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A Call to Arms
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Rants
- Hits: 2731
Probably, if you've watched the news at all in the past year, you've seen a few of the clips that show off our police force to their best advantage. For example, there's the Officer Bubbles video at the G20 summit, or the arrest of Adam Nobody. And if you haven't seen those there's always the video of the Ottawa Police attacking, detaining and strip searching an innocent pedestrian.
And if you're like most people you think to yourself that these events are the exception, not the rule.
You'd be wrong. These events, for police around the country, are the norm.
What is exceptional is that they were videotaped and brought to light.
Examine the police reaction to the Officer Bubbles video.
That's right. There was no reaction. The very lack of reaction on the part of the police force normalizes their behavior. If we insist upon exercising our right to demonstration in a peaceable way, they'll insist upon their "right" to abuse us. What is scary is that we allow this. "Officer Bubbles" is an employee of the city, paid for by our tax money, and as such is accountable to us. But if you've paid attention, you've probably noticed there is no accountability within the police force.
Mind you, while there was no reaction on behalf of the police force Officer Bubbles took it upon himself to sue YouTube for allowing comments upon his ridiculous behavior. And the media attention drops to a trickle, because as amusing as the story is (and it's also very, very frightening) it's just not worth the hassle of being sued over.
Or look at the arrest of Adam Nobody. Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair takes it upon himself to allege that somehow Adam Nobody instigated this. Look at the video again. 1 man against how many officers? Even if he did instigate this - and I'd dismiss this as highly unlikely, given the polices departments track record, it hardly warrants the pile up and beating that follows.
What is really frightening is that these events are the norm, it is only the proliferation of portable recording devices that is bringing these abuses to light. Look at the reaction - when there's any at all - of the offending police forces. This is the new normal. Arm yourself, it's a dangerous world out there. And it's the police that are making it that way.
The combined weight of small things
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 2360
An 8:10 appointment at the dentist.
And I'm up at 6:00 AM, just to be safe, leave the house at 7:30 to allow for traffic. You don't want to be late for the dentist.
Outside, still dark, cold, go to scrape the windows. Open door, close door, drivers side window explodes. Completely explodes.
This is a 2008 VW Rabbit, if you're curious.
Now I'm annoyed, more than annoyed, and I'm late, so I think of calling my dentist to cancel (but you pay regardless) and so I hastily sweep the glass up off the street, throw a leather coat on the seat so I don't get cut on the broken glass, and make my dentist appointment only 10 minutes late.
Then home, call the dealership. "How did this happen?" I ask, because I'm curious, in almost 30 years of driving I've never seen the spontaneous explosion of a car window. They don't know. But it will be around $700 to fix. And I have to drive out and prepay for the part to be ordered.
I'm in a bit of a rage, really. Since taking on my unemployment the single biggest expense has been this fucking car. $500.00 to repair the hail damage, and I didn't drive it for 3 weeks. Now $700.00 + maintenance for another act of God (or shitty engineering by Volkswagen). All told I calculate with all expenses considered it's about $100.00 every fucking time I get into this car, and I'm not making the payments. I should really entomb the car in glass and go back to the restaurant to make payments on it. It's my own private Juggernaut, the unaffordable symbol of crap western manufacture and crass commercialism. It's not worth driving because, frankly, even working 18 hours a day I couldn't afford the freaking expense.
Now to the carwash to try and vacuum out the ten million shards of glass that litter the car seat and floor, buy some plastic to tape over the window (because this won't be repaired anytime soon), go and prepay for the window to be ordered...
So begins my day.
Aunt Madge
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Dreams
- Hits: 1832
I'm running after "Bunny", the lead CSI, we've found the car, a crumpled folded picnic table and her trailer and we think we might be onto something.
We're looking for Auntie Madge. She'd disappeared some while ago, met an unsavory end with a serial killer or something, but still there were reports of her car being seen here and there; the northern states, Montana, Oregon, and now, finally, here, at the end of this cul-de-sac surrounded by high trees.
There's a broken fence and Bunny's running towards it, I'm following, there's a few missing planks, it's broken up and weathered and we go through the holes and run up a long driveway and there's an old hotel, decrepit, ancient.
It has the air of a once-great hotel, but that's long passed, and Bunny is running down the halls, through a courtyard, and we're at the desk.
It's the Hotel Renfrew. There's an old guy, balding, fat, sweaty at the desk, leaning back in his chair and smoking. Bunny asks about Aunt Madge and he answers, directs us down the hall and I'm surprised, it seems almost too good to be true that she'd be alive and staying here in the middle of nowhere, we go down the halls and find her room.
Inside there's a younger lady, late 30's or early forties, in jeans and a black bra. And there's Aunt Madge as well, older, in the same black bra and jeans. They weren't expecting us. The younger lady, she has one breast, small and round, the size of a tennis ball. And the other is huge and round, like a cantaloupe, I can't help but notice. And then she turns towards me and I see there's a third breast, again small and round like a tennis ball, and it somehow balances everything out. I notice Aunt Madge now, she's got 3, maybe 4 breasts all scattered around her chest and belly and she's telling Bunny that they disappeared because of the taboo, they just wanted to be themselves, and I'm wondering if the taboo was on their obvious lesbian relationship or on their multiplicity of breasts....
The man at the front desk now, he's telling us about a cleansing ceremony the Buddhists will be doing on Dead Island, I ask where that is and he gestures off towards the south, "But you won't find anything, it's all gone now.." and I guess, infer somehow, that the history of this hotel has the midwives abandoning the many teated children of this area to the elements on the island, but they don't want to discuss it.
80 Million Dollars worth of Picassos
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Found
- Hits: 1994
An electrician approaches the Picasso estate to validate a number of Picasso's artworks, given to him, he said, when he worked for Picasso during the 1970's. The collection is already appraised at 80 million dollars, many of the works are completely unknown.
The family argues theft, that there's no way that Picasso would have given these paintings to an electrician. SO begins what will probably be a long and drawn out legal battle, but the point of it is there's a eighty million dollar cache of art that was previously unknown. Which raises the question, how many other hidden and unknown caches of art are out there?
Read more here: http://www.nytimes.com
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