Politics
So it looks like Reuters (who, to be clear,  has of course had their fair share of inflammatory headlines concerning this incident painting Zimmerman as felon) did some actual “journalism stuffz” on George Zimmerman in an article entitled George Zimmerman: Prelude to a shooting. This is going to be the focus of the article today. If you have the time I recommend that you read it for yourself!

If it is to be believed, though of course some will discount the work done here, while they will swallow whole and without question anything that fits their preconceptions, we find out the following:

A pit bull named Big Boi began menacing George and Shellie Zimmerman in the fall of 2009.

The first time the dog ran free and cornered Shellie in their gated community in Sanford, Florida, George called the owner to complain. The second time, Big Boi frightened his mother-in-law’s dog. Zimmerman called Seminole County Animal Services and bought pepper spray. The third time he saw the dog on the loose, he called again. An officer came to the house, county records show.

“Don’t use pepper spray,” he told the Zimmermans, according to a friend. “It’ll take two or three seconds to take effect, but a quarter second for the dog to jump you,” he said.

“Get a gun.”

-Zimmerman bought a gun at the direction of police, due to circumstances in his neighborhood.
-”He was raised in a racially integrated household and himself has black roots through an Afro-Peruvian great-grandfather – the father of the maternal grandmother who helped raise him.”
-In June 2011 robberies and burglaries in and around his neighborhood began.

Though civil rights demonstrators have argued Zimmerman should not have prejudged Martin, one black neighbor of the Zimmermans said recent history should be taken into account.

“Let’s talk about the elephant in the room. I’m black, OK?” the woman said, declining to be identified because she anticipated backlash due to her race. She leaned in to look a reporter directly in the eyes. “There were black boys robbing houses in this neighborhood,” she said. “That’s why George was suspicious of Trayvon Martin.”

-Zimmerman’s Father is a Korean War vet, and worked in the Department of Defense for decades.
-As a child, George was brought to the homes of poor people by his Mother as she worked in her Church’s community outreach program.

Zimmerman’s maternal grandmother, Cristina, who had lived with the Zimmermans since 1978, worked as a babysitter for years during Zimmerman’s childhood. For several years she cared for two African-American girls who ate their meals at the Zimmerman house and went back and forth to school each day with the Zimmerman children.

-”In 2004, Zimmerman partnered with an African-American friend and opened up an Allstate insurance satellite office, Donnelly said.”  (Nothing says racist like having friends of different ethnic backgrounds, and opening businesses with them.)
-”Then came 2005, and a series of troubles. Zimmerman’s business failed, he was arrested, and he broke off an engagement with a woman who filed a restraining order against him.” In this time the now infamous barfight occurred. He also filed a restraining order against said woman.
-In 07 he met Shellie Dean, who is his wife.
-”Zimmerman enrolled in Seminole State College in 2009, and in December 2011 he was permitted to participate in a school graduation ceremony, despite being a course credit shy of his associate’s degree in criminal justice. Zimmerman was completing that course credit when the shooting occurred.”
-On March 22nd the school pretty much kicked him out.

By the summer of 2011, Twin Lakes was experiencing a rash of burglaries and break-ins. Previously a family-friendly, first-time homeowner community, it was devastated by the recession that hit the Florida housing market, and transient renters began to occupy some of the 263 town houses in the complex. Vandalism and occasional drug activity were reported, and home values plunged. One resident who bought his home in 2006 for $250,000 said it was worth $80,000 today.

At least eight burglaries were reported within Twin Lakes in the 14 months prior to the Trayvon Martin shooting, according to the Sanford Police Department. Yet in a series of interviews, Twin Lakes residents said dozens of reports of attempted break-ins and would-be burglars casing homes had created an atmosphere of growing fear in the neighborhood.

In several of the incidents, witnesses identified the suspects to police as young black men. Twin Lakes is about 50 percent white, with an African-American and Hispanic population of about 20 percent each, roughly similar to the surrounding city of Sanford, according to U.S. Census data.

-Zimmerman’s bike was stolen.
-”But it was the August incursion into the home of Olivia Bertalan that really troubled the neighborhood, particularly Zimmerman.”
-Afterward George offered Olivia his contact information, he gave her a stronger lock of her backdoor.
-”"He was so mellow and calm, very helpful and very, very sweet,” she said last week. “We didn’t really know George at first, but after the break-in we talked to him on a daily basis. People were freaked out. It wasn’t just George calling police … we were calling police at least once a week.”
-”In September, a group of neighbors including Zimmerman approached the homeowners association with their concerns, she said. Zimmerman was asked to head up a new neighborhood watch. He agreed.” (Vigilante!)
-”The Retreat at Twin Lakes e-newsletter for February 2012 noted: “The Sanford PD has announced an increased patrol within our neighborhood … during peak crime hours.”If you’ve been a victim of a crime in the community, after calling police, please contact our captain, George Zimmerman.”"
-Zimmerman’s Grandmother and Father both hospitalized “recently”.
-”The last time Zimmerman had called police, to report Burgess (another burglar), he followed protocol and waited for police to arrive. They were too late, and Burgess got away.”

Thoughts after looking over this list
1) Racism is a charge that needs to be proved. I think it’s insane, really insane, that someone has to substantiate to total strangers how they “aren’t racist”, citing evidence like friends of different ethnic backgrounds and the like in the hopes that it appeases the accuser, that it’s “good enough” to end the witch hunt. We live in a time where to be accused of racism can end someone’s career. That’s right, our society today is so racist, that to be accused of it can practically ruin someone’s life!

Here’s a thought: How about the person accusing someone of racism has to actually prove the charge? This should be an easy one. Putting on a Klan outfit and shouting horrible racist words is clearly racist. Putting on a Black Panther outfit and calling for the murder of a white person is not. (Wait what?!)
Writing volumes of racist literature is racist. There are real penalties for those who want to do the things the Klan did. Several years ago James Byrd was dragged from a pick up truck by a couple of worthless “people” (I’m not sure how else to refer to them, as I don’t really consider them human beings) for his being black. Response: Texas executed one of the men responsible, the other is on death row (still trying to appeal but he’s going to be cooked soon too), and the other is serving life imprisonment. Real racism is a terrible, terrible thing, and to use the word as duct-tape for the mouths of those you disagree with is absolutely disgusting! It cheapens the word and it reduces the significance of something very serious.

2) George Zimmerman was an upstanding citizen that was practically drafted to become the leader of his town watch. His neighborhood was having issues, he had the gall to answer the call. He did not choose his neighborhood for an uptick in crime. For those who want to paint him as a mere vigilante: I think you’re an idiot that believes what you’re told by those in the media or by those looking to make a buck from this controversy. If someone wants to give credence to this idea in appeasement to their God-of-appearing-non-biased-by-giving-credence-to-stupid-ideas or some referee that apparently tallies up little point values for such, then that’s fine. Don’t expect others or myself to give you appearance-points for it.

3) The shooter here is not perfect. “Controversial” statement, I know. But if you look at his background, it at the least calls the original false memes into question.. and if you have half a pulse and an IQ over 45 you realize it’s completely false from top to bottom. For the goals and ends of those who wanted to make this story huge, absolutely anyone would have done. If they can paint George Zimmerman as a monster, in world where actual hate crimes occur like this one in Chicago done in the name of Trayvon Martin, no one is safe! If they pick you to crucify you in public, it will be so. The air-conditioned mob is satisfied with what they “know” about George Zimmerman, Florida’s laws, et al. If Zimmerman is not convicted, they will blow a gasket and wonder why and how this all happened, completely unaware of the card house that is what they regarded to be the truth. But after much gnashing of teeth, the self anointed will declare moral victory and then move onto a new cause they need to destroy “fix” in the name of their own self-exaltation “progress”.

All of this information has come out, full police audio has come out  (thanks NBC), real high definition video replaced the grainy video (thanks ABC), and yet the memes remain the same. Viewers and slacktivists wanted a monster, they had the monster makeup ready and they threw it on a normal person, who in the opinion of  safe-in-suburbia-idealists, “acted stupidly”. Imagine if this shooter had been a “real white person” and not the “white Hispanic” racial category the Associated Press made up (I’ve never heard of that category before, nor has anyone I know!). Imagine if they were a “Tea-Partier”, that owned a large gun collection and had a lifted pickup truck. Holy s**t, Jesse Jackson would have used his powers of rhetoric to teleport there!

I can’t help but laugh and shake my head, if you’d have shown this to objective people in say, the form of a movie script? Even M. Night Shamalyn would say, “I don’t know, this amount of twists is excessive- I think an audience would feel angry and duped.” Instead, we STILL have people who are willing to state now and forever that should they be in such a situation like that night in Florida, they would:
1) Politely ask the person (or persons, as the brilliant believers in this haphazardly dreamed up procedure often forget that people can be attacked by more than one person) bouncing their head into the pavement if they also have a firearm or knife, if they so no, they will not use a firearm because they’re “not allowed”.
2) Possibly get stabbed or shot by that person or people, because they lied to you, assuming they answered at all, or that you were able to speak to them clearly in the first place.
3) If their assailant or assailants are sufficiently smaller than them in physical size, they’re more or less “not allowed” to fight back. Even if they have the jump on them, by say striking them in the face and disorienting them, or repeatedly hitting them in the head after that event.
4) Their own death is preferable to defending themselves in this event. They can also make this choice for other people too.

Unbelievable.
Despite the length of this post I may add more to it and re-release it as the court case unfolds.