Little Condominium on the Prairie

What I know of blizzards comes from the books of Laura Ingalls Wilder. In The Long Winter, she writes about blizzard-after-blizzard on the Northern plains where there were, for instance, no trees to burn. Houses were made of plywood with tar-paper insulation (not good). The fuel of choice was coal, with a second choice (not mentioned by the very-proper Ms. Wilder) of cow chips. As an adult, you read Ms. Wilder differently than you do as a child.

The farms there were hardly established. Railroad distribution was essential, and the trains could not get through, not even by hiring crews to shovel snow as they went. The communities that depended on rail nearly starved and froze to death. For fuel, they braided straw into tightly packed rope and burned it. It didn't last worth a damn, next to the coal they couldn't get, and the snow just kept coming. The entire day was spent making more fuel for the fire they were sitting right in front of as much as possible.

But in the Twenty-First Century
Well, here in my hometown it's not that bad. The last of the chips left before the Super Bowl, mostly, except for the exotic flavors such as Carolina Crab Chip. You can still buy soft drinks, cookies, and regular bread.  The frozen pizzas are mostly gone, but the upscale ones remain. Frozen lima beans are still available. So is prepacked sushi--eat at your own risk. I'd seriously have to boil it first. But:

The juice case is completely empty, the butter and margarine is down to dropped boxes/other rejects.

Eggs disappeared three days ago, and milk two and a half days ago from the grocery and the drug store.

What's left of the meat case is reduced for quick sale and starting to reek.  Ditto, bananas. There's one bag of kale left and no broccoli or potatoes.

Everyone must have become ill, because nearly all the toilet paper has disappeared.

It's all about storage and distribution. The cows are still making milk, it can still be churned to butter and cheese, the fruit is still shipping into Florida from Chile--they just can't figure out how to get it into my store.

I'm not complaining. I still have milk. I was also able, by going to the liquor store, to find the last quart of orange juice in my neighborhood. $3.50, but worth it to this post-flu patient.

However, we are supposed to get another 16 to 24 inches starting tomorrow. I will get grumpy when the milk for my coffee runs out.  Perhaps I will at last learn to like it black.

One-Way Hand-basket on the Bean-Counter Express

Those of you who are already in police work have probably checked Inspector Gadget's blog. But civilians should also check there occasionally. You may avert a crisis in your own community vis-a-vis law enforcement. Read a little further and I will link you up.

One of Inspector Gadget's main themes is that of the police under fire--not by the 'yobs' or 'trashy people' or even the extremist 'Londonistan'-type enclave close by--but by their own government. Truth to tell--it looks like Big Brother has already shown up in the British police precinct, leaving Animal Farm everywhere else. It scares me greatly. That's just what the Inspector intends.

Use and Abuse of Statistics
On January 29, 2009, Gadget reported that the police in his precinct were to clean up 'any outstanding crime reports'. Sounds constructive, but go to the next sentence:

• They must not, under any circumstances, get out on the street and find any more crime. Not until the next financial year anyway. All their accumulated leave (and there is lots of it being as we don’t pay overtime any more) is to be taken between now and April. It’s best to have them out-of-the-way, they just cant be trusted to stay indoors.
• You see, when a proactive team get outside, be it CID or uniform, they just will insist on executing warrants, finding stolen property, stopping known criminals on the road and discovering nicked motors. Each time this happens, they have to put on a crime report. Being as we don’t care about detecting crime any more, and its all about the amount of crime, this kind of behaviour is a nightmare for senior police officers and their annual cash bonus.

In this country, some Police Departments have introduced COMPSTAT (that's NYPD's, but the model has been adopted elsewhere). Like all stats, knowing which corners get which crimes, how often, and at what times of the day are great for crime prevention and apprehension. And precinct commanders have been made more accountable for the crime in their district. But what seems to happen instead, the crime is not reported within the district--or--its severity is downplayed. Thus an attempted rape is listed as a simple assault, or a purse-snatching doesn't make it onto the stats, in order to gloss the statistics and avoid shit from above.

Bureaucratic Correctives
The bean-counter response to under-reported crime within a department (because this response is corrupt, after all) will be to hire a bunch of auditors. That's ten thousand more investigative statisticians in your police department. Not a one of them will be catching the street. Instead, they'll be pulling street officers in to answer questions. Do you think a game-playing precinct command will own up to this? Or will they shove the blame downward, to the beat cop who wanted to report the assault as a rape in the first place and therefore get some help?

Now attach the idea of bonuses to this. The fakery becomes cash fraud. In this scenario, the victim's rights are also forgotten, particularly a victim who is distressed or otherwise afraid to make a fuss. But there's a bureaucratic response to that, too:

On January 27, 2009, Inspector Gadget reported the UK government will start a National Victim Agency. Good luck paying for that.

Customer Satisfaction Ratio
On January 20, Inspector Gadget informed us that he must submit customer satisfaction statistics for every shift. I do think customer satisfaction counts. However, he got two complaints for the same call--one for responding too quickly, and one for not being there yet. As he informs us, he is supposed to have a 75% satisfaction rate on each shift. He's already 0-2 on one incident before his personnel even arrived.

Now let's say there's a bar fight, and Inspector Gadget's team wades in to keep the peace. That's thirty disgruntled customers, not to mention their spouses and aggrieved parents. One grateful bouncer, one grateful bartender, and one pissed-off bar owner who wonders why Gadget wasn't already in the bar when the first pint was thrown. They stopped a riot, but their approval rate is 6%. Johnny Law, good luck to you. I mean it.

As civilians, we can call in customer satisfaction all day to try to make our police officers look good. What will we say? "Dear Customer Service Officer, today I am happy with my police because nothing bad happened to me."  Do they really want to hire the switchboard for that? Do you expect a crime victim, bashed up in the hospital, to call a Customer Satisfaction hotline? Who is thinking this up? Nothing bad has ever happened to them. That I can tell.

Sincerely, how do we use statistics as a tool instead of having them tool us? There's got to be a way to stomp this pre-Orwellian condition--we'd better figure it out. Quick.

And in the meantime, all of us should be thinking: What is customer satisfaction to us, as taxpayers and as people walking the street? Is our satisfaction so shallow that it cannot take in the deeper picture?

O, Snowy Day! O, Breath of Beer! O Glacier Mountain!

Just two pictures. This  is the corner of O and 17th Street. On the left, the cars are almost completely buried. The streets were plowed enough so that they were coated with about 4 inches of densely-packed snow. It's going to be tough to drive for at least a week, because that ice is not coming up. It was fun, however, to see the entire neighborhood become a pedestrian walkway.  You people in Canada and Scandinavia can laugh. We are completely discombobulated around here. And supposed to get more snow Tuesday.

I took a fairly long walk. At Dupont Circle, one guy was flat on his back at the back of a massive snowball fight. I headed toward him because he looked to be in some distress. Someone woman was trying to get him to stand up and couldn't do it. I speeded up.

Necessitan assistencia? I asked.
Assistencia? The petite girl in the ski jacket and watch cap turned out to be a white male, red hair, strip thin and about five-seven. 'What do we need assistance for?"
I just stared at him.
"Oh, you're trying to Help," he said. I hate jackasses. Especially with sour beer breath. Some college student or Congressional Aide. God save the world.
"Yeah, he can't stand up and he's peed himself." He also needed a tissue. My non-medical opinion.
"My friend is from Brazil," he sneered. "We don't need anything."

Now there's a logical construct for you. With friends like these--and me not being a speaker of Brazilian Portuguese--

There were enough people around, and the guy was now sitting up on a bench. My authority was nil and he was not going to freeze to death. I left him with the Future Diplomat. And when I walked back through the park, they weren't there.

This is a great old Victorian that used to belong to some brew master back in the day. Oh, LOL! I just tied that together. Generations of beer-breath money. Still, the architecture is for the ages. I must say dark brick is enhanced by the snow, too.

When I got back home, some young lady was cross-country skiing Southbound on 17th Avenue. Incredible! The world is full of marvels, that's for sure. Supposedly we remember them all. Some are to save for sure, just so you remember there is pleasure and fun and lasting accomplishment in the world.

Today my neighbor that knows so much about birds? I bought rock salt for the princely sum of $1.99, then appropriated the shovel he had thoughtully left in the back of his truck. He and I shoveled the back door so people can get out without climbing the Apennine Range. Our snowplow service is UA, baby. I called the GM to call them again.

I keep checking Mr. Bloom, but he's not answering the door. He's in his late eighties, and I'm afraid he's out of soup. But the front desk has heard from him. He's okay for now. And if he decides to go to Safeway, he can go outside now. I hope he doesn't try.

Loco Lady Living

You want politically correct? Check back tomorrow. Probably I'll be back on track. Today, no.

False Counsel
Although I completely know that a woman can think as well and as logically as a man, I also know women operate under a terrible external handicap. That handicap is disguised as an Aid to our Nurturing Side. This Nurturing Side is frequently confused with our Decorative Side. I wish this Aid catered to our Reasoning Side. I am speaking of women's magazines.

For women, this post hopes to make you more critical readers. For men, it is to reveal the conspiracy, seemingly harmless, that is making the Decorative And Nurturing women in your personal life act out of character. You are not supposed to objectify women, but treat them as human beings with wants and needs and brains. That said, then how come it randomly seems so damn necessary to edge back and go hmmmm?

I think the discourse of women's magazines and its bent truisms have planted themselves in daily conversation. They are the culprits who have been objectifying women, and they come from both sexes.

Instead of furthering logic, advancement, decorativeness and nurturing capabilities, these magazines make women worry and suffer needlessly. In my continual campaign (not just for the emancipation of women, but for better discourse for all) I offer the following examples:

The Ladies' Good Housekeeper Home Day Magazines
If you can't figure out which three magazines I mean, you are blessed. Just check at Grandma's house.
In these magazines, there will be:
1. one article that proclaims how easy it is to lose weight, as opposed to
sixteen articles that show you how to make food containing a lot of cheese, sugar and/or cake mix
2. one article that helps you tighten your budget, as opposed to
 five articles that show you something you must buy, unnecessary, for under $299
3. one article that tells you why you should not run to the doctor blindly,
as opposed to one article that sends you to the doctor for some highly-unlikely disease.

The purpose of these magazines: to glorify a good domestic life by making the homemaker use more prepared foods, feel bad about her body/capabilities, be suspicious of her doctor yet hypochondriac, spend on crazy shit yet balance the checkbook.  It is an old tradition and a bad one.

Crafty Magazines
Men have these too. Both sexes shop toward 'possibilities' (e.g., big piles of fabric or scrapbooking paper; extra sheets of plywood on sale for building birdhouses next spring)
The difference has always been that magazines targeting women typically offer decorative crafts in the articles and inadequate tools in advertisements (economy glue guns, plastic sewing machines, edge-cutters that only cut one inch at a time), while the men's offer a mix of both decorative and substantive projects. Their ads feature bigger better tools that specialize in one function each. The tools recommended for a ladies' project will rarely give a good result.


Both sexes are equally swayed by advertisers, with two results. Result no. 1: men buy industrial-grade tools when they don't need them (over-investment); women buy crap tools because they never see industrial grade (under-investment).
Result no 2: women take up craft space with supplies (unfinished production). Men take up craft space with tools (spare capacity). Thus we perpetuate the stereotypes.

Women's Fashion/Advice magazines
They always have a fake poll: men prefer orange lingerie over any color, men don't like hair spray, etc. Then they go on to show you hair fashions that will require hair spray and no orange lingerie anywhere-- This is like the logic disconnect in the domestic magazines above, but with a different subject matter. (You will also note that there is no poll on what kind of lingerie women prefer: the answer? the lace should not be scratchy and the teddy should be long-waisted enough so that the wearer may straighten her backbone.)

But these magazines also add a significant bait-and-switch. The feature lines on the cover promise you a remedy that no article in the table of contents appears to address. A reader will ruin her manicure trying to find it. The dissatisfaction she feels will spread to other aspects of the magazine (why can't I have hair like that, a man like that, a manicure that lasts through a magazine.) This frustration-induction will cause the reader to buy a better hairspray or whatever, (although, men don't like it but somehow respond to it? according to mag)--thus making them perpetually dissatisfied--because they never fully realize the root cause of the dissatisfaction is an false promise on the cover.

Men's Porn Magazines/Home Decor Magazines
Men's porn shares characteristics with other magazines, but especially Home Decorating magazines. Mostly a reader should remember Wrestling: a lot of effort is expended to make the fake look real.  Thus lamps without power cords sit on gorgeous tables, unable to shed light or display any capacity beyond appearance. They are not representative of a functioning life: a lamp cannot go Anywhere, it needs a power source. Babes may actually prefer flannel pajamas. But hey, the stripped-down appearance is way fun to look at.

In mainstream porn, there are a lot of shills involved to help the scam: the "Letters to the Editor' for instance. "I am a hippie so Thank You smutmag for showing a natural woman last November" or similar. So these magazines are equally scams. But these are not the magazines that generally are messing with the logic. It's the supposedly meaningful, helpful b.s. that I believe is stopping women in their tracks.

It is also my impression that men's porn magazines always deliver inside what they say they will on the outside. If the cover feature line says that "Sarah P. bares all", she will be there--either a political interview w/photo in low cut mini-dress, or, in centerfold booty few words, if she's some other Sarah P.

Women's magazines of any category do not offer the same certainty. However deplorable someone may find that certainty to be, I think inducing schizophrenia and planting scenarios that must inevitably fail are much, much worse.

Well. Be miserable no more--

Coming and Going: Law Enforcement Blog Update

Pepper Spray Me is Gone on Arrival, and the Warrior Poets blog has gracefully said good-bye. Their authors had completely different voices and almost completely different concerns in law enforcement. Both authors are incredibly gifted writers. Their sites were beautiful to look at and wonderful to read. It feels like a terrible, double wham for them to leave.

I am not taking them off my blogroll. That's sort of like keeping a candle lit in the window so that travelers can return--just a wish.

Some other law enforcement literati seemed to be disappearing. For a while, Low Country Crime and Punishment was out--and with a bad back--so I was worried about him. But he's writing again.

The Roanoke Cop was informed that he could not specify his location any longer. He is importing old posts to the Ten-Eighty blog, and we are to completely forget where he practices law enforcement. I've updated my blog roll and promised to spread the word.

Sometimes I wonder if the 'powers that be' understand how much these blogs do for community relations. These law enforcement officers take the time to share their commitment, their travails, the triumphs, (almost all of those triumphs with a bitter edge) the laughs, and the ironies. It gives all of law enforcement a much more human face. I see so many trolls out there who verbally blast away without careful reading. They all sound the same. These blogs are, or have been, a thoughtful and varied counterpoint to that mindless cut-and-run.

You bloggers with Difficult Jobs: you teach me so much. I'm grateful for your efforts on and off the net. I'm still reading, learning, and recommending--every single one of you on my blogroll.