I went out for breakfast. Los juevos revueltos y hamon con papas fritas y pan tostada. Senor Café, a half-mile from here, through the Greyhound track parking lot. Even knowing it would be a busy day, I was up so early I just had to give myself a reward. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not anywhere near middle-class enough to think of eating in a restaurant as a reward. It was the relaxation to do a puzzle and take it easy.
Whatever he had, he got hit supremely bad. He talked about renting a 10x10 space, I assured him that the smallest of 5x5 was too large for what remained. Just rent it soon, since I don’t have any storage space over here. I lost $600 in tools the first year I was here, landlady’s welfare case son broke into my car. How do I know? Well, it wasn’t my roommate and the landlady’s dogs didn’t bark.
Off to Bal Harbor by noon, I gotta quit doing that, since any start time past 10:30 AM places me right into rush hour later in the day. It then takes up to 45 minutes to make those ten miles in this town. The police simply refuse to ticket drivers who run yellow lights and block the intersection. The driver always act like it is the fault of the person ahead of them, with that stupid Florida, “What am I supposed to do?” shrug.
My famous Argus camera is starting to age. Notice how except in bright sunlight, the light colors over-expose. You see the dog, but barely the wig, and it clashes with the white sweater of the owner in the background.
Speaking of clashes, I have some new co-workers. One of them, while trying to be helpful, seems to think he knows more than the people who’ve already been doing the job. He fancies himself an expert on Chinese culture, yet does not appear to know even one word of the language. Anyway, I’ll write it off to new-job insecurity. He says he’s worked in Thailand, which should be easy to cross-examine.
It was a day of catching up over there. This can be exasperating over little things like the e-mail not getting checked when I’m not in for the day. This puts people on hold and opportunities get missed. I spent an hour setting up a shipment tracking database, you see, a package showed up today that nobody knew anything about. It was just a sample and some tags. Still, we can’t have orders showing up that were not confirmed before shipment. I fired off a second email to Indonesia kind of insisting the point.
To make a point, we already have a database for the product numbers and this has already given proven results, to the point that it is highly respected by the factory. We just need to do the same with shipment numbers. Now something else to report, I have the Thirsty Syndrome. Sure, I’ll explain. For some unknown reason I was incredibly thirsty all day. Let me take stock. Ten cans of soda, four cups of coffee, two large tumblers of mango juice and a bottle of grapefruit juice. (Yes, ten cans, consisting of six colas and four lemon-limes.)
So it must be something going around. I figure if they can have Sleeping Sickness and Attention Deficit whatever, there must be a Thirsty condition. I’m not dehydrated and all my vitals are to spec, so I’ve got something, it stands to reason. Hold on, I’ve just been informed that you can get dehydrated to death without feeling thirsty. Is that true? Any doctors in the house, tell me. Any politicians, try it and see.
Something new. I’ll have to look it up, but there is a web page in Ft. Lauderdale called “Stop Snitching” which addresses the problem of lawyer expense at the level where the demand is created – highly theatric and humiliating police arrests in public or at the workplace. A simple knock on the back door would produce the same arrest most of the time. The problem, to be more exact, is police immunity from prosecution for false arrests when the defendant is later found innocent. My opinion is totally formulated on the existence of that time interval between an arrest and an acquittal.
I would not have given the matter any attention except the guy hit on exactly an argument I’ve had for years. The police know that due to publicity, an arrest is nearly as bad as a conviction in the effect it has on a person’s career and reputation. Evidence and records are NOT destroyed just because you are innocent. The best way to prevent such abuse is to remove temptation, the best way to remove temptation is swift and certain public exposure. It is just so not right for people to be arrested for speeding. Ticketed okay, but arrested? There are some people who say that the police could never do their job if they have to obey the law. I say they are not doing their job if they don’t.
You could have a lawyer over any matter, but the cost is prohibitive. It is far cheaper to defend yourself before you are arrested. I have always maintained you cannot get a fair trial where the prosecution team has access to unlimited records, crime labs and money – and you do not. The solution, in part, is to make it less of an attraction for the police to go on snooping expeditions. If a cop can get on the stand and make remarks on your character and behavior, you should have full access to the same information on him so you can return the favor. It is not the cop on trial, some say. Yes, but as soon as he slanders you to weaken your denials, he’s made it personal. How many times has he been disciplined? For what? You see my point? Well, so does some dude in Ft. Lauderdale.
I do not support criminals, but I believe if the cops maintain good citizens do not need privacy, then neither do good cops. Remember that the next time a cop tries to illegally entrap you, for example by saying, “Do you know why you are being stopped?”
That is entrapment. He is baiting you. How many people are in jail today for giving the wrong answer? I personally know one eighteen year old who, when asked if had “smoked all his dope” blurted out “well, most of it” and spent three years in the slammer.
All over a momentary, youthful lapse of good judgment! Today he drives a cab. Do you want your son to ever be ambushed like that? Ask yourself another question – would the police be so keen to say under oath that you were a suspicious and bad character if they knew they would be blacklisted if you were acquitted. (You cannot sue people for what they say under oath, but neither should the witness stand be a one-sided forum for police mud-slinging.) Blacklist them, like the guy in Ft. Lauderdale.
See, with me you even get a little philosophy at times. I guess my point is that these days you often have to choose between obeying the Constitution or the law. I choose the Constitution. The Constitution forbids self-incrimination, even if you willingly want to do it. The police should not have a bag of tricks to help you along. So there.
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