I feel like being earnest, tonight. Not in the angry, inchoate manner which characterizes my regular and ill-informed snark.
More passively. Perhaps even quietly contemplative, following the admirable example of Mr. Boyd.
My barber (an ex-cop who hated being a cop, but didn't have enough cousins on the fire department) argued with me over Wisconsin. He thinks Wisconsin's Walker is doing the right thing over there because over here he knows cops in Londonderry, New Hampshire who retired at $125k pensions, because NH's relevant code tabulates the three highest years, not an average across a career.
He's got a point about small town patronage shenanigans in affluent bedroom communities, and we did manage to agree that the job itself attracts sadists, but that has nothing to do with busting unions, or Wisconsin.
So, passively, as a mute reply on my part -
On the turning away:
Us and Them:
Crow's Eye: Maintaining a commitment to Pointless Acrimony™ and Hate Filled Invective™! Also available in corvid mischief and traditional sly dog's mistrust.
Sure, chicanery goes on, always has, always will, but hell, I'll live with a little chicanery if stuff like "losing" 8 billion in Iraq and paper money manipulator bailouts happen with a wee bit less frequency.
ReplyDeleteUs and Them, *almost* a staple of classic rock radio. Playing it only earns a sternly worded letter from Clear Channel overlords. Heh.
How long will the disenfranchised and the dispossessed tolerate the death from a thousand cuts? Will they ever look up and down rather than right and left? Will a tire iron or a deer rifle ever replace a cardboard sign?
ReplyDeleteCheers.
ReplyDeleteMADISON—The head of the Wisconsin Professional Police Association slammed Senate Republicans today after they ordered the detention of 14
Democratic Senators staying in Illinois “with or without force.”
“Politics aside, encouraging the forcible detention of duly elected lawmakers because they won’t allow you to dictate with a free hand is an unreasonable abuse of police power,” said WPPA Executive Director Jim Palmer. “Due to the
fact that Wisconsin officers lack any jurisdiction across state lines, does Senator Fitzgerald intend to establish a ‘lawmaker border patrol?
The thought of using law enforcement officers to exercise force in order to achieve a political objective is insanely wrong and Wisconsin sorely needs reasonable solutions and not
potentially dangerous political theatrics.”
For more amusement, see the BigGoobermint post by "Publius" and read the comments.
~
Randal,
ReplyDeleteIt's hard for me to be comfortable with a 48 year old sergeant sucking down $125k in retirement, but I get your larger point. Hell, if it bankrupts a town...
K,
I don't know. People are generally more tolerant of their masters then the historic record ought to allow.