November 19, 2013

Morning:

           Here’s a Cadillac embedded in the wall. That’s the Blues Box on Beale last evening. I could not reach far enough to touch it but I think it is the real thing sawed into that shape. How’s that for décor? I’ll give it a thumb’s up for publicity. And publicity is nice in my field. I’m wondering when, if ever, I’ll meet somebody who knows or mentions this blog. It has never happened yet.

           Y’day I didn’t hang around Beale Street. I took the trolley downtown and went for tea. It was a different atmosphere downtown than what I expected, mainly weary conventioneers and tour groups. Another thing that separates me from people my age is I don’t have that Walmart look. I don’t even look conservative. The tea room, corner of First and Union, was full of well-behaved old ladies instead of the hippy-dippy crowd. I was the only man present. (We are still talking about y’day at this point.)

           Since I rode trains today, here are some random pictures from around Memphis, mostly self-explanatory. I’m rested and ready to sprint home by Thursday. It’s already been the trip of a lifetime. Oh, thanks, you blog-types, we had a record day for readership. It surprises me as it (the main search term) was due to some heat I generated with my observations about artificial American hospitality. Let me explain that far more individuals agree with me than defended that “professional greeter” job. I don’t mind if somebody who works there welcomes me, but please can the professional greeter job and lower your prices.

           I also represent that large group of people who don’t speak up when subjected to this plastic behavior, and [I also speak for] a good-sized tally of people who know something was wrong but can't define it. Or know that something in the restaurant field had changed for the worse, and that something was the not-asked-for services. It is all nothing but but a ploy to squeeze more money out of you when all you really want is good food.

           By 6:00 AM, I was again proved right about bringing everything you need with you on these trips. Nobody at the motel remembered to set the room clocks back. Not me, I made the train on time and I’m now in the coach car. The cabbie gave me a break on the fare (thanks, White Boy), so I had the Amtrak hot chocolate as a late breakdfast.
           This jog to Memphis was so expensive, I’m reclassifying it as a separate trip. In 32 hours, my cost was $439.90, or a rate of ten times as expensive as driving the motorcycle would have been. Add it up. Train, $151.00. Motel, $149.50. Food, $56.40. Other, $83.10. Other is the category that includes entertainment, that is, a lot of it spent on Beale Street. This lesson is taken to heart. If I’d had time, better weather, and the batbike had not sprung that oil leak, I should have driven it.

           Careful what I’m saying here. The trip was worth it, but the price tag doubled since I first planned this journey—and back then it was to be all the way to Chicago. If prices double again, and they will, train travel gets prohibitive. Consider again my suggestions that Amtrak lower the prices until the train is at least half-full. It seems they are pricing themselves along some type of Laffer Curve. Relocate the stations to convenient places and add connections to suburbia and such. The seats are spacious, but why not stagger the aisles so the chairs are three abreast. Then, if not busy, they’d make comfortable places to sleep.
           Bring your own food. Train grub is pricey for the quality, which is about par with those plastic-wrapped burgers at Circle K. A nuked up slider is $7.00. But if you can bring what you need, train ravel is superior. Not to airlines, but superior to what airlines have become. Amtrak is missing a golden opportunity. Also, large segments of the track have no cell phone coverage, and there is no wifi at all.

Daytime:

           I broke the less scenic stretches (mainly light forest) by reading two hardcover books on fingerprinting and general crime lab techniques. These confirm the suspicions I have with DNA testing. Although theoretically the tests are probably as accurate as claimed, the fact remains that crime labs are staffed by a certain and peculiar type of people. And they include a good many clumsy buffoons.
           What’s further, I learned by how closely these labs work with the police. The lab can claim they are unbiased, but that doesn’t pass the smell test. The fact they so constantly [feel the need to] emphasize they are "neutral" is a most unnatural thing (methinks). One can presume they have a huge financial tie to the police that does not exist with the accused. Face it, how long would the cops patronize a shop that continually overturned their evidence theories? Time and again, the very wording of the lab reports made it obvious the technicians knew in advance who was charged with what and were specifically looking for evidence to support or match a given accusation.

           Worse, the tests themselves are fallible. Most of the lab staff were techs, not scientists. While spectrographs are very keen, the same cannot be said about the eyesight of the people who match the graphs to booklets of samples. Be warned that back in my physics labs, not one of us could match spectrograms (sound recordings) with better than 72% accuracy and the average performance was considerably less.
           Nor should a computer be trusted to to the matching, not if you know anything about the pack of magnificent idiots who program those things. What concerns me most is how the prosecution never hesitates to use the lab results in questionable ways. I’ve just read 600 pages of case histories to conclude:


                     A) Lab reports rarely provide direct evidence, but are used by the authorities to trick the accused into contradicting some detail of their statement. Usually it is nothing more than a mere choice-of-words discrepancy, but it reinforces the reason to NEVER talk to the police about any crime, don’t even deny anything. The police will ruthlessly hound a suspect over some spoken words, which is hardly law enforcement. Even a third-rate cop is better than you are about blowing details out of proportion.


                     B) Very few labs are famous for exculpatory findings. Yet the rate that new techniques negate earlier convictions is astounding, something like 70% over DNA alone. Remember, the police, courts, and prosecution are NOT obligated to locate or introduce any facts that don’t support their positions. If ever accused, you must relentlessly pursue those findings, trusting no one including your own lawyer.


                     C) Get a copy of every lab report and a signed document that you have it all, and make certain they don’t introduce anything into court that is not on those reports. Find out how many people handled the evidence, as every human step introduces some error—and remember that by the time the cops are relying on lab reports, human error is the game they are playing with your case and you better play the game back.


          What I learned new was that once you are convicted, merely finding new evidence that you are innocent is not a get-out-of-jail-free card. Most courts give you 90 days after sentencing to appeal, and finding new evidence is not easy sitting in a cell. After that 90 days, you will probably require a new trial or somebody to step in on your behalf. And cops, judges, and lawyers hate admitting they were wrong.

Evening:
           I de-trained (as it were) at 1:40 PM. It required nearly an hour to get underway. That isn’t always so, but shows how well I locked everything up. Another lesson I learned is no matter how light I travel, any camper from here on must have interior space to pack up everything I would otherwise carry on the motorcycle.

           Hammond, at 2:30 PM, held a massive traffic jam in my honor. Sixty cars at every light; twenty semis jockeying for the ramps. The batbike is blowing oil until it warms up, but otherwise purrs along and I trust it to get me back. I cross the Florida state line by early tomorrow and after that will try to avoid freeways, particularly I-10.
           Nor do I like Mobile, Alabama, though this is only my third trip through it. 1984, 2003, and 2013. It is too difficult for a stranger to get off the freeways and I keep hitting the place after dark. I drove through without stopping and found a little town called Daphne. I checked in at the Walmart Suites, and found “Top of the Bay”. It was so dead, I played the current version of NTN.
           Remember NTN? The game that let me party for free for five years. The club “Connections” gave a freebie to the winner and I regularly won 100% of the games in an evening. That’s up against teams with laptops, you know. But this was in Canada, so I often won with a 5,000 point lead. Then pow, in 1995 they switched from knowledge trivia to TV trivia. I see my old user-name is still on file.
           The new game is the watered down version that gives the decisive advantage to TV-watchers and other shallow types. All but one question this evening involved the name of somebody I never heard of. Lorenzo? And I have no idea who, if anyone, every appeared on SNL. I’ve never spent a Saturday night at home watching TV in my life except as an experiment that failed.

           Somewhat later, and interesting incident. At the club I met a young nurse, Megan, who chanced to sit next to me. In spite of not being right for each other, we spent two hours chatting. There was no sex talk, something that she may not have expected, but we agreed it was a far more natural conversation that you get in most drinking spots. Surprise, she does a hula-hoop act to the live band music. I’ll try to post the video. However, the band was one of those guitar coffee-house acts that is so folksy that when they slip in an original, nobody can tell.
           Megan eventually left with some guy she knew. If I’d been buying her drinks, I’d have lost my investment. This ladies, is the real reason men don’t approach you until quitting time. They ain’t that stupid even when drunk. Nothing about you Megan, I’m making a totally different point about hucksters and bar bunnies. You know what I mean.