Yakko, Wacko and Dot were more on target with that song than I thought. Yet another CBS program has been rebooted, putting them in a tie with DC Comics for most reboots ever, LOL. Who is our unlucky victim this time? A cash cow that CBS decided could be milked further:
15 years wasn’t long enough, so here we go again. 😀
The new series will feature a few of the “old guard” from the original series mentoring a new group of CSIs using cutting edge technology to help solve crimes.
I’ve got to admit, I liked the old show (not loved), but another reboot in the CBS line up? When is enough enough? Even half of Netflix’s shows are reboots anymore. I’m wondering when Zorro is going to be rebooted by Disney anymore…
I got an email about this from my friend in Hawaii. It seems with the return of tourism to Oahu (which had been down 90% for almost the entire pandemic), that the demand for rental cars has gone through the roof compared to availability.
No doubt the car rental offices were selling off their fleets to help cover operating costs during the pandemic. Now that it’s ended, their short sighted move has caught them flat footed. In typical predatory capitalism fashion they’ve decided to charge over $700 a DAY for basic rentals and over $1000 if you want a convertible:
Normally, I’m quite pro-capitalism. I understand that TO A DEGREE, supply and demand are going to factor into cost. Doing so covers the cost of increasing the supply to meet demand.
HOWEVER… Where do we draw the line in this kind of instance? Where does the law of supply and demand become predatory capitalism? I’m not sure I have an EXACT answer there, BUT, 10x the normal going rate would seem to be across that line. We rented a Mustang GT convertible a year and a half ago for our honeymoon and only paid $100 a day, which is still pricey compared to most other locations.
Wouldn’t an ethical business simply go out and buy some cars from local dealerships to increase their fleet size? At $100 a day rental rate, the car loan note can be paid for on 5 days of rental per month.
Just because you CAN do something doesn’t make it right. Look at the price hikes on insulin as another example. Somewhere along the lines the idea of business ethics got flushed and replaced with the SHORT SIGHTED idea that the only duty a business had was to provide as much short term profit as possible to it’s investors. If one has NO ability to ponder consequences, that sounds great also. In the long term though, it destroys a business’s reputation and customer loyalty. Look at Banks and Airlines as two other examples. They’re both hated.
Worse, these greedy businesses are only fueling the call for Socialism or outright Communism by people who don’t understand these are even worse alternatives.
The bias, cliques and general toxic nature of it all has made me walk away from it entirely years ago. I’m still not sure a blog counts as social media, but this is it for me. 🙂
The reality though is that all social media platforms are EASY to fix. Easy in the sense that the solution is straight forward, but it does require work. What’s the answer? Simple:
Ages ago, back when the closest thing to social media was .vbb (virtual bulletin board – similar in form to reddit, although a little more primitive) discussion sites, I helped moderate one of the biggest ones out there. The code of conduct there was pretty straight forward. The biggest rule that we used to define Trolling and abusive behavior was:
You can debate the idea, but DO NOT attack the person making the post.
Examples (of somewhat obvious concepts):
Debate the Idea: “Tax cuts for the rich doesn’t result in them creating more jobs via reinvestment, they just horde wealth.” Controversial enough to be an example here.
Attack the Post Maker: “What kind of idiot believes that tax cuts actually help the economy?”
Do I even have to point out how one keeps the debate more focused and civil, while the other degenerates it into ad hominid personal attacks and childish name calling?
Why isn’t it done? Simple. None of the owners of these sites want to pay for moderators, and bots aren’t sophisticated enough to differentiate yet. They also avoid dealing with tantrums claiming bias if a human moderator shuts down a troll and their followers.
Yes, there’s political and (mostly) economic bias guiding these decisions also. They don’t want to take what will inevitably be a very large hit to their user bases via this rule. Personal experience has taught me that this is fairly short term though. People LOVE having the spotlight. Take it away from them, and they’ll rant and pout, but then come back and play within the rules MOST of the time because they want their stage and audience back.
The habitual rule breakers and one who will try to skirt the rules constantly… They’ll always be there, and will act even worse without that kind of rule in place.
Of course, there’s the other issue that has to be dealt with, and that takes a cultural shift: Back then, the common sense belief was that free speech and the ability to freely debate ideas was paramount.
Nowadays everybody wants to live in an echo chamber:
The biggest step to straightening out the internet and social media specifically is that the other side has a right to speak.
I’ll be blunt, if you have to resort to silencing dissenting voices via name calling, applying labels, trolling, attempting to get people banned or blocked, etc… In short, if your ideas can’t stand the light of open honest discussion, chances are you don’t understand them yourself.
Change that and implement the above rule along with a few other common sense ones (ie no advocating violence), and social media would change fairly quickly.
With everything in the news, I think it behooves me to write about being a cop, what they typically think, and are motivated by, etc…
First, I want to make it clear that I am NOT going to defend bad cops. There is ZERO excuse for what happened to George Floyd, as one example. It’s not always about racism however. Bad cops can be bad for more than one reason. Likewise, good cops can sometimes seem bad just by the nature of the job.
As a note about my qualifications to speak on the subject, my dad was a career cop… Long enough to collect TWO pensions. If I recall the count correctly, four of my martial arts instructors were cops as well. So were a handful of my fellow students. I talked to all of them regularly about what the job is like. I also spent the first half of the 90s as a private security guard, which involved fairly regular interaction with cops, and even breaking up a smash and grab robbery once.
So, I understand a good bit more than the average person on the street about what law enforcement goes through.
Side Note: I know I’ll get asked so… The smash and grab was a lucky escape for me, as it were. I was an unarmed officer but always carried a maglite. The facility I was guarding had a shop across the street for maintenance of it’s trucks. I drove over there to check it during my rounds and scared off three huge guys in a rental truck who had rammed through the chain link fence’s gate, and were breaking into the facility to steal all the tools and equipment they could. Between it being dark, my uniform looking similar to local cops AND my driving a black Ford, they assumed I was a cop, hopped in the truck and hauled tail out of there. It could have gone VERY different very easily.
What Motivates the Average Cop?
Just about everyone who becomes a police officer is motivated by the desire to help people and keep their community safe. Yes, sometimes racists, victims of PTSD and just plain people with anger issues get in, but this is NOT the majority of people in law enforcement. The vast majority are like Officer Greg Anderson, who was suspended for this video:
Where Things Sometimes Go Sideways:
First, there’s the painfully obvious need for better screening during the hiring process. This is complicated though for two reasons. First, some people are just VERY good at faking normal. Second, there’s a shortage of people willing to be police nowadays. Given all the crap the profession takes, I can’t blame folks for not wanting to sign on either.
The Realities of the Job are the next factor, and an even bigger one. Think about this: what other job are you going to be expected to become a human target and be required to actively and constantly put yourself between the worst of humanity and the general populace? Soldiers do, but do it with better armor, weapons and far less limiting rules of engagement.
Do you know two of the absolutely most dangerous situations for cops? Routine traffic stops and domestic violence calls. You never know if you’re going to get shot by some nutcase that you stopped just for a broken tail light or expired license “tag”. Likewise, domestic violence calls have a high probability of ending up with one or both parties involved trying to assault the responding officer(s). Often it’s even the victim who suddenly doesn’t want the aggressor hauled off to jail.
My point being that the job itself has a way of turning good people into cynics who suspect the worst of everyone. It almost requires it of them in order to stay safe. Every call, officers are dealing with people at their absolute worst, be it self-entitled ‘victims’ demanding justice all the way to hardcore gang bangers.
35 or 40 years ago, THIS would have gotten a person the wood shampoo and a trip to jail. NOW cops are supposed to just stand there and take it. If anybody did that to a normal person, it would result in a throwdown. Cops are expected to have NO personal space though even though the person in their face could quickly pull a knife, gun or punch, and is far more likely to do so against a cop than another civilian.
Should people be able to protest the police? ABSOLUTELY! There’s a right way and a wrong way to do it however. Burning, looting and scenes like the above just convince some folks that the cops were right and need to be heavy handed though. What’s required is alot more of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s example and a hell of alot less of the “Karen” antics in the picture above.
Unrealistic Expectations of Officers is another big problem. I blame Hollywood for this. Years of martial arts movies and action movies along with pop psychology have convinced the average idiot that any police officer should be able to fight like Captain America or Bruce Lee, and yet never hurt anyone. It’s gotten so bad that police are even criticized for using non-lethal options like tasers in cases of self defense.
The pop psychology aspect comes in with the expectation that police should be able to talk EVERY suspect into a completely peaceful resolution and everybody walks away happy. That works fine for shows like “The Rookie“. I genuinely like that show and we all wish interactions with law enforcement could go the way they usually do on the show. Reality is, people drunk out of their mind, stoned, or just plain mentally ill do NOT always make the most rational decisions. Sometimes these people are spoiling for a fight and are NOT going to give a cop time to do an in-depth psycho-analysis.
The ones stoned or drunk beyond all reason can be remarkably resistant to pain as well. A fellow student in my original karate school was mugged delivering pizzas. He kicked his attacker 3 times square in the groin with steel toe boots and hit him several times in the temple also. The counter attack would have crippled a sober person, probably permanently. Because the attacker was stoned out of his mind, he shrugged off all of it though. It was a one time thing for that fellow student, but something cops encounter on a fairly regular basis.
Tying it All Together:
What I’m driving at is that there are reasons besides racism that cops get heavy handed or cop an attitude. Stress, anger over others being endangered, and anger and fear over themselves being put in danger are often major factors. “Respect my authority” is often more about the officer feeling safely in control of a situation (and thus more confident they won’t be hurt) than it is as seen on South Park:
It’s one thing to get stopped for jaywalking across a major road, and even then that just merits a “Hey, stay safe and don’t do that again, OK?” This guy was stopped on a residential street with NO traffic. Even the facts that he argued with the cops and threw down his jacket don’t excuse it because there was NO reason to stop him in the first place. Nobody could even say he looked like a suspect for anything.
My point with this article though is to point out that it’s NOT always racism and that every white cop is NOT out to kill every black person they see. It’s usually more about the dangers of the job, fear and adrenaline. This is why black men are just as likely die at the hands of black cops as white ones.
Also, If it was ALL about black folks there wouldn’t be over 22 seasons of COPS filled with cheese whiz sucking white trailer trash getting manhandled, the dog released on them, and cuffed and stuffed also.
One of my previous blog articles also mentioned how *I* was ALMOST drawn on by a nervous cop during a traffic stop when I too hastily reached for my glove compartment to try to find my proof of insurance. I’m as white bread as a cracker can be too, LOL.
Does It Excuse Any Of It?
In a word, NO. It doesn’t matter if it was racism, PTSD, a god complex, fear and adrenaline, or a desire to “teach this perp a lesson” that got George Floyd killed.
While we DO have to realize that cops are human, there are professional standards that come with the job. Whatever MAY have happened that got George Floyd in that position on the ground (i.e. *IF* he had resisted arrest), once those officers had him under control, they had a moral and legal obligation to cuff him and put him in a vehicle.
When racism or other issues such as anger management or PTSD show up, they should be dealt with swiftly. Get the officer off the street. If they’re a bad cop, fire them. If they’re damaged and have PTSD or something similar going on, maybe they can serve at a desk job. When it results in something like the George Floyd incident, the cops should be buried under the jail. Period.
The Role of the Media
I’d be sorely remiss if I didn’t mention this factor. The media is FAMOUS here for stirring up drama to the point of riots. More than one case has blatantly had facts withheld by the media that would at least make a widely publicized incident look more grey, if not outright clear the cop involved.
Very few media outlets are questioning the narrative that Ahmaud Arbery was just out jogging and killed for no reason for example. They do NOT report that the man with the shotgun was a retired Deputy Sheriff who had arrested Arbery before, OR that there’s video of Arbery walking through a house he broke into. Likewise there’s no questioning why he would first keep running toward two armed men in the middle of the street, NOR why he attacked and tried to disarm the shotgun wielding former deputy. Or even that both shots went off as Arbery tried to wrestle the shotgun away.
Does that mean those men are innocent? NO. There’s still enough in the infamous video to merit an investigation. There’s an intangible feel to me also that they were looking for an excuse to punish Arbery. What I *am* saying is that there IS enough there though to establish some reasonable doubt.
The media wants race riots though. They equal ratings. People dying and losing their businesses in those riots? That’s just extra ratings.
CONCLUSION:
Remember that ALL cops are human, and only a small percentage are bad. It’s a VERY dangerous job, and it’s only getting worse for them with people thinking it’s OK to verbally and physically abuse them on an ever growing basis.
A little courtesy and polite behavior can get anyone out of most encounters with the police completely safe and unharmed.
Let’s focus on getting the bad cops fired or prosecuted where appropriate, while still supporting the good ones.
I’m going out on a limb here, but I am soooo tired of the inflammatory rhetoric on both sides of this issue. I think it’s damned well time I try to inject a little common sense here.
I’m really tempted to rant at both sides individually, but I believe I’ll lose most readers so let’s skip the rant and get to the fixes. Novel concept in today’s society, eh?
First, you can’t confiscate everybody’s guns. Period. It’s morally and legally wrong to hold 43% of the US population accountable for the actions of a handful of lunatics.
Second, the existing laws have to be better enforced. In so many cases, there were processes that failed when they shouldn’t have, law enforcement agencies that dropped the ball regarding reports and warnings, etc… What good does making a new, stricter rule do if it’s also going to fail to be executed properly? You have to fix what’s broken to build newer systems on top of it. That’s just common sense.
Yes, We NEED New Laws Also… Better background checks that are collaborated between agencies so things are not missed. I’m very open to reasonable increases in restrictions also. Maybe waiting periods like here in California, with exceptions if an applicant can show a legitimate need for protection (domestic violence separation for example)
Red Flag Laws. I’ve been saying for YEARS we need these. I’m so pissed off at the gun lobby and the far right for saying that they wont work and saying that they’ll be used to arbitrarily take innocent people’s guns away. Don’t tell me it can’t be done! Find a way to make it work and set up processes to protect the rights of people who might be falsely accused. It’s WAY past time we got the guns out of the hands of mental defectives.
Mental health in General: This country has swung from the extreme of persecuting and in some cases torturing the mentally ill to the opposite extreme of excusing everything they do in the name of false compassion (ie enabling). It’s time to find a reasonable, compassionate middle ground. People who struggle with issues like depression who aren’t a danger and deserve our compassion and understanding. If somebody is a violent psychotic though, I want them locked up in a mental institution! It’s not prison, it’s having the compassion to protect them and others from their violent tendencies. Yes, we need to make sure said institutions are run in a way that gives patients human dignity also.
Quit Glorifying These Shooters and Giving Them Press! Far too many of these people leave some sort of statement or manifesto behind that they want to be famous, often like some other shooter or movie character. The Aurora Colorado theater shooter wanted to be The Joker. See above mental illness and red flag paragraphs there. If these folks know that their faces will never be shown and their names will never be spoken by the media in any way, they lose alot of incentive.
Gun Show & Private Sale Loopholes: Sorry, it’s not popular with other gun owners, but these need to be closed to prevent psychos from getting around checks. Gun shows dealers can set up background checks on wifi enabled laptops and private sales can be brokered though a licensed gun dealer like here in California.
Friends and Family of Shooters: Another one that’s likely to ruffle some feathers. Too many times though, these folks have gotten guns from family members either willfully or because they weren’t secured properly. If that’s the case during a shooting, the friend or family member should be tried as a co-conspirator. Harsh? No, it’s taking securing your weapons seriously. Understand however, I would NOT apply this to anyone who did make a real attempt to secure their guns (locked in a safe), and the shooter still got them. It’s a sticky subject, but people have to start being held accountable for their actions.
STOP THE HATE: This goes for more than both sides of the gun debate. There are so many issues, causes and beliefs out there than have taken to vilifying anyone who disagrees with any part of their dogma. Hate and fear are damned near a universal tactic now. It DOESN’T help the cause, it just makes you look bad, and undermines the cause. That’s true no matter how righteous you think your cause is. Worse, this kind of constant bombardment of hate, fear and negativity does take a toll on the human psyche.
Stop the Political Bullshit: Plain enough? Yes, there are almost as many extremists involved in these shootings as there are just plain crazy folks. Most are alt right, a fair number are also far left, like the Washington DC congressional softball team shooter. It’s NOT a left vs right thing, except for politicians trying to exploit this for their own power gain (and ONLY that). A comprehensive solution will take admitting shooters come in all flavors of mentally ill.
Responsible Gun Ownership: Gun owners, if you want your rights protected, you have to start putting your foot down when a fellow gun owner acts like a jackass. The guy who waltzed into a Walmart a few weeks back wearing body armor and carrying multiple weapons… Not to shoot anybody, but to show he had a right to bear arms. This isn’t protecting your rights, it’s trying to intimidate those who disagree with you and only makes people who fear guns further believe that gun owners are psycho.
This includes shutting down the idiots on YouTube that make videos glorifying destructive and dangerous gun use. Blowing up SUVs loaded with BBQ propane tanks for example (yes I’ve seen it). For every one of those videos, there are 10 more safely demonstrating how to use a specific gun, or how much penetration another gun has via shooting at wood or metal fixed targets. I’m fine with those. The rest of my fellow gun owners have to realize that these other bad apples are dragging you down with them. You can cut them loose or go down with them.
Gun Mentality Education: We need some sort of a public service campaign to change the mindset of people. Guns do not make you macho. They are also not self automated killing machines or tools of evil that possess their victims and prompt them to murder. A gun is a dangerous tool that needs to be respected. It has multiple uses including hunting and amateur and professional target shooting as well as self defense.
Improve Police Response Times: Yes this is aVERY real issue. It literally takes over 7 hours to get a police unit dispatched in my city sometimes. If you want people to feel safe in giving up their guns, they have to believe that when they need protection, the police will be there in minutes, not hours.
Punishment for Shooters: The draconian side of me says execute them right on the scene. Treat them as domestic terrorists as the Trump administration has started to do sounds good too (off to Gitmo), but there’s a question in both cases of suspension of constitutional protections. Once anybody starts losing those, it’s all bad. At the very least however, I’d make sure they spend their lives in solitary confinement and never get to become a celebrity inside prison or out… or even talk to another human being again. Execution should definitely be a possibility for them too. If they don’t respect life, there’s no reason we should respect theirs.
Alot of what I said came down “against” my fellow gun owners. I’m very second amendment, but we have to realize that all freedoms are balanced by responsibilities. We can’t yell fire in a crowded theater despite having freedom of speech. If we’re not willing to take reasonable steps to protect the public from the bad apples among us, we’re ALL going to lose our rights. Let’s do something now that weeds those folks out while protecting our rights.
You folks on the other side of this issue… I said it at the start of this post. When you condemn almost half of the population of the country for the actions of a few, you lose any pretense of the moral high ground and turn those people against any ideas you might have. It’s human nature.
My advice to you? Talk like human beings. Realize that people have valid reasons for owning guns. Collecting for investment, farmers protecting livestock from predators, women fleeing abusive relationships, people who sport target shoot, hunters in poor rural areas trying to feed their families, etc…
Education is the antidote to all fear also. Learn about guns, if only to discuss and debate more intelligently. Properly respected and handled, a gun is no more dangerous than a kitchen knife. Target shooting at a range is intimidating at first, but can be fun. You also learn things like an assault rifle is not a machine gun. It’s a class of rifle under 5 feet in length that came into existence around or after World War 1 when armies were finding their 6 foot long rifles impractical for fighting in tight spaces. The civilian copies are not the same as the military versions either. I’m not specifically defending assault rifle ownership here. I *am* saying understanding makes them a little less intimidating and you able to better discuss the issue.
Help promote the idea of responsible gun ownership also. Speak out against extremists groups. Remind responsible gun owners not to approve of the conduct of people with a Rambo mentality. Urge gun owners to keep their guns secured properly. And let them know you appreciate those who do it right. You’ll gain alot more allies than you will by kicking people in the teeth.
All that said, I’m done on this topic. I’m leaving the comments off with this topic because I know I’m going to have infuriated the extremist idiots on both sides of this issue. Most of them are also trolls with exceedingly poor reading comprehension who will take everything out of context as well. That’s if they just don’t blatantly lie about what I said. Ergo, no comments.
If you read and liked this at all, feel free to hit the like button or reblog me. If you disagreed, that’s fine also. Let’s just simply leave it at we respect each other’s right to their own opinion and keep things friendly.
I’m sure I’m confusing people on twitter with my moderate’s disdain for the political extremes running amok there. I’m grateful that some people seem to get it though.
My “No Politics” post didn’t make things as clear as I’d have liked. I have TWO big problems with politics and the way people talk to others:
1) Issues are NEVER as simple as the extremists and demagogues on either side make them out to be. For example, gangs are just one good reason for a border wall, BUT we have to overhaul our immigration system as well and allow good people a chance at the American Dream, take an honest look at what we may be doing to contribute to problems in Latin America, and see if we can do things to help them help themselves.
2) These extremists not only shut down thinking and discussion, they spread hate and poison. There’s a principle of metaphysics that says hate only attracts more hate and conflict. It doesn’t matter how righteous you THINK your cause is, if your answer is trashing and threatening violence against those you disagree with, you are part of the PROBLEM, not the solution. You are also actively working to make the world a DARKER place.
I keep saying be more like Ghandi, Martin Luther King Jr, Mother Theresa, Jesus, Buddha, etc… I have a perfect story that illustrates the point also. The Christmas Eve service is the one time this heathen is guaranteed to turn up at church. The closing part of the services; the same every year, are exactly why:
The Pastor talks about the need to carry the Christmas Spirit into and through the new year, and how the world is a dark place if everybody withholds their love, compassion and caring from the world. To illustrate the point, the lights are turned off in the chapel.
Now, everybody is given a candle entering the service. They’re all being lit as the Pastor speaks. He tells everyone to keep the candles low at first also; withhold their light from the world metaphorically. Then he starts talking about how people can be the light, and make the world a better place. Then all 3000 people (It’s a big church) hold up their candles. It’s beautiful and amazing the difference it makes
Afterwards everyone sings Silent Night and the service are over.
Watch the YouTube video through to the end and see if it doesn’t have the same impact on you as it did me. It’s alot of light, and it’s people wanting said light to better the world, NOT burn it down. THINK about that. Remember the people you disagree with are human beings with legitimate reasons for feeling and thinking the way they do. If you actually talk to them like human beings, you will PROBABLY find out that you have more in common than you realize once you get past artificial labels.
Think win-win and you can probably also find a solution that’s not perfect, but works for both of you.
😀
Silk Chatters 