The Post has a new report up showing that black students in the Washington area are suspended and expelled "two to five times as often" as white students:

Last year, for example, one in seven black students in St. Mary’s County were suspended from school, compared with one in 20 white students. In Alexandria, black students were nearly six times as likely to be suspended as their white peers.

In Fairfax, where the suicide in January of a white high school football player who had been suspended brought an outcry for change, African American students were four times as likely that year to be suspended as white students, and Hispanic students were twice as likely.

The problems extend beyond the Washington area to school districts across the country and are among a host of concerns about school discipline that sparked a joint effort by the U.S. Justice and Education departments in July to look into reforms.

Experts say disparities appear to have complex causes. A disproportionate number of black students live below the poverty line or with a single parent, factors that affect disciplinary patterns. But experts say those factors do not fully explain racial differences in suspensions. Other contributing factors could include unintended bias, unequal access to highly effective teachers and differences in school leadership styles.

Donna St. George interviewed an array of school officials and parents who note that a huge part of the problem is the suspension-happy treatment of discretionary offenses. When committing these non-violent infractions, black students are far more likely to be punished more harshly than whites who commit the exact same offenses. Meanwhile, poverty and its attendant behavioral issues don't entirely explain why, as one researcher pointed out, "affluent black kids get suspended more than affluent white kids."

It's always dangerous to dive into the comment sections of newspaper stories, but the piece has picked up a notable 3,400 comments since it ran yesterday. Unsurprisingly, nearly everyone in the comment section is an expert on the behavior of blacks, and it doesn't take much to find miles of racist and uninformed musings. A sampling:

Ms. St. George... Has it occurred to the you that "In Washington area, African American students suspended and expelled two to five times as often as whites" because African American students COMMIT OFFENSES warranting suspension and expulsion with two to five times the FREQUENCY of whites?

And:

The problem is that Blacks break the rules more often so they get suspended more often. Its time we teach all of our children ethics and morality and how to act properly. This problem can be fixed if we fix the overly permissive, excuse making culture in our society. (Basically liberal Democrats) This corrupted culture seems to be negatively affecting minorities much more than whites.

And:

Is Donna St. George aware that black people refer to making good grades and attending school every day, "acting white"? If so, she failed to mention it in her article. For anyone wanting the answer to this "problem", simply Google "black pathology".

And:

This article is ridiculous. Black students get suspended more because their behavior is awful. Their culture has been corrupted. They are mostly being raised by a mother only. They have no positive male role models. The women are getting pregnant on a whim. The morals and ethics of the poor black person is horrific. Stop blaming the schools for mythological racial bias. Start blaming black people who just simply have worse behavior. Liberals are just making the situation worse for Black people.

Obviously, race-based stories like this tend to attract the angry id of racism, but when these kinds of viewpoints still exist, it's not a surprise that black kids are being sent to the principal's office and getting written up more frequently than their white counterparts. The comments, in other words, may do an even better job than the story does of explaining the phenomenon.

Photo by Colette Cassinelli

The driver behind me, in a light-gold newish Cadillac, laid on his horn and waved his hands at me from inside the car. I gave a shrug to say “what do you want me to do?” There was no room to pass the stopped traffic on the right, and I wasn’t going to dart out against traffic in the eastbound lane of Florida just to save a few seconds. The driver got out of his car, and we had the following conversation:

Driver: “Get your cracker-ass off the road, I’m trying to get my kids to school!”

Me: “Give me a *ucking break, there’s a red light, where do you want me to go?”

Driver: “On the *ucking sidewalk, you’re lucky my kids are here, or I’d beat your ass.”

The driver was ready to continue this conversation, but at this point, the light had turned green and I was on my way. This exchange left a particularly sour taste in my mouth. Yes, I realize I did not respond in a way to diffuse the situation—that’s just what came out at the moment. I’ve been mulling this over though, trying to figure out what it’s about. Did the 4 feet of space of Florida Ave that me and my bike take up seriously delay this guy from dropping his kids off at school?

Was it really necessary to resort to a nasty racial slur (and in front of his kids)?

Writes a friend of mine in a conversation on Google Reader*:

I'm wondering what the world would be like if every time a black person had an experience with racism they told someone about it who then published it on the Internet.

*Dear Google: Reader is useful! Don't kill it!

Photo by Mike Hicks

Nsenga Burton of The Root notes that the show What Would You Do?—a gimmicky program that runs sociological experiments, Candid Camera-style—discovered this distressing news when it dispatched two fake bike thieves to a predominantly white park. The scenario produced heinous, if also somewhat hilarious, results:

The men were dressed the same and had tools to break the locks off of the bikes which were located in an exposed area. Each man attempted to steal the bike in broad daylight. The white "thief" was allowed to go about his business pretty much unbothered, even breaking out an electric saw to draw more attention, because people failed to stop him. Over 100 people passed by and only one couple attempted to contact authorities. Someone even wished him good luck. The black bicycle "thief," not so much. He was surrounded immediately, yelled at and people were whipping out cell phones and snapping pictures of the "thief."

Watching the video below, the black bike thief looks a little younger than the white thief, and the white thief is bigger (more intimidating?) than the black thief, that's about it for variables. The footage seems to reach a shameful pitch at the point when white parkgoers, confronting the black thief, clump up. It's not exactly a mob, but it certainly reminds you of one.

Once, I interviewed a D.C. bike thief who happened to be black. The pilferer operated in Capitol Hill and Georgetown, where he stole bikes, he explained, from the rich and sold them to mostly poor African Americans and Latinos. He'd been doing it for years, and had never been so much as challenged. The key, he revealed, was that he never touched locked bikes, only unlocked ones, so that as he made off with the merchandise there was no reason to suspect him. He looked like a guy picking up his wheels. If he found a bike that he needed that was locked (he took orders from customers who sometimes wanted a certain kind) he called in his buddy, a "Spanish" guy with light skin. His partner was usually able to pry the lock off without being questioned.

The fact that we link criminality to race is pretty pathetic. In the What Would You Do? clip, note how the white thief begs for a confrontation, only to find that people are unwilling to even be rude to him. White privilege is that overpowering. ("I guess I have to ask, is that your  bike?" "I guess, technically, no." "O.K.")

On the other hand, the black thief gets his tools stolen by a white-haired gentlemen who obviously saw Clint Eastwood in Gran Torino.

To be clear, the Clint Eastwood-wannabe was doing the right thing. But people like him need to be equal opportunity bad-asses, fighting crime no matter what the criminal happens to look like.

Just how segregated is D.C.? Sure, there's no shortage of think tank reports and concerned white papers that answer that question. But it's one thing to know about segregation in the abstract; it's another to see it depicted visually. Which is precisely what Eric Fischer has done with data from the 2000 Census. Prompted by a map of Chicago produced by cartographer Bill Rankin, Fischer  drew up maps of racial housing patterns in D.C. and 39 other cities. You can see above, as Fast Company noted in writing up the maps, that the District and its surrounding region "has a stark east/west divide between white and black."

Reading the almost cheerful map is simple:"Red is White, Blue is Black, Green is Asian, Orange is Hispanic, Gray is Other, and each dot is 25 people."

The demographics it represents, though, are a decade old. When this year's Census is finally crunched, the map may look different—more green near Rockville, for instance, and more orange in the inner-ring suburbs in both Maryland and Virginia.

There is also likely to be a little less blue in the District. As gentrification churns on, that small erasure will do nothing to ease the fears of a black community that already feels under attack in a city whose rising cost of living makes hanging on difficult.

In August, Harry Jaffe used his Examiner column to once again scoff at a conspiracy theory that has become known as "the Plan":

Police say Bost, 51, hangs out at Arlington County public libraries, the National Mall, Columbia Island, and the Iwo Jima Memorial.

Park Police spokesperson David Schlosser says Bost is "writing hardcore white supremacist stuff" and has been doing it on and off for several years. "The people who are using the area have to see this crap."

Bost seems to have been at this for at least 10 years.  Back in 2000, the Washington Post wrote Bost had been jailed for painting swastikas on traffic signs in 1999.

Bost is described as being 6-2 and 210 pounds with a scar on his upper lip and a large scar on the back of his head. He has tattoos on both arms, and faded swastikas on his left knuckles.

If you have information concerning Bost, Park Police ask that you call Detective K.B. Fornshill at 202 610-8751. If you see Bost, call local police or dial 911.

DCPS, the agency she lords over, has impeded every attempt to find out what really happened on that Allegany County football field last Sept. 19, 2008.

At least, that's what school officials in Allegany County and Maryland athletic overseers say about Rhee's handling of the matter.

Rhee won't say anything. So why not believe everybody else?

(AFTER THE JUMP: Why didn't Michelle Rhee cooperate in the Dunbar/Fort Hill investigations? Why won't Michelle Rhee explain why she didn't cooperate in the Dunbar/Fort Hill investigations? How did we reach a point where Michelle Rhee feels she doesn't have to explain why she didn't cooperate in the Dunbar/Fort Hill investigations? Redskins fans are racist? Dinosaurs and Indiana and preseason hockey trump postseason Mystics? )

Though everything that took place will never be agreed upon, this much is inarguable: Jefferies ordered his Dunbar players off the field in the third quarter of a game at Fort Hill.

Another apparent certainty: Ever since Jefferies said he pulled the team because his players were being racially taunted by Fort Hill's players and turned a football game into a national debate about race and sports, Rhee has behaved as if DCPS is her own private trust, not a government agency with some obligation to transparency.

"We know what we know, but we sort of only know from one point of view,"says Ned Sparks, head of the Maryland Public Secondary Schools Athletic Association, the group which governs high school sports in the state and investigated Jefferies' allegations. "I never did hear from the DC folks. We heard from Fort Hill, watched all the video, talked to referees, and police. We have not found anybody to [back up the charges that Fort Hill players used racial slurs]. But we turned the Dunbar portion over to [DCPS] people to handle. We tried to facilitate some meetings. But we never did hear back from them."

Going on what it found, MPSSAA awarded Fort Hill a forfeit victory. No sanction of any kind was issued against any Fort Hill player or coach.

Fort Hill and Allegany schools administrators also told me attempts to reach out to DCPS after the Dunbar/Fort Hill game were ignored.

The U.S Department of Justice attempted to mediate the situation, and did organize a meeting that included representatives from DCPS and Allegany County schools to talk about Dunbar/Fort Hill.

After that gathering, officials from Allegany County filed a written report that the DOJ mediator requested.

Rhee, however, did not file any report with the federal government.

And with only one side of the story, the Department of Justice did not issue any report of its findings. The mediation effort quietly died.

Because of the Dunbar/Fort Hill incident, Sparks says, MPSSAA added passages about racially charged language to the handbook it has just distributed to every team captain in the state.

But Sparks remains frustrated by DCPS's repeated failure to participate in the investigations. He says DCPS's failure to cooperate with Maryland is one thing; Rhee's failure to work with the federal mediators is a whole different ballgame.

"If they had just given their report (to the DOJ), that would have been fine with us," he says. "But..."

So, what is DCPS's official version of what took place at Fort Hill? Who knows?

"The [DOJ] proceeding was confidential, therefore we cannot disclose our presentation," said Rhee's spokesperson, Jennifer Calloway, via email after repeated requests for information about the Dunbar/Fort Hill matter.

"Confidential"? Who says? Allegany officials have talked about it and told their version: They found nothing to back up the charges that racial slurs were used.

So why hasn't DCPS said anything, either to back up Jefferies or confess that they found nothing to support his charges? Who can't handle the truth?

Calloway confirmed that no written report was issued.

Why?

"At this point we do not have any further comment," was the only response from Rhee's office. Subsequent emails went unanswered.

The bottom line: Rhee's stonewalling has left everybody looking bad.

Rhee obviously wishes the whole Dunbar/Fort Hill mess would just go away. Before it does, she should explain her behavior. She is a civil servant, right?

***

Speaking of hate speech: If you want to learn to hate Redskins fans but don't have time to spend halftime in the concourse of FedExField on Sunday, just mosey over to Dan Snyder's message board, extremeskins.com, and read what the hardcores are saying about the petition a group of American Indians filed recently asking the Supreme Court to review a lower court's decision to save the team's trademark protections.

A sampling:

TK, the bulliest of Snyder's moderators still hanging around after all the originals jumped ship, calls the plaintiffs "[s]even people that have nothing better to do then continue to make theirselves look silly for 17 years and counting." And TK's the brains of the outfit.

The poster LAXPCK weighs in with: "isnt there some firewater or beads we can give these people to make them be quiet...How about if we give them a casino?"

And the big winner among the Skins class of clowns is the poster known as ThePreciating, who, in response to a commenter who says he has "many relatives who are Native American who despise the name," writes:

Speaking of your relatives, I'm so sick of these redskins invading our neighborhoods with their high crime rates and gambling and drugs. I swear, pretty soon they'll be teaching injun talk to our kids in school.

Blasting their tribal chants out their car windows, smoking their peace pipes all over the place, scalping innocent children. It's just unbelievable.

Sorry – I guess some of that Washington Redskins racism is rubbing off on me.

Wowee.

***

Last weekend's performance of the St. Louis Rams offense makes the Skins offense look like the Saints offense.

Or something like that.

But as bad as his team is, this weekend's game at FedExField will be new Rams coach Steve Spagnuolo's "grudge" game. You know he's got it in for Dan Snyder. Shortly after crushing Gregg Williams in the last offseason with dirty leaks about him disrespecting Joe Gibbs, Snyder et al sold some folks in the DC media on a tale that the reason Spags didn't get the Skins head coaching job was because the job interviewer (Snyder) and the interviewee (Spags) agreed that the interviewee (Spags) wasn't ready to be a coach.

Nobody outside this market ever bought that story, not after all those interviews at Snyder's Maryland estate, the one with the good view of the river.

But Spagnuolo surely didn't have any trouble staying awake for an extra couple hours of film watching this week in hopes of getting his first win as a head coach — or at least scoring his first points — against the owner who slimed him.

***

Finally, a poll where the Redskins DON'T finish last: The Skins are in fourth in opensecrets.org's ranking of NFL teams based on the amount of political contributions made over the last 20 years. Skins owners and officials have donated a total of Washington Redskins $323,000 over that time, a mere $8,550, or about 3 percent, to Democratic Party candidates.

The clubhouse leader by almost a full zero is the San Diego Chargers, who according to opensecret.org's data have given $2,455,200, all but 2 percent to the GOP or its candidates.

***

The Mystics opened the playoffs in a college gym because "Walking with Dinosaurs: The Arena Spectacular" got dibs on their regular home, the Verizon Center. Playing away from the treasured "Attendance Champion" banners, the Mystics lost, 88-79. The T-Rexes will be gone in time for Game 3* of the Best of Three series. But the Caps are scheduled to play the Buffalo Sabres at Verizon.

And, as everybody knows, preseason hockey trumps postseason women's basketball EVERY TIME!

***

Story tips? Wanna Play the Feud? Tube amps for sale? Send to: cheapseats@washingtoncitypaper.com

Lalich transferred to Oregon as soon as his run in Charlottesville went to hell, and, because of some weird quirk having something to do with his new school being on a quarter system and not semesters, he'll be eligible to play this season.

If the punishment schedule announced last year still holds, Lalich should get his drivers license back this week from Virginia authorities. It makes sense that Lalich would be on a practice field this time of year, but... Why isn't he in Oregon?

***

Another formerly local athlete in some legal heat, and not dealing real well with it: Antonio Pierce, the ex-Redskins linebacker turned Giant person of interest in the Plaxico Burress thigh blast case, is making enemies with his tweets.

(AFTER THE JUMP: Examiner column calls out Duds? Godly folks are coming after the racist Redskins? Who says Cal Ripken and/or Eddie Murray were juiced? FedExField also sucks for things other than football games? Jeremy Mayfield called his stepmomma THAT? Van Pelt goes for big bucks, but Czarniak goes bid-less?)

After testifying before a grand jury, Pierce, who could face weapons charges of his own, twatted: "sometimes u have to Draw a line in the Stand and see what side PEOPLE are on.. Well damn heres the Line!!...A coward dies many deaths but a soldier only dies ONCE!!"

Let others say Pierce's behavior here is off — The New York Post called him "Tweet-le Dum Dum" — but he had me at "line in the Stand"...

***

John Keim at the Examiner has a nice addition to his paper's Skins coverage: the "Studs and Duds" column. At the end of each day of practice, Keim calls out folks who make plays, and those who mistakes. Sure, it's impossible to watch everything that goes on during workouts, so Keim misses at least half the big plays and half the, well, duds. But call-out columns make things interesting. If a guy screws up in practice, why not write about it? Don't say he's mean to his mother or he's a dog killer (unless it's, well, you know) ! Just say he blew this or that. I read every day.

***

The roots don't get any grassier: A religious group in Delaware has made changing the name of the Redskins a top priority. The Peninsula-Delaware Conference of the United Methodist Church, which represents 464 churches and claims about 100,000 congregants, has stopped using FedEx's package delivery services becuase that company is a major sponsor of the Washington Redskins. There are tentative plans to hold rallies at Redskins games this season, also. The team's name is "racially demeaning," church leaders explained in announcing the FedEx boycott. I always love to hear folks argue the other side of this issue, since, well, there isn't another side.

***

'Course, the racist team name isn't the only reason some folks stay away from FedExField. In fact, FedExField all by itself gives more fans the motivation to stay home. Venue-related problems during Paul McCartney's appearance on Saturday added to the stadium's shitty legend.

Real Madrid shows up this weekend!

***

Road to Ripken™ Update: ESPN quoted Jose Canseco, the Deep Throat of the Dead Balls Era, as saying that the Hall of Fame has at least one P.E.D.-ophile.

Canseco didn't drop the name, however.

We know by now that everything Canseco says is proven true after a brief delay. So who slipped through the cracks at Cooperstown? A blog post about Canseco's statements at USA Today's website generated more guesses about famous former Orioles — Eddie Murray and Cal Ripken, specifically — than those from any other team.

So, come on, Cal. Confess. Say you used 'roids. Even if you didn't. Then we can all move on. The game needs you!

***

Feeling sorry for yourself? Yeah, me too!

So, together let's mull the State of Jeremy Mayfield. First NASCAR kicked him off the track for allegedly testing positive for methamphetamine after a race in Richmond. Then he went public saying he'd ever used the drug. Must be cold medicine, he said. Then NASCAR said "Oh Really?" and released the results of ANOTHER recent test where Mayfield's pee pee was allegedly tainted. He's still claiming a frame job, but he's done on the track. And now his stepmother has sued him for saying, "She's basically a whore. She shot and killed my dad."

I'm no F. Lee Bailey, but I think his "basically"'s like my"allegedly" here.

***

Bobblehead Update: The Scott Van Pelt bobblehead twins, from a Bowie Baysox giveaway, just sold for $88 plus postage on eBay. The auction of Lindsay Czarniak's 'head, a 2008 Baysox freebie, ends today at around 11:30 a.m. The creepy vendor is asking about $70. So far, alas, Czarniak has gotten no bids.

***

Story tips? Wanna Play the Feud? Tube amps for sale? Send to: cheapseats@washingtoncitypaper.com

"I weigh 150 lbs and I'm 5' 7''. I'm going to give flack to a big white guy with a gun. I might wolf later, but I won't wolf then."

Strikes me that a little editing may be in order here: Sounds as if the second sentence in that quote needs a question mark. But priceless stuff, regardless of punctuation issues.

Anyhow, Gates is using the incident, which he quite reasonably connects with racism, to fire up some research. "I hope to make a documentary about racial profiling for PBS...[The idea] had never crossed my mind but it has now."

How did Washington Post get the first interview with Gates? Not quite sure on this end, but the self-disclosure in the Post story provides perhaps a hint:

What follows is Gates's first public account of his arrest. He spoke to The Post in an hour-long phone interview while resting on Martha's Vineyard. Gates is a founder of the Root.com, (www.theroot.com), a Web site owned by The Washington Post Co.

In the wake of Wednesday’s Holocaust Museum shooting, this story seems even creepier: The Government Accountability Project says racial slurs were scrawled on the walls of the World Bank’s Legal Affairs offices. 

Dibble, the Nationals color commentator, spoke for every fan yesterday. He went off when second baseman Anderson Hernandez jumped out of the way of a fine throw from pitcher Jesus Colome on a routine sacrifice attempt in the eighth inning and the Nats up a run over Philly.

Hernandez's merkel let the Nats blow yet another lead to give the Phillies a sweep of the four-game series.

"[Toronto pitcher] Roy Halladay may pass us for wins by the All Star break," Dibble huffed. "Have you ever seen a play like THAT?"

In an age when team owners have a lot of control over who announces their games, that's about as off the reservation as a commentator's going to get.

Looks like fans have seen enough, too: Hell if Nationals Stadium didn't look empty during the game telecast.

***

"It's a great day for the Redskins," an attorney for the team, Bob Raskopf, said on Friday.

Not a great day for redskins, however: A federal court ruled in favor of the team in a lawsuit filed years ago by a group of Native Americans alleging that the name "Redskins" is too racially offensive to be afforded trademark protections.

The plaintiffs have had some victories on the merits of their case so far — in 1999 the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office ruled that the handle was indeed too offensive and canceled the Redskins marks.

But the team appealed, saying that the Native Americans, who began their litigation in the early 1990s, didn't file their trademark challenges in time. So even if the team's name is too offensive, it's irrelevant because the legal shot clock already went off.

And the Redskins technical argument has now been upheld. Clearly, that's the right decision. Because one thing everybody should agree on is: America is a nation of laws. Well, if you ignore all that land stealing and those human-roundups and attempted genocide of native peoples, we're a nation of laws. Kinda sorta...

(Whenever these stories pop up I seek out the best rock song ever written about the offensiveness of the Redskins name: "If You Own the Washington Redskins, You're a Cock," by the great Atom and His Package. The message predates Dan Snyder.)

***

On a happier football note: Women's football has arrived!

But not because of the launch of the Lingerie League. No, women's football has arrived because there's now a ranking system just for the football ladies, put together by something called the Massey Ratings.

And our DC Divas are atop the poll of 49 teams with the IWFL

The undefeated Divas had the No. 2 rated offense and the top rated defense in the land heading into Saturday's game in New York.

DC beat the No. 8 ranked NY Sharks, 21-7, so the No. 1 overall ranking should live another week.

Get on the Divas' bandwagon now!

***

So women have rankings...What's the next step for acceptance?

Betting lines!

Why not? The state of Delaware very quietly passed laws allowing sports betting.

Major sports leagues, mostly the NFL and NCAA, have for decades bullied jurisdictions into not allowing sports books, so Las Vegas has been the only town in the game.

But Delaware didn't have much of anything to lose — no pro franchises, only a couple major college teams — so they put it through. The University of Delaware apparently won't be hosting any lower-tier NCAA playoff games from now on.

There's still some legal issues to work through, but if Vegas-style sports books show up in Delaware, the WHOLE WORLD could change.

All the states that waited too long to get into slots — Maryland, anybody? — should try to get in early on sports betting and balance their budgets with the bucks of all those dumbasses who think they can beat a betting line.

They can't. But why not have sports books everywhere? The pursuit of happiness should include the chance to make a futures bet on the Capitals or Redskins.

And the Divas!

***

Speaking of betting on women in sports: The Preakness!

Nobody showed up to the infield, thanks to those anti-running-of-the-urinals fascists who banned BYOB at the track.

But what a race! Let's hope for a Rachel Alexandra/Mine That Bird rematch in three weeks!

(Alas, the educated picks John Scheinman gave Cheap Seats Daily readers FOR FREE on Friday didn't come in. But anybody who boxed the Purely Sentimental Rachel/Bird combo passed along in the same space cashed an exacta ticket worth $39.20.)

***

I went to Pimlico on Friday, for the running of the Black Eyed Susan Stakes and to get a look at the contenders for the big race a day later.

Mine That Bird looked very small in his stall, noticeably smaller than filly Rachel Alexandra and all the other horses he was sharing a barn with. So I was rooting for the little guy against the big girl. Not just because he's small, but because he's a gelding; that means there's no stud career in his future, so he could be racing for a while.

If Rachel Alexandra was an ungelded boy, the horse would surely be retired right after the Belmont. But he's a she, and there's not as much value for her in retirement, since top stallions can make babies day after day — Maryland stud hero Allen's Prospect once fertilized 120 mares in a single year –  while Rachel can have just one child at a time.

The big buzz on the backstretch was that former Pimlico owner Joe DeFrancis, who grew up in Maryland racing — his father Frank is a legend — might buy back the track from current owner Magna Entertainment, which is now in Chapter 11 reorganization and looks like a goner, at an upcoming bankruptcy auction.

Sell high, buy back low. In the '00s, that's the formula for success.

***

Story tips? Wanna Play the Feud? Tube amps for sale? Send to: cheapseats@washingtoncitypaper.com

Via Huffington Post.

None of this I particularly mind. Except for this man. He got into his car and seemed to be speeding up and down Mount Pleasant Street. It sounded like he was crashing into things. I could be totally wrong. It was 4 a.m. But what I'm not wrong about is what he was screaming at the top of his lungs.

I heard the man scream "Nigger!"

And "Fucking Nigger!"

And "Do you fucking hear me?"

I heard him loud and clear. It was scary. And it was 4 a.m. I thought about calling 911. I decided that if he said the N-Word one more time, I'd dial. The man did. I called. Thankfully, the dispatcher was nice and did not view this as a waste of time or some violation of 1st Amendment rights. She said I wasn't the first to call.

By the time the police arrived, I'm pretty sure the man was long gone. There's nothing on the listserv about the incident. Does anybody have more info on this crazy scene?

"John McCain's Pennsylvania communications director told reporters in the state an incendiary version of the hoax story about the attack on a McCain volunteer well before the facts of the case were known or established — and even told reporters outright that the 'B' carved into the victim's cheek stood for 'Barack,' according to multiple sources familiar with the discussions.

John Verrilli, the news director for KDKA in Pittsburgh, told TPM Election Central that McCain's Pennsylvania campaign communications director gave one of his reporters a detailed version of the attack that included a claim that the alleged attacker said, 'You're with the McCain campaign? I'm going to teach you a lesson.'

TPM has a lot more on this.