Today I started a brand new adventure in life.  I, in partnership with my son, purchased 25 Amber Link chicks for a backyard flock.  I was only going to buy 20 chicks but that would have left 5 “little” orphans of the last batch for the store so I bought the remaining 5 as well.

My chicks, being Amber Links, were not popular and so these little girls are already a week old.  Still extremely cute, but not that “melt your heart” cute of two day old peeps.  As I write this it dawns on me that I should have taken a picture but I didn’t so that will have to be remedied tomorrow.

Today’s acquisitions also included 50 lbs of starter feed, a feeder, a waterer, a heater light and lamp, a bale of wood chips (nesting material), and finally a kiddy pool to hold them all in one convenient and safe place until they can be moved to “their” yard where I plan to pasture them.

Note to self: Buy a slightly larger kiddy pool tomorrow for a sunny spot to allow the girls some warm sun in their future yard as they grow bigger, much better than the garage – at least for sunny afternoons the next week or two.

Update: Next morning

The girls made it through their first night and I managed to remember to snap a few pics on my handy iPhone:

Here is a recent picture snipped from their website:

Now, it should be said that this image was gleaned from Facebook by the people behind CharlestonThugLife, the account was not hacked nor accessed by any means other than clicking onto the public profile.  One of the three in this picture was so proud of it that he posted it for any and all to see.

Below is a post [dated April 2, 2012] from the website explaining, in their words, why they began the blog and why they post what they do (reposted here with permission):

What an interesting evening. We knew Charleston Thug Life was popular with nearly seven-thousand hits during it’s three day lifespan. We just didn’t know how quickly and how far the word had been disseminated. After eating dinner we checked the email and found three inquiries from the press. Two were Lowcountry media, the third was national. We are truly humbled.

The media outlets wanted to set up meetings to discuss our aims, our goals, our motivations for starting the blog and what kind of feedback we are getting. We are suspicious of some of these requests simply because of the way they were phrased. We also researched the senders. After all, research is what we do here. We weren’t impressed. National media – not happening. Local media?

Let us put this very plainly. Having lived in Charleston all of our lives has made us privy to the bias, slant, agenda, whatever you want to call it, of most of the local outlets if not those of individual reporters. Even if we were inclined to put ourselves out there does anyone really think a politically incorrect (but truthful) blog like this would get a fair shot in the press? No, we didn’t think so.

We choose to answer some of the above questions here. If that doesn’t serve your purposes, too bad. You came to use, we didn’t seek you out.

What is our motivation?

As explained in the Welcome post we were motivated by the lack of balanced coverage in the media. The Pringle case was the final straw. Reporters know law enforcement can’t comment on an ongoing investigation, yet they fail to include that little tidbit in their stories. Citizens often wonder why departments don’t comment and it raises suspicion among those who are not familiar with those type of issues. Meanwhile, the media reports every nasty, baseless and racist proclamation made by the family of the thug and their race hustling representatives as if those statements were gospel.

For days Pringle was held forth in the media as a choirboy. Not one local journalist (and we use that term very loosely) bothered to do any research. Instead, they dutifully reported the fraudulent rantings of family members who KNEW Pringle was a thug and complained about that fact on readily available social media.

One of the Charleston Thug Life team studied journalism in high school and college and served as editor of a number of school newspapers. We are not unfamiliar with the tenets of journalism. We haven’t seen real journalism in the Lowcountry in a long, long time. That same conclusion should be glaringly obvious to any citizen who has watched local television news or read the local bird cage liners.

[SZ: Or, look at the media's handling of the fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin for an example other than the one used by CharlestonThugLife.  Media slant, bias, inaccuracies and out and out manipulated information while all the officials have had to sit silently by without an ability to either tell their side or correct the inaccuracies (and lies).]

As we sat quietly on the sidelines we observed common citizens bringing the true facts to light on social media and on media outlet websites. We were amazed to see some of these people posting under their actual names in an effort to call the media out on their failure to perform their due diligence and report the whole truth.

As we sat around the fire pit one evening and discussed this issue we decided we had to do something to enlighten our fellow citizens. We aren’t quite as brave as the citizens mentioned above so we decided to inform and remain anonymous. Even if we were inclined to meet with the media, we don’t trust them to honor a confidentiality agreement. And let’s face it – how many of the thugs outed here would we have to gun down when some ‘journalist’ breached that agreement? While we are quite capable of doing so we really have no desire to. We would rather spill their digital blood and expose them for what they are. Public scrutiny can be bad for their business.

We don’t do this for recognition, or the potential for it. We don’t do it for personal gain. There is no money to be made in this endeavor. We simply found an information vacuum and chose to fill it. In doing so we assist our fellow law abiding citizens of the Lowcountry.

[SZ: These folk know the personal danger they have assumed.  Don't know about everyone but I'd not invite the ire of well armed young men for just any ol' trivial thing.  But, this is the South after all, lots of us Southerners are well armed.]

Aims and goals – synonyms. For the thugs reading this – da WRDs meen da sam fing.

We want to expose as many of these hidden thugs as we can; for as long as we can. This endeavor can be research intensive. We work hard for what we have. The day may come when this little project begins to excessively interfere with our families or our work. If that should happen we will abandon it. This effort also causes a lot of headaches. Spend a few hours trying to decipher the ghetto-speak on these pages and you will see what we mean. If the Advil budget grows too large, the project will be abandoned. If we feel our efforts are no longer needed we will go away.

What kind of feedback are we getting?

The feedback so far has all been great. Remember, we are only three days into this thing. Some folks post comments and they are appreciated, but not expected. The average citizen doesn’t need to invite the potential danger of a thug showing up on the front lawn in order to let us know they appreciate the effort. We can see that appreciation every day in the blog stats.

The true measure of the success and popularity of Charleston Thug Life is the number of citizens who are taking some time out of their busy lives to crawl the social media sites and ferret out the local thugs. We started with one or two who jumped in almost immediately. We won’t say how many are now participating, but the number is growing each day. This is quickly becoming a community project and we are thrilled with that.

Will there be negative feedback? No doubt. Sooner or later the thugs and their supporters from the NAACP will meander on over. When that happens we may have to move to moderated comments, but those diatribes will still be published to highlight the ignorance.

Are we picking on black thugs? For the time being. Let’s be honest – there isn’t an overabundance of white thugs dealing drugs on the street corners of Charleston or shooting up the community. When we find them, they too will be exposed.

Update: A couple of the journalists who contacted us also complimented us on our ability to find the content put forth on these pages. To this we say – it isn’t that hard. Try it. Bring some sorely needed honor back to your profession.

There was a time when there were a lot of folk willing to “stand up and do the tough stuff”, not so much in this modern era.  Agree with them or no, the people behind CharlestonThugLife are doing what they feel they need to do.  And, having lived in this world more than a <cough…> “few” years I have a full appreciation for “doing the wrong thing for all the right reasons” .  That’s no pronouncement on my believing what is being done is wrong (I don’t even know if I believe it’s right either) but at least they’ve decided to do some of the “tough stuff”.  What have most of us done lately to try to improve the little slice of the world we live in?

Oh, it’s  easy to find stuff on the net declaring these folk blatant racists, that’s one of the reasons I’m writing this post with their own words embedded.  There are always two sides of a story and ever the optimist am I, I believe there are one or three people still around that will give both sides their say before making up their mind.

Yesterday I found something on the net that I’m not sure how I feel about : Blog seeks to draw attention to purported thugs in Charleston area.  Charleston, SC happens to be my own backyard.

Here is the link for the blog referenced Charleston Thug Life.   And here is a link for on the incident referenced as the inspiration of the blog’s creation North Charleston Officer Shoots Teen.

As a supporter for our constitutionally guaranteed right to free speech I cannot logically say these folk (whoever they may be) don’t have a right to do this but I also think it loses a lot of standing by doing it anonymously, though I fully understand the “why” of why they do so.   As a one time “net activist” I look on this endeavor as nothing short of brilliant, much like I thought of WikiLeaks putting corporate and governmental bad behavior on display for all to see (if they chose to look).

However… Is there a downside to this?

No matter how hard I try I can’t come up with a logical counter to say “this is wrong because….”  Making me feel a bit uncomfortable isn’t reason enough.  Frankly, we are not made to feel uncomfortable nearly enough.  There are difficult things “out there” in the “real world” that we blissfully ignore as assiduously as we can.

Police officers learned the hard way that what they post on the internet can cost them court cases and sometimes their jobs.  Some ignore the lessons of the unthinking and fool hardy that came before them and walk unseeing into the ramifications of stupidity.  Now, I guess it’s the “thugs” and the “wanna bes” turn to learn.

In the end, I’ll just tell these anonymous folk  “let’s be careful out there“.

I have no idea whether the Tulsa shootings are in any way connected to the Trayvon Martin shooting hype.  Yes, in my private thoughts I entertain the idea that it probably is, but that’s one great big huge assumption on my part – and not one I’m “married to”.  It might turn out that this is so completely mundane (in today’s reality) as to be drug related or some personal vendetta wholly unrelated to anything outside of Tulsa.  Or, even, just some genuine crazy hater who woke up yesterday and decided his cat just told him to go out and shoot black men.

At this point any theory is just that – a theory. But human beings always do try to make sense of their world.  As thinking human beings we need to remember that just because we may believe something that “something” isn’t necessarily true.  After all, people once believed the earth was the center of the heavens – and flat.  Or, that tossing children down a really deep hole in the ground would bring rain.  Or, that owning another human being was somehow OK.

I close this troubling post with a suggesting that everyone who is inclined to believe they know enough to believe a theory is in fact, well, a fact, should read this: Incompetent People Too Ignorant to Know It.  And that gentle suggestion goes for the Treyvon Martin shooting as much as it does the Tulsa OK shootings.

In the interest of full disclosure I need to say that I am a Southerner, and a proud one at that.  I’m proud of being a Southerner even if everyone who lives in the South is not a Rhodes Scholar.

America garners its strength because of and through its diversity.  Back in my “younger years” I had hopes that by this time we would have left behind all of our bigotry.  Having grown up with Star Trek I was convinced prejudice would go the way of the horse and buggy within my lifetime.  Sadly, that day is still far in the future still and I no longer believe I will live to see it.  It is not only still OK to be bigoted it is considered comedic as long as it’s conservatives who are the target of the bigotry.

I would write more, maybe even something eloquent, but each time I have come to this post today I became angrier, especially in light of the “Slut-gate” series unfolding on Breitbart.com [here, here].   So I’ll leave it at this, my rising anger will not change anything and there’s already enough anger in the world.