Heads will explode if the myth that NPR is a right wing tool is questioned.

They can fit any size nut.

And you're right, they will fit any size nut.

Great for rounding off flats and leaving burrs to slice open fingertips.

If you expect to re-visit the part some day, get the right size wrench. "Steel is more elastic than rubber, but in a range of forces far beyond normal experience", like what you get with the leverage a big wrench offers. And if you round it off to where it won't move, you get to drill it out and re-cut the threads.

I've been disappointed with NPR recently and haven't really come back to the fold.

I am glad to see stories such as these there however.

.... they are in the wrong line of work. Get a job more suitable to your fear.

just as any/all people come into a job with certain skill sets, some sets require training. The fear is learned, it is the employers job to attempt to teach out the fear, and that starts with a cultural change.

.... are you allowed to murder people because of your personal shortcomings.

Some people should just not be police, period. For example, I am a hot head and I know it, I could never make an effective policeman because I react too quickly and forcefully. So I'll stick with jobs I can effectively do with a minimum of negative impact on other.

Hotheads, etc. should be weeded out ... EVERY cop should have extended training to learn to recognize and address their personal biases, and evaluated as to their ability to do so, long before there are allowed onto the street.

That's what I'm talking about with: "the employers job to attempt to teach out the fear."

Now that the Koch roaches own NPR and PBS I'm sure dispersal of the unbiased truth will be paramount.

...and yes this is attacking the messenger ...NPR ...no longer a trusted source of truth.

The problems with corporate sponsorship of these institutions is one best handled at the voting booth.
I would not question the integrity of, say, Neil deGrasse Tyson's Cosmos series any more than the 95% of programming I enjoy from both sources.
NPR and PBS are public institutions that have stood at the forefront of the Right Wing invasion of our National consciousness.
They are to be hailed as heroes on the front line and when they take a bullet we need to show our support.
On edit:
My bad to give credit to PBS for Neil's excellent series. I remember is as being so well done I just assumed it was a Public Broadcasting production.
I still stand by my assertions; we should never throw the baby out with the bath water.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/07/12/1223137/-PBS-And-NPR-Subsidiaries-Of-Koch-Industries

I do acknowledge that. I personally can look out my back window and see land they own in my county.
I would argue that the ability of them to gain a foothold in some of our most ardent defenders of freedom is the result of Republican control of the governing bodies that oversee these institutions. It has been the failure of the American voters to educate themselves and perform the most important task assigned to us by our Constitution. That would be to vote.

A few years back, when they interviewed Sarah Palin concerning Obama's foreign policy, like she is an expert in anything except grift, I said "oh, hell no."

You just can't take any news outlet seriously when Palin is their go-to gal on such a deep, complicated topic as that.

Sometimes I do listen when cleaning house. They are so smarmy and ga-ga-goo-goo in their midday delivery, I have to hose the sugar coating off the radio when I do listen. Note to NPR: I am not in kindergarten; talk to me like I'm at least old enough to drive.

But when you're selling shit, a sugar coating probably seems like a great idea.

I couldn't believe npr went there.

But that's what they are now - one more sellout pretending to be balanced.

I'm sure the OP's interview was interesting, and I'm not trying to detract from that, but if anyone in this thread wants to tell me I'm unreasonable for not wanting to hear Sarah Palin tell me how Obama is wrong on foreign policy because she can see Putin from her powder room, I'm just gonna have to call bullshit there.

If using Sarah Palin as a foreign policy source is great journalism, heaven help us all.

... anyone paying any attention gave up on NPR over a decade ago. Their cheerleading into Iraq was particularly noteworthy.

NPR does not just make up facts like Fox does, they are much more subtle. They lie by omission, by leaving out key details of a story that totally change its tenor. And they do it a lot.

for centrists, the turd way'rs, Hillary and left over DLC'rs ...oh yeah ...and house repukes. When are Democrats going to collectively reject this in our current and future representatives ...representatives representing whom? NEVER! ...because its just a political good cop bad cop show = entertainment for the rich.

helps these cops turn their "fear of black men"--which is basically fear of the Other--into blind hate. They feel justified in their actions thinking that American society is fine with it, thanks to the daily brainwashing they get.

"scared of black men" meme. it's just a defense of extreme overreaction. Cops on duty are not your friend. They shouldn't be, but they shouldn't be your enemy either. Those kind of extremes turn the cops into Jekyll and Hyde personalities. When they are doing their job, staying as far away from them as possible is a good idea. For their part, they need to understand that nobody drafted them, and that their first responsibility is public safety, not personal safety. Those who can't deal with that need to turn in their badges.

I am old enough to remember REAL community policing, where the cop spent his (her) career in a single district, patrolling a set of blocks. These cops knew a lot about everyone in their area ... they knew our parents and our schools; they knew they "responsible" parents and those that weren't. They knew the criminally inclined and the just plain stupid. And they used this knowledge to maintain peace/control of their block ... they knew in order to do their job (actually, in order to survive), they had to respect the people within their area. They knew that doing their jobs (and their survival) was not based on brute force; but, trust ... as such, they knew (learned) that when they cracked someone's skull today, they had to deal with their victim (and the rest of the community) the following day. They knew, cutting someone a break for doing something stupid, enabled them to come down on someone "out of line."

On the other hand, police forces did anyway with that model because it also enabled corruption.

A giant corruption scandal at city hall. The city charter was re-written to take away the mayor's influence over the police force, with the unintended consequence of later making Darryl Gates unanswerable to Mayor Tom Bradley.

I'm fully in favor of true community policing.

I could still tell you the name of the cop that patrolled my grand-mother's neighborhood and the one that patrolled the block of my barber. They spoke and called me by name. I can count more than one occasion where they COULD have come down on me; but didn't because I was a kid and they knew me.

never saw cops out there. And in the local town, we avoided the tiny little force as best as we could. We were indulging in certain substances at a minor age ....

That was most of the stuff that got me a "take your little narrow butt home. I catch you smoking again, me and (grandma 1SBM) are gonna have a talk."

Not that I don't think that fear is a major component, but I think that this simplifies a systemic issue that is far more complex.
It doesn't address the selection of personnel with actual aptitude for policing among other things....

The idea of community policing was taking hold...bridging gaps...now it's become militarized and that feeds the fears on both sides...and quite frankly, that type of policing attracts more and more fringe lunatics who like that feeling of power.

to be fearful? Couldn't be that they know their own history? Nevermind that they have the power and legal authority to oppress blacks and even murder them with no repercussions?

Armed with a gun I say they are afraid they won't get their shots off fast enough.

350 million of them in American folks hands, guns, guns everywhere..an armed and frightened citizenry equates with a better armed and equally frightened force to police them.

Amerca, you can hold your hands up, but you also need to lay down your arms.

Too many guns.
It's a vicious cycle

Perhaps the scared, racist and cruel should be weeded out BEFORE they're allowed to become cops. How exactly does one teach a cruel racist, empathy?

bad guys don't follow rules of engagement, and cops are their targets.

Bravery is not a matter of whether or you have fear, it's a matter of whether you are controlled by fear.

People who are afraid and have a gun in their hand tend to make REALLY bad decisions.

when they commit a crime to.

on some level.

and right wing news agencies and news outlets spewing crap for decades

Wonder how much more time America has before NPR and public TV is destroyed and gone forever.

when she headed the NAACP there. I lived in LA from '79 - '95.

Wouldn't fit their carefully crafted macho badass image ya know.

There is a whole literature on it. It was a central part of the
Clinton crime bill.
BUT, head-busting cops hate it because in effect it turns them into
social workers, and these types of cops sabotage community
policing every chance they get.
So Connie was partly right, but likely did not cover
the whole story.

I don't trust in this interview about the 'panic' and 'fear' of white cops for "hulking" black males. Could those hulks be like maybe Eric Garner or Michael Brown?. Is another word for that hulk, "demon"?. Whether civil rights attorney or not, the slant of ms. Rice seems to miss the hate and the racism already present in that white cop that is agitated by racist media, both radio and television, that these cops watch and listen to consistently. I am sure that she is being truthful about some white cops "not having a racist bone in their body", "adopting black children" and "going to black churches". "They really weren't overtly racist". "They weren't consciously racist". Okay maybe true again and again, nationwide. But I ask, in a town like ferguson, how many white cops did what ms. Rice used as positive examples of "nonracist white cops"? I found no examples like that mentioned anywhere in the last 4+months concerning the multitude of shooting/executions and murders of UNARMED black males and females? Could any of those cops in NYC that surrounded Eric Garner be an example of what ms. Rice said? Was that cop that shot 12 year old Tamir Rice an example of what ms. Rice used as a "fearful" cop? Definitely yes given that he was fired from another police department as "unfit for a police officer". In the former example given stated by ms. Rice, I truly doubt it given the the circumstances of those two black men and their death. Racism IS part of the mindset of MANY white cops, period. No amount of soft peddling their state of mind is ever going to change that fact.

Black men fear white cops and white cops fear black men according to ms. Rice and her analysis because of mistrust by one, with good reason, and by the other because they know, even if they are not racist, another cop that is consciously racist and acts on that racism with the black man this "non racist" white cop is facing. If that creates the fear to shoot first, then ask questions later while spinning the truth in the non racist white cop, then the training and psychological screening that the racist cop somehow got through is the problem. How do you screen an individual that when asked by a trainer, "what do you think of black people? And that individual, while having the nword screaming in their mind answers, "oh I have no problem with black people, I even have some as friends". How do we stop a justice system that racist. How do we rectify a police institution that is racist? By sending all racist police officers to a black housing project? I don't think so. Ms. Rice seems to be ignoring a lot of the reality of american culture and society or just outright discounting and dismissing that reality. Better training and realistic psychological screening is the only answer.

To panic and fear black men in situations where the police person is facing a hostile and/or peaceful black person seems to show me that first:the wrong type of person is doing policing. second: the training of these police persons is inadequate.

I just have a problem here with ms. Rice soft peddling racism as fear and panic. It is obvious and transparently true, racist hate causes a lot of brutality and summary execution(s) faced by unarmed black men, women and children from white cops.

Ms. Rice says in her soft peddling of the summary executions and outright murders that "the black community experiences it (the executions) as racism". No doubt about it when that is the motivation most obvious for the killing an unarmed black person by the white cop(s).

Don't misunderstand me. I hope ms. Rices 'model can be adopted as a nationwide training tool, yet I know that for some white cops facing unarmed black males, women and children, "fear and panic" is NOT why they kill. I hope her training in community relations, Public Trust Policing, results in less murders and executions of young and old black males, females and children in her immediate AO and if it results in less racist attitudes by the white cop(s), better screening and training, then it's all to the good. I'm not going to hold my breath for more ACCOUNTABILITY being accepted by police departments, for the suspicious and/or controversial shootings of unarmed people, or the DA's and GJ..

Thanks for the post

from an outside psychiatrist not an insider. This is for their good and it will also protect the public.

"He was a big, scary Black Man, so I had to kill him because I was scared!"