PatrickG
09-21-2007, 05:36 AM
In the news today (http://www.abc2news.com/mediacenter/local.aspx?videoId=5677@wmar.dayport.com).
Earlier this month (http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/offbeat/2007/09/12/mcentyre.defendant.tasered.wbns).
(There's a funny little twist at the end. Pretty absurd but I wonder if the guy doesn't have a point.)
In the news last November (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71lEo-kMpYs).
Oh! And not of the electric variety but howabout this (http://freedomactivists.net/police-brutality/police-officer-beats-up-town-council-man/)?
And this (http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8027854162700568157&q=ktla).
I am concerned by abuses of power in this country. These videos are predominantly police abuses but I think our attitudes are out of whack.
I recall an editorial by a police officer in my hometown newspaper several years ago where a police officer complained how nobody wanted a police officer unless they called 911.
My response is that if you want to be liked, enter a beauty pageant.
I have a roommate who was killed and I'm dissatisfied with the police investigation. They didn't save his life. They didn't interview me for a week. The killer is not facing murder one. If the argument is that I should be satisfied with these kinds of incidents because a police officer might save my life, I don't buy it.
In the past five years, I've been ticketed several times for minor speeding infractions in large measure because I had anxiety attacks. I was detained for an hour while failing a series of sobriety tests (all except the breathalizer) because of anxiety. (I'd had low content one cider three hours prior. No medication.) I've had my car searched. I've had my person searched. I've been poked, prodded, patted and groped.
When I was a child, I had to carry a sign across protest lines to enter my school and receive my education.
I'm tired of bosses who tell me they don't have a choice about company policies that don't make sense and I'm tired of form letters and being ignored whenever I as an employee or customer want to engage in a dialog with a company about how to make things better.
I'm tired of being in a focus group where I'm told that my survey and my thoughts don't count and run counter to the results of "millions of dollars of research" only to see the same company, financially struggling, take my advice years later.
I think it's absurd that my friend lost his job doing a web business that was breaking even when a woman who was caught stealing $20,000 kept her job.
You have no idea how frustrated I am at the people I was telling back in the 90s that they should be doing ebussiness only to be discounted and see them scrambling for it now.
As an adult, I've been stopped for supposedly random airport searches nearly every time I've set foot on a plane since 9/11.
There are exceptionally good cops and officials out there and this isn't about them. This is about people in power who refuse to be democratic, who retaliate against criticism in the use of their power, who hide behind their authority; I'm tired of it.
I see it with Bush. I saw it with Clinton.
I've seen a Sheriff and all his deputies go down for running a drug cartel. I've seen a Police Chief and a Mayor go down in a sex and prison abuse (the prison wasn't even in the city) scandal as their scores of illegitimate children cropped up. I've seen my grade school teacher with a gun on the news, slashing tires and telling parents not to bring their children to school until she got a pay raise; I heard her say that the only thing she found rewarding about the job was a paycheck and the ability to boss people around. I've known college professors who slept with their students and kept their jobs. I've seen gross outbursts and heard one of my professors regularly and gleefully confess the story of how he was banned from the post office (he called the clerk a bitch and screamed at her for not giving him his mail without a key) and how he ran an old woman off the road.
I'm a straight, white, educated male and I do not trust blue lights. I do not trust teachers. I definitely don't trust elected officials. And every day, I see another example of something where somebody does something stupid and people in authority don't respond with anything smarter.
We deserve better leadership. We deserve better examples. We deserve heroes -- not scared people who are our equals or even lessers hiding behind weapons and paperwork and tenure and strawman arguments.
Ultimately, we deserve problem solvers not custodians.
That's my rant.
Earlier this month (http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/offbeat/2007/09/12/mcentyre.defendant.tasered.wbns).
(There's a funny little twist at the end. Pretty absurd but I wonder if the guy doesn't have a point.)
In the news last November (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71lEo-kMpYs).
Oh! And not of the electric variety but howabout this (http://freedomactivists.net/police-brutality/police-officer-beats-up-town-council-man/)?
And this (http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8027854162700568157&q=ktla).
I am concerned by abuses of power in this country. These videos are predominantly police abuses but I think our attitudes are out of whack.
I recall an editorial by a police officer in my hometown newspaper several years ago where a police officer complained how nobody wanted a police officer unless they called 911.
My response is that if you want to be liked, enter a beauty pageant.
I have a roommate who was killed and I'm dissatisfied with the police investigation. They didn't save his life. They didn't interview me for a week. The killer is not facing murder one. If the argument is that I should be satisfied with these kinds of incidents because a police officer might save my life, I don't buy it.
In the past five years, I've been ticketed several times for minor speeding infractions in large measure because I had anxiety attacks. I was detained for an hour while failing a series of sobriety tests (all except the breathalizer) because of anxiety. (I'd had low content one cider three hours prior. No medication.) I've had my car searched. I've had my person searched. I've been poked, prodded, patted and groped.
When I was a child, I had to carry a sign across protest lines to enter my school and receive my education.
I'm tired of bosses who tell me they don't have a choice about company policies that don't make sense and I'm tired of form letters and being ignored whenever I as an employee or customer want to engage in a dialog with a company about how to make things better.
I'm tired of being in a focus group where I'm told that my survey and my thoughts don't count and run counter to the results of "millions of dollars of research" only to see the same company, financially struggling, take my advice years later.
I think it's absurd that my friend lost his job doing a web business that was breaking even when a woman who was caught stealing $20,000 kept her job.
You have no idea how frustrated I am at the people I was telling back in the 90s that they should be doing ebussiness only to be discounted and see them scrambling for it now.
As an adult, I've been stopped for supposedly random airport searches nearly every time I've set foot on a plane since 9/11.
There are exceptionally good cops and officials out there and this isn't about them. This is about people in power who refuse to be democratic, who retaliate against criticism in the use of their power, who hide behind their authority; I'm tired of it.
I see it with Bush. I saw it with Clinton.
I've seen a Sheriff and all his deputies go down for running a drug cartel. I've seen a Police Chief and a Mayor go down in a sex and prison abuse (the prison wasn't even in the city) scandal as their scores of illegitimate children cropped up. I've seen my grade school teacher with a gun on the news, slashing tires and telling parents not to bring their children to school until she got a pay raise; I heard her say that the only thing she found rewarding about the job was a paycheck and the ability to boss people around. I've known college professors who slept with their students and kept their jobs. I've seen gross outbursts and heard one of my professors regularly and gleefully confess the story of how he was banned from the post office (he called the clerk a bitch and screamed at her for not giving him his mail without a key) and how he ran an old woman off the road.
I'm a straight, white, educated male and I do not trust blue lights. I do not trust teachers. I definitely don't trust elected officials. And every day, I see another example of something where somebody does something stupid and people in authority don't respond with anything smarter.
We deserve better leadership. We deserve better examples. We deserve heroes -- not scared people who are our equals or even lessers hiding behind weapons and paperwork and tenure and strawman arguments.
Ultimately, we deserve problem solvers not custodians.
That's my rant.