A Democracy Falls...and Cocaine Hippos are "People" (Seth Tower Hurd's The Five. - Issue #103)
Hey, welcome to The Five.
Today was supposed to be the first issue published on Twitter’s Revue platform (where I believe The Five will reach more readers).
However, it’s brand new and still not working…so I’m publishing The Five here on Substack again today.
(Apologies to the three most recent subscribers, who may receive this issue from both platforms).
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[one]
The west African nation of Sudan was very close to full scale democracy...until yesterday.
A flourishing kindgom in anqituity (circa 2,700 BC, when grain, ivory and hides made the nation--then known as the Kingdom of Kush, wealthy) Sudan had been ruled by Egypt, Belgian and Britain in the modern era.
In 1956, Sudan became independent...and the decades since have been rocky, with a couple of civil wars and a country split (South Sudan declared independence in 2011--officially known as the Republic of Sudan). Oh yeah, Sudan has also been at war, on and off, with neighboring Ethiopia and possibly engaged in genocide against the Tigray tribe, which live along the border.
But hey, elections were supposed to be just around the corner (2023), so things were looking up.
Until yesterday, when a military coup took over the country.
For two years, Sudan had looked to be on the path to democracy — leaving behind decades of violent military dictatorship to become a pocket of stability in the turbulent but strategically important Horn of Africa region.
But Monday's military coup d'etat has turned that on its head, taking U.S. officials by surprise and sparking fear that a failure of democratic transition there could encourage coups elsewhere and lead to a loss of U.S. influence in the region.
Since the overthrow of Omar al-Bashir in 2019, a transitional government composed of civilians and military had worked together under the leadership of Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok to move the country toward elections in 2023.
Now, with Hamdok in detention, the military in full control and security forces opening fire on protesters, the Biden administration has suspended $700 million in aid as the U.S. State Department calls on the military to release Hamdok and restore the civilian government.
Observations:
A. This is absolutely heartbreaking...and will also go more or less unnoticed.
B. I have no prescription for how to put together a nation that's suffered so much conquest and conflict. Sudan is simply one of the most tragic places in the world.
C. In the last two years, Sudan was removed from the list of the U.S. State Sponsor of Terrorism list, moved towards normalizing relations with Israel and agreed to pay U.S. victims of the USS Cole bombing (a terrorist attack carried out in Yemen on October 12, 2000...which a court found Sudan to be liable for as a state sponsor of terrorism...the attack was carried out by Al Qaeda).
D. All that progress was likely erased yesterday.
E. And one more thing...30% of container ships pass through the Red Sea. Sudan has 400 miles of coastline...so if the new military government wants to launch piracy and/or terrorism against the global supply chain, opportunities abound.
[two]
On Friday, 65-year-old Texan Terry Turner was arrested and charged with murder in the murder of Adil Dghoughi, a Moroccan who immigrated to the U.S. 10 years prior.
According to the affidavit, Turner told deputies he had gotten up to use the bathroom and while crossing the living room and foyer of his home, he opened his front door and discovered Dghoughi's car with the headlights off parked in the driveway. Turner told deputies he ran back to his bedroom, got his handgun and ran back outside, at which point he said Dghoughi’s headlights turned on.
Turner told deputies the car started to rapidly go in reverse and he chased after it, the affidavit says. At the end of the driveway, while next to the driver’s side window, Turner said he hit the window twice with his gun and then shot through it. He then went back into his house and called 911.
“I just killed a guy,” Turner told a dispatcher, according to the affidavit. While the dispatcher was gathering information, Turner allegedly added that Dghoughi “started racing away and I ran after him.”
“He pointed a gun at me and I shot,” Turner said, according to the affidavit.
Despite Turner’s claims, the probable cause affidavit states no guns were found inside of Dghoughi’s car.
Observations:
A. Both the Daily Beast and NPR were critical of the fact that Turner was initially released on bond after the shooting, before being re-arrested on formal murder charges days later...which is odd because both NPR (here, here, here, here, here and here) and the Daily Beast (here) have a history of features that seem to support an anti-cash-bail stance. Assuming intellectual integrity, both outlets would support Turner awaiting trial at home without posting any bail.
B. Both the aforementioned outlets have done a good bit of handwringing about whether the "Stand Your Ground" law in Texas will let Turner go free. So I checked out what Texas lawyers have to say about this.
From Simer & Tetens in Waco, TX:
Texas law states that you have no duty to retreat when there is a reasonable belief you are in danger and it extends to your home, vehicle, or job.
You can justify the use of deadly force if you believe it was absolutely necessary to prevent a violent crime like sexual assault, kidnapping, murder, or robbery.
I'm no legal expert (but do have years of experience as a beat reporter covering crimes and police issues), but I can't imagine a situation where a man chasing an car out of his driveway...and kills the guy...counts as "a reasonable belief" of being in danger.
C. With a bevy of headlines about a "Moroccan man" being gunned down, what the national press wants the public to believe is that this is a racially motivated murder.
I'm not going to rule out the possibility. However, according to Turner's 911 call, Adil was first sitting in the dark, in his SUV, and then had the headlines turned on (we can assume they were shining in Turner's face). As the facts (that we have) stand, it looks like murder. But I'm going to need to know more before I pin the murder on racism, given the chance that Turner may not have been able to see the victim clearly.
D. Whataboutism is a bad tactic to engage in when arguing, but in the case of comparing what stories go from local to national stories, it's a useful tool. This weekend, a 41-year-old man in Chicago was shot and killed outside his car by a man looking for a getaway vehicle for another murder the shooter allegedly committed minutes before at a bus stop. Both are equally tragic, but it's worth noting that Miguel Padilla's life doesn't seem to matter as much to the national media.
E. It's also worth noting that the aforementioned coverage of Texas' Stand Your Ground law...has not been brought up in any way, except by the media. There's no attorney for Turner calling it self defense due to Stand Your Ground, so it's questionable (at best) why this is in the story at all. Rather than cover Adil's murder in a straight forward fashion, both NPR and the Daily Beast rushed to "what could happen" in this...including the idea that Turner could be absolved of the shooting due to Stand Your Ground. He wasn't. He's awaiting a trial for murder.
[three]
The Defund the Police movement took an (expected, in my view) turn this week when an upscale neighborhood in San Francisco moved towards private policing.
More than 150 families living in San Francisco have hired private security to patrol their streets amid brazen property crimes, with some saying they no longer feel safe in their own neighborhood.
"We don’t feel safe in our neighborhood," resident Katie Lyons, told CBS SF. "And we have an alarm, we have cameras on our property, but we want the extra security of having someone have eyes on our place."
Lyons and other families hired patrol special officer Alan Byard to help patrol the streets of the city’s Marina District following repeated instances of car break-ins and home burglaries.
He added that his business from residential clients has doubled since the coronavirus pandemic, starting with 70 families and growing to 150 families in the Marina District alone.
Recently, San Francisco reversed the defund-the-police-budget due to skyrocketing crime. But more money doesn't equal more cops on the streets however. The city is experiencing difficulty recruiting officers due to poor working conditions and alleged increases assaults on officers.
Whatever societal problems the Defund the Police movement set to out solve...the result, in San Francisco, at least is that the upper middle class and rich now have more access to police services than the poor.
[four]
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey sounded off on the inflation trend.
The co-founder of Twitter has warned that 'hyperinflation' could soon hit the US and 'change everything' in the world.
Jack Dorsey, 44, who is currently the CEO of both Twitter and Square - a mobile payment company - issued a warning about the rise of inflation in America over the weekend.
Many of his 5.8million followers quickly responded to Dorsey for more information, and in responding to one person, he said: 'It will happen in the US soon, and so the world.'
Taking to Twitter on Saturday, Dorsey wrote: 'Hyperinflation is going to change everything. It's happening.'
Recently, the US economy has been badly impacted by a supply chain crisis, which has seen consumers spending more money and buying greater numbers of products, but businesses struggling to meet demand.
A backlog of shipping at ports across the US has resulted in the supply chain struggling to keep its head above the water.
Specifically, the Port of Los Angeles, where more than half of all shipping containers arrive in the U.S., has seen significant ship traffic jams. Trucks are not arriving in a timely enough manner to offload the massive number of shipping containers arriving.
Hyperinflation is a term used to describe a period of excessive general price increases of everyday goods in a very short period of time.
Typically, hyperinflation sees the rate of inflation rise by 50 per cent each month - by comparison, the rate of inflation has stayed at roughly two per cent per year since 2011 - though the last 12 months have seen a 5.4 per cent hike.
It's fair to point out that Dorsey is a passionate Bitcoin advocate (and Bitcoin continues to rise in value as the dollar falls), but it's not as if the tech entrepreneur is speaking this into existence.
[five]
After such a heavy news day...let's wrap up this issue of The Five with....Cocaine Hippos.
The offspring of hippos once owned by Colombian drug kingpin Pablo Escobar can be recognized as people or “interested persons” with legal rights in the U.S. following a federal court order.
The case involves a lawsuit against the Colombian government over whether to kill or sterilize the hippos whose numbers are growing at a fast pace and pose a threat to biodiversity.
An animal rights groups is hailing the order as a milestone victory in the long sought efforts to sway the U.S. justice system to grant animals personhood status. But the order won't carry any weight in Colombia where the hippos live, a legal expert said.
“The ruling has no impact in Colombia because they only have an impact within their own territories. It will be the Colombian authorities who decide what to do with the hippos and not the American ones,” said Camilo Burbano Cifuentes, a criminal law professor at the Universidad Externado de Colombia.
The “cocaine hippos” are descendants of animals that Escobar illegally imported to his Colombian ranch in the 1980s when he reigned over the country's drug trade. After his death in a 1993 shootout with authorities, the hippos were abandoned at the estate and left to thrive with no natural predators — their numbers have increased in the last eight years from 35 to somewhere between 65 and 80.
A group of scientists has warned that the hippos pose a major threat to the area’s biodiversity and could lead to deadly encounters with humans. They are advocating for some of the animals to be killed. A government agency has started sterilizing some of the hippos, but there is a debate on what are the safest methods.
In the suit, attorneys for the Animal Legal Defense Fund asked the U.S. District Court in Cincinnati to give “interested persons” status to the hippos so that two wildlife experts in sterilization from Ohio could be deposed in the case.
Federal magistrate Judge Karen Litkovitz in Cincinnati granted the request on Oct. 15. The animal rights group based near San Francisco said it believes it’s the first time animals have been declared legal persons in the U.S.
Their attorneys argued that because advocates for the hippos can bring lawsuits to protect their interests in Colombia that the hippos should be allowed to be considered “interested persons” under U.S. law.
Hippos are listed as "vulnerable" with a decreasing global population...so relocation might be a better option than mass slaughter here.
Because Cocaine Hippos are People Too.*
Until the next one,
-sth
*According to a judge in Cincinnati. Legal disclaimer: hippos are not people. Also, the cocaine hippos do not consume cocaine. That we know of.