The Sample Was Ample

 I watched the first half hour, which is more than I usually watch one of those things.  I found it humorous at first, but it got old really quick.  Then I went to the news app on my computer, and there were several articles about it already, which all said pretty much the same things that Uncle Ken said.  Even though it was still in progress, they all wrote about it as if they had seen it yesterday.  When I left, I had the feeling that the rest of it wasn't going to be substantially different from what I had already seen.  Maybe that's what the writers on my news app were thinking too, so they figured they might as well write it up and do something interesting with the rest of their evening.

Speaking of bull shit, my neighbor has been flying a Trump flag in his yard since early spring.  It says, "Trump 2020 - No More Bull Shit".   I was puzzled the first time I saw it because the two statements contradict each other.  Then I got to thinking that it's really all bull shit, it's only a question of if you prefer Trump's bull shit or somebody else's bull shit.  

My position on Trump remains unchanged, I don't like him but I'm going to vote for him anyway.  I will be surprised if he wins, but I don't want him to lose because of my vote.  Like I said previously, I care more about issues than I do about personalities.  Trump is an asshole, no doubt about it, but he's all we've got.  Better an asshole Republican than any kind of Democrat because the Democrats want to raise our taxes, take away our guns, and let illegal immigrants over run our country.

Wasn't that a mighty storm?

Well what else did anybody expect?  Since the entire Republican senate, minus that rascal Romney, gave him a golden forever get free card, he has been unchained, no make that unmoored.  For a year now (has it only been a year?) he has faced only yes men and the press who have no power and he can bully at his will.  

How dare that Chris Wallace, who as a Foxie should have been admiring his new clothes, have the temerity to tell him to stop interrupting?  And here was this Biden, this Sleepy Joe, who Trump had long been sneering at calling Trump a liar and a clown and telling him to shut up.  

Biden was proving he was no senile old man and Trump was showing he was an even bigger bag of wind than people had expected.  Surely I expected this was going to move the needle a few points.  But then I had to pause as I realized that the an even bigger bag of wind was to his supporters, like the guy who marries the fat girl, that much more to love.

She started it.  The three of us all grew up with sisters,  Remember those little squabbles and Mom bursting into the room and you defending yourself with that line?  And likely Sis was saying the same thing about you.  And Mom was not interested in determining who started it, she just wanted it to stop right now.

And maybe it didn't matter in those situations because likely half the time you started it and half the time she did, so it all evens out.

But in the case of the debate Trump started interrupting first in almost all cases, what was Biden to do?  If he didn't interrupt back later he would look like a stiff, he would look weak.  And then the reaction was well they were both yelling a lot so a pox on both their houses, like Trump's instigation didn't matter.

Well you guys know what side I am on.  It looked to me like a clear victory for Biden, likely to move the meter a few clicks among independents which is the best that could be expected.

After the debate CNN was all on my side like I expected them to be, so I quickly turned the dial to FOX.  What looked like bad matters and attempted bullying to me looked forceful to them.  They gave Trump points for being forceful.  Biden who interrupted less, mainly just in response to Trump's bullying, was seen as less forceful, which was a bad thing in their eyes.  Nevertheless they seemed to be calling it a draw.  If FOX was calling it a draw that had to be a big victory for Biden.

Back to CNN they had some kind of focus group, about a dozen folks dressed in light jackets and sweaters sitting in lawn chairs about six feet apart.  Independents, who Beagles likes to call wishy washies, and I am pretty much in agreement with him on that.  Blah blah blah, they all seemed disgusted with the whole affair, but then came the moment of truth.  How many were more inclined to vote for Biden.  One hand.  How many were more inclined to vote for Trump.  One hand.  Well what the fuck, who chose this group of stiffs?

You know there is a certain amount of prissiness among these independents.  Many of them are all like Oh, I have such high ideals that I can't dirty my hands with that awful political business.  They make me sick.  

Anyway here I am in the morning listening to the spinmasters.  I know the dawgs are not as fond of politics as I am, but I wonder if they watched the debate and what their opinions are.

Copping an attitude

Was the cop kind of waiting around for a bribe?

Maybe, maybe not; after all this time it's impossible to say.  The police, in my experience, have an incredible amount of discretion and if they're not already writing in their ticket book you might enjoy a little wiggle room.  I'm not saying that some of them are lazy but, again in my experience, they don't like all the paperwork involved (who would?) and they don't like going to court.  If you don't behave like a jerk and if you're not perceived as a threat you could very well walk away after having had the fear of god put into you.

If you're strolling along, minding your own business, and happen to encounter an on-duty officer don't avoid eye contact or otherwise act suspicious; they develop keen instincts.  I want to stay off their radar (especially on the road, ha, ha) but if I encounter them and make eye contact I simply nod to acknowledge their presence and continue on my way.  Sometimes they even nod back but in any case they usually decide to ignore me, which is exactly what I want.

Whether on duty or off I don't see any point in discussing hot button topics like BLM with any police officer.  Unless you are a fellow officer I don't think they will trust you and be 100% candid, that's just the way it is.

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Big debate coming up tonight and I'll make a prediction: there will be no debate.  Some kind of phony crisis will come up and demand the full attention of the Tax Dodger in Chief.  Any number of players could be involved, guys like Putin, Kim, or Xi and some kind of political theater will be created to make Trump look good.  It could happen, you know.

I'm not sure about that Supreme Court nominee.  There's something about a woman having seven children that makes me question her judgement unless she's a full-time Mom.  You can call me old fashioned on this one.

 

 

A Theory About That Close Call

 A week or so after the incident, I talked to a bartender friend of mine who claimed to have some experience in such matters.  He said that the cop didn't believe me when I told him that I had not drunk anything after the bar closed in St. Ignace, probably because that's what most of his customers would have done.  Although I used to drink and drive in those days, I never did develop the habit of drinking while driving, but apparently lots of people did.  Anyway, my friend said that the cop was stalling to allow the last few drinks he thought I had consumed work their way into my system so they would show up on the Breathalyzer test.  Since I really hadn't drunk anything since 2:30, all the cop accomplished was to allow time for some of the stuff I had consumed before 2:30 work its way out of my system.

I have never heard of our local police soliciting or accepting bribes.  The only incident of police brutality I have heard of occurred before I moved here in 1967, but people were still talking about it.  Two city cops allegedly handcuffed a guy to a utility pole and beat him up.  Knowing the guy, he might have deserved it, but of course that didn't make it right.  There was talk of a lawsuit for awhile, but the alleged victim, his family, and the local newspaper suddenly stopped talking about it.  Rumor had it that the guy was paid an undisclosed amount of money to forget the incident ever happened. 

I know that soldiers on guard aren't supposed to engage in idle chit chat with passers by, but I don't know if those cops in Chicago are supposed to be talking to civilians when they're on duty.  We don't have police patrols on foot here, they are all in cars, although I think they ride bicycles on Mackinac Island.  We do have cops who periodically visit the schools to give presentations on various subjects.  Maybe Uncle Ken could arrange for something like that in his building.  Your downtown office must have some kind of public relations officer who could facilitate it. 

just a little more chat about police officers

What I was talking about when I was talking about talking to a cop, I mean police officer, was not trying to talk myself out of trouble, or idle chit chat, but asking about the situation with blm.  Under my debunked theory of the method of The Liberal Agenda where if parties have a problem between them they can calmly and honestly talk to each other and work it through, I don't think that can happen between civilians and police officers.  But I think I have exhausted this topic so perhaps it is time to move on.

Old Dog had a link recently that spoke of the cops of our youth, and I remember that the idea that you could bribe a cop was pretty common, and it seems like for good reason.  People still joke about it, but I don't know if it is still prevalent.  What is most common now is the cops that beat confessions out of suspects, and rogue cops in special units who infiltrate drug gangs and then become part of them.  

Since that looting episode in early August things have been remarkably calm.  The bridges have been down and the demonstrations have been small and peaceful.  I wonder what happened with the dim bulbs that were tearing down all those statues.  It was a big deal and then it stopped as soon as it started.  I like to think they came to their senses, but I suspect it was just the new shiny thing at the time and lost its luster soon,  

And the shootings at demonstrations seem to have stopped.  Speaking of which, remember those cops who got shot in Louisville?  That certainly seemed to be a big thing, but now, over a week later there has been no further information.

The cops are out in force now, a couple squad cars are positioned on upper Wacker 24/7.  As you walk downtown you will come across a knot of officers every two or three blocks.  

I would kind of like to speak to them, oh just to say a top of the morning to them, but they are not much for eye contact.  I wonder what they think of us civilians strolling down the street in our masks coming and going as we please, unencumbered by a holster and pistol and a bulletproof jacket, and the task of enforcing order.  Do they have that dim view that comes from seeing humanity as its worse?  Do they think we are thinking of how to defund them or to make changes in the police contract that will make it easier for them to be indicted?  

I don't know what to make of Beagles' in that St Ignance Incident.  Was the cop kind of waiting around for a bribe?  Was he enchanted by Beagle's surprising openness, and decided to while away an hour or two in not over friendly nor obsequious conversation.  Just two ships that passed in the night I suppose.

A Close Call

 In the early 1990s I was pulled over by the Cheboygan City Police around 3:00AM. Generally, the only people on the road at that time of the morning are cops and drunks, and the only reason the cops are out there is to catch the drunks.  When he asked me how much I'd had to drink, I told him around 12 beers, which was the truth.  What he didn't ask, and I didn't think to tell him, was that those 12 beers had been spread out over a period of 12 hours.  This meant I would have been legal except that I had drunk four or five of those beers in about two hours just before the bar closed.  (Michigan bars are required to close at 2:30, with last call being served by 2:00.)  The bar was in St. Ignace, about a half hour drive from Cheboygan.  If the cop had given me the Breathalyzer test shortly after he first stopped me, it would have been "Do not pass 'Go', do not collect $200." but, for some reason, he stalled around asking me questions for an hour hand a half before giving me the test, by which time I had sobered up enough to be just barely legal.

Right after I told him about the 12 beers, the cop asked me if I thought I was in any kind of shape to be driving.  I replied, "Well I feel fine, but what do I know?  You are a professional, if you say that I'm drunk, then I must be drunk."  That pretty well set the tone for the rest of the conversation.  I never argued with him, but I didn't kiss his ass either.  I suppose I talked to him the same way I would talk to anybody who I had just met for the first time, "friendly but not overly familiar, neither condescending nor obsequious."  The cop was pretty civil to me in turn, except when he got a little angry after I passed the Breathalyzer test.  I don't blame him for that, I was as surprised as he was.  

He seemed to be obsessed with the notion that I had gotten a six pack to go and drank it on the way home, although I repeatedly assured him that I had not.  At one point he asked permission to search my truck, which I granted.  I could have made him get a warrant, but I knew he wasn't going to find anything, so there was no point in that.  I never encouraged him to speed up the process or slow it down either.  Like I said, he was a professional and I wasn't about to tell him how to do his job.  Towards the end, he asked me to do some things like walk a straight line and touch my nose with my finger.  I no problem doing any of that until he told me to stand on one foot while holding my arms straight against my sides, which I could not do.  I wasn't sure I could even do that when sober, but I tried it later at home and I could.  

Before he let me go, the cop gave me a speeding ticket, 35 in a 25.  I had driven that stretch of road many times and I honestly thought the speed limit was 35, but I checked it the next day and, sure enough, it was posted at 25.  I paid a $50 fine for that, which was much cheaper than a drunk driving conviction.  All things considered, it could have been worse.

Just Passing Through

I only saw that crane for a few minutes out the window and there was no opportunity for a photo.   I have a trail camera that I could set up if I thought it was hanging around, but I haven't seen it since, which leaves my to believe that it was just passing through.  My internet search turned up reports of a few sightings in Southern Michigan this summer, and I wouldn't be surprised if they were all of the same bird that I saw.  My guess is that it got separated from the migrating Wisconsin flock and came up the wrong side of Lake Michigan in the spring.  I also learned that whooping cranes sometimes hang out with the more common sandhill cranes.  Indeed, I saw a sandhill near my whooper, so it shouldn't have any trouble finding its way back south this fall.  At this point, my sighting would be considered an "unconfirmed report" by the local authorities, so I doubt they would take it seriously.  I did report it to the International Crane Foundation via their website since they said they were interested in any whooping crane sightings.  They said they would put me on their email list and keep me posted about any future sightings. 

I saw something about those yooperlites  on TV awhile back.  I think they have only been found around Lake Superior.

Maybe retail clerks were a poor choice of examples. I was trying to think of how you talk to somebody who you are trying to get along with in a reasonable manner who is not a relative, close friend, or your boss at work.  I haven't dealt with the police a lot in my life, but I could tell you a few interesting stories that might better illustrate my point.  I will try to put something together over the weekend.