A Call to Alms

I thought we'd all agreed that when someone on Facebook or Twitter asks us to do something, we do only the part we can do from our computer. Instead of stopping Joseph Kony, we tell our friends to watch videos about Kony. When Facebook suggests you observe my birthday, it doesn't mean you should bother me with a call; it wants you to post on my wall so people can see how popular I am.

So I was shocked that on the Tuesday after the George Zimmerman verdict, one day after people looted a Walmart in the Crenshaw area of Los...