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I was really pretty shocked to have read that Henry Louis Gates Jr., professor extraordinaire of long standing at the venerable institution Hahr-Vahrd, was arrested two days ago.
But I wasn’t shocked to have read the context and circumstances of his arrest. Sure, there’s the easy explanation of racism in America (you really will never convince me a white professor would have been treated the same way), but then there’s the even easier explanation that no one seems to be talking about and it is this: the arresting “officer” in the affair is yet another example of a douchebag cop with a Napoleon Complex.
Sure, I have no doubt the cop behaved in a racist manner, but that is an action coupled with a personality trait and that trait being that the he is yet another douchebag cop with a Napoleon Complex.
A professor here at school is a retired cop and relayed to me the different types of people who become police officers:
1. The Fitness Nut: the guy or gal who somehow relives their high school athletic glory days by being a cop. They are all about how they look in the uniform. Being a good or bad cop is strictly a matter of happenstance.
2. The Gun Nut: I think this speaks for itself. The Gun Nut, who is almost always male, is also closely related to the Penis Insecurity Nut.
3. The Righteous Nut: this person has an overwhelming sense of self-importance and truly thinks that the worse they behave towards the general public, the better cop they are.
4. The Drunk Cop: who is actually a pretty okay person who took the job as a way of redemption but at the same time, does not know how to handle the stress better.
Now according to Professor Cop, a police officer can actually be a combination of these varying traits but one is always more dominant than the other. Like the thing about Elvis and the Beatles: you can like both, but you always like one more than the other.
With regards to incident involving Professor Gates, my money is on Cop #3. Then again, I’m not at all familiar with the inner workings of cop-hood and the public perception I have garnered of them over the years is really just boils down to the simplicity of the douchebag cop with the Napoleon Complex scenario.
If you haven’t heard, a Philadelphia man was shot in a movie theater on Christmas Day for refusing to keep quiet during the film.
While I don’t approve of the violence, I certainly understand the impulse that drove the shooter to his actions. Seriously, I get this. Total no brainer. People, in general, have become such complete barbarians in public, I’m more surprised that incidents like these doesn’t happen everyday.
For instance, I can not remember the last the time I saw a movie that wasn’t interupted with cell phones, people talking, or people getting up out of their seats every few minutes.
Libraries apparently have become the place to hang out with your teenage pals have a raucous good time.
Grocery shopping with your four sullen teenagers who skulk about, hogging lanes, not watching where they’re going, and have zero sense of their spatial relations, or, shopping with your screaming child in an SUV-styled grocery cart that crash into eneryone’s shins, apparently is now the accepted norm.
Noisy, crying, ill-behaved children in nice restaurants alongside the people who have no voice control or no sense of discretion sitting at the next table? Go ahead, complain, I dare you. Be forewarned that you will be viewed as the problem in that scenario,
Having to listen to other people’s loud and inconsequential phone conversations every damn place you go is now required.
Society’s utter lack of shame, or the absence of the implementation of shame as a social control, has removed any refuge from such boorish behavior. There is is simply no one place a person can go anymore and expect that rules of common courtesy be adhered to and I can easily see how the noise and constant harangue of these intrusions can cause someone to snap as it did in that movie theater.
How do you enforce the concept of common courtesy or appropriate behavioral norms? I can just see the ridiculous backlash heading this way in the form of movie theaters installing security to protect against violence as opposed to simply asking rude customers to shut the hell up. However, maybe starting with a few armed guards in movie theaters to ensure the domestic peace and quiet might not be such a bad idea.
An oldie but exceptional goodie from the brilliant mind at Indexed
So I voted this morning. The lines were non existent, the parking was ample, plenty of people were on hand, but yet it still managed to take more time than it should have.
The problems begin with the location. I voted at Trinity Lutheran Church on 38th Street, which just felt wrong. Plain wrong. But aside from issues regarding the separation of Church and State, there were no signs – anywhere – telling you that this was the place, this is where you enter, or this is the room to where you go to vote.
There was ample room for the bake sale the church decided to have, but you could not turn around in the room where the actual voting takes place. The ladies running the show (and don’t get me wrong here, I have the highest respect for poll workers) where at best unorganized and discombobulated.
No matter. I voted. Made my voice heard. And then got the hell out of there.
With regards to the after work voters though, I can see this process getting long and ugly.
Looking back at the last entry, I noticed it’s been nearly month since I’ve written. Bad Blogger! Bad Blogger! And while I suppose I could use the excuse that school and life have overwhelmed me, Lazy Slug!, truth be told, I simply haven’t felt like writing. Slacker!
Until yesterday.
I went to a movie, and experienced something that sufficiently got my Irish up. Trash talk. Verbal Smack. I’m talking some good old-fashioned Propaganda of the World War II variety,
Should you go to see a film at the West Plaza Cinema, you will be treated to a short music video featuring self-anointed “The King of Trailer Trash”, Kid Rock, and NASCAR driver Dale Earnhardt Jr., pimping themselves out to the National Gard.
Kid Rock, whom I saw get booed off the stage at the State Theater in Detroit in the way back before time of the early 1990’s, has grown into what I think is a decent musical act. “Bawitaba” and “Cowboy” are sentimental favorites of mine, but his music since then has been a poor reiteration of the same. So of course now, in efforts to stave-off total irrelevancy, Kid Rocks whores himself out to this nonsense. I don’t care if he does have the top song in the country, he is dead to me.
And Dale Earnhardt Jr,? Well, let’s just say that watching cars drive in circles all day was never my idea of stimulating entertainment. He’s turning left, ladies and gentlemen! And, wait, OMG, he’s turning left AGAIN! That’s his 30th consecutive left turn! This is truly a thrilling day for cars!
Anyhoo, they team up for this “video” which is about the most heinous piece of garbage I’ve seen in some time. If you can stomach it, you can check out on YouTube. I entertained the thought of embedding it here, but I wish not to contribute in anyway shape or form to the increased numbers of downloads such an act might cause.
So here’s the premise, Kid Rock sings his song “Warrior” while Jr. runs around in camouflage on a set that is staged to look like a town in the Middle East. The “warriors” are dressed to the hilt in combat gear, looking tough and authoritative, while people of obvious Middle Eastern persuasion appropriately run in fear from them, and small children cower until on they, Jr., patronizingly deigns to acknowledge their basic humanity and kicks a soccer ball towards them.
Nice.
Oh, and later, they help evacuate unknown people from an unknown suburban location that is on fire. And all throughout, there are these inconsistent and bizarre cut shots of car racing footage mixed in.
But the point is this: if you want to be a bad-ass, mother-effer who makes Arabic people run and hide, then the National Guard is the place for you.
The heaps of shame that should loaded onto anyone involved with this can not be measured by modern science. Of course, the sort who buy into this crap typically don’t acknowledge science outside of a vacuum and believe that humans kept dinosaurs as pets.
Which almost makes sense since we clearly haven’t evolved.
I don’t claim to understand my brothers, but being that we share a great deal of genetic material, I at least expect to find some shred of commonality in thought.
That expectation was blown to hell, yet again, when we were discussing the situation of Caleb Campbell, West Point graduate, and recent 7th round draft pick of the Detroit Lions who has been called to active duty.
In a nutshell: Campbell graduated West Point and, he claims, was promised by the Army that if he was picked up, he could play and serve his time as a recruiter. Now, the Army has apparently changed their minds on this deal and Campbell has to serve two years before he’ll be allowed to try for the NFL again.
My brothers, and apparently over 60% of people in a FOX Sports poll, think the Army is being “unfair”.
Excuse me? Unfair? Campbell has received an very expensive education (it is valued to be in the realm of $500,000) on behalf of the tax payers of this country and he signed a contract stating that in return for this education, he would serve 5 years in the Army. The US Military Academies are a priceless education for more reasons than just monetary. For there to be even a hint of Campbell whining or shirking his duty is pretty freakin’ reprehensible particularly since many of his West Point brethren can expect to be heading to either Afghanistan or Iraq in the near future.
And even if the Army changed their mind, so what? It’s their prerogative to do so. I don’t seem to recall Roger-effen-Staubach complaining about honoring his commitment to his country after attending the Naval Academy. He did his time (in Vietnam, I might add) and then went on to one of the most successful NFL careers in history. So pardon me if I feel ZERO sympathy for Campbell getting a half-million dollar education and now bitching about not getting a million dollar football career.
…And with my brothers and all those other persons who thinks the Army is being “unfair” AND supports this business in Iraq, seriously people, WTF?
Oh, and by the way, Campbell apparently isn’t even going overseas. He staying right here in the US where he will be serving his time as a football coach at either West Point or its prep school. Considering he could be on his way to some pretty nasty war zones, he should be counting his blessings.
So Sailor Man’s cousins were in town last week, and aside from being a little more than insulted by the wife of one of said cousin about the state of my marriage, I also had the “pleasure” (note sarcastic quote symbols) of enduring some highly racist smack during beer-time on the deck.
Already pretty peeved-off about the whole marriage brouhaha, I wasn’t terribly inclined to get into it over the absolutely horrific “political discourse” about racial minorities. I merely put my drink down, picked up my things and quietly left.
And I’ve felt pretty crappy about it ever since.
Mostly this is because I have never let this kind of talk go on before (not the way I was raised), and being tired or in a bad mood is never enough of a reason to ever let talk like that continue, so in a way, I feel like I let myself/parents down. On the other hand, I have the tendency go pretty nuclear and it’s pretty hard to know how to approach the situation without creating more hurt feelings (which often tend to cloud the issue at hand) while still calling people on the carpet.
I had mentioned this problem to a friend of mine and he emailed me this YouTube link which perfectly lays out what to do and how.
No excuse next time. Next time I act.
I’ve never held myself as the Poster Child for Normalcy, but I would never go as far to say that I am the Epitome of Weirdness either. I admit that I live a rather unusual life and have strange and unusual tastes, but to be quite honest, I’m not all that different from most people I know and as a married person who can be lumped into the Living Apart Together phenomena, I find I am in good company.
Sailor Man, is well, a sailor. By definition he makes his living on the water. I am not a sailor. I enjoy water in many forms, but to live and work on it? Nu-uh, not this dame. As such, Sailor and I have lived much of our 8 years together apart. By my reckoning, I think we’ve actually been in each other’s actual physical presense just over 4 of those 8 years.
And we’re the happiest married couple I know.
The other night, I had dinner with some of Sailor’s family who was in town and our non-traditional union was called into question by the wife of a cousin. So much so, that she went as far as to suggest that we couldn’t really be in committed marriage when we spend this much time apart.
Needless to say, this did not endear her to me.
My reply to her and to all who have the absolute gall to question our union is this: don’t let your inabilities, insecurities and fears in your own relationship project onto my marriage and attempt to nullify what is right and works for Sailor and me.
Sailor was doing what he was doing when I met him so I knew what I signing on for. I have work, friends, a life, and none of that ceases just because Sailor is away. There’s also an enormous difference between being alone and being lonely. I have never suffered from the latter.
In this marvelous age of communication, Sailor and I talk all the time via his cell phone. And I know this is unbelievable to some people, but we actually write letters to each other. Shock! Recoil! Disbelief! But it’s true and we do. Often. I probably have a several hundred letters from him at this point and can no longer fit them in the letter valise he made for our 3rd anniversary.
And living together is not all it’s cracked up to be. Sailor is a slob. I like things put away. He litters the house with knick-knacks. I throw them out. His regular diet consists of hippy-granola food. Mine most certainly does not. I listen to the NPR when putzing around the house. He likes it silent. I like to watch TV. He prefers to read. All those annoying and nerve-grating habits most married couples have that drive each other crazy, I don’t have to deal with. At least, not very often.
And I like it that way. So does Sailor. It works for us. Trying to fit into this “traditional” construct of a marriage would not. I’m not trying to criticize anyone else’s marrital arrangement, but they should also understand that there are other ways of skinning the proverbial cat. It is estimated that 3.8 million, yes, million couples live like we do in this country. And this does not make us any less committed or less in love than the rest of the married folk out there.
And when Sailor and I are together, well, all I can say is that I appreciate morning coffee with my husband in a way only those other 3.8 million wives can.
It’s was a slow day in the research lab yesterday. I’m working for the school this summer and “M” and I are getting all the truly bizarre projects that require working at weird hours, coming in early, and staying, sometimes, horrifically late. M pulled me aside frantically yesterday and blurted out:
“The baby is teething our toddler is waging war on my wife and she’s running a fever of a 102. I really hate to do this, but I need to go home.”
I said sure and shooed M out the door. He came in this morning apologizing profusely and swearing up and down it would never happen again. When I asked him what his problem was and why he felt the need to apologize to me, his answer was this: “I don’t want to be that guy“.
That Guy is apparently the guy at the office who uses his kids as an excuse for everything including not doing his job. M played adult-on-the-job-babysitter to more than one of those guys at his previously employment and swore he’d never be on of those guys. So much so that after all these months of working with him, this was the first time I had ever heard of him being married let alone having kids. Honestly, I had no idea.
But there’s another side of that coin: M kept his family status hidden because in some places of business, the minute you leave the office for a family emergency you become The Other Guy: That guy who can’t be counted on because he’s obviously not devoted enough to forsake his family well-being for the Good of the Company. Hence, he will never be promoted, never get a raise, and will stagnate in the middle until he moves on or dies there.
I’ve been on the receiving end of both these scenarios. The one where I get all the work dumped on me because my colleague can’t manage to work more than two hours without her kids interrupting. I’ve also been fast tracked on promotions because the guy ahead of me couldn’t be “counted on” in a pinch and I was single with no kids and therefore could be.
So where’s the balance in all this? While I don’t believe persons should be penalized for having families and should be allowed some flexibility to deal with family issues, as long as their work is completed and not dumped on me, I have no problem with someone not being chained to a desk. However, we are in the middle a crunch war on time where workers are being asked to work longer, do more and with less pay and not being chained to the desk somehow makes you disloyal. This isn’t the 1950’s, most families require both parents to work to survive. Some allowances must be made.
This is an impossible position to place workers in. Yes, there are those who take advantage, but then there are those who need to occasionally be a parent during the 8-5 work day and shouldn’t fear for their career in doing so. Just as you shouldn’t fear not being hired for a job because your boss assumes that as a 30+ year old woman you’ll obviously be wanting kids in the near future.
Well, as a 30+ something woman whose family is harassing her daily to get knocked up, I look around at all this bullshit and can only think: Not on your freaking life.
Sailor Man often complains that I want it both ways. He complains to me that I can’t have it both ways.
Given the existence of particle wave duality, I argue, yes, I can. Light is a tricky beast. Allows you to see everything yet will blind you at the same time. Sometimes acts like a particle. Other times acts like a wave. Is it a wave with particle properties? Or is it a particle with properties of waves?
Bohrs, Einstein, Newton, Young, and a host of great minds have tried to tackle this problem and we still have no satisfactory answers.
So, yes, I can be mad as hell at you and love you ferociously at the same time.
So, yes, I will spend an hour giving myself the perfect pedicure and then throw on a pair of socks and shoes.
So, yes, I can insist you not leave your dirty clothes on the floor and simultaneously demand that you not stop to fold your pants if I’m trying to get it on with you.
Bohrs, Einsten, Newton, Young….even they couldn’t entirely figure it out. But then, sorry, I forgot, they were only men.
