Kat’s Den

Yes, it’s been a long, hot summer. Not just because of rising temperatures due to the planet’s axial tilt and an ongoing drought in the southeast- no, because it’s election year.

Now, normally I’m a pretty apolitical person. I vote for who I think will do the best job, rather than along any party lines. I’m conservative on some issues, liberal on others, and middle of the road most of the time. But this election year, the vote affected me quite personally- I work for a Sheriff’s Office, and my boss, the Sheriff of this county for 24 years, is retiring. This opens the field up quite a bit on who will be my boss- and direct my job- for the next four years. In the running for the Republican Primary were the current Chief Deputy, a man who’s run the Sheriff’s Office for the past four years, is a bar certified attorney, graduate of the FBI National Academy, and someone who’ve I known to be a very decent, honest person. He has his faults, but is widely believed to be the most experienced choice. On the other side of the ticket is a Sergeant in a local police department, who’s been in law enforcement for 10 years and is also a decent person; but who has never worked in a Sheriff’s Office (which is a whole different beast from a police department) and has some skewed ideas about how a Sheriff’s Office should function. In his favor is that he’s the home-town boy. Of course, as the campaign wore on, the local guy’s supporters got nastier and nastier. To his credit, he hasn’t done anything really dirty that anyone can point to, but his fans are another matter.

So, who wins the primary in July? The home town guy. In my mind, the voters of the county threw out the nastiness of the local guy’s supporters and the vast experience of the Chief Deputy just to vote in the local guy. What’s really annoying is the fact that many of those people who voted for the local guy called the Chief Deputy after the election and asked him to stay on as Chief Deputy- “because (local guy) is going to need a lot of experienced help”. Are you shitting me? Add on to this the fact that out of 65,000 people in the county, only 31,000 are registered to vote- and only 6700 of those bothered to vote at all. What’s the point? It starts to make me wonder why I bust my ass every day for these people when only 1/10th of them vote and those that do seem to have said “We don’t like how you do your job”. The same trend is towards voting in county commissioners whose only concern is stopping growth- not controlling or directing it, but stopping it altogether and taking the county back to a small, agrarian, rural area. Hmm. Good luck with that- the growth is coming whether they want it or not. We’re too close to Atlanta and on too many transportation arteries for it not to. By sticking our heads in the sand, it will grow uncontrollably and in directions that will cause many, many problems in the future. But no, let’s stop it altogether- as if that’s ever happened without destroying the community.

Yeah, it’s got me annoyed and grouchy, questioning the idiots in this county, and wondering if I should flip them all the bird and go work somewhere else.

Upgraded WordPress to 2.2, a fairly painless process once again. Kudos to them for making upgrading, normally a tedious nightmare on things like forums, easy and simple. Enjoying the first non-busy weekend in quite a while- between Citizen’s Academy, classes I had scheduled to teach, detail stripping and repairing department weapons, and a never-ending parade of new-hires to shepherd through Field Training, I haven’t much time or energy for doing anything else. The last major projects on the home front were moving my bedroom upstairs to give Ian and Patty the master bedroom, and cleaning the garage. The garden still looks like ass with weeds and the remnants of last year’s perennials trying to poke through clay, but I’m still not ready to touch that. It’s going to require edging pavers to raise the bed, new topsoil, pruning and moving a couple of bushes, and lots and lots of weed-blocker fabric. Maybe after that I can get to some writing…

On the tirade front, I still get annoyed reading clips about the Virginia Tech shooting and aftermath. Once again, a never-ending media circus, with the same few video clips played back to back to back while an announcer gives the same information and pundits postulate about what they would have done if they were there. I hope all those retired “tactical experts” and “former police chiefs” remember what it was like to have one of their operations second-guessed. First on my list of grievances: “Why did it take so long for them to act after the first shooting?” Well, let’s see. You have a call to a man and woman shot in a dorm room. What, exactly, leads you to believe that this is the first act of a shooting rampage? Looks to me like a double murder, possibly out of jealousy or a domestic dispute. I expect that’s how it looked to the responding officers, as well. Only Nostradamus would predict that the shooter would return and kill 31 more.

Second: “Why didn’t they immediately notify everyone on this (2600 acre, 20,000 student) campus?” OK. Unless things have changes significantly since I worked for a university police department, there is no method for reliably contacting each and every person on a campus that size. None, Nada. Zip. Zilch. Bupkis. Email? Right, I’ll read it later. Whoops, it got put in my spam filter. Oh well. Alarms of some sort? Heh. Every single fire alarm call I responded to as a campus cop, there were many, many people who refused to evacuate and were ignoring the alarm. Needed to catch up on sleep, or too busy finishing that project. Weather alert monitor of some sort? Signboards? Few and far between. Evacuate the school? Excuse me while I laugh out my spleen. Even if you could reach everyone, that sort of evacuation is likely to cause far more harm than good. The campus I worked at had a population of 45,000 students, faculty, and staff. Good luck with that.

Third: A little more specific, but one of the news channels had a so-called “tactical expert” berating the officers for not having the equipment to open chained-shut doors. It took them five minutes to get past the doors. Now, my old agency did have a hydraulic door tool. There are burn-sticks, Hurst tools, all kinds of equipment on the market. But my current agency… has none of that. We’d have to get it from the fire department or improvise- and I guarantee you it would probably take longer than 5 minutes. I don’t know how they opened the doors, but I applaud them for getting them open in that amount of time. Did I mention the “tactical expert” sells tactical equipment? Wonder how he formed his opinion. “Why, if they only had the equipment I sell, they’d have had those doors open in seconds! Every police department needs to buy my… er, this equipment!” Guess he never worked with a small budget. Hey, pal, how about doing us a favor and shut your spoo-hole? You weren’t there. That goes for the rest of the armchair warriors who lined up to have their face on CNN and Fox News.

Sigh. There goes my happy weekend. Oh, and cocobuttr? Did you ever get my email?

Flipping channels a few minutes ago, and the writhing video montage came to rest on a re-run of Cops. Two southern (by the accents) officers listening politely to a disheveled man rambling on about how much he loves snakes; how much he cares far more for them than any human. The guy was obviously dedicated to his snakes; but he spoke in that overly erudite but somewhat slurred way that most of us tag as somethan’ ain’t right in the haid talk. The officers were nodding politely and rolling their eyes.

Almost immediately, I was seized with a desire to change the channel. While some folks would stay their hand for the amusement value, or to try and plumb the mental recesses of the man’s speech, or even because in some wierd way they felt it would be impolite to interrupt the man no matter how insane he is, forgetting subconsciously that it’s just a television; I began to feel physically ill from listening to him. As if his speech was the vector for a new stupidity flu. When I considered it (after changing the channel to something equally as vapid but less nauseating), I realized that I have that reaction to a lot of conversations. Something in my brain says “Holy hell, this conversation is rocketing down the IQ chart; begin escape procedures!” and I start looking for ways to get away. Only societal pressure keeps me from blurting out something along the lines of “Wow, you are nucking futs. My brain hurts, and I feel less intelligent for having known you. Please leave.” A little inhibition lubricant, such as alcohol, would no doubt result in such a scene. And so, for a lot of conversations, I find myself looking for an escape route more than a thoughtful reply. I’ll often catch myself making subconscious glances at a door or watch, or verbal tics, that border on the rude; if it’s a really mind-boggling speaker, I might not care that I made them.

Oh, and yes; I realize that I’m not necessarily talking about “stupidity”; yes, some of the speakers may have real mental issues that they can’t help… but “awkward social vocalizations cause by psychological defect hurts” makes a poor title.

“People” in the singular, I’ve found, aren’t too bad. “People” as a group, however, constantly amaze me with the depths of ridiculousness they achieve. As a small example, there’s the snow scares every year here. This is Georgia; if we even get any snow in a year, it’s perhaps an inch and it lasts at most a couple of days. No, there are no snowplows; but the roads don’t become truly impassible. However, if the weathermen even hint that there might be snow in the forecast, the entire population if the state goes absolutely batshit. Everyone stocks up on batteries, generators (maybe not so crazy, given ice-storm outages), food for a month- there won’t be a loaf of bread or gallon of milk to be found. After Katrina when news reporters began talking about the lessened flow of gasoline from the Gulf, people lined up to fill up their cars with gas. Well, if there wasn’t a shortage before, there is now.

Then there’s the opinions- often very vehement- that just leave me scratching my head. The insistance that communism is a good idea, for instance- despite the fact that there hasn’t ever been a true communist state in history; because humans just aren’t mature enough to make it work. Anarchy is another one… sure, preach anarchy all you want; but unless you’re the biggest badass on the block, expect to have your shit taken from you by the person who is- and there’s always someone else bigger than you. I recently visited a website that espoused the idea that all prisons were unnecessary and evil. Sure, I can agree from a philosophical standpoint; taking away someone’s freedom is bad… but do they offer any solution? Any alternative showing what to do with those who have broken from society and, in fact, harmed it? No, of course not. Therefore, everyone associated with prisons-guards, cops, judges, politicians- is evil, stupid, and reprehensable. Except the prisoners themselves, of course; oh no, they’re saints, worthy of worship. My suggestion is: save all us taxpayers some money and take these poor, misguided souls into your own homes. You rehabilitate them. You feed them. But don’t be surprised when you get bit, and they shrug and say “You knew I was a snake when you picked me up”. But can you tell the people that created this website that? No, of course not. They’ve already made up their mind, and nothing you or I can say to them will ever change that.

A certain black-hearted part of me secretly wishes for the collapse of civilization; an abrupt transition to that anarchy for which ill-formed youths long, that would shatter the dearly held illusions so much of society labors under. When the biggest agenda for your day is simple survival, a whole lot of bullshit gets thrown out the window. Scrounging in a dumpster for food tends simplify your outlook.

Well. What a nice, upbeat outlook for the day I have. Just call me grumpy.

Discovery News had an article on the increasing number of mentally immature adults today. The study’s author believes that as formal education continues past physical maturity, people are required to constantly learn new things and consequently are forced into “psychological neotony” (one of them big words, like mayonnaise), allowing them to keep the child-like flexibility of attitudes, behaviors and knowledge necessary to continue learning. Perhaps so, but how do you measure emotional maturity? Are we certain that adults in previous eras weren’t just as mentally immature as they are today? I’m pretty immature, myself; most everyone I know would fit the criteria for immaturity… but we all seem to get along just fine in society.

Maybe that immaturity is why we seek out parental figures to solve our problems for us. A “mommy/daddy to make it better”. The folks who can’t solve their own problems and expect the government to solve them. The folks that call the cops when their neighbor’s leaves blow onto their yard, or when their 14-year-old talks back to them. How did our species survive long enough to come down from the trees? I guess problem solving isn’t as great a survival trait as I thought. Sure, some problems are beyond any one person’s ability to solve on their own; but passing a law because someone did something that offended your tender sensabilities? Please.

I had also run across an article showing that aolspeak… those annoying abbreviations used in instant messenger chat that show up on message boards, that I bitched about here… when used obsessively actually retards intelligence. Unfortunately, I can’t find the article again. But I find it amusing that not only does aolspeak make you look retarded… it actually makes you retarded. Heh, heh.

In other news, the upstairs A/C unit seems to have shit the bed. It’s only two years old, dammit, and I just cleaned the filter. The downstairs unit is still keeping the house nice and chilly; which is a relief after spending a week in 95 degree, 80% humidity, no shade anywhere weather on the range. Taught 8 basic firearms fundamentals classes over the week. Most folks were OK, and I think everyone who attended improved somewhat. But some of them apparently had never seen a pistol before in their life and didn’t know which end the bullets came out of. I’ve never had to spend so much time showing someone how to lock the slide to the rear in my life.

Those of you in the business world probably already know this fact: Meetings are the world’s biggest productivity destroyers. I had one task in mind for today: Finish the lesson plan for the Defense Against Edged Weapons class I’m teaching in two weeks. That’s it. Doesn’t sound like much, but I’ve learned that if I set my sights too high, something will shoot them down in the first hour at work. And that’s about as much work as I got done: 1 hour. Then the meetings began. Let’s have a staff meeting. CID Sergeant’s meeting. Division meeting. Hey, meet with this body armor vendor and see what he’s got. Meet with me at 1:30. I had at one point driven back to my office and just sat down to get back to work on the lesson plan when my phone rang: Hey, there’s a meeting in ten minutes we forgot to tell you about, come back here. Needless to say, I didn’t get much real work done. There’s still tomorrow… if I don’t have a meeting.

Kublai has another vet appoitment Friday. His incontinence is still there, he’s developed diarrhea over the last day, drinking a lot of water, and now has a small growth on the end of the sheath of his penis; all of which point to bad things. I’m trying to keep him comfortable and happy.

I’ve re-arranged, added, and uploaded several items in the photo gallery. I’ll also be updating versions on both the gallery and the ‘blog soon, should you notice some funkiness. I hate version updates.

And allow me to rant! I’m more than a little fucking tired of spam. Not just in my email, which my mail reader catches and trashes, (but damn! Come on! I got one that read “BARELY LEGAL HOT NYMPHO MATURE MOMS!” They’re not even trying to make sense any more) but also in the ‘blog comments. I moderate comments, which means I have to approve any before they show up, and plugins catch even more; but it’s still a pain in the ass. No one wants to buy your Cialis, Viagra, or Hoodia, so give it a rest. Of all the annoying marketing techniques, you chose this one. And when a spammer finally gets caught and rarely prosecuted, they have the nerve to whine about freedom of speech and the right to spam! Kiss my chocolate pucker, asshole. I’m sure that right is listed in the Bill of Rights right next to the one says it’s OK for me stomp your head so far down your neck that you’ll have to unzip your fly to stick out your tongue. It’s about as annoying as 12 minutes of commercials for 30 minutes of TV show.

But that’s a rant for another time.

If I had to have a peeve, I guess it would be folks who refuse to take responsability for their actions. Not just for the big stuff- like the guy tried to sell undercover officers a pound of marijuana, led them on a car chase when they tried to arrest him, and then was furious that they were chasing him (”I ain’t done nothing wrong!”); or the murderer who blames it on his dog- but the little stuff as well, like running into the guy in front of you in your car because you were tailgating (”He should have been driving faster!”). I realize this is a self-defense mechanism, the brain just trying to protect itself from the awful realization that it made a bad choice; but it’s become an epidemic of rationalization. I’m just as guilty; when I fuck up, my first thought is what the excuse will be. It takes a bit of extra gumption to own up to it. I suppose the small stuff is just annoying; but when it gets to the level of being incensed that you were arrested for clearly doing something illegal, it’s downright offensive. Suck it up and blame the person who really screwed it up, for once. Oh, no, that’s too hard. Society made me stick that knife in my spouse. Alcohol did. Stress did. Not me, I’m not to blame.

Here’s news for you, junior- you’re the one spending the next 20 years in prison, not alcohol, or society, or stress. Enjoy it. And have a nice big cup of STFU.

Sunday, October 10th, 2004

As some of you may or may not know, I’m a traffic cop. Yup, I’m one of those guys that gives you the expensive ticket when you’ve made an improper turn, run a red light, or were speeding. Believe it or not, I sleep well at night, because I know that after I’m done, most of you are going to pay a bit more attention to your driving.

But what I can’t stand are the folks who constantly whine about getting a ticket. It’s not a speed trap, folks- you were speeding, and I caught you. I can write a never-ending stream of tickets without having to make them up; if I stopped you, it’s because I’m 100% certain you were speeding. Go ahead and search the web for those “how to beat a ticket” books; I run radar and laser by the book, the same way every time, and I haven’t lost a case yet. I don’t care if you’re late for work, if a relative is in the hospital, or if you’ve really, really got to go to the bathroom. I don’t believe you when you tell me your cruise control was set at the speed limit, your car won’t go that fast, or you just sped up for a second to pass that guy. If you can’t afford the ticket, if your insurance will go up, or if your parents/spouse/whoever will be very upset because you got a ticket, you should have weighed that risk before you pushed the gas. Some of you may actually not have known how fast you were going- which just tells me you’re not paying attention to your driving- but those of you doing 95 in a 65 know damn well you’re going a lot faster than the speed limit. My job is to slow you down to somewhere close to the speed limit, because the faster you’re going over, the more likely you are to have a wreck and the more likely that that wreck will be a serious one. If I could do that by just telling you the dangers, I’d just make TV ads about it. But I know you- you’re not going to let that slow you down. So I encourage you to slow down by hitting you in the pocketbook- if it’s going to cost you money, you’ll pay attention.

So, if I catch you speeding, don’t whine and don’t give me the same old boring excuse. Either bite the bullet and take the ticket, or at least give me an excuse that’s original. For more on that, check the weblog.

Monday, August 30th, 2004

What happened to courtesy? Is it dead? Was it ever really alive?

By “courtesy” I mean treating the everyday people you come in contact with- the gas station attendant, the guy next to you on the bus, the woman in traffic ahead of you- with respect and politeness. I try to do this; I may not know you from Adam’s housecat, but if I pass you on the street I’m going to give you a little nod and if you stop me to ask directions, I’ll be as pleasant as possible. Where is it now? Why, when I stop someone to ask directions I get “How the hell should I know, buddy?” and when I pass someone on the street I get a snarl if anything at all? Surely it’s not my deoderant. Is it that people spend too much time wrapped up in their own concerns; to the point that their entire outlook is centered on what’s good for them and what they need? Anything else- like my need for directions- is secondary and impeding their achieving their own goals. And here I thought courtesy- and the larger derivative issue of being concerned with other things than your own skin- was part of what made society work. Someone wiser than I put it simply: Love is given, respect is earned, and courtesy is owed. One would think that the more crowded an area is, the more important courtesy would be; rudeness in a city where you’re literally rubbing shoulders with your fellow inhabitants would seem to be counter-productive. However, the opposite seems to be true: people in rural areas seem to be more polite than those in crowded cities.

Maybe this is why I’m anti-social at heart.