Resistance is Futile

Another Thurber Brigade Sidestep

Okay, by now you're shrugging your shoulders and saying, "oh great, once again he proves he can't stay on topic." Well you're right, but it is with just cause. As you know, I've done a lot of research on police violence, tried to get a book published, settled for an article. So you'll have to excuse me if I go off topic when confronted by police malfeasance. And if it seems like I'm doing it more and more it's because it seems to be making the news more and more.

Police bad behavior isn't new. In fact, I believe it's been at a pretty high level for some time. It's just that now it seems to be reported more often. This is largely because people are reporting it more and more on social media. This makes it hard for the mainstream media to ignore it as they did in the past.

They ignored it in the past because they subscribed to the police motto "To Maintain and Control." Maintain the status quo, control the population (serve and protect is just a PR campaign). After all, since the mainstream media is corporate controlled they are part of the status quo.

So I don't intend to mention the recent Baltimore murder of a civilian whose only offense was running while being black. Nor will I go into the case of yet another cop killing an unarmed civilian (so common now it's like reporting about a traffic accident. Yawn). No this blog is about the fake crime of "resisting arrest."

Resisting arrest is one of the police’s favorite charges against a "perp." However, in probably nine out of 10 cases it doesn't make sense. For example, a year ago the Austin police arrested a female teenage jogger for jaywalking. Yes, two burly cops stopped this young girl for crossing the street and when she began to complain they cuffed her. She was resisting arrest. 

 But wait you say, jaywalking isn't an arrestable offense. You give the person a ticket. So since there wasn't a crime to arrest her for, and because they got pissed off at her complaining, they said she was resisting. Okay, they also said she “failed to identify.” This is just as illogical, since I don’t know many joggers who carry their wallet while running, but maybe that will be another blog. 

(You are probably also saying to yourself, "wait a minute, weren't Austin Police recently asking for more money?" Yes, they need more money to stop the lawless jaywalkers of the city. A big crime here in Austin. Violent crime must be down so they need more money to police people walking across the street. Sorry, got carried away)

Over and over we see this in the news. Someone arrested for resisting. However, the majority of the time there is no crime. It's not like the person robbed a bank, then ran as the police came up. No, it's that the police pulled someone over for a broken taillight, the person gave the cop some lip, and next thing we know: resisting arrest.

To me, they might as well be honest and just say they are arresting the person because he/she pissed the cop off.

I’m lucky they haven’t pulled me over lately because surely I’d be “Arrested for Sarcasm,” or “Arrested for Making a Snide Remark to an Officer” or even worse, "being flip with a law enforcement person."

It would help the average civilian if police wore some sort of device that would indicate the mood the cop was currently experiencing. You know, something like those devices you can wear to see how much you are being exposed to radiation. These would instead indicate the emotional state of the officer.  

This way if you were stopped by a cop and his mood badge if bright red, you’d know that his wife just screamed at him as he left for work and you don’t want to say something snarky to the guy.

 
In other words, we would nearly wipe out the bogus charge of “resisting arrest” if we only knew how angry or demented the person stopping us had become.

 
I have to admit I’m also glad that the NSA, FBI and other law enforcement agencies haven’t tried to arrest me for “satirical tirades aimed at the law” via their wiretapping programs. Yes, I’d be locked up for a lonnnngggg time.

Yet again The Thurber Brigade would like to apologize for once more veering off the road of the War Between Men and Women. The Brigade promises everyone that it will return to the straight and narrow soon. Well, we'll see what happens next. 

THURBER!

Flying High

No, this blog isn't about Colorado's new marijuana law.  Although that would be a good one (although probably overdone). I'm just admitting that I'm behind in posting to this blog. I have a good reason though, I've been working on the release of my second eBook: Wings of Honor.

So, yes, instead of a blog about relationships or more on the front of The War Between Men and Women, I'm stooping to shameless self-promotion.

Do you like slasher flix? You know, the kind where there's a faceless, invincible killer out there hunting down young, semi-naked teenage girls and slicing them to little pieces of hamburger? Um, well, my book isn't about that. Sorry.

Slumber Party Massacre II

No, here's the description for Wings of Honor:

"A ruthless, crazed serial killer terrorizes North Carolina. He’s not killing teenagers with a grotesque butcher knife, but instead shooting down unarmed, helpless small planes over the blue Carolina skies while flying a replica of the "Red Baron's" triplane. If you want a fast-paced action/adventure novel about a battle between two men for the sake of honor, buy Wings of Honor and buckle up your seat belt for an action-packed flight."

When I first began writing the book, I have to admit it was at a time when slasher movies were all the rage. So I decided to use that to an advantage and make my mystery killer an unknown, unseen person who for some reason, is shooting down innocent, semi-nude teenagers who were flying planes. Okay, the pilots don't look like that, but I had to say that as that seems to be one of the reasons people go to those movies. To see semi-nude teenage girls in hopeless situations.

Oops, sorry. There I go again stooping to cheap methods to keep everyone interested and maybe enticed enough to buy a copy of Wings of Honor. You know, sex sells, etc.

There is a lot of sex in Wings of Honor. One of the main characters seems to be an over-sexed maniac who not only cheats on his wife, but cheats on his mistress. I used this character as a means to maybe start a discussion about what we view of as honor. He's the counter-point to another main character who is a straight-as-an-arrow type who loves his wife and would never think of cheating. So there are a number of interesting themes flying around in this book.

There's also a lot of conflict in Wings of Honor. There's the conflict between seat-of-the-pants pilots vs. by-the-book types. Conflict between the NTSB and FAA and FBI. And of course, the main confict of the battle between the killer and those tracking him down.

Because I didn't want to scare away non-pilots, I included a glossary with the book. It's in the back of the book and is called "The Pilot's Lounge."  Clever, eh?  So if you didn't know that runway numbers are based on magnetic heading, well, you should buy a copy of Wings of Honor so you can learn about important aviation terms like that.

So if you are looking for an action packed book with lots of twists, turns and high-flying antics, buy a copy of Wings of Honor. 

Sorry, sorry. Had to include one more sexy image. My publicist insisted.