If my Boss, bosses boss, or an authority figure says to me " do I have your loyalty" or "I hope you ____", these are threatening and commanding statements. This is very different than if a friend or acquaintance says the very same things.

I got a peek inside the mind of a climate denier today.

First let me state that she somehow believes in rising sea levels. However she attributes this to landfill in China and Florida. She thinks that the building of tall buildings along coastal waters is enough to increase the overall sea level.

She also claims climate change is a hoax while simultaneously expressing that the warming is NOT due to human impact. Bizarre right?

Further she thinks CO2 is only emitted from cars and has no idea that coal is used for electricity

doesn't understand there are other greenhouse gasses such as CO

Thinks other countries are contributing more to the problem than the US (but I thought she didn't think humans were the cause of the problem she doesn't believe exists)

She thinks Trump was right to pull out of the Paris Agreement because of jobs but didn't know that one of the largest growing job sectors is renewable energy. She believes that renewable energy is great but didn't know that oil companies were opposed to leaving the Paris Agreement.

Just an example of the mental gymnastics one need to perform to support the conservative view on Climate.

I want to apologize for being sexist.

Let me explain - there was a post a while back in my private Facebook group Let's talk Religion and Politics referencing a Breitbart article which boiled down to saying that men invented wonderful things for women such as the washing machine and yet women's happiness has declined since these inventions. The original post was someones attempt to justify their sexism. What I didn't realise is that it would lead to this revelation.

As you know I am a defender of not only equal rights but also equal opportunity, so it shocked me this morning when I realised how sexist I really am. So here is where I have strayed.

I assumed as most probably did that men invented these conveniences. the reality is that all we know is that men got the credit. See women have been inventing and contributing to inventions and discoveries for aeons, yet men are mostly granted the credit. Here is an article that references a few things that we know about -http://www.motherjones.com/media/2013/10/ada-lovelace-eight-inventions-women-erasure-credit .

You might notice that the washing machine is not on this list. (We do know that Inventor Josephine Cochrane designed the dishwasher.) Even so, let's take a look at this. The scub board was the first washing machine and we have no idea if that was invented by a man or a woman but we can safely assume that even if the first manufactured version was produced by a man it was simple device that merely copied the process that women had been using. After than there are a number of versions of the washing machine, some manual variations, some motorised, and eventually computerised. There is at least one version invented by a woman Margaret Colvin. Women had a big part in the development of computer and programing so there is no way that men can be granted exclusivity to the invention of the washing machine.

Even so - let's say women had nothing to do with these inventions directly. You can rest assured that Women were cooking and cleaning and sewing and...... freeing up the man to invent. However we know for sure that women had a more direct and active role in many of our inventions along the way, inventions where men got the credit.

So let me apologize again for being sexist.

How to speak like Trump

How to speak like Trump

Combine these words in any order

Very Very
Tremendous
Fantastic
Horrible
Great
Long Time
Unfair
Many Many
I , I Know, I tell, I Say ...
Disgrace
People
Biggest
All the Time
Amazing
Will be
Trust me

I may have missed a few words but _

I spent a very very long time making this fantastic list
I know that many many people think this is unfair because I hear that all the time from people I know
but this list will be tremendous Trust me I know
I have seen lists before and this one is the biggest
Anyone who says this is not amazing is a horrible person
I know Trust me this list is amazing
You'll see I will make a tremendous list

Are Statistics Proof of Racism - Convince Me I'm Wrong #2

We need to remain peaceful but loud. Very VERY LOUD.

We need to remain peaceful but loud. Very VERY LOUD.

What is Wrong with the Affordable Health Care Act ?

What is Wrong with the Affordable Health Care Act ?

We left the insurance companies in the middle. The insurance companies are what ruined our health care system in the first place. So why did we leave them in the middle?

The Affordable Health Care Act is still better than what we had before but I needs to be better.

I just had to pick a new plan and it became apparent that the cost has doubled for the same insurance I had before the Affordable Health Care Act. Luckily with the help of Covered California I am paying only a little more than I did. With the new plans effective 2017 I will be forced to go to a less expensive with less coverage plan. So the insurance companies are making twice as much for the same policy and millions of  Americans are paying the difference. Get rid of the Insurance companies in the middle. They are what broke healthcare and they are what is wrong with The Affordable Health Care Act.

If Blue Lives Mattered to Blue Lives

You can listen to this here
http://convincemeimwrong.libsyn.com/if-blue-lives-mattered-to-blue-lives

This blog is not a word for word transcript but it is very close.

Lets start with an excerpt from the Blue lives matter's own About page@ bluelivesmatter.blue

Blue Lives Matter is a media company, made up entirely of active and retired law enforcement officers. In today’s evolving society, an increasing number of citizens fail to accept responsibility for their actions and attempt to escape the consequences through outward blame. Due to the nature of the profession, law enforcement personnel are seen as easy targets and are consequently bullied by slander, illegitimate complaints, frivolous lawsuits, and physical threats. The echo of these negative highlights by the media and political figures have only further damaged community relations, which has greatly increased the inherent threat of the profession. We desire to change these wrongs to law enforcement and once again shed positive light on America’s heroes to help boost morale and gain society’s much needed support.

The goal of Blue Lives Matter is to honor and recognize the actions of law enforcement to strengthen the public support of an understandably naive society.

I agree that the goal of Blue Lives Matter "to gain society's much needed support" is essential. however I believe that the power to change society's view of police rests mostly in the hands of police.

I also think the words “an understandably naive society” express the us vs them view that officers have of the general public.

The Blue lives matter movement is law enforcement's response to the black lives matter movement

These movements sound similar but are very different keep in mind Black lives matter is about protecting a race and Blue Live matter is about making a job safer.

I will be one of the first people to defend an employee. When people say things like if you don't like your pay, environment, treatment.... quit and get another job. The idea they are trying to put forth is that if it becomes harder for employers to employ then they will change the variable to attract applicants. This same argument has be given to police. If you think your job is too dangerous than quit and go get a less dangerous job. I bring this up first to dismiss this argument right out of the gate. We need people who are mentally stable yet willing to take that risk for the greater good.

The job itself should attract the cream of the crop. People who are willing to take that risk for the greater good. It will certainly also attract thrill seekers, power mongers, and other unsavory elements. I realize that there is an extensive weeding out process to keep the cream and only the cream, but certainly some unsavory folks will fall through the cracks and be hired on as offices.

The job is hard and dangerous. I have always felt that even if you go into the job with the best of intention, the job itself will change you. There will certainly be some officers for whom the job or other life events have changed their mindset and they have become unsavory. For these officers there is support to heal, time off to as one might say "get right in the head" before returning to work, and the option to quit. Unfortunately a number of these victims will remain under the radar and continue as officers.

What percentage of officers are or have become unsavory? I don't know. What I do know is that I am jaded. Jaded because I have seen first hand officers taking the law into their own hands, bending the law in their own lives, and actively involved in what looked like criminal behavior. Examples include lying in order to create a reason to search, pocketing of drugs, taking money from a pimp... I have even had officers ask me for information they have no legal right to ask me such as asking for my social security number. I can't help but think that if I have seen as much of this as I have, then bad cops might be very common. Certainly this is anecdotal but it is food for thought.

In any case, reason would tell us that there are and will always be "Bad" cops.

I don't know about you but when I see an officer nearby or in a nearby car when I am driving, I run down in my head something to the effect of, have I done or am I doing anything wrong. This is followed by I wonder if look suspicious. You might think I am just paranoid and sometimes I think I might be. However, today I had a conversation with an older lady who said that she thinks similar things. I asked if she did drugs or frequently speeds. I even asked if she had at any point in her life lived a lifestyle that would warrant some level of paranoia. To all of these she replied that no she was a good student, a good wife, a good mother and never did so much as have a drink and drive. The extent of her crimes according to her are a few red lights and stop signs she accidentally ran and never got caught, and a handful of parking violations.

We then talked about how intimidating it is to even say hello to an officer you pass on the sidewalk. We both have similar experience of balancing the wanting to say hello to another human and not quite being secure in how they will respond. We both have had more than an acceptable number of officers respond with a "why the hell are you talking to me" look or gesture. I have had officers respond with asking me for an ID.

I understand that when an officer is lying to obtain permission to search, or asking for an ID for saying hello, they most likely are following a hunch. They most likely feel as if they are doing the right thing and will soon uncover the crime of their suspicion. I will cover the unreliability of this kind of behavior as another topic. For now it's simply important to understand that as an officer, if you look hard enough you can gather enough evidence to support your bias. For example if for some reason you equate full sleeve tattoos with drugs and search everyone with full sleeve  tattoos, you will likely find enough drugs to not only support your bias but to also convince you that many who didn't have drugs just didn't them at the time or were somehow able to hide them from you. The more officers who fall into this belief the more likely that the law will eventually gain statistical data to support the bias. Example (these are made up statistics) 1% of the population has full sleeve tattoos but people with full sleeve tattoos commit 25% of all drug crimes. The police then use these statistics to support their searching of Tattooed people with no other evidence than tattoos.

Imagine if you will.. Start with a base anxiety of just by being approached by an officer, add the additional "I am tattooed so they will likely harass me", add on top of that the officer who wants to do the right thing but is following a bias, and you have a situation ready to escalate. It follows that the more of these interactions that happen the more bad decisions on both sides will happen. The more news spreads about these bad decisions the more the anxiety is raised, bad decisions, anxiety, news ... eventually we have a situation where even the best, the cream of the crop officers are in danger from the public they serve.

If it could be demonstrated that every tattooed person had drugs then the bias is based in fact and justified. However for justice to be fair the assumption needs to start with innocence and real data needs to be used, otherwise searching the tattooed on a hunch is harassment.

This is one possible path to explain how we arrived at a time where the black community is feeling harassed and even slaughtered by the police.

While talking to an officer friend of mine he pointed me to the FBI statistics which clearly show the black community commit a disproportionate number of murders compared to other races. The statistics also show that the black community commits a disproportionate amount of total crime. This seemed compelling to me until I looked past the implications of the data and into the chart itself.

This chart only goes to confirm the bias in the chart. The numbers are faulty to begin with. FBI only collects from those sources who voluntarily submit their statistics. So the numbers are not an all inclusive look at US crime. The numbers only include convictions. Of course, what other numbers could be used? Keep in mind, convictions exclude all those who "got away with it" and include those who are falsely convicted. If there is any bias in the scrutiny of the black community and in the courts toward blacks, than these numbers can easily be skewed by enough percentage points to create a statistical bias justifying the bias. This creates a feedback loop.

What else is wrong with the charts? There is evidence to show that if the charts were organized by income then the statistics would level out across race lines. What if we organised by another metric other than race such as involvement in a gang, level of education, single parent families, or tattoos.... there is evidence to warrant closer examination of some of these other metrics, specifically education.

Let's look at the biggest flaw in the charts. They cannot look at actual crime. Crime where the officer has taken it upon himself to be judge and let someone go. Crime where the criminal or even the crime is ignored, for example using drugs, driving under the influence, or even running a red light and not getting caught. Crime where the police just don't have the time to pursue it.

So let me put this all together. Police use a chart to hire and apply police hours. Based on this chart police hours are heavier in poor black neighborhoods. Police are not only more likely then to interact with black citizens but also more likely to catch black citizens for the same types of crimes other races are getting away with (drugs, red lights....). Pressure on the community creates excess stress. Excess stress leads to more bad decisions. Bad decisions lead to more crime and escalated interactions (like running from police). Police are more stressed. Police make more bad decisions. Police report these escalated numbers. The FBI uses these number to create the chart. Police use chart to hire and apply police hours.

Am I saying the police created the problem? No I am not. I am only pointing out one possible part of one possible path to where we are now. It seems to me that our nation has been very prejudice toward blacks for most of its history. I feel that this is the real stressor but that the police's actions have exacerbated the issue.

Am I saying that the police should let up on communities where there is statistically more likely to be crime? No.

So what is all this build up for? What am I trying to say?

If blue lives matter to blue lives. Then police need to police the police.

Isn't this already happening? you know internal affairs.... yes but I say it's too little. As an officer if you care about your own safety you won't let your fellow officers get away with anything other than exemplary behavior. The police force has so much perceived power that there is very little room for error.

Does sharing information like I am sharing here make police less safe? I think in a small way it does. It contributes to the bad press that contributes to the anxiety.... So why would I do this? you might ask.

let me take a moment to tell you a real world personal story. As the young, poor, hippy looking, early twenties, person of my youth, I was driving from Chicago to Carbondale to visit a girlfriend. This as I am told is or was a common drug route. It wasn't very late but it was after dark when an officer pulled me over. It is important to know that I not only did not have drugs on me, I did not do drugs at the time, and to the best of my knowledge no drugs had ever been in this car.

This is from memory (which is fallible, more on this another time) so I don't expect it to be 100% accurate but I am very confident of the main points.

So the officer pulls me over and I keep my hands on the wheel, and only remove them to roll down the window when asked to. By the way it was late fall so it was cold outside. The officer asked if I knew why he pulled me over. I said I didn't and he went on to tell me that one of my headlights was significantly dimmer than the other and would go out or needed cleaning. This seemed like an odd reason to pull me over but if he really was concerned for my safety then he was doing a good public service.

This is where our interaction took a turn. He did not ask for ID but rather just looked around my messy car with his flashlight. Then he said "I think I smell marijuana" to which I replied jokingly "you must be smoking it because I don't have any". I am not claiming to be a smart twenty something but to this point I have done nothing wrong and he is either lying or has no idea what marijuana smells like. It seemed to me at the time that I fit some profile and he was following up on a hunch. He pulled me from the car and forced me to the ground and handcuffed me there in the dark between my car and passing traffic while he proceeded to search my car. After a bit he went back to his car and for a while and then came back to mine. I think he had gone to get some tools. Note I cannot see what he is doing but I am terrified that if I don't get run over by a passing car that he will plant some kind of evidence on me to justify his search.

After what turned out to be a total of roughly 45 min of being handcuffed, cold, wet, laying on the side of the freeway. He in a very rough pissed off manor unhandcuffed me and told me I was free to go. Not only not apologizing but his tone was one of "you got away with it this time". I was cold, dazed, scared... so it took me a while after getting back in my car to realize the extent of the damage. He had not only taken off all of the seat covers but had remove the dash and the center console. Note I have no tools on me, I am frightened out of my mind, and my car is torn apart (literally). He and his car were gone before I was of presence of mind to think to try and record any number off his car.

I am sure his version of the story is different. I am sure he searched on obvious bad mouth delinquent who had hidden the drugs so well that he couldn't find them. I am sure from his mind that he was doing the right thing and making the world safer. But he would be wrong, he made the world less safe by destroying my trust of the uniform. Now every time I am pulled over the interaction starts from a place of high anxiety. I imagine that if I was less even tempered or less intellectual that I might have by this time done something to make the situation worse, like run from a cop, or be aggressive...

I am not sure how often these things happen but they need to stop. Every time an officer oversteps that officer makes the world less safe.

Certainly these extreme situations are not the normal police response.  So why has the world gone from a place where I was told as a child "If you are ever lost or afraid find a police officer" to a world where children are told to find a public space like a restaurant or grocery store, A world where an average citizen is cautious to even say hello to a person in uniform?

I think it is because we witness poor behavior from officers that we don't think we could get away with. Such as driving while talking on a cell phone, speeding without lights or siren, flashing the lights to go through a red light, not using turn signals, littering... certainly not all of these are crimes in all places but they all build on an us vs them base. I have had officer friends tell me that they never get speeding tickets, they just show their badge when they get pulled over. One officer told me that he doesn't like using his seat belt and to justify this to himself he never gives seat belt tickets. Officers getting special treatment and bending the law only builds on this us vs them image.

As I talk to officer friends I hear them tell me that they are sheepdogs and we are sheep. I think this comes from the writing of Lt. Col. Dave Grossman. He says that good people are like sheep, the shell protecting the sheep from wolves are the sheepdogs. It's a good analogy until taken too far. One officer flat out told me that sheepdogs are a better class of people than the average citizen, born that way. Yes I have actually heard those words "better" and "born that way". The problem with this mindset is that officers separating themselves from the foibles of sheep also separating from their follies. In other words they forget they are prone to the same self deluding, miss-perceptions we all are. My fear after speaking with them is that they are so used to looking for wolves that they see every sheep as wolf.

Let me tell you about an officer I met up in Seattle. Let me call him Fred. The first time we met was on a rooftop and he was helping to bust a drug dealer. Fred said to me, "see those two guys" he pointed to two guys heading to a nook in the building only visible from the rooftop. " That one has the drugs and that one is going to buy from him". We watched. Sure enough within moments of him pointing them out, the exchange . At that time Fred spoke into his radio and two other officers turned the corner. Fred looked at me disappointed "all they had to do was look up, they would have seen me." Fred knew them from the neighborhood. He didn't want to cause distress to the people he just needed to stop the drugs. I could tell he saw "those two guys" as people, not sheep, but people who happen to need his intervention. He said hi to people, got to know them. Every single time he busted someone for something you could see that fatherly disappointment cross his face. I could never imagine Fred searching someone without genuine cause or planting evidence just to rid the street of someone he only suspected of trouble, but I am certain he would pull his weapon if there were no other options. If he had to protect these people he sees everyday. Over the next few years I got to know Fred.  He didn't see himself as a sheepdog, but like the neighborhood father. He was one of us, but in uniform.

Yes police are just people but image is everything. In a world where we felt safe talking to an officer, where we felt that they were actually here for our safety, in a world where protect and serve wasn't just a public image lie printed on the side of a police car.... People would be more likely to defend an officer's action when it was called into questions.

FYI- it has been demonstrated time and again in court that police are under no obligation to protect anyone, they are under no obligation to investigate, and they are legally allowed to lie.

As citizens we feel powerless to defend our community from bad cops. Most of us are afraid to record an officer's actions. To report bad behavior. It is up to officers to not only take inventory of their own actions but to create a brotherhood where no infraction is tolerated. Even with the best of intentions and the firmest of conviction, it is never acceptable to stretch the truth or make up evidence in an attempt to teach someone a lesson or take a criminal off the street.

This might be an unpopular opinion but it should be easier for an officer to lose their job than it currently is. When an officer's decisions are called into question.  The scales need to fall in favor of the pubic. Why? Because giving an officer the "benefit of the doubt" is far too great a risk. One bad officer has the power to destroy many lives over the course of their duties. An officer who shows less than idea judgment, endangers the lives of the public and other officers. An officer who shows bad judgment needs to terminated. The risk is too great and the job too dangerous already to give bad judgement a second chance. We are not talking about making sandwiches and forgetting the cheese. We are talking about thinking we see a gun when there is no gun. We are talking about firing out of fear.

The police need to earn the public trust. Police need to protect and serve. The police need to police the police. Blue lives need to matter to blue lives. If blue lives matter to blue lives. Then police need to police the police.

Isn't this already happening? you know internal affairs.... yes but I say it's too little. As an officer if you care about your own safety you wont let your fellow officers get away with anything other than exemplary behavior. The police force has so much perceived power that there is very little room for error.

Does sharing information like I am sharing here make police less safe? I think in a small way it does. It contributes to the bad press that contributes to the anxiety.... So why would I do this? you might ask.

let me take a moment to tell you a real world personal story. As the young, poor, hippy looking, early twenties, person of my youth, I was driving from Chicago to Carbondale to visit a girlfriend. This as I am told is or was a common drug route. It wasn't very late but it was after dark when an officer pulled me over. It is important to know that I not only did not have drugs on me, I did not do drugs at the time, and to the best of my knowledge no drugs had ever been in this car.

This is from memory (which is fallible, more on this another time) so I don't expect it to be 100% accurate but I am very confident of the main points.

So the officer pulls me over and I keep my hands on the wheel, and only remove them to roll down the window when asked to. By the way it was late fall so it was cold outside. The officer asked if I knew why he pulled me over. I said I didn't and he went on to tell me that one of my headlights was significantly dimmer than the other and would go out or needed cleaning. This seemed like an odd reason to pull me over but if he really was concerned for my safety then he was doing a good public service.

This is where our interaction took a turn. He did not ask for ID but rather just looked around my messy car with his flashlight. Then he said "I think I smell marijuana" to which I replied jokingly "you must be smoking it because I don't have any". I am not claiming to be a smart twenty something but to this point I have done nothing wrong and he is either lying or has no idea what marijuana smells like. It seemed to me at the time that I fit some profile and he was following up on a hunch. He pulled me from the car and forced me to the ground and hand cuffed me there in the dark between my car and passing traffic while he proceeded to search my car. After a bit he went back to his car and for a while and then came back to mine. I think he had gone to get some tools. Note I cannot see what he is doing but I am terrified that if I don't get run over by a passing car that he will plant some kind of evidence on me to justify his search.

After what turned out to be a total of roughly 45 min of being handcuffed, cold, wet, laying on the side of the freeway. He in a very rough pissed off manor unhandcuffed me and told me I was free to go. Not only not apologizing but his tone was one of "you got away with it this time". I was cold, dazed, scared... so it took me a while after getting back in my car to realize the extent of the damage. He had not only taken off all of the seat covers but had remove the dash and the center console. Note I have no tools on me, I am frightened out of my mind, and my car is torn apart (literally). He and his car were gone before I was of presence of mind to think to try and record any number off his car.

I am sure his version of the story is different. I am sure he searched on obvious bad mouth delinquent who had hidden the drugs so well that he couldn't find them. I am sure from his mind that he was doing the right thing and making the world safer. But he would be wrong, he made the world less safe by destroying my trust of the uniform. Now every time I am pulled over the interaction starts from a place of high anxiety. I imagine that if I was less even tempered or less intellectual that I might have by this time done something to make the situation worse, like run from a cop, or be aggressive...

I am not sure how often these things happen but they need to stop. Every time an officer oversteps that officer makes the world less safe.

Certainly these extreme situations are not the normal police response.  So why has the world gone from a place where I was told as a child "If you are ever lost or afraid find a police officer" to a world were children are told to find a public space like a restaurant or grocery store, A world where an average citizen is cautious to even say hello to a person in uniform?

I think it is because we witness poor behavior from officers that we don't think we could get away with. Such as driving while talking on a cell phone, speeding without lights or siren, flashing the lights to go through a red light, not using turn signals, littering... certainly not all of these are crimes in all places but they all build on an us vs them base. I have had officer friends tell me that they never get speeding tickets, they just show their badge when they get pulled over. One officer told me that he doesn't like using his seat belt and to justify this to himself he never gives seat belt tickets. Officers getting special treatment and bending the law only builds on this us vs them image. 

As I talk to officer friends I hear them tell me that they are sheepdogs and we are sheep. I think this comes from the writing of Lt. Col. Dave Grossman. He says that good people are like sheep, the shell protecting the sheep from wolves are the sheepdogs. It's a good analogy until taken too far. One officer flat out told me that sheepdogs are a better class of people than the average citizen, born that way. Yes I have actually heard those words "better" and "born that way". The problem with this mindset is that officers separating themselves from the foibles of sheep also separating from their follies. In other words they forget they are prone to the same self deluding, miss-perceptions we all are. My fear after speaking with them is that they are so used to looking for wolves that they see every sheep as wolf.

Let me tell you about an officer I met up in Seattle. Let me call him Fred. The first time we met was on a rooftop and he was helping to bust a drug dealer. Fred said to me, "see those two guys" he pointed to two guys heading to a nook in the building only visible from the rooftop. " That one has the drugs and that one is going to buy from him". We watched. Sure enough within moments of him pointing them out, the exchange . At that time Fred spoke into his radio and two other officers turned the corner. Fred looked at me disappointed "all they had to do was look up, they would have seen me." Fred knew them from the neighborhood. He didn't want to cause distress to the people he just needed to stop the drugs. I could tell he saw "those two guys" as people, not sheep, but people who happen to need his intervention. He said hi to people, got to know them. Every single time he busted someone for something you could see that fatherly disappointment cross his face. I could never imagine Fred searching someone without genuine cause or planting evidence just to rid the street of someone he only suspected of trouble, but I am certain he would pull his weapon if there were no other options. If he had to protect these people he sees everyday. Over the next few years I got to know Fred.  He didn't see himself as a sheepdog, but like the neighborhood father. He was one of us, but in uniform. 

Yes police are just people but image is everything. In a world were we felt safe talking to an officer, where we felt that they were actually here for our safety, in a world where protect and serve wasn't just a public image lie printed on the side of a police car.... People would be more likely to defend an officers action when it was called into questions.

FYI- it has been demonstrated time and again in court that police are under no obligation to protect anyone, they are under no obligation to investigate, and they are legally allowed to lie.

As citizens we feel powerless to defend our community from bad cops. Most of us are afraid to record an officers actions. To report bad behavior. It is up to officers to not only take inventory of their own actions but to create a brotherhood where no infraction is tolerated. Even with the best of intentions and the firmest of conviction, it is never acceptable to stretch the truth or make up evidence in an attempt to teach someone a lesson or take a criminal off the street.

This might be an unpopular opinion but it should be easier for an officer to loose their job than it currently is. When an officers decisions are called into question.  The scales need to fall in favor of the pubic. Why? Because giving an officer the "benefit of the doubt" is far too great a risk. One bad officer has the power to destroy many lives over the course of their duties. An officer who shows less than idea judgment, endangers the lives of the public and other officers. An officer who shows bad judgment needs to terminated. The risk is too great and the job too dangerous already to give bad judgement a second chance. We are not talking about making sandwiches and forgetting the cheese. We are talking about thinking we see a gun when there is no gun. We are talking about firing out of fear.

The police need to earn the public trust. Police need to protect and serve. The police need to police the police. Blue lives need to matter to blue lives.

What topics would you like to see me take on?

Please comment here or on my Facebook page with any topics you would like me to tackle. http://www.facebook.com/convincemeimwrong/

Public Nudity

Last night my friends high school aged son called to ask if I could take him to the beach on Sunday. Since this would involve me driving two hours to bring him down here and two more to bring him home, I thought there must be something really important happening or he wouldn't have asked.

As it turns out there was a topless protest happening at a local beach last Sunday. I am sure that to a boy his age this was a truly important event. Fortunately I didn't really have to turn him down because the event was already over.

Well I was telling my Uber driver about this today because I thought it was funny and he seemed bewildered.

"Why would women want to take off their tops in public? " he questioned "what about the children?"

I thought about this for a second to try an process where he was coming from. "Men take their tops off. Isn't it fair for women to be able to do it also?" I asked then added" what do you mean - what about the children?"

"Children shouldn't have to see that"

"Why not? Whats wrong with nudity?" I asked and he fell silent for a second. After a bit I chimed in again "I can see where younger children might not understand whats happening if they were watching people have sex but what harm can be done by simply viewing nakedness around them?"  He was still silent. I chimed in one more time "Maybe it might help people be more comfortable with their bodies if more people were naked more often."

He then changed the subject and I let it go.


Seems to me we should be able to be naked if we choose. Maybe not everywhere, restaurants for example might have "health issues" with nude guests, but at the beach, in your yard, even walking down the street. Is there really a good reason why we wouldn't allow public nudity? Why the double standard, Men can show nipple and Women can't? I don't get it.