Personal Responsibility Not Required
Welcome to the 21st century; personal responsibility not required - Copzilla
That quote wasn’t written in response to the issues that concern me today, but it might have been. Two items:
Kenton, OH: 5 teenage boys stole a deer decoy and placed on a country road, to watch cars swerve around it. As one car approached, the driver swerved, lost control, and rolled the car. He and his passenger were seriously injured. The driver will require multiple surgeries to minimize the permanent disability; his passenger suffered brain damage. The 5 offenders are facing a variety of misdemeanor charges; two were found guilty, although their sentences were suspended until after the football season (but that’s another post).
Worthington, OH: Several teenage girls went “ghost-hunting” at a nearby cemetery around 10 PM. Part of this adventure involved them going up to the door of a “haunted” house where a “witch” lived, according to local lore. In the process, shots were fired by a resident of the house, and one girl was seriously injured. It appears she’ll survive; the shooter was arrested and is facing multiple counts of felonious assault.
Here’s my beef: in both cases, the risky behavior of the victims directly contributed to their injuries. In the Kenton case, the boys who crashed were speeding, and may have been intoxicated or under the influence of other drugs. In the Worthington case, the girls were trespassing. One police officer made the point that it’s not illegal for someone to come up and knock on your door; that’s what door-to-door solicitors do. But they don’t do it at 10:00 PM, and they don’t do it with the intent to annoy or harrass you but knocking on the dor and running away. The girls in that case were also trespassing in the adjacent cemetery; all cemeteries in Ohio close at dusk under state law.
Yet neither the injured boys in the Kenton case nor the girls in Worthington are going to be charged with any offense. How is that teaching anyone any personal responsibility? I’m not at all trying to excuse the illegal behavior that injured the aggrieved parties. But if the victims hadn’t done something stupid and/or illegal, they probably wouldn’t have been injured, or at least not as severely.
In the Worthington case, several people have made comments about how harmless the prank was. Is that really the impression parents want to give in this day of anti-bullyng rules and laws? School shootings have happened over “harmless pranks.” I think harmless is like beauty: in the eye of the beholder.
Just sit right back…
OK, how many of you are now singing or humming the theme to Gilligan’s Island? 
At any rate, I just wanted to mention that you too can own a piece of TV history. That’s right, the SS Minnow is for sale, for the low-ish price of $99,000. This is the original boat shown in the opening theme, and ironically enough, it really was shipwrecked, by the second owner.
If I only had 5 people to carry around, it would be interesting to own. Hey. Wait a minute! There was Gilligan, the Skipper, too. The millionaire, and his wife. The movie star. The Professor and Maryann. That makes 7. No wonder they were shipwrecked! They were overloaded!
P.O. Box 1142
In 1942, the federal government worked to transform a park and picnic area into a secret military installation known only by its mailing address. The people who worked there were forbidden to discuss their duties, and some even now have taken those secrets to the grave.
What did they do at P.O. Box 1142? They interrogated German POWs, in some cases before the Red Cross was advised of their capture.
Now, working through information gleaned from declassified WW2 records, a National Parks Service ranger is racing against time to take down oral histories of the people who worked there.
Incredible. P.O. Box 1142 alums lived only miles away from each other for years, and never knew. It’s fascinating to consider what those interrogators might have learned that advanced our war effort, both then and during the Cold War.
Faithful to God and Science
Science is not threatened by God; it is enhanced. God is most certainly not threatened by science; He made it all possible.
Dr. Francis Collins is both a scientist and a believer. He’s a born-again Christian, and he\’s also the director of the National Human Genome Research Institute, a federal project with 550 employees, a $480 million annual budget and a mandate to explore every twist of the DNA that makes us who we are. A dichotomy? Perhaps. But one that has led him to write a book to address what he calls the the “chasm between science and faith.” Is there such a chasm? Should there be? Said one person at Global Affairs,
It’s perhaps quite simplistic of me, but I’ve always felt that science was the tool that would bring us closer to God. As we unravel more and more of the mysteries He’s laid before us, it seems to fit that He would view that favorably.
God created science, or the facts of life that we study as science. Is it such a stretch that the two can co-exist?
Illegal Immigration Dealings
Hazelton, PA passed an ordinance last July dealing with people illegally in the country. It will
- revoke the business licenses of companies that employ illegal immigrants;
- impose $1,000 fines on landlords who rent to illegal immigrants;
- make English the official language of the city.
I’m in favor of the way they’re handling it. They’re not discriminating on the basis of national origin here. They’re just saying, if the person is here illegally, and you aid or abet that by employing them, or renting to them, then you’re wrong. They’re not taking immigration law into their own hands. Hazelton is just addressing the demand side of the equation, in a way not dissimilar to the War on Drugs.
Not unsurprisingly, they’ve been sued, by the ACLU and the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, on behalf of landlords who say they’ve lost tenants, and the immigrant owner of of a grocery store and restaurant who says her business has fallen off since the ordinance was passed. Best of luck to the city. I think this is the right way to do it.
Speed Test
Everyone wants to know how fast their connection is, and there are several good testing sites available.
This one popped up over on Global Affairs, and seems to be pretty accurate. Hope it’s useful to you.
Americans will die for liberty
Americans will die for liberty
It\’s nice to see that people in other countries really do understand us sometimes.
Don’t Believe Everything You See
There’s a saying about only believing half of what you hear, and none of what you read. In relation, Robert Orben said “Smart is when you believe half of what you hear. Brilliant is when you know which half.”
In support of both of those comments, I give you this explanation of photography, editing, and captioning, and the video below. Both should be eye-opening.
On Their Own
Here’s a couple of amusing articles about stupid criminals and hard-core moms.
In Westlake Ohio, a waitress at the Moosehead Saloon carded a customer. When the server looked at the ID, she was quite surprised to see her own photo, name, and address. She had lost her wallet a couple of week prior, and Maria Bergan somehow came into possession of the driver’s license. Bergan has been charged with receiving stolen property, and identity theft. Lesson: pay attention to the photo on your stolen ID, and dont’ hand it to the person you stole it from!
Next up, we head to California to hear about a mom who wanted some accountability for the damage to her landscaping and the finishes on her family’s cars. Back in February, Katja Base found their lawn, house, and cars covered in toilet paper, and strewn with dog food, cheese, and flour. She reported the incident to the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department, but realized they wouldn’t have the resources to dedicate to any major investigation. So she did the investigative work. She worked with grocery store managers to track TP sales, then got a look at the videotape for a transaction where four teens bought 144 rolls of TP. One of the kids was wearing his Norco HS letterman jacket with his name on it, and other video showed the truck they were driving. Online databases gave her the names she needed, and she turned those over to the Sheriff’s Department. Now 6 kids are facing vandalism charges. Good for mom! Lesson: Don’t wear identifying clothing when you’re doing something stupid!