Severe scolding for cops parents citizens officials

Here is another example of how the freak show society of the past twenty to thirty years has totally missed investing in the good, and has instead invested in the bad.

Several days ago, in a town not too far from where I now reside, a star senior year high school football player died in the doorway of his car, of a shot from his own hunting shot gun. He had been pulled over by a policeman in a patrol car, and according to events as they have been reported thus far, the police officer was in his or her car running on his computer a check of the car he had just pulled over. Therefore, we are given to understand, the officer did not see what happened until he or she heard the gun shot and found the young man dead under the gun. These circumstances suggest either suicide, which the family finds painfully difficult to believe, obviously, or an accident. The young man was apparently an avid hunter, owned the shotgun and carried it in his car, often went hunting before school classes each day, and apparently had been hunting that day. The local police have kept a distance from the family, including when they first heard the young man had been shot, and have turned the investigation of what happened over to the state police. Now, here is my point.

None of this would be as mysterious and painful if the police car had a forward pointing dash board camera that records all events that take place in front of the police car, and thus in the direction of the action whenever the police car pulls another car over. These cameras have a proven track record of protecting via recording the truth of events both the police and the general public.

I am astonished that every police car in the country that is involved in patrol does not have one of these cameras already and, in fact, should have had those years ago. But no, what has society invested in? It seems every teenager, rich or poor, has cell phone cameras so that they can take naked pictures of themselves and their neighbors, plus lead lives of cyborgs and robots by constantly “texting” their friends. The same towns, cities and rural areas that fill the hands of their children with cell phone cameras somehow didn’t think of outfitting law enforcement cars with cameras to protect both the honest police and the public from the dishonest police. How much more stupid can this society get?

This is hardly surprising when one considers the geniuses who designed the American space vehicle known as the space shuttle. Billions have been poured into that vehicle, and for decades it flew without any of the engineering geniuses ever planning for cameras to monitor and inspect the accident prone and vulnerable exterior. They probably have cameras filming the astronauts take a crap, but it never occurred to them to have exterior cameras to ensure the integrity of the outer skin surface of the vehicle until, you guessed, not one but two space shuttles were destroyed and their crews killed, due to ignorance of routine launch damage to the craft’s tiles from striking debris. Wow, suddenly the geniuses decide to put cameras on the shuttle (and repair kits), only after a generation of children have already had "cams" and on line cameras on their computers so they can transmit every word of wisdom and sex act to their friends on the Internet.

I cannot understand a society that invests in the “new, hot technology” to loosen morals of their children (such as they are) and distract them from being children (you know, studying) yet is too plain ignorant to first outfit the adults in services, such as law enforcement, with dashboard cameras. Ironically employers have already leaped to record for “safety” purposes just about every move that employees make on company premises, but the police do not all have dashboard cameras and the adult public has not insisted on it? Then again, this is a society that did not really invest in bullet proof vests for police officers until Yoko Ono donated money for that cause after her husband John Lennon was killed. Where are the priorities? Where are the geniuses in this society? What do they do with themselves when they are not counting their piles of money, and donating to “good causes” like of course the “performing arts” or combating disease in foreign lands?

The family of the young man who died in this nearby town should never have had a moment of question about what happened because every patrol car, including the one in this tragic incident, should already have had a running and operating dashboard camera. There should be nothing hidden and unknown; it should all have been on a dashboard camera. It is a disgrace that there is even one police car without a dashboard camera in this country, to say nothing of the thousands that roam around, doing good and sometimes doing mischief, unmonitored. Everyone goes like morons to go see Batman drive his high technology bat mobile, but they are too foolish to insist that their local police have dashboard cameras in their not so glamorous but far more important and real cars.

And, by the way parents, I have some advice. There is no such thing as “privacy rights” for minors who live at home with you. If you can afford a car for your teenage child you have the right to insist on certain safety rules and you certainly should look into the dashboard cameras that are for monitoring teenage use of cars. If you think that in the good old days teenagers took off on the family horse to have “privacy” and “freedom” you are sadly delusional. In the good old days no child or teenager did anything without a bevy of adult chaperons and community extended family observing their every move, since children and teenagers simply do not have good judgment as yet. The same, by the way, applied to using the family sword or firearm. In the good old days teenagers did not go trucking around with the family gun, or worse, their own gun, without being with adults. Even if this young man was the most responsible gun owner in the world, look at what happened: an accident. Every parent who has a live at home teenager with a car should seriously consider installing monitoring devices to ensure mature and wise behavior. If your teenager objects they obviously have something to hide. Like I said, there is no such thing as “privacy rights” for minority children who lack the maturity to exercise such rights.

Just ask the many traumatized family members whose children have, through speed or inexperience, been killed driving their cars just to school, often loaded with family members such as sibling children or peer group friends. Teenagers have very poorly developed driving skills; it is just a fact of judgment and lack of months or years of experience. Monitoring ensures such basics as driving at the speed limit, and not “blowing away” stop signs and so forth. You are doing your child a favor, and yourself, if you not only teach but demand responsible behavior, and invest in tools to monitor his or her driving rather than paying for a car and a cell phone so they can film each other’s genitals and broadcast them on the Internet, and then speed to their next school event. I am sick and tired of seeing grieving parents, broken bodies of children and teenagers, and lawsuits and finger pointing when good and firm parenting, including understanding the mental and emotional limitations of minority children, including mature seeming teenagers, could have avoided much of this. “Why does God allow this to happen?” God wants everyone to be freaking mature and responsible people who invest in the good and not the bad. Lord Almighty, how moronic he thinks all of you are, when you ask him how he can “allow” such tragedy, but you pay for naked buttock picture taking by teenagers but not for safety features to monitor their use in their own cars and also in the patrol cars of those who are supposedly protecting the community. But then again, it took two space shuttles with their full crews to blow up and kill them all before the engineering geniuses thought of putting monitoring cameras on them, so I guess God is expecting too much of the “average Joe.”

Capitalism/financial crisis: Auto industry crisis

I agree that it is an essential component to have the continued existence and, hopefully, restored economic health of domestic auto manufacturers. Full disclosure: I drive a '97 Toyota RAV4 (the last time I was able to afford to buy a new car, since my Wall Street career cratered shortly after), BUT my stepfather was a loyal GM dealer mechanic, we remain loyal "Chevrolet" fans, and my first cars included Chevies.

For this quick installment on the financial crisis and the structure of true capitalism, I offer one suggestion to the domestic car manufacturers. I totally agree with Congress that you need to do some humble and visionary restructuring before asking for bailouts, which would be more good money after the bad, otherwise. No jobs get preserved long term if one is simply pursuing a failing strategy. That has been the fundamental problem for several decades now.

Having said that, and while I support fuel efficient and alternate fuel cars, a "worthy cause" should never be the only driver of one's consumer strategy. In other words, don't write a business plan just to appeal to theoretical "greens." You need to develop your business plan together with your hoped for future consumers directly, not "special interest" advocates, no matter how worthy may be their cause and their singular viewpoint. I have my Ivy League university Bachelor of Science in environmental sciences, and I can tell you, this generation of "greens" are terrible economists, business people or even intellectuals or visionaries. Thus they cannot represent your hoped for consumers.

Therefore I offer one suggestion (among many that I have up my sleeve, ha). One is to take a leaf from how the aircraft manufacturers plan product and book orders. One component of your new business plan should be to put a new emphasis on placing future orders for product with corporations, government entities, agencies, not for profits, and other organizations who might be interested in buying a fleet of cars. This would include companies who already have fleets, but also those who have not considered doing this. Here is where there is new opportunity. I think some major corporations should consider developing fleets of cars for business, not only to replace plane business travel, but as a job benefit in lieu of wage increases that may not be possible. For example, even minimum wage earners would experience a great increase in their personal prosperity if they had use of a company car. So I think you should develop that idea and pitch it to corporations, and then design or identify what of your product line would be ideal for that niche market of fleet purchaser, and then book future product orders. Having those product orders on your books, you then know how to retool and, obviously, you know what automotive product is most appealing to both existing and new market niches of customers.

(By the way, well paid talk show hosts driving your various expensive loaner cars and bragging about their relationship with you, while their listeners cannot afford your product, hardly enhances your marketability or your product appeal. In fact, I find that approach personally repugnant, listening each week to the talk radio hosts gloat about how you kiss their rear ends and loan them fancy cars to drive, while I pray that my '97 car lasts until I get my next substantial paycheck).

I've thought about this idea for quite a while and already know the usual objections, and I can assure you that there are very agreeable solutions to all of the likely objections. This approach would be something like win-win-win-win-win for producers-customers-workers-low wage earners-the stability and growth of the economy.

I hope that all of my readers find this modest suggestion useful!