"do the next right thing"

During the past year, friends have blessed me with wise advice. On a day when worry and fear were getting the best of my husband and me, a friend told me to "do the next right thing." In a late afternoon conversation, she gently suggested that perhaps the next right thing to do was to fix supper for the family. Her mundane suggestion made me smile but the advice did get me through the evening. I fixed supper and the ordinariness of it seemed to calm things down. Sitting around the supper table, my husband and I were able to bring our focus back to daily cares...the kids' school days, the books we were reading, how to tackle the next day's schedule.

Do the next right thing is a way to do what must be done, to move forward. Worry and fear don't have to rule your life.

Omaha police Taser dangerous old man

How dangerous was he? He had a fistful of safety pins. That's how dangerous.

The officer asked a nurse whether Cole had a pacemaker. The nurse looked at his chart, as Cole continued threatening the officers

“It's too late,” the officer said, according to the nurse's report, and he shocked Cole with a Taser.

Cole fell onto the bed but continued to flail his arms, so the officer shocked him again in the chest, he said.

About those safety pins, Interim Omaha Police Chief David "Baker said safety pins can pose risks, especially if they aren't sterile."

Two good things I noticed in the story: 1) The elderly gentleman, Mr. Cole, is fine, and 2) Baker is only the interim police chief.

does the sex offender registry help?

The sex offender registry is in place to protect people from sex offenders; the assumption is that offenders are likely to offend again. If we know who they are, we can protect ourselves and our families from them. Not so fast.

REOFFENDING rates by child pornography users are far below rates for assaults, drink-driving or property damage, with fewer than one in 10 people who download sexual images of minors later convicted of the crime again....

The...study also found that intensive treatment and supervision orders for people found guilty of child pornography possession, including group counselling and mandatory listing on the sex offenders register, might actually increase the risk of reoffending....

[The] sex offenders [registry]...are potentially counterproductive in trying to reduce reoffending, he said. "All the evidence I am aware of shows it has minimal impact on the incidence and nature of sexual offending … The implication is we are making public policy decisions on the basis of emotion and impression rather than on the basis of scientific evidence."

Making public policy decisions on the basis of emotion and impression? This article is out of Australia, so maybe that happens only in Australia. Surely not here in the US! Oh, wait...

I am still shaking my head over this.

Here’s the gist: When the friends and family of people arrested for drug crimes bring in cash to bail someone out, police in Brown County, Wisconsin are turning the cash over to a drug task force, which then brings out a drug dog inspect the bills. When the dog alerts, the cops are then seizing the money for the police department, citing state and federal civil asset forfeiture laws.

policing for profit

Civil forfeiture threatens the property rights of all Americans.  These laws allow the police to seize your home, car, cash or other property upon the mere suspicion that it has been used or involved in criminal activity.

Do you think someone is exaggerating? Think again.

Law enforcement can confiscate your property and/or money...and keep it. You don't have to be proven guilty; you don't even have to be charged with a crime for them to be able to keep it. Law enforcement can simply say that it looks as if the property or cash was used criminally or as if it was gotten illegally. They don't have to prove it; they need only suspect it.

From a 2008 NPR article:

As a tactic in the war on drugs, law enforcement pursues that drug money and is then allowed to keep a portion as an incentive to fight crime.

As a result, the amount of drug dollars flowing into local police budgets is staggering. Justice Department figures show that in the past four years alone, the amount of assets seized by local law enforcement agencies across the nation enrolled in the federal program—the vast majority of it cash—has tripled, from $567 million to $1.6 billion. And that doesn't include tens of millions more the agencies got from state asset forfeiture programs.

Property forfeiture is a very profitable business for law enforcement agencies so they have every reason to continue the practice.

In the 22 years from 1989 to 2010, an estimated $12.6 billion in assets were seized by U.S. Attorneys in asset forfeiture cases. The growth rate during that time frame averaged an annual +19.4%. For just 2010 alone, the value of assets seized grew by +52.8% over 2009 and equaled 6 times greater than that for 1989.

It is past time to pull law enforcement back under control.

oh, those funny, funny criminals

You would think reporting crime stories would be interesting work but reporters seem to need to spice up their stories.

In a story about a drug conviction, the reporter entertains himself by making fun of the man sentenced to prison. The story he wrote is oh-so-funny with jokes about the man being a bad rapper, including examples of his bad lyrics. It's a knee-slapper.

When did it become acceptable for news reporters to ridicule the people in the stories they cover? This man's life has just been sent down the crapper and the reporter uses it as entertainment.

I find myself wondering which profession is more honorable--drug dealer or news reporter?

santa suit! in the closet!

A news story about a man charged with receiving child pornography includes a titilating detail: he had been a department store Santa. The short article concludes with, "Officials said a Santa suit from a retail store where Davis worked was in a closet."

A Santa suit in the closet!

The reporter makes no effort to show the readers the connection between the porn and the Santa suit. This is a perfect demonstration of the hysteria about sex offenders today: someone who looks at child porn is simply assumed to be a molester waiting for children to crawl on his lap where he will...do what, exactly, with the parents standing there with a camera?