Dep't of As Ye Shall Sow

Richard Barrett spent 30-odd years preaching the bestial inferiority of the "black race," so I can't help thinking that he derived some small satisfaction amid his agonizing last moments from the fact that his murderer was a black man.

Vincent McGee, 23, who lives with his parents on the same street as Barrett, was arrested around 5 p.m. Thursday at his sister's home in Pearl, Sheriff Ronnie Pennington said.

Barrett's body had multiple stab wounds to the neck and blunt-force trauma to the head; 35 percent of his body had been burned, Pennington said.

While McGee is African American, authorities have not said Barrett's racial beliefs were a motive in his slaying.

McGee had performed yard work for Barrett, Pennington said.

McGee had served five years of a six-year sentence for simple assault on a police officer and grand larceny when he was released on probation in February from the State Penitentiary at Parchman.

Note to white supremacists: if you make a career out of saying that black people suck, don't hire one to mow your grass.

Unfortunately, McGee has now reaffirmed the prejudices Barrett's fan club shared. Of course, Barrett could've been smitten down in front of Walmart by a four-winged angel with a glowing sword inscribed "HATE TO THE HATERS" in fiery runes, and those folks *still* wouldn't rethink those prejudices. They'd blame Obama.

... More arrests in Barrett's murder, which I think it's over-cautious to avoid calling a "hate crime."

... I can't find anything about his funeral arrangements, but in Madison just now I was passed by a short funeral procession with American Legion motorcyclists, which made me wonder whether that was Barrett's. He was by all accounts a decorated Vietnam veteran, so whatever good one can remember about him, so much the better.

... In an coincidental instance of cosmic balance, the world has also lost Whitney Harris, the last survivor of the American prosecutorial team at Nuremberg:

Whitney Harris, who was a member of the U.S. legal team that prosecuted Nazis at Nuremberg after World War II, has died. He was 97.

Harris was the last surviving of the three Nuremberg prosecutors, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch said. He died Wednesday at his home in the suburban St. Louis town of Frontenac * * *

Harris was lead prosecutor in the first of the Nuremberg war-crime trials in 1945 and tried Ernst Kaltenbrunner, the senior surviving leader of the Nazi Security Police. He also helped cross-examine Hermann Goering, Hitler's second-in-command, and helped get the confession of Rudolf Franz Ferdinand Hoess, head of the Auschwitz concentration camp.

In his later years, Harris was an author and gave speeches on human rights. In 1980, he established the Whitney R. Harris Collection on the Third Reich of Germany at Washington University in St. Louis. He also is the namesake of the university's Whitney R. Harris World Law Institute.

"He basically dedicated his life to trying to develop an international justice system to deal with war crimes against humanity and genocide," said his son, Eugene Harris, 45, of Olivette in suburban St. Louis.

A man who pledged himself to opposing and prosecuting the ideals Barrett stood for.

... Höss's middle name was "Franz Ferdinand"??? (1) Good lord, and (2) why is that in an AP obit?

... Kaltenbrunner's never gotten the press of some other Nazi leaders, which I guess is why I never knew he was president of Interpol. Interpol??? Yes:

Interpol was founded in Austria in 1923 as the International Criminal Police (ICP). Following the Anschluss (Austria's annexation by Nazi Germany) in 1938, the organization fell under the control of Nazi Germany and the Commission's headquarters were eventually moved to Berlin in 1942. It is unclear, however, if and to what extent the ICPC files were used to further the goals of the Nazi regime. However, from 1938 to 1945, the presidents of Interpol included Otto Steinhäusl (a general in the SS), Reinhard Heydrich (a general in the SS, and chair of the Wannsee Conference that appointed Heydrich the chief executor of the "Final solution to the Jewish question"), Arthur Nebe (a general in the SS, and Einsatzgruppen leader, under whose command at least 46,000 people were killed), and Ernst Kaltenbrunner (a general in the SS, the highest ranking SS officer executed after the Nuremberg Trial).

Whoa!