Rodney “Can’t We All Just Get Along” King was found dead this morning. So far the only details available are that his fiance found him in their pool, so assumable he drowned. He was 47.
For those of you younger than 25, in 1991 King was beaten by four cops after acting a bit odd when they pulled him and his friends over. They fractured his skull and broke a couple of his bones. The officers were tried for excessive use of force and were found innocent, leading to the six day LA race riots in which 53 people died and more than 2,000 people were injured.
Indirectly King will always be tied to the continuing Civil Rights movement, and I don’t really want another “cancer” incident on my hands, so I find it difficult to make a joke about his death. Instead here’s a fun fact: The CIA once planned to drop gigantic condoms labeled “medium” on Soviet forces in order to demoralize them against fighting huge American penis. The more you know!
