Pennsylvania Man Arrested For Saying, "Wow."

It was the 26th of June, 2012.  

Dennis Henderson's exclamation of surprise when a speeding patrol car passed close to him as he was standing on the side of a road outside a community meeting precipitated a confrontation with the driver, Officer Jonathon Gromek of the Pittsburgh Bureau of Police. 

Gromek u-turned and walked back to where Henderson and a photographer were standing and asked if they had a problem with the way he was driving.  Henderson answered truthfully and added that he wanted a badge number so he could file a complaint.  Officer Gromek then demanded identification and handcuffed the two.  More cops arrived.  The photographer was released but Dennis went downtown to spend the night in county lockup for disorderly conduct and resisting arrest.

The arrest was obviously bogus and the city dropped the charges against the teacher and investigated Gromek and found his conduct "unbecoming and incompetent" and contrary to police bureau policies, and said so in a letter to Henderson.

The ACLU is helping him sue the Bureau for violating his First, Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights.  Henderson sees the suit as a way to teach his social studies students about civil liberties (and how not to talk to belligerent cops.)

It is also a lesson on how It doesn't pay to be thin-skinned as a police officer.
Or maybe on how police should develop a little horse sense.  

Man Calls Cops On His Son and Then Is Surprised When They Shoot Him.

"Why?  Why did they kill him?" asked Tyler's mother, Shari Comstock.  

Well here are a few reasons:  

• His father reported the company truck Tyler was driving as stolen.  

• Tyler Comstock didn't pull over when Ames Police officers lit him up.

• Tyler rammed a police vehicle.

• Tyler, when cornered by police cars and ordered to turn off the engine, instead revved it.

October Surprise!!!

This is at the house on Marigold Street.  I'm fifteen or sixteen and it is October, but not quite Halloween yet, but it is dark early and I am sitting in the living room in my dad's recliner watching a spooky movie on the TV.  My sisters Anne and Carla are on the couch to my left transfixed by the evil doings in a dungeon. Vincent Price is in the movie and I'm pretty sure it is "The Pit and the Pendulum" adapted from a story by Poe.  

I can't remember much of the movie, but I read the short story, once, and knew there was a big pit and a clockwork pendulum with a sharp crescent blade that creeps closer, with each pass, to the victim tied to an altar, threatening to eventually cut him in two bloody pieces.  

My mom is out shopping and nobody else is home except for my dad, and he announces from the kitchen doorway that he is headed down to Fred Meyers for some brass screws for the screen door hinge.  I nod and go back to watching and hear the door to the garage open and close. 

There May Be One Or Two Great Big Green Flies On You...

A man (we will call him Bob) pulls into a self-serve gas station and is filling his car when a pick-up truck arrives on the other side of the pumps and a bearded man gets out and shouts at Bob, threatening him and cussing and calling him vile names.

Bob doesn't recognize the angry man and tells him that he has made a mistake. Bob then makes a mistake of his own when he turns his back on AM to attend to his car.  The stranger hits Bob on the head from behind with a sap, knocking him to his knees  And then closes in to do more damage.

Intolerant Tolerance

Here's a well-reasoned article by Gregory Koukl about the relativistic tolerance trap we've all fallen into, where all views on life and culture and morality and religion and politics and behavior are equally valid and should be accorded equal respect.....until you express a view that is contrary to the anything goes zeitgeist, in which case you are labeled intolerant, bigoted, and a hater.  

I once had a person express to me the opinion that all cultures deserved equal respect, meaning one culture was not to be considered superior or inferior to any other culture.  To this I asked if they thought our American culture of rights for women was equivalent to the Indian custom--before the English took over and outlawed it-- of burning alive the wife of a deceased husband on his funeral pyre?  Or were there any cultures to be preferred over ones that regularly raided neighboring tribes and brought captives back to their village to be ritually sacrificed and then eaten?  

Lights Of Louisanne

 Jennifer Warnes is one of those vocal artists you wouldn't notice if she passed you on the street.  She's not the striking diva-looking songstress that is going to arrest traffic, but she's a wonderful singer and has had a long career.  You know her from movie and Top-40 pop hits.   

More Stupidity From TV Writers: How Not To Handle A Kidnapping.

I just witnessed a TV program where an FBI agent's wife is kidnapped.  The hostage-taker does this to get the agent to help him secure a great art treasure, in the possession of two thieves the agent knows.  The agent pressures the two art thieves to help him get his wife back, and they don't take too much convincing because they like the wife and they really have hearts of gold.  Did I tell you this treasure is worth a half billion dollars and was found on a booby-trapped U-boat?

The Die Guys Scenario

I have likely seen the following hostage scenario a thousand times during my life of movie and TV viewing:  I call it the DYGOISS, (pronounced die guys) which stands for "drop your gun or I'll shoot scenario".  A bad guy has a gun to the head of a loved one, and is partially hidden behind her so the good guy has to make a dicey head shot, or drop his weapon.

And the Good Guy disarms.  Every time.  He lays his gun down on the floor and even slides it over to the villain... and somehow it all works out for the best...in the make-believe world of Hollywood.  Oh the good guy may have to suffer a non-lethal wound, like Arnold in Kindergarten Cop, but he still manages to defeat the evildoer and survive and heal and get the girl and live happily ever after.

Everything You Know Is Wrong: Celldriving Is Not Dangerous

Everybody knows that talking on a cell phone while driving is unsafe, right?  It's just common sense.  Everybody knows it.  

You then have to ask how "everbody" comes to know something?  It's on the nightly news and in the papers and legislators are urged to do something about it; pass a law.  Eleven out of the fifty United States have ourlawed cell use while driving.  Pundits and commentators and activists raise our awareness.

But if driving and cellphoning is so dangerous, why have traffic accidents and fatalities fallen as cell phone usage zoomed?

This was an obvious question not addressed by over one hundred previous studies.  Then a couple of wonks from Carnegie Mellon University and the London School of Economics got together to answer that question.   V.S. Pathania and S. Bhargava, in their new study, show that there is no causal link between fatal crashes and gabbing via handheld communicators while operating a motor vehicle.

You can read the whole thing in the American Economic Journal ( Aug. 1, 2013).  It's titled, "Driving under the (Cellular) Influence."  But why would you want to.  I actually tried to read it, but gave up after ten minutes and just went to the summary

I've often wondered why cops don't get distracted while driving and talking on the radio with the dispatcher.   

Texting may be another matter.  Or reading the newspaper while on the freeway.  I saw a man doing that, once.  Rush Limbaugh said he actually saw a woman trying to put on pantyhose while driving on a California throughway.  But then she might just have been creeping along at three MPH.

What's the strangest thing you've ever seen a driver in another car doing while in motion?

Zimmerman: Part Three, Advice For Watchful Neighborhooders.

Mr. George Zimmerman was not on neighborhood watch duty the night he killed Trayvon Martin. He was driving to the market and saw the youth behaving suspiciously and followed him in his car and lost him and then got out to re-acquire the suspect on foot.  The rest is history.

Some say he shouldn't have followed the youth.  Some say he shouldn't have exited his vehicle. Some say he should have just left it up to the police.

I'm certain that Mr. Zimmerman, looking back, would have done things differently.  But I reject the idea put forth by one side that checking out suspicious behavior in your neighborhood is a bad thing.  There must be a way to be a concerned neighbor without putting yourself or others in danger. 

What this comes down to is both sides misunderstanding the other person's motives.  Martin thought the man following him was a stalker.  Zimmerman thought Martin was casing the neighborhood for a burglary.

Picking Up After Your Dog

Translation:  "Curb Your Dog"

I was riding my bike on Oleson Road, approaching the Garden Home Recreation Center.  It was a spring day and the afternoon sun was out.  A young woman was walking  her dog on the sidewalk coming toward me as I was traveling south in the bike lane.  It was some dark brown short-haired breed, smaller than a Labrador and while fifty yards still separated us, it stopped and hunched and shat in the middle of the concrete walk.

All My Dreams Blue

Here's a song by the Youngbloods, a Sixties/Seventies band.  They are best known for their anthem of the hippie era; Get Together.  Which is a pleasant enough song about brotherhood and getting along and all that mellow flowers-in-your-hair sentiment that lasts until you catch a roommate eating your peanut butter out of the jar with a spoon.  


It's their signature song, but they didn't write it.  Dino Valenti did in the mid-sixties and it was recorded earlier by The Byrds and even Jefferson Airplane, before Grace Slick joined them.

Touch Your Cell Phone And Die.

This isn't about distracted driving.

July 2013.
Amy Stiner, 37, of Machias, Maine and Melissa Moyer, 38, visiting from Pennsylvania went hiking in Roque Bluffs State Park early in the evening and got lost and called for help on a cell phone.  A landowner found them and brought them to his house, where a park warden picked them up and then drove them to Ms. Stiner's parked minivan.  By this time it was nine P.M. and rainy and foggy and instead of turning left on the road back to Machias, she mistakenly turned right toward  the park boat ramp.

Zimmerman: Part 2 White Lessons

What white people (or partially white people) should learn from the Zimmerman trial and media passion play.

1.  Don't follow persons wearing hoodies.  This is now considered racist.  If you find yourself behind and walking in the same direction as a hoodie-wearer abruptly halt and change direction one-hundred-and-eighty degrees.  If this puts you behind another hoodie-wearer then go to the right or left.  If there are still hoodies in those directions, call a taxicab.

The Kindness Of Strangers

I'm not sure how old I am for this story.  

But I could ride a bike so I must have been six or seven years old.  We lived on Seventy-Seventh and Holgate and it was summer and hot and cloudless and I was headed for the local swimming pool.  That pool was located in the confines of Mt. Scott Park.  

If anyone has seen the Movie, SANDLOT, you'll know what my neighborhood pool looked like.   It seems there are thousand of these pools scattered all over the United States and they all look the same and they were all built around the same time.  Municipalities must have used the same architect to save money.

Zimmerman: Part 1 Hoodies

Much has been made of the hooded sweatshirt as regards the Trayvon Martin killing.  It has been suggested that Martin was targeted (unfairly) because he was wearing a "hoodie".

The reasoning goes something like this: Black youth wear hooded sweatshirts.  Some black youth commit crimes while wearing hooded sweatshirts. Trayvon wore a hooded sweatshirt.  Therefore George Zimmerman must have figured Trayvon was black and up to no good and thus racially profiled and killed him because of what he was wearing, and all innocent hoodie-wearing kids are now targets.  Or so it goes.

I'm going to suggest to you that Trayvon Martin's apparel could not have been a factor in George Zimmerman's suspicions because it was raining that night back in February in Sandford, Florida.

Unintended Consequences -- Airbags and Babies

 Airbags in cars are a good thing, right?  They save lives.  The U.S. National Highway Safety Administration estimates that out of over three million airbag deployments from 1990 to 2000, some sixty-four hundred lives have been saved by the little poofy pushback pillows.  And they figure countless injuries have been prevented.  So all good, right?  Airbags are the greatest invention since the waffle iron, or lip gloss, or monkey bars.

Well not, exactly.

A Penny For Your Thoughts

My dad called me into his bedroom one Saturday morning and handed me a butter knife and told me to dig a penny out of a lamp socket.  I was twelve at the time and the socket was on the north wall of his room and four feet off the floor and looked like a candle stick.

I walked over to it and peered into the opening in the top where the special flame-shaped bulb used to be.  There did appear to be a scorched copper Lincoln-head cent down there.  

No Banker Left Behind

Here's a little something by Ry Cooder.  I don't always agree with his political views, but this song makes me smile every time I hear it.  He is obviously throwing barbs at the Bush banker bail outs, but a few darts unintentionally stick in Obama's hide. 

He perfectly captures a 1920's Woody Guthrie depression era damn all the robber barons zeitgeist.  I dare you to listen to it and not grin ear to ear. 

Protecting The Evironment Can Kill You

An ambulance in Washington D.C., last Wednesday, carrying a gunshot victum shut down automatically on I-295 and could not be restarted. 

The cause of the vehicle stall was an EPA mandated device meant to reduce diesel emissions.  If the emissions toxicity gets too high warning lights start blinking and if not corrected, the device turns off the engine. 

Another ambulance was dispatched to offload the passenger from the disabled vehicle, but that caused a delay.  The injured person, Nathaniel McRae, 34, who was shot by D.C. police, was dead  by the time the second ambulance arrived at Howard University Hospital.

The Blind Men And The Elephant

John Godfrey Saxe's ( 1816-1887) version of the famous Indian legend,

It was six men of Indostan
To learning much inclined,
Who went to see the Elephant
(Though all of them were blind),
That each by observation
Might satisfy his mind.

The First approach'd the Elephant,
And happening to fall
Against his broad and sturdy side,
At once began to bawl:
"God bless me! but the Elephant
Is very like a wall!"

Can't Have It Both Ways

There are basically two government approaches to the use of Photo-enforcement:  They treat the traffic lawbreaker just as if he were pulled over by a flesh-and-blood cop, or they treat him like he was two minutes late feeding the parking meter.

Can I Be Charged For Parking Here?

I've noticed more and more electric vehicle charging stations cropping up.  Retailers seem to be putting them in.  They are for drivers of battery-powered cars to park and re-ionize. 

I've also noticed that they are placed very convenient to the store, like the handicapped parking spots.  This makes sense, because the juice comes from the store and trenches and heavy copper conductors cost money so the closer to the breaker box the better. 

Low Budget

Anyone out there ever been on a low budget?

Anyone out there remember The Kinks?  They did a tour of the U.S. of A. and cut an album in New York in 1979.  Here's the title song of the Album, written by Ray Davies, bemoaning the fact that they would have to economize a little, seeing as how they weren't the huge draw they were in the heady sixties. Ray still delivers the goods, though, in this raucous pounding rocker.

"...maybe it was Utah."

Raising Arizona is one of my favorite films.  I saw it in a theater when it came out in 1987.  It was an early showing and the place was almost empty.  With me were my wife and her best friend, Nancy D.  In parts of the film I was laughing so hard my face was red and I had trouble breathing.  My wife kept elbowing me to quiet down, but I couldn't help myself.

Borgward: Veterinarian Scams

Here's another Borgward.

Never Let Go

"Our ring's in the pawnshop, the rain's in the hole

  Down at the Five Points I stand

  I'll lose everything

  But I won't let go of your hand."

Here's a song by Tom Waits.  I'll be featuring some of my favorite songs and movies.  This is a good one to start with.  Waits has a way with words and verbal images and his rough gut-wrenching vocals seem to be torn out of him at times with red-hot tongs.  A lot of his songs are of wracked souls desperately clinging to someone or something.   He uses a lot of Christian and Catholic imagery in this song. 

You Have The Right To Remain

Here's another little sketch from the Borgward artist.  Sometimes he does a political cartoon.  This expresses my feelings on the border and illegal immigration, perfectly. 

Can a Cop Really Commandeer My Car?

I saw a scene in a movie on TV, recently, where Martin Lawrence flashes his badge at a black woman in a four-door Chrysler and demands she turn over use of the car to him and his buddy.  The badge is not a police shield, but that of a security guard, because that is what Mr. Lawrence plays in this movie, and the woman does not give up her vehicle.  She drives the two men, calmly and at legal speed, to where they want to go. 

"All you had to do was ask nicely," said the woman.
"Yes Ma'am," said the two sheepish crimefighters.

These guys weren't real cops, but you've all seen TV shows and movies where this commandeering happens.  Is it for real?

Second Amendment Cartoon

This cartoon says it all. 

Lack of Children Stymies Speed Cameras

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel pushed through a safety zone speed camera law but aides forgot to clue him into the fact that school zone reduced speeds are only in force if the little kids are present.  So not only does the photo radar camera gear have to snap a picture of the car registration plate and display the car's speed but also look around for any tykes in the area on foot. 

What If It Is A Seeing-Eye Dog?

Driving with a dog's butt in your ear may soon net you a $25 fine in Illinois.  I think the dog patootie rubbing up against your wattles would be punishment enough, but not Dan Burke (D-Chicago).

He is co-sponsoring a bill to limit doggie co-pilots.  He's not hopeful the bill will pass.  Illinois has other pressing matters like a financial crisis.  New Jersey and Hawaii have restrictions on "lap" dogs, while you are driving, and Illinois doesn't want to be left out.

What about cats, and ponies and frogs and girlfriends sitting in your lap?  That would be a major distraction.
I wonder if it's a double fine if your dog is texting while in the front seat with you? You can read more about the nannyings of Windy City polititians and pet seatbelt inventors here: 
This would explain all the run-over cats

Borgward Declawed

I have a friend who keeps cats.  At one time he had two and they never went out of his apartment and they were....declawed.  He fed them and played with them and emptied their litter box and I assume he took them to the veterinarian whenever they got ill.  He was a very responsible pet owner and loved these animals. 

The Great Escape

When "The Great Escape" came out in 1963 I didn't see it because I was only nine years old, and didn't get to see a lot of movies unless my folks took me, which wasn't often.  I wanted to see this one.  It seemed to me exciting and adventuresome and thrilling and it had some actors I recognized.  I had seen some advertisements on TV promoting the film and they convinced me I would die if I didn't get to see it. 

Lists! We Don't Need No Stinking Lists!

Gunowners are suspicious of government efforts to register guns.  They think gunlists are just a prelude to confiscation.  This is a slippery slope argument, which, is always pooh-poohed by elites trying their best to appear reasonable and benign, and harmless.  The latest proposal that firearm possessers buy liability insurance for their eccentric hobby, smacks of back-door registration.

I have a modest common-sense balanced fair harmless proposal of my own.  I suggest we register all the illegals in our country.  That's all.  We just want a list of names, addresses, nationalities and ages and maybe thumbprints.  That's a reasonable request, isn't it? 

Borgward Plastic Surgery

Here's another Borgward cartoon. 

 I've often wondered what Michael Jackson's children thought of his looks.  Did they wonder why they didn't look like him?  Was he a jealous husband? 

MJ:   "Hey, that kid doesn't look a thing like me/"

Wife:  "Oh yeah, well you don't look a thing like you either."

Reminds me of that Chinese guy who got divorced because of an ugly baby.  His wife had a lot of face sculpting done before they met and he expected his daughter to be beautiful like the mom, and was disappointed.

I Wonder If It Will Work On Fleas?

They tell us Americans are getting too much salt, but what about our American insects?  This device blasts the bug with grains of table salt, so it kills and also preserves it.   Unlike a flyswatter, it leaves no bug guts stuck to household surfaces.  I don't have a lot of flies or spiders around my place but maybe this scatter gun will work on ants.  See the device here:  bug killer

The Wheels on the Bus

I wish I'd had this driver for my school bus.  His Name is Alexsei Volkov and he knows how to throw his weight around in the Russian city of Zelenograd.

No Doz

Kalamazoo, Michigan.  Parking patrol guy about to place a third ticket on the windshield of an illegally parked pick-up truck finally looked inside and spotted a man slumped over on the front seat.  They were probably trying to figure a way to pinch him for loitering, also, when they noticed the windows were not fogged up; meaning he wasn't breathing.  Police think maybe he was there for a couple of days.

more here

BORGWARD

And here is one of my favorite cartoonists.  What he lacks in polished drawing, he makes up in getting the idea across.   I wonder what he has against eskimos?

     

Cheese Head Vs. Meat Head

To all you out there rightly incensed about a sexual assault in Ohio, where the young lady was molested by high school football players while nearly unconcious and nobody stepped forward to help her, or ward off her abusers, there is this story from Wisconsin, of a different sort of man.  Charlie Blackmore,Jr., a Marine veteran, interfered with a vicious assault on a woman who was being stomped and kicked on a city sidewalk.  Read more about the incident here:  semper fi

"I'm Shocked; Just Shocked!"

Here's a story out of England that gives me pause, as an electrician.  Seems a man was tasered by police, in February 2011, for carrying a couple of screwdrivers in his pocket.  They wrestled him to the floor of a Swansea shop and gave him four bursts of fifty-thousand volts. 

"I Thought You Were Someone Else"

One of my household chores growing up was the garbage.  I was supposed to collect it from the various wastebaskets in bathrooms, bedrooms and kitchen and garage and make sure it all ended up in the two metal fifty-gallon cans on the concrete pad in the backyard, in time for the garbageman to fetch them on garbage day.

Back then--this is forty years ago--people didn't set their cans out on the street.  Men rode on the side of the garbage truck and went to where the cans sat and carried them back to the truck.  In our case the man had to walk down a narrow sloping concrete walk on the west side of the house to the back patio.  There was none of this curbside robot claw stuff.

Garbage day was once a week, Wednesday, I think.

Another One Bites The Dust

Red light cameras are supposed to save us from ourselves.  They are supposed to decrease red light running and hence decrease collisions, but it just doesn't work that way.  It's just another wonderful theory mugged by reality. ( I explain why this might be so in an earlier post). 

The latest rude awakening is in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania where two intersections have been data-mined for ten years: five years BCE (Before Camera Era) and five years after (ACI).    And guess what?  Collisions and injuries went up after the red snappers were hoisted.  The theory also posits that t-bone type angle collisions will go down.  They stayed the same. 

No Camber in That Amber

The rule of thumb for yellow light intervals is one second for each ten MPH of the speed limit leading up to the intersection.  AAA found that the city of New York has been shaving that interval by as much as half a second and therefore not giving drivers "...ample time to get through the intersection."

Seems the city that never sleeps also never stops trying to suck money out of the huddled masses yearning to breathe free.  The city brings in a lot of tribute from those pole cameras.  There are 170 cameras snapping happily away at 150 intersections.  They bring in nearly $50 million each year and...and...Mayor Bloomberg wants to up the covered intersections to two hundred and twenty-five. 

"Bang Goes The Flash, Bang Goes My Cash"

Here are the lyrics to that SPEED CAMERA song I showcased a couple of posts ago.  I couldn't find the words on line, so I made the herculean effort to transcribe them by ear.  There are a few gaps so if anyone out there can fill them in, or correct any mistakes, please feel welcome to comment.

SPEED CAMERA

by  Unlucky Fried Kitten

     I don't drive my mototcar for pleasure any more

     If I did I probably couldn't take no more

     I don't really want to drive my car anymore

Come and Get Me, Copper!

Did you know your mailcarrier is above the law?  "Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night (nor the Dark Knight),  nor sleet, nor Robo-Cop with a flash camera, nor traffic laws, stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds."

Seems the USPS can dish it out,  but they can't take it; as it relates to red light and speed camera tickets.  Yep, they'll gladly drop the tickets in your mailbox, but when one comes to theirs it is RETURN TO SENDER. 

"Driving At The Speed Of Light"

I stumbled over this delightful song by Unlucky Fried Kitten.  I especially like the inciteful lyrics:

"Speed Camera, Another three points in the can
Speed Camera, Meanwhile someone mugs my Gran"

The police seem to have the wherewithal to pinch drivers, but not to cage muggers and protect the pensioners

This group must be from England--either that or the whole trip is viewed through a mirror.  I've never heard of them, but I like their attitude and the "driving" beat. 

Running Lights

Red light cameras are supposed to enhance traffic safety.  Red light runners cause a lot of accidents and injuries, and if we can decrease this scofflawry, we'll save lives and property.

The theory that handing out redlight camera tickets will decrease red light running and actual accidents and injuries, bears closer inspection.  The evidence suggests that the stop line cameras do no such thing, They may cut down on light runners, but the accidents actually increase.

Let's reason together as to why this might be so.  There are two kinds of drivers who run lights:  the kind who does it purposely, and the kind who does it accidentally. 

Red Freeze

If an Ambulance or other emergency vehicle is coming up on you and you are stopped at a red light, you are supposed to pull over and let them pass.  But you might have to move forward into the intersection to get out of the way.  You would be breaking a traffic law; entering the intersection against the red light.  It's for a good cause; you may be saving some person's life, and a real cop would recognize that and give you a pass. 

But what if the intersection is infested with red light cameras?  Would you still roll forward and pull over, knowing you will get flashed, ticketed by mail and then have to take time off work to go explain yourself to the traffic judge?  The judge would probably dismiss the ticket, but you are still out the time and aggravation.

Boots On The Ground In Chicago

CBS Chicago reporter, Dana Kozlov caught a man, on camera, putting a wheel clamp on his own car and eventually got him to explain himself.  "Rafal" puts the Denver Boot on his '94 Integra everytime he parks on the street and even when he parks it in his garage, to prevent it being stolen.  The Integra is one of the most popular prom dates for car thieves. 

Most people view the dreaded "boot" as something to avoid.  It is associated with draconian parking regulations and bloodsucking city "revenooers."  But the wheel muffs seem to have a beneficial use.