Live from Austin!

In Chicago, the police are asking loyal citizens to report anyone seen using a map or binoculars, or taking photographs.

Meanwhile in California, police are stopping drivers who have done nothing wrong in order to compliment their driving and give them $5 gift vouchers.

Both of these seem to me to be misguided. The former is obviously nutty; do they really want the 911 dispatchers bothered by some paranoid who just saw someone take a picture of Chicago’s art deco architecture?

The latter I can understand the motivation behind, but I can’t help wondering how many recipients will feel that the gift voucher is worth  the stress and/or anger of being pulled over. And for a US cop, any time you stop a vehicle, you’re risking your life; I can imagine them stopping a good driver who happens to have a car full of drugs, and having him freak out and start shooting.

An amazing article from the Chicago Reader describes a recent incident in which an out-of-uniform police officer who was late arriving to work, shot an unarmed man in the head at point blank range, in full view of security cameras.

The officer lied and said that at the time of the shooting he was surrounded by 4 or 5 men who had threatened his life. When police discovered that the video footage existed, the story was changed to say that the victim had raised a fist and attempted to disarm the officer, and that the cop had raised his arm and accidentally shot the victim through the head.

And it gets worse from there. I encourage you to watch the footage and listen to the narration.

I’ve been watching Life on Mars. The setup is: Manchester police inspector is in the middle of a very tense investigation and turbulent personal situation, when he’s hit by a car. He wakes up, apparently in the same spot, but in 1973. As far as he can tell, he’s really in the past—but from time to time, he also hears sounds that suggest that it’s all his imagination, and he’s really in a coma in a hospital bed in 2006.

He discovers he’s a police officer in 1973 also, and tries to make the best of the situation. The series reconstructs the Britain of 1973 in pretty exacting detail, and plays off the modern sensibility and policing techniques of the protagonist against the Sweeney-style approach. Manchester in the 70s was notorious for police corruption, and so bribery and fit-ups are standard operating procedure for some of his colleagues. The plots are twisty enough that I can’t predict the outcome, there’s a dose of humor now and again, and the series provokes thought about how much has changed in just 30-odd years. It’s the best TV show I’ve seen in years; I’d put it on a par with the new Dr Who. Thank goodness for the BBC.

BBC America will apparently be showing it later this year, so US readers should look out for it. Or, you could watch the inevitable shitty US network TV remake.

Last year, teachers’ aide Hope Clarke went vacationing in Yellowstone National Park. While she was there camping out, she was slightly negligent—she failed to put away a sealed bag of marshmallows after sipping hot chocolate around the campfire. This is viewed as bad behavior because, as we all know from TV, food attracts bears eager to steal pick-a-nick baskets. Perhaps bears can smell marshmallows through plastic, I don’t know. Anyway, rules are rules, and for her food storage crimes Ms Clarke was handed a fine for $50.

The next year, Hope Clarke booked a cruise ship vacation on Carnival’s ship “Fascination”. Little did she know that the wheels of justice were slowly turning back on dry land…

A federal database had flagged Clarke’s name, saying that she had never paid her $50 fine. A warrant for her arrest was issued automatically. Her devious cruise ship vacation was soon investigated by federal agents, and the dragnet began to tighten…

At 06:30 in the morning as the ship returned to port, federal agents burst into Hope Clarke’s cabin. They had traced her whereabouts and knew all about her chocolate and marshmallow crimes, and they immediately put her in handcuffs and turned her over to federal marshals. She was photographed, fingerprinted, and thrown into jail. That afternoon she was dragged into court in leg shackles.

It was at that point that U.S. Magistrate Judge John O’Sullivan noted that he had a copy of Clarke’s original citation on paper as part of the filings for the case, and it said that she had paid her $50 fine before leaving the park, as everyone fined in Yellowstone is required to do.

The Assistant US Attorney considered the matter, and conceded that there were some “discrepancies” surrounding the case. He suggested to the judge that Ms Clarke be released temporarily, and told to return at a later date to clear up the matter.

The judge ordered Clarke released, and apologized to her. A mere 2 hours later, after almost 9 hours in custody, Clarke was released. She was reunited with her fiancé, who admitted that he was the fiend who had left the marshmallows out. In fact, the only reason the feds had Hope Clarke’s name to start with, was that she’d used her credit card to pay the fine.

Sources: Billings Gazette, South Florida Sun Sentinel, etc.

State police have charged a 15-year-old Latrobe girl with child pornography for taking photos of herself and posting them on the Internet. […] She has been charged with sexual abuse of children, possession of child pornography and dissemination of child pornography.

—Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

On Sunday, we walked into Dunkin’ Donuts in Harvard Square to get coffee. There were five Cambridge cops standing at the counter in front of us, in full uniform. I was really, really tempted to take a discreet photo, but I decided I didn’t fancy risking a beating.

Unfortunately, Harvard insisted that the Dunkin’ Donuts in the square not have the usual big pink and orange sign, otherwise I’d have gotten a great photo of four Harleys and a squad car parked outside.

According to The Independent, UK police are being told that they can’t use words like “homosexual” and “bisexual”, because those are medical terms “used to criminalize lesbians, gay men and bisexuals in the nineteenth century”.

Which makes me wonder—just what the hell am I supposed to say instead of “bisexual”, in order to be politically correct? (This is a serious question.)