Everyone and his brother are noting the passing of Robert Novak, but I thought it’d be worthwhile to call out two less noticed passings:
Sherwood Cryer, co-founder and co-owner of Gilley’s, the iconic honky-tonk that begat Urban Cowboy.
Rose Friedman, wife, partner, and collaborator of Milton Friedman. Reason notes in a followup post that you can watch all of Free to Choose here.
By way of Say Uncle, we learn of a Miami New Times article on store clerks exercising their right to self-defense; “South Florida Store Clerks Go Vigilante“.
In spite of the inaccurate headline, the article itself strikes me as being fairly even handed and sympathetic to the clerks interviewed.
“This is our police!” he declares, pointing at his handgun. “This is our state attorney!”
On the other hand, there’s a developing story here in Austin. Briefly, two young idiots decided to try and steal a 12-pack from a convenience store; the clerk came out and cranked off a dozen rounds at them. The clerk apparently hit with at least one of them, as one of the crooks was found dead inside the abandoned car a few hours later.
The punchline? The clerk is being charged with first degree murder. I see no mention in the article of the getaway driver being charged with anything, even though he was apparently in the process of filing a false police report when the cops showed up at his door.
Police said they later interviewed Romero, who said he fired a pistol about 12 times at Vielma, picked up the shell casings and put them in his vehicle.
He also told police that he picked up the beer dropped by Vielma and threw it into a trash bin, and he deleted images of the incident from the store’s video surveillance system.
Ooooo. Bad move, space cadet. If you had a good reason for shooting, the evidence is only going to help you. Altering or destroying evidence only makes you look bad.