—Virginia’s new tourism slogan—something I know because they keep sending me press releases—building on its long-time motto, “Virginia is for lovers.” (Just not gay ones or ones who need an abortion while visiting.)

In the decade since 9/11, not once has anyone asked to search my bag. I’d like to think it’s because of my honest face, but probably it’s because I’m white, and the vast majority of New York stop-and-frisks (thanks, Mayor Bloomberg) are inflicted upon black people.

Stop-and-frisks, if you don’t know, are also a post-9/11 phenomenon, and they are exactly what they sound like: For no reason that they have to provide, New York cops just stop and search you. It’s a staggering violation of civil rights, and it’s almost entirely directed against minorities. In the first three months of 2012, New York City cops stop-and-frisked people 200, 000 times. That is astonishing–200, 000 illegal searches. Almost all of them involved blacks and Latinos.

Funnily enough, this morning the Times reports that a federal judge has widened a class action lawsuit against the New York Police Department. According to the Times, “she was disturbed by the city’s ‘deeply troubling apathy towards New Yorkers’ most fundamental constitutional rights.’”

She’s not the only one. The New York City Police has grown out of control in the past decade, with its cops raping and stealing while searching anyone whose look they don’t particularly like.

So I guess yesterday they were trying to make amends—searching a white man instead of the usual darker-skinned ones. (And I didn’t even get the frisk that is part of the stop and frisk; they just searched my bag.) So violating civil rights is okay as long as you don’t target minorities?

I guess New York cops think they’ll make it up on the volume…

This is their version of “Oh, Susannah.”

British journalist Mark Cole interviews Gabriel, who really is one of the great musical geniuses of the past quarter-century or so….and also genuinely, interestingly weird.

Sincerely,

Note: this e-mail was sent from a notification-only e-mail address that cannot accept incoming e-mail. Please do not reply to this message.

Apparently 2 + 2 really does equal 5…

Football signed by Super Bowl champion New York Giant Antrel Rolle on display in our office. Mr. Rolle wore CREED’s Aventus fragrance in the Super Bowl.

They paid someone to wear their cologne…while playing in the Super Bowl?

…What West doesn’t say is that for the past decade, he has been wandering in an emotional and spiritual wilderness. At 58 years old, he has let old wounds fester. He nurses a personal beef with Obama, and he still smarts from the bruises inflicted upon his ego in a 2001 fracas with Larry Summers, in which the then-president of Harvard University queried West’s scholarly bona fides in public and West departed Cambridge in a red-hot rage for his second stint at Princeton. (“[Summers] needed to be the president of Harvard the way I need to be the president of the NHL,” he told me.) West is also a cancer survivor, having been diagnosed and treated for late-stage prostate disease just as the Summers debacle was unfolding. He is thrice-divorced and still pays alimony to his last ex-wife.

I think there’s some truth to this idea that West is, well, lonely. Which is a shame, because for all his failings—we are all human—Cornel West is an incredibly decent and generous man; his heart is very much in the right place. But I think he’s been so busy fulfilling what he sees as his mission, that he has lots of acolytes, but few who really know him…