A hate crime is defined more by the motivation of the perpetrator than the enormity of the crime. It allows for federal prosecution and conviction. Otherwise, it would simply be a state/local matter.

The point of this, as I see it, is not that this individual action will halt prejudice or hate. The point is that it must be part of an overall story. The story is that hate and bigotry are not acceptable motivations for violence. The story is that, while prejudice will probably always exist, it is unacceptable in modern society to accept that this level of savagery can be perpetrated with either expressed or implied acceptance.

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Hey, guys. I know it's been a long time since I've been on here, but I'm trying to spread this wherever I can. Apologies for the spam. Still a regular listener to the MSP, but I haven't had much time to post on forums lately.

Here's the story. From accounts of the victims combined with the police report, a young man (Brandon Pettiford) and woman (Jessie Stout) were at a party. Pettiford (who is African-American) and Stout (Caucasian) danced together before Stout began to lead the intoxicated Pettiford out to her car in order to drive him home. Stout heard racial epithets spoken by Jesse Norton and David Rayhel as they walked out. After getting on the road, a pickup truck began pestering them--"brake-checking" them and honking at them. Eventually, the truck pulled away.

Stout then came upon the truck, blocking the road. Jesse Norton and David Rayhel were standing in the road near the truck and hit Stout's car with a hand. This did no damage, but caused Jessie Stout to exit her vehicle and engage them. One of the young men (unsure if it was Norton or Rayhel) grabbed her hair and began to punch her in the head.

Pettiford, who was intoxicated, then exited Stout's vehicle.  Britanie Parrish (who had been waiting in the pickup truck until this point) then exited the truck, grabbed Stout's hair from her attacker and began to beat her. Norton and Rayhel then advanced on and began to beat Pettiford--punching and kicking him primarily in his face.

Norton, Rayhel and Parrish then withdrew. Stout called 911. Paramedics were forced to airlift Pettiford from the scene due to his injuries.

Jesse Norton and David Rayhel were charged with Battery Resulting in Serious Bodily Injury with a bond of $50,000. Britanie Parrish was charged with misdemeanor battery and released.

Several petitions are circulating to try to rightfully log this travesty as a hate crime (if not to increase the charges to something more than Battery), but the story isn't making the rounds on any of the national news circuits.

Brandon is family with an old family friend of mine. They are horrified, saddened, and angered by these events.

Whitehouse.gov Petition to Direct the DOJ to Investigate

Vengeance for Brandon blog post has Jessie Stout's account of the events. WARNING! Some pics of Brandon immediately following the beating.

Also thought it was funny that the Shakespearean angle (Hamlet) was mentioned by the IT person, btw.

Yeah. This ep was a lot more 90's, with the voiceover and more superhero TV feel.

Haven't seen too many people referencing the "Iron Patriot" armor. Any thoughts as to what the deal may be with that? Haven't been trolling the comics sites, so I may have missed some conjecture/analysis.

I know it's been compared (not always favorably) to X-Files, and while there are obvious similarities, I'd say one of the areas I personally draw a comparison is how it draws you in. X-Files had sort of a slow burn to it. If you're at all like me (and who isn't?), you watched the show occasionally and were mildly interested until you realized you were watching it every week and hung on the characters' every word.

Fringe drew me in in a very similar manner.

Could be he just trained with Tim Roth.

With you on that. I've been deliberately staying away from the bat-titles due to all of the bat crossovers. And the only new DC crossover I've been following has been Rotworld, because I read both of the books it's happening in anyway (Swamp Thing and Animal Man).

As far as the Sinestro Corps. thing, it worked because it was contained. But you don't have to have a huge event that touches on every book to have a huge, sweeping story. How many books did Annihilation cross over into? Honestly don't know. But I don't think it was many, since the number of books in the collection was pretty small.

So what does everyone think of the new season? I'm honestly pretty ambivalent.

Last season they removed all of the characters from the setting we were familiar with, and it was...okay. I was kind of hoping this year, we'd get back to basics. But, instead, it seems like we were presented with an ALMOST ENTIRELY DIFFERENT SHOW.

It almost seems like someone tried to pitch a show to the execs, was turned down, and the programmers instead said, "Well, re-write the characters for Fringe and we'll just do that for the new season." My memory isn't what it used to be. Did the whole thing with Henrietta actually happen last season? I don't remember them having a toddler. The whole thing smacks of a deus ex machina.

It is, actually. Usually enjoy the series.

Was actually pretty impressed with the series. They obviously took notes from a whole bunch of CW & Fox series, as well as the Green Arrow: Year One series and Grell's Longbow Hunters. Also, surprisingly, there's a pretty impressive Hamlet vibe.

I have to say that they've done a good job of hitting notes more similar to shows like Pretty Little Liars and others enjoyed by a younger demographic. In fact, I saw this show seeming far closer to PLL or Gossip Girl than MANTIS.

They also have embedded a ton of easter eggs that hint towards future episodes (Merlyn, "Dinah" Laurel Lance, Deathstroke's mask, China White, etc.) that I found intriguing.

Is Ben Reilly still alive? Could it be him?

Yes on all the mentions of event fatigue, and it's kept me from sweeping up more backissues off of Comixology. Thought about picking up all the issues that dealt with Utopia, but I should probably read Civil War before that, but first I need to read House of M, and I need to know what happened to Norman Osborn after Civil War to get him installed in place of Tony Stark...

I was just trying to read backissues of Avengers Initiative and I wound up giving up because it was so tied in with Norman Osborn and HAMMER, where I had no backstory or information, I felt like I was lost.

Anyway, I'm all for a clearing of the slate, but I hope they'll also be better about their digital pricing. Aside from the odd sale, Marvel has been pretty frequently getting undersold by the competition.

The full series is available digitally now, and it's worth the $0.99 an issue (not sure what the conversion is). Yeah, didn't know how to take Cheetah, but given what she looks like in the latest JL, it seems its closer to mainstream that you'd expect.

I was curious about your take on this, following the MSP issue where you guys reviewed it. I appreciate that you guys work to be positive about the items you review, but you all seemed surprisingly positive on this one. I mean, there were genuinely bad techniques here that I know, given your breadth of experience and historical perspective, you must have caught, but the show didn't point these items out.

I've genuinely liked Millar's work in the past on Authority and other books, but everybody has a mis-step, and I'd say this was his. Honestly, I don't want to sound overly critical or negative, but I'm curious about the aspects of this story that you saw as a miss.

Ugh. I mean, I like going back and getting story arcs as long as they aren't 12 issue crossovers with a ton of "meanwhiles" in other books that are required to understand the story. I just read Annihilation a week or so ago (when it was on sale in Comixology) and it was an entertaining read, but it didn't ask so much of me that I just stopped reading (like Civil War) or so much that I haven't even picked it up (like House of M or AvX).


Yep. Things got really hectic and I had to start prioritizing. This lead to insane things happening, like another frickin' baby.