Media Challenge

The media publishes this crap, but without any frame of reference. See if you can spot the problem:

• A man serving a life sentence for a 1990 murder testified Monday he confessed only after he was beaten for half an hour by Chicago police detectives under the command of disgraced former Cmdr. Jon Burge.
  
  Cortez Brown, 38, who now goes by his birth name of Victor Safforld, is seeking a new trial, arguing that his confession was coerced because he feared for his safety and that of his family.
  
  [...] Safforld testified Monday that while he was handcuffed to a wall in 1990, O'Brien allegedly held him while Maslanka and another detective, John Paladino, punched him in the body, slapped the side of his head and hit him with a flashlight. After about 30 minutes, he said, "I told them I would say whatever they wanted me to say, sign whatever they wanted me to sign."

So, media marvels, we have a challenge for you and any other person who feels like participating.

• get a heavy bag (it's a boxing device) at Sportmart or Dick's or other sporting good store;
• secure the heavy bag to a bench, but not so much that it doesn't roll around a bit;
• get a friend to hold the bag steady, then whale the tar out of it for 30 minutes - you can use open hand, stick, phone book, whatever.

Not one person out of 100,000 is going to be able to beat a heavy bag for 30 minutes. Even if you take it in shifts, one holding the bag and one beating it, the chances of making it through 30 minutes is small.

There's a reason boxing matches are 12 three-minute rounds. And those guys are in top shape for the most part. It's pretty near impossible to beat someone, even half chained to a wall (Brown says he had to be held by another cop) to the point where he feels that the electric chair is his best option.

It reeks of implausibility.