Cold Case?

The whole premise didn't feel right. The unit is about cold cases. Then why were they acting as if they were the homocide unit? Why were they acting as if they were CSI investigators (and bad ones at that)? Can there really be an evidence chain of command if the investigator is taking the evidence back to her desk and casually just leaving it on her desk? Did budget cuts really hit the department and they have to now cover three departments? And really, if a cop goes down, are there that many people involved as if a nuclear weapon had just taken out half the city? Is a CP necessary? Or a TOC? Seemed like it was added as filler to make everything seem exciting but added nothing to the show becuase not a single one of the other workers contributed positively to the outcome. Mostly they just f'd it up.

A walk wasted

As I listened to the caller profess that something actually good came out of the beating that a recent celebrity took, I became more and more angry. At the caller. At the patronizing radio host who provided no discernible refutation of the caller's statements with "Uh-huh" "Right. I heard that on Oprah with Tyra" and ended with 'It's rough out there I know. But I love you and you have yourself a great weekend all right?"

Caller: 'I just wanted to call in and say that I think something good actually came out of the whole XXXXX and XXXXX thing.

"You know because it's just going to raise awareness that women need to speak up when they have been abused. That they shouldn't feel afraid to go to police. That getting hit shouldn't just be taken for granted."

All semi-valid points. He continues.

"Because you know it's always going to happen and there's nothing you can do about it"

Huh?


To the first point, hmm. Did OJ beating and killing his wife not raise awareness? How about what Ike did to Tina? Didn't that raise awareness? Bing to his wife? Jason Kidd? Yanni? Brian Giles? Wareen Moon? Dave Deurson? Why does it take sticking your hand in another fire to see if its going to burn a good thing? Can't people be educated on things that have happened already to know enough?

I imagine this same person would have been on the radio in 1946 saying""Well there were some good things that came out of the concentration camps..."


Retrospective revisionism is the ultimate cop out. You get to act like you care and profess to change the future going forward when you aren't actually doing anything. It didn't happen to you. You aren't actively working with any groups to prevent it in the future and will likely be back on the radio talking about the same topic when it happens again.

To the second, if it's always going to happen, then what do we need to raise awareness about? If it's always going to happen and there's nothing you can do about it, then it's a fait accompli and you shouldn't be on the radio acting like there is.

Speaking of raising awareness. Let's talk about the Susan G. Komen Three day cancer walk.
These walks have been going on for 25 years and yet, and yet they do nothing. They perpetuate a monetary cycle to provide people with jobs. They generate publicity for the foundation but not the disease. People with cancer are still dying. You want to raise awareness that yes Cancer is a disease. Yes we know it's a disease. Next point. Well, we are raising money to find a cure for Cancer. OK, you have had 25 years of raising money to find a cure for cancer and nothing has happened. Still no cure for cancer. People are still dying of cancer. Provide me some statistical proof that the money being raised is actually helping to stop the spread of cancer. What I see is money going to reactive procedures that don't address the central point - Stopping the disease permanently. Because then they would be out of a job. Where does the money go? Screening to see if you might have it. Not stopping the disease. Treatment of someone who has the disease. Again reactive. Not stopping it from happening in the first place. Education about the disease. So you want to raise money to tell people about something they could learn on their own from the library or Internet or any other source?

Polio was cured. Typhoid pretty much wiped out. Take the hype and publicity and amount of money spent on the walks and send 100% of it to research. Do that for two years and see if that gets you closer to a cure for Cancer. Because that is the ultimate goal, right? Right?

Country radio

As you drive around this country, the voices blend and merge and separate and dissolve. AM radio or FM or satellite. Nothing comes free like advertised. Everything with a price as it should be. Riding along with my Grandfather when I was 2 in his 1958 Ford skyliner was a thrill. Riding along with my grandma's sister when she was 71 and out of her mind with alzheimer's, eh not so good.

The urge to merge into a life of devotion is haunting me. It's calling out to me and I don't know how to reply. Should I answer and see what the questions are? Should I even let them know I'm in the room to answer the door? What door?

2nd lives are just that. 2nd lives that have little comparison to the first. Johnny Unitas in a San Diego uni. Joe Montana in Kansas City. Laurence Harvery in Night Gallery. Hell Rod Serling in Night Gallery. Paul McCartney in Wings. Eric Clapton as a soloist. You remember the first with fondness and wistfulness, the second barely registers, but flickers in the brain. Tony Dorsett in Denver. Michael Jordan in a Wizards uni. Franco Harris in a a Seahawk uni. Grover Cleaveland. On this one, I am inclined to say second time, better. Quite simply: Utah and Mormonism.

10 March 2009

Conspiracy theory 1 - A-rod's 'surgery' is just an excuse to get out of the WBC, defuse the steroid controversy by not being available. Bet is that he will magically be healed well ahead of schedule and back at full strength by before 1 May. And really, steriods were only part of it. The other part are the numerous lies told after the fact. Co-conspirators? ESPN of course. MLB. Bud Selig. Hospital who performed the 'surgery'. Ken Rosenthal.

Sports talk radio sucks. Inevitable transformation from unique perspective offering illumination to corporate driven hucksterism. Studio hosts who are toadies for the teams who have teams on their stations makes me ill. In Chicago, there is originally left only in the voices of those who have no regular gig. Weekend hosts with nothing to lose. Nationally, at the top is Todd Wright, Winner Winner Chicken Dinner with David Stein. Jay Marvin. The late Bob Lassiter was in a class by himself. Art Bell. Phil Hendrie is in the picture and so is Tom Leykis. Unrepentent opinionators.

Ran into an old friend the other day on the El. She was with her boyfriend but stopped to talk long enough to catch up. Hate in-depth conversations on the train. Hate cell phone conversations on the train and refuse to answer mine. And what she said. And what she said was that life in her world wasn't the best. Wasn't even close to where she wanted it to be. She wasn't with the people she liked. Wasn't having fun. Wasn't at the job she wanted to be at and wasn't in the city she expected to live in for the rest of her life. But why then? It's safe. It's comfortable I guess, she said. I know I can look anytime I want, but I don't have to. 5 years down the road will we be together? No. Not likely. 10 years down the road? Maybe we'll get back together. I'll be close to 50 by then and it will feel right. But right now it doesn't. Nothing feels right except anger and bitterness. And it all leads to ennui. Call me ok? You have my number, right?

And off she went. Holding hands with her boyfriend as they walked down the platform in the cold snowy/rainy day/night of the Northside.