Okay, so there’s a former copper who’s putting together a book of cop war stories and he’s sort of vaguely interested in my stuff. My question is: with all the CopStories I’ve posted, which are your favorites, if any? Funny, sad, infuriating, whatever. Tell me, my dear four readers, which ones you like best and I’ll see if I can’t whip them into publishable form (book publishable, not blog publishable).

In my naivete, I thought the entire affair was merely a history of good geography.  Little did I know it included a constructed future of good geography.

Keep your friends close…your enemies closer…and those who would lie for you in exchange for economic stability closer still.

Well played. We should all put that kind of effort into winning a schoolyard game of checkers with Grand Master chessboard stratagems.

https://treyrbarker.com/2009/06/20/377/

Okay, dig this: I got all kinds of friends. Theater friends. Journalism friends. Law enforcement friends. And they cover every political possibility you can imagine. So the depth and breadth of politics that floats through my inbox is staggering. Usually, I don’t read it, I toss it and move on. Life is too short for pissed off fringe activists.

But I got an email from a friend who is so conservative, he makes Cheney and Coburn and Joe The Unlicensed Plumber look like touchy-feely Kumbaya socialists. It was called ‘Police Photos,’ and I thought, cool, some great action photos of chases or whatever.

My own naivete surprises me.

The file is a series of mugshots, 15 in all, in which every single mope is wearing some sort of Obama bit of clothing. And all but two are black.

Could it have been any more obvious? Why not just call it the ‘Stepin Fetchit Files?’ Or ‘Darkies on Parade?’ Or go the whole fucking hog and call it ‘Nigger Criminals Who Support a Non-Native Socialist for President?’

Here is the text after the pictures: “Just think about this for a second: Did you ever see anyone arrested wearing a Bush T-shirt, or for you older guys, an Eisenhower, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, or even Nixon, or Bob Dole shirt. Obama must be proud of his supporters!”

Okay, set aside that whoever wrote this doesn’t, apparently, understand the concept of question marks, and move on to the absolutely obvious and standing proud racism. No one ever arrested in shirts with Republicans on them? What kind of addled batshit madness is that? By that logic, what do we think of those arrested wearing suits? Or those arrested wearing gimme caps with Confederate battle flags on them?

Originally, this posting was supposed to be a short, this annoys me kind of thing. But because I’m a research geek, I did a little digging. Turns out this thing was underground for quite a while, then burst on to the public scene when an Iowa state trooper sent it – from his work email and on his work laptop – to a whole pile of people…including a “liberal columnist for the very liberal Des Moines Register.”

I’ll ignore the mind-numbing stupidity of sending something like this to the media. Here is the article from the Register (I can’t absolutely say it’s the real deal because you can’t peruse the Register archives, you have to buy it, but it has the Register’s style so I believe it. Also, I’ve snipped some non-relevant items out.)

“An Iowa State Patrol sergeant with more than 20 years on the force has been placed on paid administrative leave while authorities investigate an e-mail sent under the officer’s name that makes political statements and carries racial overtones.
(snip)
It was addressed to a variety of recipients in and outside the department, with the subject line, “The new fashion statement for mugshots!”
(snip)
An accompanying note says: ‘I’ve seen some ‘unique individuals’ aka S—HEADS wearing these type shirts myself He has quite a fan base. Nice to know that the low-lifes are getting involved in politics now.'”

Afterward, this guy issued an apology, which is great. Except it’s one of those non-apology apologies: “I apologize to anyone this e-mail may have offended….”

His apologized to those who the email MAY have offended. In other words, if you weren’t offended, cool, man, no problema.

But wait, there’s more!

According to the Register, this 27-year veteran was nailed earlier this year for violating the agency’s email policy. Apparently, he sent out ‘inappropriate emails’ on his state-issued laptop.

Now, for the part of this rant that will piss off my lefty friends.

The guy got fired. I have a problem with that. Is he a racist? Probably. Did he do something stupid? No doubt. Should he have been fired? Absolutely not. Suspend him for some amount of time and then massively retrain him on department policy regarding email and his state account and state laptop (what a fucking moron, get it through your thick skull).

But I refuse to believe he’s so bad an officer that he needs to be fired. He’s a sergeant and he’s been on the force for 27 years, protecting the public and helping people and saving lives. Would he have made 27years if he was a bad cop? Regardless of what conspiracy nuts think of a cabal of bad cops protecting each other (and yeah, it happens sometimes, look at Rampart), there is no way, in modern America, a bad officer makes it 27 years.

Look at what got him fired: a racist email. If it’s that easy to get rid of bad cops, don’t you think he would have been de-badged long before this? He should be fired for using a drop gun. Or beating suspects. Or violating someone’s civil rights (we should all be fired if we violate someone’s civil rights…in my humble and pissed off opinion). But he should not be fired over a racist email.

If you fire for racism, then what about those who can’t stand gays? Fire them, too? And what about people who hate fatties? Or who loves metal music? As long as their biases don’t interfere with doing their job fairly, don’t fire them for what’s in their head (which is also why I can’t support hate crimes legislation…quite the rightist policy for a lefty like me.)

Now, the difference between him and the friend who sent me this is that my friend – for all his political faults – is a smart guy and was a damned good officer. He would NEVER have sent that from his agency email account or an on agency computer. He’s politically twisted and stunted, but he ain’t a dumbass. He believes what he believes and I’ll debate him endlessly on that, but he ain’t stupid.

Damn. Maybe I shouldn’t have opened the file. Okay, lesson learned. From now on, I’m only opening the files that say, “Gorgeous women want to meet you,” and “It can be as long as you want it to be!”

CNN this morning. A story about Amanda Knox, the American student on trial in Italy for murdering her roommate. Brutally weak case and I suspect she’s being prosecuted because she’s an American and an idiot who was so stoned during her police interview that she actually turned cartwheels in the holding cell.

But then the anchor says that under Italian law, defendants are not required to tell the truth if they get on the stand. He said it breathlessly, as though this was absolute proof of the superiority of all things American. “They’re not punished for perjury…in Italy.”

At which point I’m screaming and throwing my shirt at the TV, “Dude, been to a DUI trial lately? They’re not punished for it in America, either.”

At least, not in certain parts of America.

So I’m watching the coverage of the murdered security guard at the Holocaust Museum and suddenly, there’s his kid. Tears in his eyes, words stuck in his throat, and hordes of microphones shoved in his face.

Ah, the media. You gotta love ’em.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m a media junkie. I used to work the media and I believe in a damn near completely unfettered press because that’s the only thing watching the watchdogs. But with that freedom, I believe, comes responsibility and it’d be nice if once, just fucking once, the media would have the responsibility to NOT get in a young kid’s face less than 24 hours after his father was murdered by a lunatic white supremacist.

And while we’re talking about this dead guard, I guess my question would be why the hell didn’t he have a ballistic vest? Sure, there are lots of security guards who work quiet warehouses and gated communities who probably don’t absolutely have to have vests (though I believe anyone required to carry a gun on duty pro’ly ought’a have one…doh!), but guarding the Holocaust Museum? In D.C.? Could this guy have been anymore inadequately equipped? The place is a living, breathing bulls eye for deniers. It gets threats EVERY DAY. And you’re gonna require your security to carry guns but not give them vests? Why not just say, “You’re expendable.”

What kind of logic is that?

Well, it’s the same bit of thinking that leaves officers around the country routinely ill-equipped; calling for help on portable radios that don’t actually work, and patrolling for and then arresting bad guys with squad cars that don’t have protective barriers between the officer and the bad guy. Are you kidding me? The bad guys are bad enough that society has decided they need to be behind bars, but the officers who are taking said bad guy to jail (and who are sitting vulnerable with the bad guy right BEHIND THEM) don’t need any protection at all.

Come on, get the vests, get the radios, get the barriers. Let these guys go home alive.

Henry VI (part 2)….

“Dance, monkey, dance.”

https://treyrbarker.com/2009/04/28/323/

A $575,000.00 contract?

For an unwritten book?

Titled “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter?”

From the man who penned “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies,” which was subtagged with “The Classic Regency Romance – Now with Ultraviolent Zombie Mayhem!”  The authors listed were, of course, Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith.

Okay, the subgenre of mash-up novels has been fun, if intellectually devoid, but now it’s just getting stupid.  And stupider still to throw more than half a million bucks at it.  The publishing industry already is barely surviving.  Burning that kind of money at a project that I suspect will not earn out ain’t as bright as it could be.

Rather than flush more than $500,000 on one book that will be a fluke and quickly forgotten, why not publish ten books at $50,000 that are actual novels?  Or twenty at $25,000?  Why not deepen the product line with novels that actually have a chance to earn their advance because a) they are not the latest flavor of the month trend and b) the advance is smaller, therefore the chances of earning it back are greater?

I’m all for writers making good coin, I really am.  I’d like to make good coin, but if someone offered me $575,000, I’d be hard pressed to take it.  Look, if the book ended up earning $750,000, then I’m good.  The computers will show I’ve made them money and they’ll publish the next book.

But if it only sells $475,000 worth, then I’ve lost $100,000 and there ain’t no publisher worth a warm turd who’ll print the next book because, according to the computers, I’ve lost money.

So if I take a $100,000 advance on that same $475,000 in sales, then, according to the computers, I’ve made quite a bit of profit for the company and – hopefully – they’ll happily publish the next one (though that’s not even really a certainty).

And no, publishers don’t do anything for the love of the book anymore, so that’s not an argument.  Once upon a time, it might have happened that way, though even in Stienbeck’s diary of the writing of ‘The Grapes of Wrath,’ his publisher is harping on him about money so maybe the good ol’ days weren’t so friggin’ great.

Now the mantra is: make money or get the hell out.

So why strike a match to $575,000 for a trend that’ll be gone in less than a year?

No wonder publishers are in trouble.

Amazing eight hours with Lt. Col David Grossman today.  As part of my on-going professional training, I spent a day in a seminar with the world’s foremost expert on the psychology of stress and killing and the effects of media violence on culture.  He is a former soldier and, I suspect, hard to the right politically.  But he and I agree on a great many things when it comes to violence and the cause and what can be done to stop it.

And, having worked for more than a decade now in education al psychology, as well as having picked up a couple Ph. Ds along the way, he is still clear-eyed and open-minded enough to understand that American is at its worst when it follows a strictly political course of action on any issue.

Right ain’t gonna fix it, left neither.

In fact, as I’ve believed for a while, no political course is going to fix what we as a nation have refused to even thus far define.  We haven’t yet agreed to a plan of action because we as a nation refuse to even agree there is a problem.

There is.  The latest batch of news reports – detailing ugly mass shootings across the nation – should lay that particular question to rest.

It’s going to get worse, probably, and we have to do something.

Okay, first he was socialist because he was taking over the banks.  Now, according to some rightwing talking head I’ve never seen before, he’s a fascist because he’s taking over the banks.

Pick one particular facet of Obama Derangement Syndrome and stick with it.  Either he’s  a socialist or he’s a fascist.  Very difficult to do both, as they are pretty much mutually exclusive.