I Likes It When You Call Me Cool Papa (Part III)

Neither a wrongdoer nor an evil-doer be, particularly in Fairfax (VA). Unfortunately, the D.C. suburb -- which enjoys the economic benefits of a paunchy, law enforcement-related jobs program) is where Malvo the Younger sits cooling his heels.

Farmers "settled" the city in the early-1700s. In 1742, Fairfax County was established when Alexandria, seat of the county court, temporarily became a part of the District of Columbia. The "historical" county courthouse houses the Fairfax Juvenile and Domestic Relations General District Court & Clerks Office. On Chain Bridge Road, the Jennings Judicial Center holds the circuit and district courts, the commonwealth's attorney's and sheriff's offices. Connected to the Center are the Magistrate's office and the Adult Detention Center where Malvo is being detained.

(In nearby Centreville, a crack team of 50-odd detectives keeps scratching and sniffing. At its height, the sniper posse included 1,200-plus investigators and a military spy plane. One breathless report described marshaling the winged bounty hunter as "a tantalizing opportunity for the military: a difficult training mission applicable immediately in military hotspots from Afghanistan to Iraq."

"I cannot imagine a tougher surveillance mission," said Ralph Peters, an author and former Army intelligence officer. "If you can find someone in Washington, D.C., you can find anyone in Baghdad." Even more exciting is the prospect of "mission creep." "I do feel that in the future we're going to see more use of the military domestically," Peters added. "When terrorism strikes domestically, the military is often the best tool."

This breach of Constitutional etiquette elicited nary a discouraging word from Plutocrats. That's good news to George Dubya, who's itchin' to gut the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act, which specifically prohibits the military from engaging in domestic law enforcement. In the battle against "terrorism," the administration doesn't want to be hung up on trifles like civil liberties.)

After federal authorities whisked Malvo the Younger out of Maryland -- like "patrollers" who made their livings apprehending runaway slaves -- a juvenile court judge opined that "strong" circumstantial evidence permitted his being held, and tried, as an adult. The hasty change of venue -- coupled with Virginia's long-standing death penalty statute and an untested "terrorist" law -- makes a death sentence more likely.

Meanwhile, Muhammed the Elder remains in Maryland. Besides murder and terrorism, sundry prosecutors will likely argue M & M conspired to "intimidate the public" and "influence the government" in a scheme to extort $10 million.

I doubt the gentlemen at the detention center celebrated Malvo the Younger's eighteenth birthday on February 18. It is more likely they still keep him in solitary confinement within a 6-by-15-foot cell. They reluctantly provide vegetarian meals rather than a meatless loaf (which caused bloating, diarrhea and bleeding) typically reserved for unruly prisoners. After initially denying him television, radio or reading materials, overseers reportedly allowed magazines and books from the jail library, as well as a copy of the Koran and Gulliver's Travels."

More than likely, his sole visitor remains Todd G. Petit, a 31-year-old lawyer and court-appointed guardian described as "the new parental figure in his life." Virginia law requires that juvenile defendants be given a guardian if their parents are not available to help them in court.

As such, "Petit has risen vigorously to the defense of his charge, speaking of him in more humanizing terms than other lawyers, often calling him Lee," the Times stated. "Prosecutors have been so annoyed by Mr. Petit's advocacy that they have twice tried to have him removed from the case and objected to his questioning of a witness at hearings......in which a juvenile court judge ruled that Mr. Malvo could be tried as an adult and could face the death penalty."

Ashcroft has a jones for the death penalty.

As attorney general, he has ordered federal prosecutors in New York and Connecticut to pursue death penalty in a dozen cases they had already recommended for lesser sentences. Meanwhile, he presided over the first federal executions in four decades, maintaining that a department study had found no evidence of racial bias in the application of the death penalty.

Virginia's prosecutorial sons are as blood-thirsty as Cool Papa.

Paul B. Ebert and Robert F. Horan, Jr. have 17 scalps dangling on their belts. A national media report characterizes them as "tough, savvy and unrelenting veterans with some 70 years of trial experience between them."

Ebert, the commonwealth's attorney for Prince William County, is just a good ol' boy at heart. A humble man, he can't explain why he's had a dozen capital cases. "They say I've had as many as anyone in the commonwealth," Ebert said. "It's kind of a dubious distinction. I
don't take any pleasure in seeking the death penalty."

His sidekick shows more flair.

In 1997, Horan (who as commonwealth attorney for Fairfax, gets to nibble on young Malvo) caused riots in Pakistan when he talked about a reward for information about shootings at the Central Intelligence Agency. "I am sure there are people there who would turn in their mother for $20,000, let alone $2 million," he told a television interviewer. After things hit the fan, he and the State Department issued an apology for the remark, which he claimed had been taken out of context.

Malvo the Younger: Do you think they got the note?
Muhammed the Elder: They got it.
Malvo the Younger: Are you sure? I haven't seen anything on TV.
Muhammed the Elder: They got it.
Malvo the Younger: Maybe we should send another one.
Muhammed the Elder: We just did.
Malvo the Younger (confused): What do you mean?
Muhammed the Elder: Think about it.
Malvo the Younger: The Home Depot!
Muhammed the Elder: Very good. Now try to get some rest.
Malvo the Younger. Yes, sir.

Horan has a lot of momentum behind him.

Fairfax has been the scene of several notable Civil War events. It is the place where Captain John Quincy Marr, the first officer casualty of the Confederacy, was killed (at Fairfax Courthouse on June 1, 1861). By late-1862, Union forces under the command of Brigadier General Edwin H. Stoughton occupied the town. In an "audacious" raid led by Confederate Colonel John S. Mosby in March 1863, Stoughton was captured while he slept in a house belonging to Truro Episcopal Church.

Mosby is a Lion of the Confederacy, celebrated in libraries, museums and Civil War re-enactments. It's a certainty more than one red-blooded American will don his uniform during Civil War Weekend, which will be held May 3-4, 2003 at the Historic Blenheim Estate located on Old Lee Highway in Fairfax. Events will include Mosby's Fairfax Raid, infantry skirmishes, wagon rides through camps, pony rides for children and candlelight tours.

Officially the Forty Third Battalion of Virginia Cavalry, Mosby's Rangers was a unit of "partisan rangers" operating in Northern Virginia from the winter of early-1863 until the end of the War Between the States. During that twenty-eight month span, the Rangers "became the most effective and feared partisan command in the Confederacy."

In January 1863, Mosby -- a cavalry lieutenant who had been Confederate Major General "Jeb" Stuart's chief scout - and fifteen men undertook operations in the Virginia counties south and west of Washington, D.C. Within five months, so many volunteers joined the unit that Mosby received permission to organize the command into a unit of the Army of Northern Virginia. By war's end, the command consisted of two battalions of eight companies. Nearly 1,900 men served in the unit.

The Rangers operated from a base in Fauquier and Loudoun counties, which became known as "Mosby's Confederacy." Local civilians concealed, sheltered and fed the Rangers. The locals also served as an early warning system. Rangers were famous for guerrilla tactics, typically utilizing cover of darkness behind enemy lines, and depending on the element of surprise. As part of their cover, Rangers played daytime civilians. (A century later, Americans criticized certain Vietnamese for employing similar tactics.)

After the war, Mosby -- a renowned brawler and duelist whose boyhood hero was Francis, the "Swamp Fox," Marion, a Revolutionary War guerrilla fighter -- settled in Warrenton, the heart of his Confederacy. There, he was surrounded by men who fought under him. Later, the former law clerk to the Commonwealth's Attorney established a lucrative legal practice and made a killing in real estate.

He remained an unrepentant Confederate.

After Mosby's pardon (he disbanded rather than surrender his forces) in April 1866 in Leesburg, Va., he defied Union orders that no Confederate insignia be worn on the streets. When challenged by federal soldiers, he confronted them, stating that there were "not enough damn Yankees in Leesburg" to strip his uniform of its identification. The insignia stayed, and Mosby "rode out of town triumphant."

It's easy to imagine Rangers in bedsheets.

The dictionary defines a "partisan ranger" as an "adherent to a party or faction; especially, having the character of blind, passionate, or unreasonable adherence to a party." (The original "partisan" was a "weapon having a blade with lateral projections mounted on the end of a long shaft, used chiefly in the 16th and 17th centuries.") To my ear, "partisan ranger" sounds like "nightrider," a "member of a secret mounted band in U.S. south after the Civil War," committing acts of intimidation and revenge.

I'd advise Malvo the Younger to steer clear of rangers -- park, forest, Texas or otherwise -- as well as anyone named Mosby or Barnes.

In 1859, John Horace "Jack" Barnes, Jr. became Deputy Sheriff of Fairfax County, having served as constable in 1857-59 (while helping work the family farm and operate the family mill). When he was six-years-old, Barnes moved from Maryland to Fairfax County where his parents bought "Hope Park" plantation, southeast of the Fairfax Courthouse on Pope's Head Road.

In April 1861, Barnes enlisted as a private in Company D of the 17th Virginia Infantry, the celebrated Fairfax Rifles. So did younger brother Samuel and elder brother William, the latter being the company's first lieutenant. Frank Fox, Barnes' brother-in-law, also served in the 17th and later also become a Ranger.

In May 1861, Barnes was promoted to corporal. A few weeks later, he was captured near Fairfax Courthouse and sent to the Old Capitol Prison. More than one week after his imprisonment, he was sent to a Federal hospital, suffering from "rubeola." He was paroled and exchanged (as was customary during the Civil War) in January 1863.

In March, he joined Mosby and participated in the Fairfax Courthouse raid. The following week, he was captured again. He was paroled March 30 and sent to Petersburg, where he was appointed Sgt. of the parole camp. Around April 25 he rejoined Mosby, only to be taken prisoner again two days later near Cub Run with two other Rangers.


SWAT team leader: Get your hands up and get of the vehicle!
Muhammed the Elder: Stay calm, son.
SWAT team leader: I said get out of the vehicle!
Malvo the Younger: How can we get out with our hands up?
SWAT team leader: (pause) Lower you hands, slowly. And open the door.
Muhammed the Elder: Take it easy son. Do as he says.
Malvo the Younger: Yes, sir.
Muhammed the Elder: We're getting out.
SWAT team leader: On the ground, face down. Now!
Muhammed the Elder: I know the drill. Hey, take it easy on the boy.
SWAT team leader: Shut your mouth!
Malvo the Younger: Why is he shouting?
SWAT team leader: You, too. Quiet!
Muhammed the Elder: I'm not sure, son. Maybe he can't hear himself think.

At this stage of Jeopardy prosecution game, M & M's tongues have been cut out and plopped onto porcelain plates. They'll receive no sympathetic nods from graven-faced Senators. They'll utter naught on "Meet the Press" and "Face the Nation." They'll remain black and tan fantasies. Stern eyes. Mug shots.

It's no surprise M & M remain invisible to the D.C. plutocracy. They're not in the same class. The Senate boasts at least 40 millionaires, the richest being "liberal" Democrats. These Fat Cats -- and presidential wannabes -- include Ted Kennedy ($10.2 million), Jay Rockefeller ($82.1 million) and John Kerry ($139.7 million).On the other side of the aisle, "liberal" GOP Senator Lincoln Chafee weighs in at $53.6 million while the new majority leader, Bill Frist sports an pocketbook of $17 million.

Each day, these Mandarins of Freedom are carted about in air-conditioned rickshaws, their black-capped drivers dodging the progeny of former slaves, to lofty ceilings and burgundy carpets to carry out nation's business. That business does not include the unwashed, even those on their own plantation.

The District is run like a slew of Third World dictatorships in Uncle Sam's employ. In return for creature comforts (and seeming social standing), black-faced elites keep their boots atop natives' necks. This lackeydom is best expressed in federal takeover, limited Congressional "representation" notwithstanding.

Like colonial governors, the Plutocracy wields plenary power over all aspects of local governance, controls the budget, controls the prosecution and adjudication of, as well the imprisonment for, crimes, has the power to deny the city a commuter tax, and is able to pass laws in contravention of the will of DC citizens.

As for the Plutocracy's constituents -- that narrow band known as Middle America, a downtrodden minority of faith-based, SUV-drivers who vote) -- M & M might as well be O.J. and Tyson, Farrakhan or.....what was that fella's name, Rodney something? (King probably had it comin'. Turned out to be a dope fiend, ya' know.)

What can you say about a fatherless, 17-year-old kid whose mother left him as collateral for a loan to buy forged immigration documents? Somebody had to help him grow up, show him how to be a man. Who better than a ex-infantryman and former National Guardsman? He must have taught the kid something.

Immediately after their capture, M & M were separated and interrogated. Despite being isolated and grilled for hours by detectives -- without benefit of legal counsel, parental guardian or a Miranda warning -- Malvo refused to offer up Muhammed in return for leniency. When his interrogators took a break and left the room, he tried to escape through the ceiling.

A forensic psychologist has suggested Mohammed's "Svengali"-like dominance of Malvo be viewed against the failed relationships with his own children. It is unclear whether this same psychologist (or like-minded colleagues) contributed to the egregiously erroneous "serial killer" profiles proffered before M & M were finally collared. Among several things they turned out not to be were loners, unequal opportunists, white.

The "experts" certainly had no inkling as to motive.

Media pundits suggest attitudes about American foreign policy toward the Middle East signal "anti-American sentiments." This conclusion is based on testimony from Harjeet Singh, a Bellingham resident who tipped authorities that his "friend" Muhammed during dinner "once praised the fact that 19 hijackers on Sept. 11 were able to accomplish more than entire armies." Singh said: "He said America needed to learn this lesson a long time ago."

My father, a Korean War veteran who served twenty years in the Air Force, would have liked Muhammed. The Elder sounds a lot like the men I grew up around. To the last, they remained upright, AfroAmerican men valuing honor, duty and sacrifice, adroitly using the military to hoist themselves up the greasy ladder of social mobility.

Any doubts about foreign policy or domestic egalitarianism, they kept to themselves. Instead, they tucked packs of Marlboros or Benson & Hedges or unfiltered Camels into dark stockings razor-creased slacks, snapping salutes with alacrity. They celebrated Presidents Day and the Fourth of July with gusto. They shuttled their young families to outposts in Europe and Asia and Africa, doing their duty. They loved America and taught their children to love it, too.

To my mind, media befuddlement about Muhammed the Elder stems from a National Geographic superficiality and a studied lack of historical perspective. Vietnam and JFK are reduced to stock footage wielded by marketers peddling BMW's and mutual funds. One of the most spine-tingling orations in world history -- King's "I Have a Dream" speech -- is capitalized by a Paris-based communications company named Alcatel.

Yet a tentative scratch at history's gilted surface reveals a number of clues about the Elder's psychology. My personal favorite is a concept that dominated the discourse of the Sixties -- Black Rage.

I refer neither to kitchy black-and-white posters of beret-wearing brothers toting rifles and machetes nor to televised fogies mouthing remembrances of things past. I'm talkin' 'bout the kind of clutch your purse, piss your pants, tear the roof off this muhtha grip black folk briefly wielded round MizAmerica's throat.

Remember that? Eldridge Cleaver? Huey Newton? Malcolm X?

In their seminal work, psychologists Price M. Cobbs and William H. Grier in 1968 articulated what many white folk struggled to remain blithely unaware of -- the parents and siblings of Cleopatra Jones and Homie the Clown were pissed off. The steroid-enhanced, technologically-turbocharged atom of institutional racism had split their AfroAmerican brains, kicking off a chain reaction that threatened to singe everybody's behind before floating off in Mt. Rushmore-sized mushroom cloud.

The idea was in no way novel.

Two decades earlier, Dr. Frederick Wertham had observed a "free-floating hostility" among clients at Harlem's Lafargue Clinic. The condition was characterized as "a hostility that bombards the individual from so many directions that he is often unable to identify it with any specific object." In an essay, Ralph Ellison asked, "And why have these explosive matters -- which are now a problem of our foreign policy -- been ignored? Because there is an argument in progress between black men and white men as to the true nature of American reality."

"Following their own interests," he continued, "whites impose interpretations upon Negro experience that are not only false but, in effect, a denial of Negro humanity.....Too weak to shout down these interpretations, Negros live nevertheless as they have to live, and the concrete conditions of their lives are more real than white men's arguments."

By the time Ashcroft rode into town, "free-floating hostility" had tranmorgrified into suicide by bootstraps. The state-of-the-art psychosis -- for which Big Pharma offers no palliative -- reached its highest and purest embodiment in Justice Clarence Thomas, who raved and lynched his way to the highest court in the land. Raised by Jim Crow and a slavish devotee of Booker T. Washington , Thomas rails against the crippling affects of affirmative action and its patronizing premise of inherent inferiority. He is a conservative wet dream: a black man who despises his lucious lips.

Who other than Muhammed the Elder (he of the "crushing handshake") to grasp the next wrung of assimilation? The product of a distinguished psychological lineage, he has been so well acculturated as to adopt the ultimate privilege of the White Male -- to kill that which you cannot control, even if it be your own family.