A victimless crime
One of the most nonsensical phrases in our language is today's subject line. "But it is a victimless crime" is something people say all the time to justify their actions when they violate a law they don't agree with. Or perhaps more accurately, a law they didn't expect to be caught violating.
Let's start with speeding. It's victimless until there is an accident. Until the rest of us wind up paying higher automobile insurance premiums because of the others out there who won't drive responsibly. Now there may be no victims that a speeding driver can see at that moment, but they are out there. Because it only takes that first time they are driving too fast and have an accident that they are suddenly confronted with their victims.
Shoplifting is described as a victimless crime. After all the stores have lots of things on their shelves. They build the cost of what they describe as "shrinkage" into the prices that law-abiding shoppers pay. But wait. That means that those who steal make those who don't pay more. Once again, those who follow the laws are the victims.
Now to the real reason this subject is on my mind today. Prostitution. Outside of those counties in Nevada where it is legal, it is an illegal act that many say is victimless. Until you examine it. When you discover just how many of the prostitutes out there were forced into "the life" when they were still in their early teens. They are the victims. Victims of poor parenting. Victims of pimps who brutalize them and take every dollar they make. Victims of their "johns" who take advantage of them at every opportunity. The jerks who are out there cruising in order to pay for sex are victimizing those girls just as much as the pimps who are forcing them out onto the streets.
What's the answer? Economics. The law of supply and demand. If we eliminate the demand, the supply will dry up. How do we eliminate the demand? Easy. Make it so risky to be a john that the men who get their rocks off with hookers go home and take matters in hand (pun intended). A $1,000 fine for soliciting prostitution isn't that much of a disincentive. Maybe $5,000 or $10,000, and public identification would work. How many men will give in to the urge to get off if the cost of being caught was that high? Being forced to register as sex offenders. Whatever it takes. Make it so bad for a john that he (or she) will find another outlet.
* * *
I've decided to not go to a movie tonight at the theater because while I would like to hear the Q&A with the director and one of the stars afterward, I don't want that badly enough to pay full price for the ticket.
Does that make me frugal, cheap or what? I think it makes me frugal. I don't get paid for writing film reviews and going there to try to land an interview with the director isn't worth the extra money in my mind. I will see the movie on another day. I'll see if I can get the website I write for an interview via email. Maybe I'm more conscious of this right now because I'm going to earn almost no money during this pay cycle.
Five days a week, if I'm home at the right hour, I will watch reruns of Dragnet and Adam-12. Not because they're such great shows. I've seen all of the episodes before. I just love watching them because of the images of Los Angeles as it was in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Standard signs instead of Chevron signs at gas stations. Crocker National Banks, which have been long gone. Single story buildings that were at the site of what are now skyscrapers. Intersections with one gas station at each of their four corners. I'm still waiting to hear from anyone who can find one in Southern California other than the intersection of Adams and Crenshaw.
There are shows I watch where I've seen most, but not all of the episodes. I'm still missing a few of the 435 episodes of Law & Order and a couple of the episodes of its two spin-offs. I have grown a little bored with watching DVDs to see episodes of programs I hadn't managed to catch all of. I've had the two DVDs of one show in my room for two weeks now. I'm sending them back unwatched tomorrow. One of today's tasks is to update my Netflix queue.
* * *
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said that the "signatures of sarin" were found in Syria. I ranted about nerve agents yesterday but I was talking about VX. That's the biological weapon we watched Nicolas Cage stop from being used on San Francisco in "The Rock." Sarin is a similar weapon, but what is it really?
Sarin is a binary weapon, which in simple English means that it isn't lethal as it is stored. There are two chemical compounds that pose no danger when kept apart. But when they are mixed, the reaction creates Sarin (also known as "GB").
How does Sarin kill? It works on the nervous system. There is a chemical called acetylcholine that sends messages from the nervous system to the muscles of the body. That makes it a neurotransmitter. There is another chemical that the body produces called acetylcholinesterase which stops that neurotransmitter from transmitting.
Put another way, the first substance will stimulate a muscle, while the second ends the stimulation, causing the muscle to relax. The Sarin inhibits the production of the second substance which causes the muscles to continue to be stimulated. This causes muscles to be continually stimulated, which prevents the body from breathing. Someone who comes in contact with Sarin will usually die from asphyxiation.
In the military they issued us chemical suits to protect us from contact with it, gas masks to prevent us from breathing it in, and atropine injectors to use if we were to come in contact with it. All well and good, if you have time to don the gear, put on the mask and to jab yourself in the thigh with the injector. But what we see Nicolas Cage doing in "The Rock" isn't enough. Sometime within the next few hours he would have needed treatment from another drug aside from the atropine he injected into himself.
Thus concludes the boring discussion of Sarin and how it works. There will not be an exam later.
* * *
Random Ponderings:
Was that ad from Dunkin' Donuts in Thailand that used "blackface" racist (yep)?
How appropriate that one week after not knowing that the name of the sergeant in the comic strip "Beetle Bailey" is Sergeant First Class Orville P. Snorkel; hurt my team at the trivia league finals, today is the 90th birthday of the strip's creator, Mort Walker?
Can you really call a television show that lasts only two hours a "telethon"? Even on ABC, a MDA benefit show that only lasts two hours, without Jerry Lewis hosting, is not a telethon.
Syria's president, Bashar al-Assad says his nation can handle any external aggression. When I read that, I had this image of a tiny field mouse, flipping the "bird" to the big eagle swooping down to snatch him up as a snack.
It is worth noting that the new IRS ruling that all legally married same-sex couples will be treated for tax purposes as "married" no matter where they live; isn't going to be good for all of them. Some couples will actually pay more in income tax as a result of this.
The sideline reporter who got hit in the head with a football wound up suffering from severe concussion symptoms for five days. Maybe everyone on the sideline should wear helmets too (naw)?
A mobile home listed for more than $2 million, with a monthly "fee" to the mobile home park of $3,565? Only in Malibu.
If what Lindsay Lohan says about skipping a film festival where a movie she's in was being shown was due to her focus on her health, I give her two thumbs up for that choice.
The video of Ronnie Lott falling off of the set of a post-game show he was doing is priceless. Apparently he was sitting in a USC chair and when it heard him extoling the virtues of UCLA's victory on Saturday...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ve9YpNETq0
* * *
This Date In History:
On this date in 1532, Lady Anne Boleyn is made Marquess of Pembroke by her fiancé, King Henry VIII of England.
On this date in 1715, King Louis XVI of France dies after a reign of 72 years.
On this date in 1804, Juno, one of the largest asteroids in the main "belt" is discovered.
On this date in 1878, Emma Nutt becomes the first female phone operator, after she is hired by Alexander Graham Bell.
On this date in 1897, the Boston subway opens.
On this date in 1914, Martha, the last of the passenger pigeons, dies at the Cincinnati Zoo.
On this date in 1939, George C. Marshall becomes the Army Chief of Staff.
Also on this date that year, Germany approves a wound badge for military personnel.
Also on this date that year, Adolf Hitler signs the order to begin the systematic euthanasia of all mentally ill and disabled people.
On this date in 1951, the U.S., Australia and New Zealand sign a mutual defense treaty, known as the ANZUS treaty.
On this date in 1952, "The Old Man and the Sea" is published.
On this date in 1969, Muammar Khadafi comes to power in Libya by coup d'état.
On this date in 1972, Bobby Fischer beats Boris Spassky to win the World Chess Championship.
On this date in 1974, a SR-71 Blackbird flies from New York to London in one hour and fifty-four minutes.
On this date in 1980, then Major General Chun Doo-hwan becomes President of South Korea.
On this date in 1983, KAL Flight 007 is shot down by a Soviet pilot when the plane entered Soviet airspace. Congressman Lawrence McDonald was among the 269 people on board who died.
Famous Folk Born On This Date:
William IV, Prince of Orange
Engelbert Humperdinck (the German composer, not the British singer)
James J. Corbett
Edgar Rice Burroughs
Richard Farnsworth (if you haven't seen his great performance in "The Straight Story", you need to change that)
Vittorio Gassman (another great actor)
Rocky Marciano
Sunny von Bulow
Ann Richards
Conway Twitty
Alan Dershowitz
Lily Tomlin (how appropriate, given her birthday is the date the first female phone operator was hired)
Archie Bell
Scott Spencer
Mary Louise Weller
Phil McGraw
Phil Hendrie
Billy Blanks
Gloria Estefan
Kenny Mayne
Bam Bam Bigelow
Holly Golightly
Padma Lakshmi
Before I give you today's movie quotes I want to mention that I love both of these films and that the second one is one of the best movies Burt Reynolds ever starred in.
Movie quotes for today come from two of Vittorio Gassman's films, "Sleepers" and "Sharky's Machine":
From Sleepers:
King Benny: Father Bobby would have made a good hitman. It's a shame we lost him to the other side.
#2
Father Bobby: I stopped off at Attica today on my way up here to see an old friend of mine.
Young Lorenzo 'Shakes' Carcaterra: You have any friends who aren't in jail?
Father Bobby: Not as many as I'd like.
#3
Fat Mancho: The street is the only thing that matters. Court is for uptown people with suits, money, lawyers with three names. If you got cash you can buy court justice. But on the street, justice has no price. She's blind where the judge sits but she's not blind out here. Out here the bitch got eyes.
From Sharky's Machine:
Dominoe: This is all you know, isn't it? Pushing, hitting, and punching! Does it make you feel good or something?
Sharky: Sometimes, yes!
#2
Sharky: You all right, partner?
Arch: Of course not, you asshole. I'm shot!
#3
Arch: Sharky, I hit his ass. He's got four bullets in him, and the fucker won't go down!
Sharky: Maybe he knows more about Zen than we do!
#4
Arch: Sharky...
Sharky: Yeah?
Arch: When you find him, you got to put him down.
Sharky: I'll put him down!
Arch: Sharky...
Sharky: Yeah?
Arch: Put his ass in the ground, you hear me?
Sharky: Yeah.
Arch: Sharky...
Sharky: Yeah?
Arch: I'm talking about burying him and putting a stake through his fucking heart, because he's not real.
Sharky: I hear you, Arch!
[Sharky leaves]
Arch: Sharky... Hey, Sharky!... I think I ruined a perfectly good jacket.
Let's start with speeding. It's victimless until there is an accident. Until the rest of us wind up paying higher automobile insurance premiums because of the others out there who won't drive responsibly. Now there may be no victims that a speeding driver can see at that moment, but they are out there. Because it only takes that first time they are driving too fast and have an accident that they are suddenly confronted with their victims.
Shoplifting is described as a victimless crime. After all the stores have lots of things on their shelves. They build the cost of what they describe as "shrinkage" into the prices that law-abiding shoppers pay. But wait. That means that those who steal make those who don't pay more. Once again, those who follow the laws are the victims.
Now to the real reason this subject is on my mind today. Prostitution. Outside of those counties in Nevada where it is legal, it is an illegal act that many say is victimless. Until you examine it. When you discover just how many of the prostitutes out there were forced into "the life" when they were still in their early teens. They are the victims. Victims of poor parenting. Victims of pimps who brutalize them and take every dollar they make. Victims of their "johns" who take advantage of them at every opportunity. The jerks who are out there cruising in order to pay for sex are victimizing those girls just as much as the pimps who are forcing them out onto the streets.
What's the answer? Economics. The law of supply and demand. If we eliminate the demand, the supply will dry up. How do we eliminate the demand? Easy. Make it so risky to be a john that the men who get their rocks off with hookers go home and take matters in hand (pun intended). A $1,000 fine for soliciting prostitution isn't that much of a disincentive. Maybe $5,000 or $10,000, and public identification would work. How many men will give in to the urge to get off if the cost of being caught was that high? Being forced to register as sex offenders. Whatever it takes. Make it so bad for a john that he (or she) will find another outlet.
* * *
I've decided to not go to a movie tonight at the theater because while I would like to hear the Q&A with the director and one of the stars afterward, I don't want that badly enough to pay full price for the ticket.
Does that make me frugal, cheap or what? I think it makes me frugal. I don't get paid for writing film reviews and going there to try to land an interview with the director isn't worth the extra money in my mind. I will see the movie on another day. I'll see if I can get the website I write for an interview via email. Maybe I'm more conscious of this right now because I'm going to earn almost no money during this pay cycle.
Five days a week, if I'm home at the right hour, I will watch reruns of Dragnet and Adam-12. Not because they're such great shows. I've seen all of the episodes before. I just love watching them because of the images of Los Angeles as it was in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Standard signs instead of Chevron signs at gas stations. Crocker National Banks, which have been long gone. Single story buildings that were at the site of what are now skyscrapers. Intersections with one gas station at each of their four corners. I'm still waiting to hear from anyone who can find one in Southern California other than the intersection of Adams and Crenshaw.
There are shows I watch where I've seen most, but not all of the episodes. I'm still missing a few of the 435 episodes of Law & Order and a couple of the episodes of its two spin-offs. I have grown a little bored with watching DVDs to see episodes of programs I hadn't managed to catch all of. I've had the two DVDs of one show in my room for two weeks now. I'm sending them back unwatched tomorrow. One of today's tasks is to update my Netflix queue.
* * *
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said that the "signatures of sarin" were found in Syria. I ranted about nerve agents yesterday but I was talking about VX. That's the biological weapon we watched Nicolas Cage stop from being used on San Francisco in "The Rock." Sarin is a similar weapon, but what is it really?
Sarin is a binary weapon, which in simple English means that it isn't lethal as it is stored. There are two chemical compounds that pose no danger when kept apart. But when they are mixed, the reaction creates Sarin (also known as "GB").
How does Sarin kill? It works on the nervous system. There is a chemical called acetylcholine that sends messages from the nervous system to the muscles of the body. That makes it a neurotransmitter. There is another chemical that the body produces called acetylcholinesterase which stops that neurotransmitter from transmitting.
Put another way, the first substance will stimulate a muscle, while the second ends the stimulation, causing the muscle to relax. The Sarin inhibits the production of the second substance which causes the muscles to continue to be stimulated. This causes muscles to be continually stimulated, which prevents the body from breathing. Someone who comes in contact with Sarin will usually die from asphyxiation.
In the military they issued us chemical suits to protect us from contact with it, gas masks to prevent us from breathing it in, and atropine injectors to use if we were to come in contact with it. All well and good, if you have time to don the gear, put on the mask and to jab yourself in the thigh with the injector. But what we see Nicolas Cage doing in "The Rock" isn't enough. Sometime within the next few hours he would have needed treatment from another drug aside from the atropine he injected into himself.
Thus concludes the boring discussion of Sarin and how it works. There will not be an exam later.
* * *
Random Ponderings:
Was that ad from Dunkin' Donuts in Thailand that used "blackface" racist (yep)?
How appropriate that one week after not knowing that the name of the sergeant in the comic strip "Beetle Bailey" is Sergeant First Class Orville P. Snorkel; hurt my team at the trivia league finals, today is the 90th birthday of the strip's creator, Mort Walker?
Can you really call a television show that lasts only two hours a "telethon"? Even on ABC, a MDA benefit show that only lasts two hours, without Jerry Lewis hosting, is not a telethon.
Syria's president, Bashar al-Assad says his nation can handle any external aggression. When I read that, I had this image of a tiny field mouse, flipping the "bird" to the big eagle swooping down to snatch him up as a snack.
It is worth noting that the new IRS ruling that all legally married same-sex couples will be treated for tax purposes as "married" no matter where they live; isn't going to be good for all of them. Some couples will actually pay more in income tax as a result of this.
The sideline reporter who got hit in the head with a football wound up suffering from severe concussion symptoms for five days. Maybe everyone on the sideline should wear helmets too (naw)?
A mobile home listed for more than $2 million, with a monthly "fee" to the mobile home park of $3,565? Only in Malibu.
If what Lindsay Lohan says about skipping a film festival where a movie she's in was being shown was due to her focus on her health, I give her two thumbs up for that choice.
The video of Ronnie Lott falling off of the set of a post-game show he was doing is priceless. Apparently he was sitting in a USC chair and when it heard him extoling the virtues of UCLA's victory on Saturday...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ve9YpNETq0
* * *
This Date In History:
On this date in 1532, Lady Anne Boleyn is made Marquess of Pembroke by her fiancé, King Henry VIII of England.
On this date in 1715, King Louis XVI of France dies after a reign of 72 years.
On this date in 1804, Juno, one of the largest asteroids in the main "belt" is discovered.
On this date in 1878, Emma Nutt becomes the first female phone operator, after she is hired by Alexander Graham Bell.
On this date in 1897, the Boston subway opens.
On this date in 1914, Martha, the last of the passenger pigeons, dies at the Cincinnati Zoo.
On this date in 1939, George C. Marshall becomes the Army Chief of Staff.
Also on this date that year, Germany approves a wound badge for military personnel.
Also on this date that year, Adolf Hitler signs the order to begin the systematic euthanasia of all mentally ill and disabled people.
On this date in 1951, the U.S., Australia and New Zealand sign a mutual defense treaty, known as the ANZUS treaty.
On this date in 1952, "The Old Man and the Sea" is published.
On this date in 1969, Muammar Khadafi comes to power in Libya by coup d'état.
On this date in 1972, Bobby Fischer beats Boris Spassky to win the World Chess Championship.
On this date in 1974, a SR-71 Blackbird flies from New York to London in one hour and fifty-four minutes.
On this date in 1980, then Major General Chun Doo-hwan becomes President of South Korea.
On this date in 1983, KAL Flight 007 is shot down by a Soviet pilot when the plane entered Soviet airspace. Congressman Lawrence McDonald was among the 269 people on board who died.
Famous Folk Born On This Date:
William IV, Prince of Orange
Engelbert Humperdinck (the German composer, not the British singer)
James J. Corbett
Edgar Rice Burroughs
Richard Farnsworth (if you haven't seen his great performance in "The Straight Story", you need to change that)
Vittorio Gassman (another great actor)
Rocky Marciano
Sunny von Bulow
Ann Richards
Conway Twitty
Alan Dershowitz
Lily Tomlin (how appropriate, given her birthday is the date the first female phone operator was hired)
Archie Bell
Scott Spencer
Mary Louise Weller
Phil McGraw
Phil Hendrie
Billy Blanks
Gloria Estefan
Kenny Mayne
Bam Bam Bigelow
Holly Golightly
Padma Lakshmi
Before I give you today's movie quotes I want to mention that I love both of these films and that the second one is one of the best movies Burt Reynolds ever starred in.
Movie quotes for today come from two of Vittorio Gassman's films, "Sleepers" and "Sharky's Machine":
From Sleepers:
King Benny: Father Bobby would have made a good hitman. It's a shame we lost him to the other side.
#2
Father Bobby: I stopped off at Attica today on my way up here to see an old friend of mine.
Young Lorenzo 'Shakes' Carcaterra: You have any friends who aren't in jail?
Father Bobby: Not as many as I'd like.
#3
Fat Mancho: The street is the only thing that matters. Court is for uptown people with suits, money, lawyers with three names. If you got cash you can buy court justice. But on the street, justice has no price. She's blind where the judge sits but she's not blind out here. Out here the bitch got eyes.
From Sharky's Machine:
Dominoe: This is all you know, isn't it? Pushing, hitting, and punching! Does it make you feel good or something?
Sharky: Sometimes, yes!
#2
Sharky: You all right, partner?
Arch: Of course not, you asshole. I'm shot!
#3
Arch: Sharky, I hit his ass. He's got four bullets in him, and the fucker won't go down!
Sharky: Maybe he knows more about Zen than we do!
#4
Arch: Sharky...
Sharky: Yeah?
Arch: When you find him, you got to put him down.
Sharky: I'll put him down!
Arch: Sharky...
Sharky: Yeah?
Arch: Put his ass in the ground, you hear me?
Sharky: Yeah.
Arch: Sharky...
Sharky: Yeah?
Arch: I'm talking about burying him and putting a stake through his fucking heart, because he's not real.
Sharky: I hear you, Arch!
[Sharky leaves]
Arch: Sharky... Hey, Sharky!... I think I ruined a perfectly good jacket.
posted by me at 4:30 PM
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