NPR interviews the author of "Ghettoside: A True Story of Murder in America".  Here's part of the transcript:

DAVIES: This is FRESH AIR. And if you're just joining us, our guest is journalist Jill Leovy. She's written a book about her years covering homicide in Los Angeles and some of the problems that it presents. The book is "Ghettoside: A True Story Of Murder In America."

You profile a detective in Los Angeles named John Skaggs who really stands out in his ability to solve a very high percentage of the murders that he investigates in the same atmosphere that others will find so difficult, you know, a frustrating lack of witness cooperation, etc. Tell us just a little bit about Skaggs, what kind of guy he is and what attitude he brings to the cases he's assigned.

LEOVY: Well, he's a supremely self-confident individual. He is tall. He's athletic. He's a surfer - very typical product of Southern California. Contrary to some of the myths about the troubled homicide detective, very happy, well-adjusted person. And he has defined his career on lines a little different than what would - might be thought of as conventional success within the police department. Instead of rising through the ranks, he's hooked on homicide - ghettoside homicide, as I talk in the book - South Bureau homicide, the cases that don't make the news that are elided (ph) over as gang-related. And he becomes a real specialist in this - in these kinds of investigations. And I say in my book he's a - he considers himself very, very successful, and it's in his mind only because nobody else would consider him that successful. He's a D2 on a - you know, the homicide table in Southeast which is not, you know, considered a launch pad for greater things in the LAPD. So he's distinguished by his relentlessness, his perfectionism, but I think also this deep conviction he has that this is what matters in law enforcement, that this is what the police ought to be doing, that it counts.

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Bonus:  Wired has a story on Rodney Mullen.  Here's a bit:

"When doctors declared themselves stymied by his injury, Mullen elected to engage in a painful form of self-treatment: He pummeled his leg with wrenches and knife handles in an attempt to break up the scar tissue that was strangling his bones. The process was so agonizing that Mullen often had to drive out to remote areas so that no one could hear his screams. He kept at it because it yielded results, albeit slowly-Mullen knew that it would take him several years to get back to full health.

Desperate for a mental diversion as he rehabbed, Mullen cast about for a constructive hobby. The one he settled on would change the course of his life: mastering Linux.

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Reminds me of having a bunch of scar tissue in one calf that could be screamingly painful.  A change of scenery led to it fading away, quietly.

 

 

 

Edited: 01/27/2015 at 08:36 PM by ww

Rodney Mullen the original street skater, Us vert gus would joke and bag on his goofy socks and funny flatland style until Mark "Gonzo" Gonzales began the shift from Vert to street and vert skating faded away.  Rodney was the originator and never really given the credit for shifting the skate scene from the backyard ramps to the street.

 

No idea of what the leg pummeling was abouit but Rodney Mullen never really got all the credit he deservered for his pivotal role in skate history.  Hope ghe still has some of his POwell-Peralta money.

Enjoyed the Rodney articleas a Skater/surf Nerd. (Skated my way to my science degree at UF)
You could tell the writer was a little disjunct from the extreme sports world.

Rodney vs Daewon + shook ones......
If you know....you know

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Time and tide wait for no one.....

Reminds me of whitewater kayaking at colleges, circa 1970.  Early faculty-garage boat building popped up at places like Penn State and Reed College (Portland, Oregon).   European grad students contributed.  

I was at UF at the same time as Rodney.  I used to sit and watch him skate in the chemistry bld. parking lot across from the Fletcher hall dorms and then ran into him from time to time as we were both in engineering.  Nice guy, way more skills that I ever had on a skateboard and I skated vert with ok skills. He was very impressive to watch, and totally humble.