We need an attitude adjustment
No, not this attitude adjustment:
We need an attitude adjustment in how we perceive and deal with the police officers who protect us. That's their job. Protecting everyone from criminal acts. The problem is that so many people distrust and have an adversarial relationship toward law enforcement. They are the "pigs" or "the fuzz" or the "popo" or whatever other pejorative label you wish to apply to them.
Sometimes part of the solution to a problem can be found in a television theme song.
"Don't do the crime if you can't do the time." We'll get to the pervasive nature of crime in economically disadvantaged neighborhoods and its root cause (the growing gap in income equality) in a moment. Eric Garner should be alive today. Michael Brown, Jr., should be alive today. But we cannot ignore the fact that they refused to comply with the lawful order of a police officer. Both men apparently committed a criminal violation.
Selling "loosies" on the street doesn't warrant an arrest. Write the man a citation and move on. I agree. But once the police officer decides to make an arrest, what point is there in resisting? If someone is guilty of a crime and wants to attempt to flee, go for it. When the moment comes that flight is no longer possible, then survive. Do what the officer says to do. You can't win a struggle with the cops, more of them just keep coming until you're restrained, or worse. Did Michael Brown, Jr., steal a box of cigars? That seems to be what the video showed us. Had he not resisted arrest, he would be alive today.
Yes, we need to address the issues that cause so many people to engage in what are unlawful activities, often in an attempt to merely eke out an existence. That doesn't change the equation that having an adversarial attitude toward police officers creates. Any time I deal with a police officer, it's "yes, sir" or "yes, ma'am" and I keep any bad attitude I might feel to myself. If I am being mistreated, I can always file a complaint later on.
Police officers don't like to talk about this, but it is a fact of life. Most of the people who wind up on their way to jail for a minor infraction aren't being cuffed and stuffed because of the infraction. They're put in the back of a patrol car because the officer found them guilty of COC. That's Contempt of Cop and while it isn't a criminal offense, it will push a cop to enforce the law as strongly as possible.
It's a verbal argument you can't win, while on the street. It's a physical battle you can't win even if you do manage to escape. They will hunt you down and take you in. Don't waste the energy. If anyone is ever tempted to resist arrest, remember another cop aphorism. "Better to be judged by twelve than carried by six."
I support #BlackLivesMatter. Let's try to keep anyone from being killed, cops and civilians alike.
* * *
The calls for the protests on the streets of New York City by politicians and pundits are well-intended, but incorrect. This is exactly the moment where the peaceful protestors who are interested in being agents of change should be marching. Not those who call for more cops to die, they should just STFU. But continuing to point out that all lives matter, and reminding our leaders that the tremendous uptick in the deaths of people of color at the hands of the police in the past few years is more than alarming, must continue.
Cops die protecting the public. People of color die at the hands of the cops. Both things happen far too often. But the failure to hold officers fully accountable for errors in judgment that result in a life being taken must be addressed.
* * *
The Los Angeles Times has run an editorial calling for the right to vote being given to non-citizens. While it is true that non-citizens who are here legally are paying taxes, that doesn't necessarily mean they should have the right to vote.
The five permanent member nations of the United Nations Security Council all currently limit the right to vote to citizens. There are ten non-permanent members of the Security Council and their positions on non-citizen voting is as follows:
Argentina - Non-citizens can vote in provincial elections, but not in national elections.
Australia - Repealed the right of non-citizens to vote in elections in 1984. Those who had the right at that time continue to be grandfathered in.
Chad - Non-citizens cannot vote.
Chile - Non-citizens who have lived in the nation for five years have the right to vote.
Jordan - Non-citizens cannot vote.
Lithuania - Non-citizens may vote.
Luxembourg - As a member of the EU, non-citizens may vote in local elections only.
Nigeria - Non-citizens cannot vote.
Republic of Korea - Non-citizens who have lived there five years and are 19 or older may vote in local elections only.
Rwanda - Non-citizens cannot vote.
If individual states, counties and/or cities want to give voting rights to legal non-citizens that is fine by me. Federal elections should remain limited to citizens only.
* * *
Random Ponderings:
The idiot P.I. who sang a parody version of Jim Croce's "Leroy Brown" that mocked the death of Michael Brown, Jr., is an insensitive cretin, but the cops present at the party didn't know this was coming; and therefore shouldn't be disciplined. But the minute the intent of Mr. Fishell was clear, they should have walked out.
I could have lived my entire life without seeing the video and stills from whatever it was Kris Jenner and her daughter Kendall did for some calendar. Then again, it may prove useful in my pursuit of weight loss. It killed any appetite I had at the time I watched it.
Nice to see Val Kilmer has been successful in his own quest to reduce girth.
I have yet to see "Selma" but from what I've heard and other works I've seen from its brilliant director, Ava DuVarney, I expect to see her clutching Oscar gold someday.
Andrei Kirilenko, who was traded by the Nets to the 76ers is refusing to report and wants to be released to sign elsewhere as a free agent. Oh, and he wants the 76ers to pay him the more than $3 million he's owed for this season. Dude, you signed a contract. You want to get paid, live up to your end.
Allen Gross spent five years in a Cuban prison. He was a contractor working for a U. S. government contractor, so naturally he sued. The settlement resulted in his being paid $3.2 million. Wonder if Larry H. Parker represented him?
Making a word worth more than 100 points in Words With Friends always improves my mood.
If a crow got crow's feet around its eyes as it aged, would they be labeled as crow's feet?
* * *
December 27th in History:
537 – The Hagia Sophia is completed.
1512 – The Spanish Crown issues the Laws of Burgos, governing the conduct of settlers with regard to native Indians in the New World.
1655 – Second Northern War/the Deluge: Monks at the Jasna Góra Monastery in Częstochowa are successful in fending off a month-long siege.
1657 – The Flushing Remonstrance is signed.
1703 – Portugal and England sign the Methuen Treaty which gives preference to Portuguese imported wines into England.
1814 – War of 1812: The American schooner USS Carolina is destroyed. It was the last of Commodore Daniel Patterson's makeshift fleet that fought a series of delaying actions that contributed to Andrew Jackson's victory at the Battle of New Orleans.
1831 – Charles Darwin embarks on his journey aboard the HMS Beagle, during which he will begin to formulate the theory of evolution.
1836 – The worst ever avalanche in England occurs at Lewes, Sussex, killing eight people.
1845 – Ether anesthetic is used for childbirth for the first time by Dr. Crawford Long in Jefferson, Georgia.
1845 – Journalist John L. O'Sullivan, writing in his newspaper the New York Morning News, argues that the United States had the right to claim the entire Oregon Country "by the right of our manifest destiny".
1911 – "Jana Gana Mana", the national anthem of India, is first sung in the Calcutta Session of the Indian National Congress.
1918 – The Great Poland Uprising against the Germans begins.
1922 – Japanese aircraft carrier Hōshō becomes the first purpose built aircraft carrier to be commissioned in the world.
1923 – Daisuke Namba, a Japanese student, tries to assassinate the Prince Regent Hirohito.
1927 – Show Boat, considered to be the first true American musical play, opens at the Ziegfeld Theatre on Broadway.
1929 – Soviet General Secretary Joseph Stalin orders the "liquidation of the kulaks as a class", ostensibly as an effort to spread socialism to the countryside.
1932 – Radio City Music Hall, "Showplace of the Nation", opens in New York City.
1939 – Erzincan, Turkey, is hit by an earthquake, killing 30,000.
1939 – Winter War: Finland holds off a Soviet attack in the Battle of Kelja.
1942 – The Union of Pioneers of Yugoslavia is founded.
1945 – The World Bank and International Monetary Fund are created with the signing of an agreement by 29 nations.
1949 – Indonesian National Revolution: The Netherlands officially recognizes Indonesian independence. End of the Dutch East Indies.
1966 – The Cave of Swallows, the largest known cave shaft in the world, is discovered in Aquismón, San Luis Potosí, Mexico.
1968 – Apollo program: Apollo 8 splashes down in the Pacific Ocean, ending the first orbital manned mission to the Moon.
1978 – Spain becomes a democracy after 40 years of dictatorship.
1979 – The Soviet Union invades the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan.
1983 – Pope John Paul II visits Mehmet Ali Ağca in Rebibbia's prison and personally forgives him for the 1981 attack on him in St. Peter's Square.
1985 – Palestinian guerrillas kill eighteen people inside the airports of Rome, Italy, and Vienna, Austria.
1989 – The Romanian Revolution concludes, as the last minor street confrontations and stray shootings abruptly end in the country's capital, Bucharest.
1996 – Taliban forces retake the strategic Bagram Airfield which solidifies their buffer zone around Kabul, Afghanistan.
1997 – Protestant paramilitary leader Billy Wright is assassinated in Northern Ireland, United Kingdom.
2001 – China is granted permanent normal trade relations with the United States.
2002 – Two truck bombs kill 72 and wound 200 at the pro-Moscow headquarters of the Chechen government in Grozny, Chechnya, Russia.
2004 – Radiation from an explosion on the magnetar SGR 1806-20 reaches Earth. It is the brightest extrasolar event known to have been witnessed on the planet.
2007 – Former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto is assassinated in a shooting incident.
2007 – Riots erupt in Mombasa, Kenya, after Mwai Kibaki is declared the winner of the presidential election, triggering a political, economic, and humanitarian crisis.
2008 – Operation Cast Lead: Israel launches 3-week operation on Gaza.
2009 – Iranian election protests: On the Day of Ashura in Tehran, Iran, government security forces fire upon demonstrators
Famous Folk Born on December 27th:
Johannes Kepler
Count Nikolay Kamensky (a Russian general with a familial tie to Helen Mirren)
Louis Pasteur (got milk?)
Sydney Greenstreet
Marlene Dietrich
William Masters
Mary Kornman
Werner Baumbach (a German pilot during WWII who was highly decorated)
Major General Charles Sweeney (the pilot who flew the plane that dropped the atomic bomb on Nagasaki)
Audrey Wagner (original member of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League who became an OB/Gyn after leaving baseball)
John Amos
Cokie Roberts
Mick Jones
Gerard Depardieu
Karla Bonoff
Tovah Feldshuh
David Knopfler
Maryam D'Abo
Theresa Randle
Bill Goldberg
Heather O'Rourke (taken from us too soon)
Carson Palmer
Chloe Bridges
We need an attitude adjustment in how we perceive and deal with the police officers who protect us. That's their job. Protecting everyone from criminal acts. The problem is that so many people distrust and have an adversarial relationship toward law enforcement. They are the "pigs" or "the fuzz" or the "popo" or whatever other pejorative label you wish to apply to them.
Sometimes part of the solution to a problem can be found in a television theme song.
"Don't do the crime if you can't do the time." We'll get to the pervasive nature of crime in economically disadvantaged neighborhoods and its root cause (the growing gap in income equality) in a moment. Eric Garner should be alive today. Michael Brown, Jr., should be alive today. But we cannot ignore the fact that they refused to comply with the lawful order of a police officer. Both men apparently committed a criminal violation.
Selling "loosies" on the street doesn't warrant an arrest. Write the man a citation and move on. I agree. But once the police officer decides to make an arrest, what point is there in resisting? If someone is guilty of a crime and wants to attempt to flee, go for it. When the moment comes that flight is no longer possible, then survive. Do what the officer says to do. You can't win a struggle with the cops, more of them just keep coming until you're restrained, or worse. Did Michael Brown, Jr., steal a box of cigars? That seems to be what the video showed us. Had he not resisted arrest, he would be alive today.
Yes, we need to address the issues that cause so many people to engage in what are unlawful activities, often in an attempt to merely eke out an existence. That doesn't change the equation that having an adversarial attitude toward police officers creates. Any time I deal with a police officer, it's "yes, sir" or "yes, ma'am" and I keep any bad attitude I might feel to myself. If I am being mistreated, I can always file a complaint later on.
Police officers don't like to talk about this, but it is a fact of life. Most of the people who wind up on their way to jail for a minor infraction aren't being cuffed and stuffed because of the infraction. They're put in the back of a patrol car because the officer found them guilty of COC. That's Contempt of Cop and while it isn't a criminal offense, it will push a cop to enforce the law as strongly as possible.
It's a verbal argument you can't win, while on the street. It's a physical battle you can't win even if you do manage to escape. They will hunt you down and take you in. Don't waste the energy. If anyone is ever tempted to resist arrest, remember another cop aphorism. "Better to be judged by twelve than carried by six."
I support #BlackLivesMatter. Let's try to keep anyone from being killed, cops and civilians alike.
* * *
The calls for the protests on the streets of New York City by politicians and pundits are well-intended, but incorrect. This is exactly the moment where the peaceful protestors who are interested in being agents of change should be marching. Not those who call for more cops to die, they should just STFU. But continuing to point out that all lives matter, and reminding our leaders that the tremendous uptick in the deaths of people of color at the hands of the police in the past few years is more than alarming, must continue.
Cops die protecting the public. People of color die at the hands of the cops. Both things happen far too often. But the failure to hold officers fully accountable for errors in judgment that result in a life being taken must be addressed.
* * *
The Los Angeles Times has run an editorial calling for the right to vote being given to non-citizens. While it is true that non-citizens who are here legally are paying taxes, that doesn't necessarily mean they should have the right to vote.
The five permanent member nations of the United Nations Security Council all currently limit the right to vote to citizens. There are ten non-permanent members of the Security Council and their positions on non-citizen voting is as follows:
Argentina - Non-citizens can vote in provincial elections, but not in national elections.
Australia - Repealed the right of non-citizens to vote in elections in 1984. Those who had the right at that time continue to be grandfathered in.
Chad - Non-citizens cannot vote.
Chile - Non-citizens who have lived in the nation for five years have the right to vote.
Jordan - Non-citizens cannot vote.
Lithuania - Non-citizens may vote.
Luxembourg - As a member of the EU, non-citizens may vote in local elections only.
Nigeria - Non-citizens cannot vote.
Republic of Korea - Non-citizens who have lived there five years and are 19 or older may vote in local elections only.
Rwanda - Non-citizens cannot vote.
If individual states, counties and/or cities want to give voting rights to legal non-citizens that is fine by me. Federal elections should remain limited to citizens only.
* * *
Random Ponderings:
The idiot P.I. who sang a parody version of Jim Croce's "Leroy Brown" that mocked the death of Michael Brown, Jr., is an insensitive cretin, but the cops present at the party didn't know this was coming; and therefore shouldn't be disciplined. But the minute the intent of Mr. Fishell was clear, they should have walked out.
I could have lived my entire life without seeing the video and stills from whatever it was Kris Jenner and her daughter Kendall did for some calendar. Then again, it may prove useful in my pursuit of weight loss. It killed any appetite I had at the time I watched it.
Nice to see Val Kilmer has been successful in his own quest to reduce girth.
I have yet to see "Selma" but from what I've heard and other works I've seen from its brilliant director, Ava DuVarney, I expect to see her clutching Oscar gold someday.
Andrei Kirilenko, who was traded by the Nets to the 76ers is refusing to report and wants to be released to sign elsewhere as a free agent. Oh, and he wants the 76ers to pay him the more than $3 million he's owed for this season. Dude, you signed a contract. You want to get paid, live up to your end.
Allen Gross spent five years in a Cuban prison. He was a contractor working for a U. S. government contractor, so naturally he sued. The settlement resulted in his being paid $3.2 million. Wonder if Larry H. Parker represented him?
Making a word worth more than 100 points in Words With Friends always improves my mood.
If a crow got crow's feet around its eyes as it aged, would they be labeled as crow's feet?
* * *
December 27th in History:
537 – The Hagia Sophia is completed.
1512 – The Spanish Crown issues the Laws of Burgos, governing the conduct of settlers with regard to native Indians in the New World.
1655 – Second Northern War/the Deluge: Monks at the Jasna Góra Monastery in Częstochowa are successful in fending off a month-long siege.
1657 – The Flushing Remonstrance is signed.
1703 – Portugal and England sign the Methuen Treaty which gives preference to Portuguese imported wines into England.
1814 – War of 1812: The American schooner USS Carolina is destroyed. It was the last of Commodore Daniel Patterson's makeshift fleet that fought a series of delaying actions that contributed to Andrew Jackson's victory at the Battle of New Orleans.
1831 – Charles Darwin embarks on his journey aboard the HMS Beagle, during which he will begin to formulate the theory of evolution.
1836 – The worst ever avalanche in England occurs at Lewes, Sussex, killing eight people.
1845 – Ether anesthetic is used for childbirth for the first time by Dr. Crawford Long in Jefferson, Georgia.
1845 – Journalist John L. O'Sullivan, writing in his newspaper the New York Morning News, argues that the United States had the right to claim the entire Oregon Country "by the right of our manifest destiny".
1911 – "Jana Gana Mana", the national anthem of India, is first sung in the Calcutta Session of the Indian National Congress.
1918 – The Great Poland Uprising against the Germans begins.
1922 – Japanese aircraft carrier Hōshō becomes the first purpose built aircraft carrier to be commissioned in the world.
1923 – Daisuke Namba, a Japanese student, tries to assassinate the Prince Regent Hirohito.
1927 – Show Boat, considered to be the first true American musical play, opens at the Ziegfeld Theatre on Broadway.
1929 – Soviet General Secretary Joseph Stalin orders the "liquidation of the kulaks as a class", ostensibly as an effort to spread socialism to the countryside.
1932 – Radio City Music Hall, "Showplace of the Nation", opens in New York City.
1939 – Erzincan, Turkey, is hit by an earthquake, killing 30,000.
1939 – Winter War: Finland holds off a Soviet attack in the Battle of Kelja.
1942 – The Union of Pioneers of Yugoslavia is founded.
1945 – The World Bank and International Monetary Fund are created with the signing of an agreement by 29 nations.
1949 – Indonesian National Revolution: The Netherlands officially recognizes Indonesian independence. End of the Dutch East Indies.
1966 – The Cave of Swallows, the largest known cave shaft in the world, is discovered in Aquismón, San Luis Potosí, Mexico.
1968 – Apollo program: Apollo 8 splashes down in the Pacific Ocean, ending the first orbital manned mission to the Moon.
1978 – Spain becomes a democracy after 40 years of dictatorship.
1979 – The Soviet Union invades the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan.
1983 – Pope John Paul II visits Mehmet Ali Ağca in Rebibbia's prison and personally forgives him for the 1981 attack on him in St. Peter's Square.
1985 – Palestinian guerrillas kill eighteen people inside the airports of Rome, Italy, and Vienna, Austria.
1989 – The Romanian Revolution concludes, as the last minor street confrontations and stray shootings abruptly end in the country's capital, Bucharest.
1996 – Taliban forces retake the strategic Bagram Airfield which solidifies their buffer zone around Kabul, Afghanistan.
1997 – Protestant paramilitary leader Billy Wright is assassinated in Northern Ireland, United Kingdom.
2001 – China is granted permanent normal trade relations with the United States.
2002 – Two truck bombs kill 72 and wound 200 at the pro-Moscow headquarters of the Chechen government in Grozny, Chechnya, Russia.
2004 – Radiation from an explosion on the magnetar SGR 1806-20 reaches Earth. It is the brightest extrasolar event known to have been witnessed on the planet.
2007 – Former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto is assassinated in a shooting incident.
2007 – Riots erupt in Mombasa, Kenya, after Mwai Kibaki is declared the winner of the presidential election, triggering a political, economic, and humanitarian crisis.
2008 – Operation Cast Lead: Israel launches 3-week operation on Gaza.
2009 – Iranian election protests: On the Day of Ashura in Tehran, Iran, government security forces fire upon demonstrators
Famous Folk Born on December 27th:
Johannes Kepler
Count Nikolay Kamensky (a Russian general with a familial tie to Helen Mirren)
Louis Pasteur (got milk?)
Sydney Greenstreet
Marlene Dietrich
William Masters
Mary Kornman
Werner Baumbach (a German pilot during WWII who was highly decorated)
Major General Charles Sweeney (the pilot who flew the plane that dropped the atomic bomb on Nagasaki)
Audrey Wagner (original member of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League who became an OB/Gyn after leaving baseball)
John Amos
Cokie Roberts
Mick Jones
Gerard Depardieu
Karla Bonoff
Tovah Feldshuh
David Knopfler
Maryam D'Abo
Theresa Randle
Bill Goldberg
Heather O'Rourke (taken from us too soon)
Carson Palmer
Chloe Bridges
posted by me at 8:57 PM
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