Lilo's Community Disservice

I know they talk about justice being blind and all, I mean, I have seen those scales being held up by a woman with a blindfold on who looks like the sister of the model for the Statue of Liberty before.  But that perception certainly isn’t the reality we have here in these United States. No sir.  Here, apparently, justice is not only blind, but apparently stupid as well.

Here in these United States we have developed a multi-tiered system of justice that meets out punishment based not on the crimes, but on who the criminal might be and whether or not they are popular people and regular subject matter for such intriguing magazines as People.  God forbid you or I were to act in the way of some of these scofflaws who flaunt themselves in front of the courts as if they deserve special treatment.

Oh really, you say? So what’s bugging you now, David, you ask?

Well, to put it succinctly, it’s this latest malarkey pulled by Lindsay Lohan.  Let’s not get into the fact that the punishment falls on the nadir side of the punishment scale, and that she has shown absolutely no desire to straighten up and fly right.  No no, not our LiLo. When sentenced to community service what does she do? How about no-show!  What would that mean for the likes of us? That doesn’t even deserve a question mark, if you want to know the truth. The fact is, due to her celebrity status, the courts just bend over backward to try to accommodate her.  Assigned to do her time in a women’s home, she opted out. She said she was working out of country and was unable to perform her community service because she was in Paris, or London, or some other out of the way place that made “getting there” impossible. And then, she decides, on her own mind you, that she would rather do her community service time through the Red Cross.

At least Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Stephanie Sautner ruled that the time she spent with the Red Cross didn’t count toward her community service debt.  And, she did find Ms. Lohan guilty of violating her probation and had her remanded. But a quick $100,000 bail fix got Ms diva out of jail and back out on the street.

She was resentenced to do community service at the LA Morgue.  She was told she had to appear there at least three days a week, and work a minimum of eight hours each day.  So what happens on day 1?  Care to guess? Yup, Ms. Lohan shows up late, only to be left on the outside looking in.  I’m not exactly sure what happened with that, but CNN did report that Ms. Lohan was ultra early for day two of her community service sentence.

But how it would be for us?  Does it take a rocket scientist to figure out that the typical person, the run of the American mill, would in fact be sitting their collective hind parts in a jail cell somewhere if they had the nerve and audacity to pull the kind of junk that Lohan has pulled?  We would all be rotting somewhere, believe me. In fact, I would go so far as to say that such treatment could only happen in Los Angeles, where who a person is means as much or more than what the law demands.

I am certain that if someone were to pull Lohan’s kind of shenanigans here in Virginia, they would have a lot more to fear than the potential to have to fulfill their work release in the morgue. No, they would undoubtedly be finishing up work release sometime after they completed a year or so in jail for contempt of court.

It’s hard for me to understand why this stuff is newsworthy at all.  What would really be newsworthy, and even that only for a photo op, would be seeing Ms. Lohan dressed in an orange jumper and hand cuffs walking out of the courtroom on her way to her new suite at the Hoosegow Hotel.

FEMA: No help at all

And so, what’s a county to do?

It seems that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) doesn’t deem Louisa County worthy of any assistance for the earthquake that shook the Washington Monument so hard they had to get special crews to rappel down its sides to assess damage.  There’s no doubt that Louisa suffered severe damage from the quake.  Hundreds of buildings were damaged, schools were closed while school administrators tried to figure out where the students might find a classroom, and yet here we are with another winning decision from FEMA.

Why even have such an agency if everything it does reeks of no?  How could it be that so many structures in the DC area had issues and buildings were closed, and people were sent home, and all kinds of havoc ensued in the metropolitan area, but down in lowly little Louisa, the epicenter of the quake and probably the area most devastated, the people get nothing? Nada. Zip. You would think the least they could do is transfer some left over trailers from New Orleans to the area, at least then the kids would have a place to go to school.

And why don’t they get any assistance?  Because FEMA policy states that the emergency has to be overwhelming, and that this incident doesn’t meet that standard, since the repairs amount to a mere $15 million, which FEMA says the local and state governments can withstand without outside Federal aid.

Perhaps we ought to take a page from Libya.  Just yesterday, Hillary Clinton stopped by for a visit to meet and greet the new government there. She told them that the United States was concerned about their well being and that she, and by extension us, hoped that they would soon “capture or kill Moamar Gaddafi” and thereby stop having to fear him.  She then said that the US would be more than pleased to drop another $15 million in aid to the country where we have already dropped over $120 million in support of the new government.

Given our track record in supporting Mideast upstart governments, it would seem that money could be better spent right here in the good old US of A.  Say perhaps in Louisa County. I would take a wild guess and say that $15 million spent in Louisa County would do more to support Democracy and freedom than the $15 million sent to Libya, which may or may not work its way down to the people.  But more than likely the free funds will be so diluted by graft and corruption that the people will likely see none of it.

Of course, we have to take into account the cost of running a government, and especially a fledgling government. After all, they have to purchase new photocopiers, computers, desks, and probably a building or two to house the new government. It’s not like those things grow on trees, you know.  In fact, $15 million would barely cover it, I mean once the accountants take over, and the new ruling party gets its cut.

But at least then we can feel good about ourselves. We will be promoting Democracy in another country that doesn’t give a darn about Democracy, unless, of course, we pay them to say they give a darn about Democracy, at which point the purse strings seemingly untie themselves and money flows out like some new version of a Jobs bill.  Ahhhhh, the places you’ll go.  And left up to them, the places you’ll go won’t be very heavenly, if you know what I mean.

Meanwhile, back in Louisa, at least our own politicians are trying to help out.  The small amounts donated by Eric Cantor and Gov. Bob McDonnell may not amount to much, but they are miles ahead of our Federal government.  To the Feds, $15 million may not seem so much, but to a county like Louisa it’s a staggering amount of money.  It seems that FEMA isn’t taking into account the depressed economy and the individual needs of small municipalities like Louisa.  God help us all if we ever need FEMA’s help.

Honor among thieves, not among perverts

Honor among thieves is one thing, but turning yourself in just to nail someone who is guilty of a greater sin is something quite different.

Sure, there are stories of the Robin Hoods of this world that do bad to do good, so to speak.  And there are definitely cases of bad guys who ‘help the poor” by providing some of their ill-gotten gains to keep the down trodden going.

But it’s a rare case indeed when a couple burglars will risk fessing up to a burglary because the guy they burgled is a worse criminal than themselves.  But sure enough, that’s apparently what happened on September 12^th in Delhi, California, according to an Internet news source.

It seems these to ne’er-do-wells were foraging about in someone else’s barn in Delhi looking for odds and ends and whatever they could find to make a buck or save themselves some money. They came across a stash of about 50 CDs and thought, ‘hey I can use these CDs to pirate some music.’ So, off they go with the CDs in hand. Later, when they got back to their hideaway, they started to check out their newly acquired property.

Did they find music? No. What they found instead was 30 discs full of child porn. In my mind, I see the two burglars stuck in a dilemma. Child porn is bad and burglary is bad, but child porn is worse than burglarizing someone.  We should turn ourselves in, in order to turn in the person who owned the CDs in the first place.

I’m not sure what kind of convoluted logic went into the process, but the answer turned out to be the right thing. Turns out, the porn owner reported the break in and when the kids called it was a dead match.  Merced County Sheriff’s Deputy Tom McKenzie was quoted by Fox 40 that he was “kind of surprised that he wanted to draw attention to himself, knowing what was taken.”

Well, one thing led to another and the Sheriff’s department served a search warrant at Kraig Stockard’s house.  There they found three desktop computers and three laptops. It hasn’t been reported what those computers contain, but authorities believe Stockard had been downloading images and movies since 2004.

Turns out, the Sheriff’s department hasn’t arrested either of the burglars. Whether they will or not remains to be seen, but for now they are not being pursued.  Stockard, on the other hand, has been hauled in.

A “family member convinced the two suspects to come forward, and they contacted law enforcement," McKenzie said.

Stockard was booked into jail for possession of child pornography and posted $25,000 bail.

"We did not actually go out and arrest the suspects for the burglary. They were obviously the lesser of two evils," McKenzie told Fox40.

They are not totally in the clear yet.  The burglars' case has been turned over to the Merced County District Attorney’s Office for review. In my way of thinking, they should probably be arrested for the burglary and let go for providing a community service.

A little highway courtesy goes a long way

Is it any wonder why bikers, or those who ride on motorcycles, continue to get a bad name?

Having ridden a bike myself for years, I know how things can be. But just because a person is riding a bike, or with a pack of other riders, doesn’t give them permission to ignore common rules of the road, including following laws like stopping at red lights before turning right and yielding the right of way.

Now, I am just as annoyed when people “fail” to see a biker cruising down a street and turn in front of them, causing the biker to make a hasty stop, or worse becoming the spring board for biker gymnastics.  But sometimes, and maybe it’s just because they are in a group and get group mentality, bikers are as much at fault as the other people on the road.

What am I talking about?

Sunday morning broke beautiful with bright sunshine and the kind of weather that makes a biker shiver at the thought of heading out on the highway. Why not? Is there anything better than taking off with a bunch of friends, hitting the highways, and just chilling along Virginia’s byways with 20 or 30 biker buddies?  Not really.

But not Sunday. Sunday, as I was at the intersection of Conduit Road and Temple Avenue, heading south on Conduit, about 20 bikers pulled up in the right turn lane, two by two.  The first couple bikes stopped, checked the intersection, and made the turn and headed to the I-95 North ramp.  The next two bikers followed suit: stopping to make sure the intersection was clear, then taking off.  The next two, however, were in a bit more of a hurry since it was apparent that the left turn lane from the north bound side of Conduit Road now had the right of way. They bolted without stopping or looking. The pair behind them follow suit, only this time, the cars turning onto Temple Avenue were in the middle of the intersection and had to stop to avoid running over the bikers.

So what about the next two? Do you think they would stop and allow the normal flow of traffic to resume? Heck no, spotting the opportunity to stay close to their buddies, they too bolted. The next pair of bikers had a little better sense and waited the few seconds it took for the lights to change, giving them a green for the right turn.

Now, with my experience riding bikes, I am certain that any bike that made that turn within a few minutes could easily have caught up with the bikes that had gone before them. In fact, I would be very surprised if the group as a whole didn’t slow down long enough for everyone to coagulate on I-95, creating a bit of a clot in the right hand lane. So, why was it necessary to cut out in front of people, turn against a red light, and create a nuisance by stopping on-coming traffic that had the right of way?

No, don’t get me wrong. This wasn’t a bunch of hard core Hell’s Angels we are talking about. These were a bunch of gray beards out to prove they still had it, whatever it is.  It just rankles a bit that a group like that would have such disregard for the very laws they want imposed on people driving cars.

It’s not that I am totally out of my mind, nor is it that I have something out for the bikers. The reason I don’t ride today is because someone in a car thought he had the right to run a red light and be in the middle of an intersection when I was trying to get through.  Given the old choice of over or under, I chose to go over the top of the car and managed to survive my somersault with only a few bumps and bruises.  Had I been speeding, it could have been a much different result.  The driver opted not to stop, and took off down the road.  He was not caught, and I was left with a damaged bike and torn up clothing.

What is really needed on the roadways is a little courtesy.  It’s just as important for the bikers to obey the laws as it is for the people in cars.