to the NRA were called out and a list of companies that had cut ties with the NRA began circulating on Twitter. But Delta held out against the pressure for only a few hours.

The NRA has lashed out at companies who've dropped the discounts, saying they were participating in "a shameful display of political and civic cowardice." But the group also downplayed the importance of the company's actions, saying the "loss of a discount will neither scare nor distract one single NRA member from our mission."

In the days since the showdown between Delta and Georgia Republicans began, top blue-state politicians have encouraged Delta to relocate its hub from Atlanta.

"@Delta, if Georgia politicians disagree with your stand against gun violence, we invite you to move your headquarters to New York," said New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, D, in a tweet Tuesday.

But experts say it's unlikely Delta will respond to the invitations of Democratic state leaders by moving its hub. According to a Bloomberg article:

"Delta virtually 'owns' the world's busiest airport. Sure, the city is technically the landlord, but nothing of much import happens at Hartsfield without Delta's say-so. Part of this influence derives from location, seeing as it's headquartered right next to the runways. Another source of power is the estimated $71 billion in annual economic impact that Georgia enjoys from Hartsfield, which claims to be the state's largest employer. Moreover, less than two years ago, Delta signed a 20-year lease to stay in Atlanta, its home for the past 77 years."

Although Delta ended its alliance with the NRA, the company said its position on the gun-control debate remains neutral. "Out of respect for our customers and employees on both sides, Delta has taken this action to refrain from entering this debate and focus on its business. Delta continues to support the 2nd Amendment," the airline said in a statement Saturday.