Current Events

Big Game Internet; RIP Cecil the Lion

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

Before today, the customer review page for River Bluff Dental (located at 10851 Rhode Island Ave So., Bloomington, MN, 55438) had received 16 comments, most of them complimentary. (At least one review seems to have been written while still under the effects of general anesthetic, but it is a five-star write-up nonetheless.)

Today, the family dentistry practice received about one hundred more reviews (I stopped counting a couple hours ago). Its Yelp page has received more than 1000 reviews today alone, most from writers who will never see the inside of the place nor ever breathe the air of Bloomington, Minnesota. All of the reviews are negative, and many threaten one of its dentists physical harm. Its website, riverbluffdental.com, displays one line: “HTTP Error 503. The service is unavailable.” The website has crashed.

Here’s the thing about threatening harm, on the Internet and in real life: violence and threats of violence are evil, and people really need to stop threatening people with harm and stop doing harm. The problem is, the following story which stars one of the dentists at River Bluff Dental, puts even my idealism to a test.

The Telegraph in England revealed today that one of River Bluff’s dentists, a Dr. Walter James Palmer, is the big game hunter who was responsible for slaying Cecil the lion, a 13-year-old big cat, on July 1.
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What Happened to Rexdale Henry?

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

Rexdale Henry spent the last five nights of his life in the Neshoba County Jail in Philadelphia, Mississippi. At 10:00 a.m. on July 14, he was found dead in his cell; 30 minutes earlier, according to the official police report, he was alive. The cause of his death has not been determined, and even though an official autopsy has been conducted, his family and friends have paid for an independent autopsy. Results have not been publicly released from either autopsy as of this writing.

Rexdale Henry

Rexdale Henry

Henry, 53, was arrested on July 9 for “failure to pay a fine,” according to records. Many writers are noting the several surface similarities between this case and the more prominent one of Sandra Bland, the young woman who died in police custody in Texas after a weekend in jail: both were arrested for seemingly minor infractions, both spent several days in custody, and both died suddenly and out of police sight mere minutes after police had interacted them. Both were community activists. Mr. Henry was a civil rights activist and a leader in the Choctaw community; he had stood for election for the Choctaw Tribal Council this month.

Ms. Bland’s arrest was recorded on the arresting officer’s cruiser dashcam; there is no similar recording of the interaction between Mr. Henry and the arresting officer. All that is known about Mr. Henry is that he was arrested, held in jail for several days, and died. Last fall, a man died in the same jail under similarly murky circumstances.
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TV Land is Not Bree Newsome

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

I am offended that I have to defend “The Dukes of Hazzard,” a show I was not a fan of, but this is where the purveyors of popular culture have brought us. Not “where we have been brought,” but where they have decided to bring us.

Two blogs broke the news today that TV Land, a channel dedicated to TV nostalgia, has silently pulled the late-’70s comedy from its line up. “TV Classics ‘R’ Us” published a piece, and then Will McKinley’s great website, “cinematically insane,” followed up on this news, and he requested an official comment from the nostalgia channel. A representative from TV Land confirmed to him that the program had been deleted but gave no elaboration. (Article: “TV Land Pulls ‘The Dukes of Hazzard.'”)
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