This is where I came in

My first post here (assigned by Lem) was "We are all Trayvon." Come to find out recently there were glaring inconsistencies everywhere. The tl;dw of this video, by the self-styled black guys at Bloggingheads, is Rachel Jeantel was not the real girlfriend of Trayvon. In this video, and/or the one that follows it up, Loury and McWhorter bring out obvious things missed or overlooked at the time; Rachel Jeantel could not read a letter she had supposedly written to Trayvon because it was in cursive; Trayvon 6'3" tall, and Zimmerman was short; etc. Glad the jury was on the case.

Zimmerman Gun Auction Hit a Snag

Gun auction website says it wants no part in George Zimmerman's plan to sell pistol used to kill Trayvon Martin: https://t.co/m3S2boMolk

— The Associated Press (@AP) May 12, 2016

“It looks like someone is doing paint by number.”

"Watch out, George W. Bush. Another man has joined the former president atop the list of America’s most beguiling painters: George Zimmerman. Art world watchers are not amused."

“Angie” is not the first time Zimmerman has picked up a brush. In December, the former neighborhood watchman sold a blue, latex paint illustration of the American flag with the text “God One Nation with Liberty and Justice For All” for $100,099.99 on the auction site eBay.

“It’s very primitive,” said Jason Edward Kaufman, a contributing editor at Art+Auction, about Zimmerman’s work, “the sort of thing an art critic wouldn’t look at twice.”

While the American flag painting may look like a military ad or a patriotic poster, “Angie” looks like a “bloodbath,” Kaufman said.

“They’re just kind of so appalling that you hate to make comparisons,” said Andrew Russeth, art critic for the New York Observer, when asked to place Zimmerman’s painting in the context of a particular artistic movement. “It looks like someone is doing paint by number.”

Russeth panned the paintings as “a desperate cry for attention.”

“People like George Zimmerman and George W. Bush who don’t seem to be able to make their cases in other ways kind of see art as a field in which they can redeem themselves,” he added.

George Zimmerman’s Paintings: A Critical Appraisal

UPDATE: The Associated Press has demanded that George Zimmerman halt the sale of one of his paintings because the news agency says it directly copies an AP photo.

We Are All Trayvon

In her 7/20/13 post, "At the Trayvon "rallies"---"Hundreds gathered in Los Angeles, San Francisco and other California cities Saturday morning," Ann Althouse reports, "At the Miami rally, Trayvon Martin's father spoke, and the NYT describes the crowd as "dozens of people.""

250 miles away in Sanford, FL, where George Zimmerman had been forced to shoot Trayvon Martin, the protests that police and journalists had been anticipating failed to materialize. According to the NYT:

As protests over the verdict unfolded across the country, it became clear in Sanford that the widely forecast unrest was unlikely to come to pass. "We might be angry about the verdict," said Larry Williams, 55, as he sat in the air-conditioned chill of his friend's barbershop in Goldsboro on Monday. "But why go out and do anything you would not want to do?"

So, on Monday, people carried on, some with heavier hearts than others. Shauna Rollf, 24, who works at the Taste of Thyme Cafe, said business was lighter than normal because Sanford residents were avoiding all the reporters and camera crews prowling through downtown. Like others, she was awaiting the day the news media swarm left. "I think everybody's kind of exhausted," she said.

A few blocks away, a dozen pastors, city officials and perhaps a hundred residents, black and white, filed into the New Life Word Center Church for a noontime prayer service. They prayed for peace and racial reconciliation, and they prayed for the Zimmerman and Martin families. "God, we realize there is no winner in this situation," one pastor said, as those gathered raised their hands heavenward, crying out, "That's right."

The new police chief, Cecil E. Smith, also spoke from the altar, praising the town. "Everybody wants us to go out and act up," he said. "We are peaceful in the middle of an issue that has divided our country."

Meanwhile, in NYC, "[a]s the crowds of thousands shouted, "We're all Trayvon Martin,"" the Rev. Al Sharpton "announced a plan to hold a protest in the capital in August to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, where the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his famous "I Have a Dream" speech," and also added, "We're going to keep the focus on the Justice Department because Trayvon Martin had the civil right to go home that day," and "We cannot have a society where any one of our children can be taken based on someone feeling they had the right to stand their ground. Well, what about Trayvon's right to stand his ground? And what about our right to stand our ground?"

Between the vale of the grieving father, attended by dozens, and the mountaintop upon which the Rev. Al Sharpton basked in the glow of thousands, there lies a vast inconsistency.    

In the Catholic Church, even the unbaptized are permitted to perform emergency baptisms if done so with required intention; for the baptizer is merely the conduit of grace. Regardless of our opinions of Rev. Sharpton, let us hope that at the capital in August he will be an instrument of grace toward the realization of, as President Obama recently said, "...becoming a more perfect union--not a perfect union, but a more perfect union."