Eight years ago, I wrote in this space that I possessed one of the few non-photo driver’s licenses left in America.  I finally submitted to the tyranny of the camera when I renewed my license in 2009.  Between frequent flying and DC bar-hopping it was just too much of a hassle to remember to always bring my passport.

Later, Charlie and I talked about how reflexive and normal the reach for ID has become.  It used to irritate me (as many things do) and tempted as I was to engage pointless, philosophical discussions with bouncers (“Really?  What’s the likelihood I’m under 21?”) I knew they were trying to hang onto not-very-remunerative jobs in a tough economy (and they were, after all, bouncers).

Here in Vermont, electric utilities are installing smart meters on houses – a good thing for efficient use of electricity and a necessary tool in the fight to slow global warming – but the state chapter of the ACLU has very real concerns about privacy and wants law enforcement to be required to obtain a search warrant before gaining access to someone’s smart meter data.

Well, what’s a little more personal data out there anyway?  Since September 2001, governments at all levels, the private corporations that work fore them, and many that don’t, have collected an enormous amount of information about us all.  George W. Bush led the initial assault on our civil liberties; Barack Obama promised to rein it in, but has actually accelerated it in some ways.

Well, what’s the problem with a middle-aged guy having to show his photo ID before entering a bar or letting cops peep at his electrons?  I neither drink nor grow pot in my basement (or anywhere else, for that matter).  The problem is we are all getting too used to being good sheep, showing IDs, taking off our shoes at airports, surrendering our data to anyone who asks.  (Or doesn’t ask.  See any facebook page.)

This week the Center for Constitutional Rights is suing New York City over the police department’s “stop and frisk” program.  Initiated under Rudy Guiliani in the ‘90s, the program has exploded under Michael Bloomberg and Police Chief Ray Kelly (who is said to have mayoral aspirations).  This year, the program is on track to harass 750,000 citizens, 85 percent of who will be black or Latino, even though those groups comprise only half the city’s population.

Isn’t it a small price to pay for safer streets?  No, it’s not.  In the first place, there’s no evidence that turning the NYPD into a thug squad has done anything to bring down the crime rate, since NYC’s crime rate has risen and fallen along the same lines as cities that don’t grab people on the sidewalk (or in the halls of the buildings where they live) and shake them down.

More important, it’s better to fear criminals than cops.  Even if stop and frisk made streets safer, it wouldn’t be worth it.  Singapore’s safe, but I don’t want to live there, not Riyadh, Pyongyang nor Tehran.  It was safe to walk the streets of Munich in 1938, unless you were Jewish, Roma or a member of other discriminated groups.  Is that an unfair comparison?  I don’t think so.  Just like New York today, members of demographic minorities were targeted for the majority of police harassment. What began with aggressive policing ended in a much uglier place.  If we don’t draw a line here, then where?  When? And if we don’t draw a line now, will be still have the capacity to do so later?

The same week the NYC gets sued for profiling racial minorities, the census bureau announces white babies now make up a minority of US births.  Do you think there’s a connection?  Does it seem to you that the white folks might be getting nervous?  It does to me.

© Mark Floegel, 2012

While I have not conducted systematic research, I feel safe in saying Mr. Scully’s is one of the few statements on marriage in today’s news that is not a reaction to President Barack Obama’s endorsement of same sex marriage yesterday.

Mr. Obama’s outing (so to speak) on this issue was forced by Vice President Joe Biden’s remark Sunday that he feels comfortable with same sex marriage.  Some people called it another Joe Biden gaffe, some said it was a tactical move, who knows?  Who cares?  The point is that it’s long overdue for the president to stand up and say the right thing.

Civil unions were legalized in Vermont in 2000.  It was forced on the legislature by the Vermont Supreme Court; there was huge hue and cry, anti-abortion activist Randall Terry showed up in a full-length fur cot and predicted the end of civilization.  Then- Governor Howard Dean signed the bill into law behind closed doors and allowed no photos to be taken of the historic event.  Bet he’s screaming at himself now.

Then: Nothing bad happened.  Many good things happened.  Vermont society did not fall apart, people’s marriages did not fall apart.  Children did not turn to lives of crime (at least, not in any greater numbers than usual).

Like Vin Scully, I have overwhelming respect for the sanctity of marriage.  It’s a sacred institution and I hope those engaged in it treat it with the reverence it deserves.  I don’t see where gender enters into all this.  Adrienne and I are still married; our marriage is better than ever, we’ve been to same sex weddings, those people are all still married.  (It is not easier to buy wedding presents for same sex couples than different sex couples.  Nor is it harder.)

Look, I’m divorced.  Adrienne is divorced.  Our first marriages didn’t work out.  (George W. Bush would probably say, “When they were young and foolish, they behaved in ways that were young and foolish.”)  Getting divorced from the wrong person and finding the right person was the best thing we could have done for the institution of marriage.  Our exes have remarried and I hope everyone is happier than ever.  None of this took place during the time period when men could marry men and women could marry women, so don’t blame them.

Mitt Romney calls Mr. Obama a flip flopper on same sex marriage.  He’s absolutely right.  Mr. Obama was in favor of it when he ran for the US Senate in ’96, then we was against it when he ran for president and now he’s for it again.  This time, I think it will stick.

Tuesday, voters in North Carolina voted – by a clear margin – to adopt an amendment to the state constitution defining marriage as between one man and one woman.  This will not last long.  For one thing, it’s unconstitutional (14th amendment).  I know, I know, the Supreme Court as it is now constituted will not find the North Carolina amendment unconstitutional, as a majority of that court is incapable of finding a light switch in a dark room, but they are old men and soon will pass from the Earth.  I think that long before the North Carolina amendment can be litigated up the chain of courts, the voters themselves will remove it.

Easy for me to say and hard to bear for those of my fellow citizens in most states in this country who, nearly 236 years after our Declaration of Independence, are still waiting to be treated as equals.

© Mark Floegel, 2012

The wind was up as the front moved in, the light through the clouds held a blue tint and worried though I was, I had to admit a certain exhilaration.  The loose ends of the shower curtains (we use retired shower curtains for drop cloths, etc.) flapped furiously as I ran up and down the stepladder with a Barlow knife and bits of twine.  I worried my knots would prove ineffectual; that I’d wake in the night to see the arbor fluttering like a banshee and I’d have to resign my seat in the Greenpeace Knot-Tyers Club.

The knots held, the freeze passed us by, all the plants seem to have survived and while I’m still trying to hold to my weather observing resolution, I have to admit global warming has hopelessly intruded upon it and may never be ejected.

How is cold weather a symptom of global warming?  Short answer: it’s not.  Every Vermont gardener knows frosts and freezes are likely all the way through Memorial Day, which is why no one puts their tomatoes in before that holiday.

On the other (and more pertinent) hand, the real reason for the Frenetic Friday Floral Festival was that temperatures in March and April were so far above normal that blossoms are well ahead of schedule.  The forsythia bloomed for more than four weeks this year and even overlapped with the lilacs, something I’ve never witnessed.  They’re usually five or six weeks apart.

Because we’re the good guys in the global warming debate (falling over ourselves to “not be alarmist”), let us feel compelled to add this disclaimer: “This particular event cannot be directly attributed to global warming, although based on computer models, this is the kind of event we should expect to see more frequently.”  I’m sure that phrase (or one like it) will be invoked a record number of times this year.  I’d like to see a graph of the frequency of that phrase’s appearance in the media and political discourse in the past decade.  I imagine it would look like a hockey stick.

On Saturday, I cut the grass, the first time I’ve ever done it in April.  It was overdue, if anything (see disclaimer above).  It was chilly, but not too chilly if one was sheltered from the wind.  I worry about the bees.  This spring has been hard on them.

Some scientists predict that sometime this month, the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide will top 400 parts per million for the first time in human history.  Not that it will stay there.  Although CO2 is steadily on the rise, it’s not constant.  The last two weeks of May tend to be the CO2 high point for the year, because 1) most of Earth’s land mass is north of the equator 2) the snows in the northern hemisphere have greatly receded, allowing last year’s dead leaves to begin decaying in earnest and 3) this year’s new leaves have yet to reach potential in terms of CO2 absorption.

Even though the number will hit 400 and dip again, soon after it will pass 400 ppm and we will never see the 300s again in our lives.  If we fail to take significant action, neither will our kids or grandchildren and they will not thank us.

Since May is also the month in which I was born (thus adding even more atmospheric CO2), I thought I’d chart my history with this particular gas.  There was an atmospheric concentration of 320 ppm CO2 when I was born.  It hit 330 when I was 13, 340 when I was 19 (those big ‘70s gas guzzlers), 350 when I was 26 (and abandoning journalism for environmentalism), 360 when I was 34, 370 when I was 39, 380 when I was 44 and 390 when I was 48.  The intervening years, therefore, are 13, six, seven, eight, five, five, five and three.

© Mark Floegel, 2012

Let me be clear up front, I’m wondering about demographics, not individuals.  (“Is Newt Gingrich peeing right now?  Is Callista?”  That’s just sick.)  I apologize (really!) if that image is now stuck in your head and I further apologize for all the numbers I’m about to throw at you, but demographics is number intensive and again, think of the alternative.

WikiAnswers says the average daily urine output is 1.5 liters (or about 49.8 ounces).  For simplicity sake, let’s say the average person evacuates her or his bladder four times a day for 30 seconds each, making equal contributions of 11.8 ounces per visit to the WC.

Since WikiAnswers did so well on the urine question, we’ll take its word that global population is 7.009 billion people or seven billion to make it easy on ourselves.

Now we’re down to simple arithmetic.  Seven billion, divided by 2,880 (the number of 30-second intervals in a 24-hour day) means that there are 9,722,222 people (or thereabouts) peeing at any given time.

This leads to what I really think about during my morning pee.  What volume of urine is flowing onto various parts of the Earth and its waterways at any given moment?  How deep and wide is Urine River, which flows night and day?  If each of those 9.7 million people is releasing 11.8 ounces, that equals 114,722,219 ounces or 896,267 gallons of urine flowing at once.  Double that and we get 1,792,534 gallons per minute of global urine.  In one 24-hour period, it amounts to 396,093,750 gallons.  That’s a lot of pee.

I started punching some of these numbers into Google, just to see what would come up.  (I make no claims for the validity of these statistics.)  Go ahead, find some of your own.

If it were water, it would be enough to cool a nuclear reactor.  Apparently the Diablo Canyon (CA) and Indian Point (NY) nuclear reactors, both take in and discharge water at the rate of 1.7 million gallons per minute, although it’s cooler than pee when it arrives and is warmer than pee when it leaves.

It is alleged on one page that in 2005, US consumption of gasoline was 396 million gallons per day (almost 10 million barrels, which may be off, but seems to be in the right ballpark).  If only pee were gas…

The Florida Current, which seems to be a page devoted to some state policy issues, says six utilities in Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties discharged 396 million gallons of wastewater each day in 2005.  (What is it about that year?)

I did not have an agenda when I started to write about pee (I still don’t).  I merely decided to take my morning meditation further for once and see where it led, which was to nuclear power plants, gasoline and wastewater.  That’s the problem (or one of them) with my profession.  I can never escape it, it seems.

The larger and more haunting theme here seems to be the staggering number of people on the planet and the impact we have on it, even with our most unavoidable secretions.  (Don’t get squeamish, I’m not going to take this to its next logical step.)

Which is more disturbing, runaway population growth (an ever-rising river of pee one-fourth the size of the Mississippi – for now) or the fact that treatment works in just three Florida counties equals the urine burden of the whole planet?

© Mark Floegel, 2012

That’s a half million dollars Americans had to give the government whether they wanted to or not (or at least working and middle class Americans, rich folks seem to have an “or not” clause in the tax code).  That’s the reason for all the indignation.  I think of myself as a cheerful taxpayer; I’m happy to chip in for all those things that we need to share in common.  My own vacations are pretty modest and I don’t want to be forced to send the people who work for me to resorts I can’t afford to visit myself.

At the same time, I don’t need to see a bunch of hearings with Congressmen (who are themselves overpaid and coddled) bloviating at GSA bureaucrats.  That doesn’t make me feel better.  Getting the money back, that’s what’ll make me feel better.  Accountability. Take the top ten people at GSA and charge them $523,000, divide it up however you like.

Can’t do it?  Why not?  You’re Congress or the White House or both.  Write a regulation, put it in the civil service manual, take ‘em to court.  Spending another two million on hearings so politicians with bad comb-overs can posture about excess spending doesn’t help at all.

If Barack Obama or Mitt Romney want a plank to run on, accountability is a good place to start.  Hey, Secret Service agents and Special Forces personnel – you wanna party with whores in Colombia?  You now owe the American people your plane fare, food and lodging expenses and any other additional costs to replace your sorry asses on the mission you just bungled so horribly.  Oh, and please pay your prostitute.  And you’re fired.  What is this “allowed to retire” crap, anyhow?  Allowed to retire on a government pension and then go work for corporate America at twice the salary (and twice the whores) as before?  That’s not accountability we can believe in.

(Let me just say as an aside that I have dealt with the Secret Service, both uniform and plain clothes, active duty and retired and I can say without fear of contradiction that it is entirely in character for them to be the kind of guys to a) solicit prostitutes for sex, b) take them back to a hotel riddled with – d’oh! -security cameras and c) try to cheap out on the price the next morning.  Clint Eastwood, these guys ain’t.)

But I digress. The point is accountability and it should cover the federal (and state and local) government like the dew on a spring morning.  In Afghanistan, we’re apologizing (again) because our troops took frat house photos with body parts.  This after we apologized for burning Korans and that followed the apology for videos of troops pissing on dead people.  Combine stuff like that with kicking in doors in the middle of the night and somehow people will just not want you in their country.

Two years ago tomorrow, the biggest oil spill in US history erupted in the Gulf of Mexico, just weeks after President Obama gave a speech saying those things don’t happen anymore.  Yesterday, that same president’s blue-ribbon commission on the spill blasted Congress for failing to pass laws that might prevent a repeat, while at the same time the administration has granted permission for another giant oil company to drill in the Arctic Ocean, where the Coast Guard says it has no way of responding to, much less cleaning, an oil spill.

This is all from one week.  Four serious incidents, all stemming from the fact that our federal government consistently fails to hold anyone accountable.  No wonder we’re frustrated.

© Mark Floegel, 2012

I rarely speak to strangers on airplanes, so elaborate avoidance schemes are unnecessary, but invariably the person who sits next to me stows his or her carry-on, fastens her or his seatbelt and pulls out his or her smart phone and begins scrolling through her or his email.

Really?  Email?  At 5:40 a.m.?  From whom, the Union Bank of Switzerland?  Not only that, but guess what?  I’ve got a smart phone, too, so even from the next seat I can tell that you’re not looking at new email, but just shuffling through crap you’ve already read.

I already had my book out and after the perfunctory nod to make sure you saw that I wasn’t sitting on your seat belt, I was already (for the most part) ignoring you.  In fact, the only reason I pay these people any attention at all is because I couldn’t help noticing these bizarre, pointless smart phone ceremonies and now I keep stealing glances out of pure bafflement.

What, no book, newspaper, People magazine, even?  Do you need me, a stranger to think you’re so busy and important that you’ve got to dash off two more quick mails before the cabin door closes?  (Paris: sell!  London: buy!)  Too soon to grab the Sky Mall catalogue?  Go ahead, browse, I won’t think less of you (or at least no less than I do for your phony – no pun intended – scrolling).  Whatever happened to sitting quietly with one’s hands folded?  Are we so uncomfortable with our own thoughts?

A few years ago, in the breakfast room at a hotel, a women’s college athletic team was at the next table and as the young women set their dishes down, they all bowed their heads and brought their hands together.  I thought they were saying grace, but it went on for so long.  Then I realized they were all texting.

Yes, I have a smart phone.  An iPhone, even.  I was making do with a fairly utilitarian Blackberry Pearl until I inadvertently put it in the laundry on New Year’s Eve.  I admit to taking photos, having some music on there, surfing the web and checking my email, but I try not to be neurotic or obnoxious about it.  I have not loaded the phone up with apps and am resisting the impulse to do so.  I’m firm in my belief that we have to control the machines, not the other way around.

I was on jury duty this week and was planning to build a post around that experience, but my service was so brief and inconsequential that such a post would be even more pointless than this one (and that’s going some).  The only things worth reporting are that the non-public hallway of the Chittenden County Superior Court (where the judges have their chambers) mysteriously smells of frankincense and that smart phones are the new cigarette.

Well back in the last century, when I was newspaper reporter working the courthouse, I used to sit in the hallway with the bailiffs, waiting for juries to return their verdicts and we’d pass the time smoking.  Now, during the many fallow moments that are the hallmark of the judicial system, everyone reflexively whips out their smart phone and texts or surfs or plays a video game.

Last week, Google introduced their augmented reality glasses.  At first I thought, “That stuff’s years away, I’ll never go for it.”  Then I remembered how recently it seemed that my early adopter friend Matt pulled out his “personal digital assistant” and started writing on it with a contrived stylus that I was sure he’d lose.  He did lose it, but not the way I thought and, as I said, now I have one too.

© Mark Floegel, 2012

If, as oil companies, Republican senators and presidential candidates claim, global warming is nothing more than a hoax dreamed up by environmentalists to raise money, it’s one hell of a hoax.  On the radio yesterday, the announcer said we were having yet another “red flag day,” meaning that the threat of brush or forest fire was high.  I first heard a red flag warning on March 23.  Late winter and early spring in Vermont are supposed to be exemplified by mud, not fire, but “new normal” are the words on everyone’s lips.  (I really didn’t want this resolution series to be all about global warming either, but these circumstances are beyond my control.)

The winter of 2012 was dry, with neither much snow nor rain falling.  Global warming models call for the northeast to get wetter overall, but also call for precipitation to fall in short, intense bursts, as we saw late last summer with Hurricane Irene.  The US Geological Survey maintains a web site that records the water level in Lake Champlain and because I have a mild case of obsessive-compulsive disorder, I check the lake level every morning.  In March, that level dipped below average for the first time in four and a half years.

The maple syrup season was a bust.  Sugar maples produce sweet sap when temperatures are in the 20s at night and 40s during the day.  The season kicked off early and ended even earlier when warm nights caused the sap to turn “buddy” – or bitter.  Southern Vermont sugarmakers (as they’re known) got about two-thirds of an average crop, northern Vermonters about one-third.  If you like syrup, buy it now, because the price will go up.

Bees in Vermont were doing well through the mild winter, but the warm spell caused them to break the clusters they form to stay warm in the winter.  When the cold returned, many likely did not re-cluster and froze or started using up honey stores at an accelerated rate, trying to stay warm.  Many trees and shrubs budded and then got caught when the cold weather returned.  It’s too early to tell what effect this will have on the apple crop.

I’ll admit I enjoyed the warmth, sort of, walking around in a t-shirt and shorts, sitting on the front porch of an evening, swatting the March mosquitoes.

On March 20, PBS’s news hour broadcast a report on two Texas towns running out of water.  The town of Robert Lee now has to have its water trucked in and is building a million and a half-dollar pipeline to a nearby town, but how long before that town runs dry is a question.  It’s a sobering story, and features Professor Katherine Hayhoe of Texas Tech, who wrote a chapter on global warming for a book by Newt Gingrich, but that chapter was deleted after Rush Limbaugh mocked it.  So that’s the level of seriousness we accord this problem.

In the middle of this, the phrase “instant, endless summer” kept sounding in my head.  I remembered I’d used it as a title for an earlier commentary, but I couldn’t recall exactly when.  I checked; the year was 1998 and the date was May 21, so in 14 years, I’ve moved up by two months.  Put that in your igloo, Jim.

© Mark Floegel, 2012

Final NCAA update: I was 36 of 61 for the whole tournament and picked Kentucky to win the final.  A teenaged girl of my close acquaintance, however, picked 39 of 61, so move over, old people.

I’ll give you an example.  The other day, remembering my youth, I realized synagogues – Temple Beth David and Temple Emanu-El – stood on two of the four corners of an intersection a few blocks from my house.  This is neither remarkable nor ironic, unless you know that the intersection at which these houses of worship stood is of Titus Avenue and St. Paul Boulevard.

To me, a Catholic, this meant nothing for 50 years.  Had I been raised Jewish, I would have learned early that Titus was the Roman general (later emperor) who destroyed the Temple in Jerusalem, slaughtered thousands of Jews and dispersed the nation of Israel.  There are few villains in Jewish history more cruel than Titus.

St. Paul, on the other hand, was Jewish, but he was also the person who converted Christianity from a Jewish sect to one open to – and quickly dominated by – Gentiles, who then turned the church into an agency of anti-Semitism.

How must an observant Jew have felt in those years, coming to Sabbath services, standing at the corner of Titus and St. Paul, waiting for the light to change?  I hope she or he felt like the presence of the synagogues – Beth David conservative, Emanu-El reformed – at that particular intersection was a triumph of faith over oppression.  That’s what I hope; it’s more likely my fellow citizens just sighed, thinking that not only were they insulted by the Gentiles’ choice of street names, the Gentiles were not even aware enough to understand they were being insulting.

Eventually, Temple Beth David moved a few blocks north to a new facility and the old building sat vacant for several years.  In June of 1972, under the cover of Hurricane Agnes, I broke in with a few older boys.  We were motivated by curiosity rather than criminal intent.  We made several forays into the building over the course of a few weeks, wandered around, listened to the echoes of our voices in the vacant sanctuary, looked at the maps of Israel on the walls of the classrooms.  (They were probably left behind because the temple moved around the time of the 1967 war.)  We startled pigeons that roosted in the upper floor and had gained access through a roof door that no longer closed.  (The pigeons startled us too, initially causing us to flee down a stairwell until we realized what that loud flapping noise was.)  We stood on the roof and peeked over the edge at traffic in that intersection, the significance of whose names would remain meaningless to me for another 40 years.

This train of thought was inspired by a comment I heard on the radio: Trayvon Martin was shot because he “fit the profile.”  He was young and black and wore a hoodie (in the rain, no less – why would he not pull his hood up?).  Young black men who fit the profile in America are halfway to trouble as soon as they step outside.

I was only 11 when I was breaking and entering (let’s call it what it was) at the abandoned synagogue.  Through the remainder of the 1970s, I too fit a profile: a young white man who was simultaneously up to no good and up to no evil, either.  Not a bad kid, but pushing limits and seeing what I could get away with.  Just a teenaged knucklehead, but because I was white, I was halfway exonerated as soon as I stepped outside.

The police never busted us for the Beth David caper, but there were times when my friends and I were accosted by local law enforcement.  The cops told us to knock it off, behave, go home, stop acting like jerks.  In that time and place, if a white police officer wanted to send a white kid a message, he took your name and wrote it on the inside cover of his notebook.  Legally meaningless, it meant, “I’m keeping my eye on you.”  I don’t know what he did to send a message to a black kid, but it probably wasn’t the same.

Sure, they were cops and we took pains to act respectfully and did not mess with them, but at the same time, we knew police did not present serious trouble or danger. One of the cops was, after all, a customer on my newspaper route.  It was closer to Officer Krupke than George Zimmerman, because we were all – wink, wink – white.

Thing is, we didn’t know we were white or we assumed our experience was universal or we just didn’t care if we got off easy and black kids got hassled for no reason.  Our clan was OK and that’s as far as our concern carried us.  Just as it did not occur to me for decades that Titus and St. Paul is an ironic intersection for two synagogues, it often does not occur to many members of white society that young black men with hoodies are usually just teenagers, going to the store for a bag of candy for their little brother.

© Mark Floegel, 2012

The first concerns two life sentences assigned to Deryl Dedmon, a slight, blue-eyed, blond-haired lad of 19, who last year took part in the random and vicious beating of James Craig Anderson in Jackson Mississippi, then deliberately ran Mr. Anderson over with a truck, killing him.  Then he got on his cell phone and called his friends to laugh and brag about what he’d done.  You can see the murder on video, if you have the stomach for it.

The family of Mr. Anderson – by all accounts a kind man and pillar of his community – asked the judge in the case to spare Dedmon from a death sentence and asked the community to pray for reconciliation.

CNN reports that Dedmon’s attorney, in a bail hearing last year, “told the court he saw nothing to back up the ‘racial allegations.’”  There are none so blind as those who will not see, as reporters easily found any number of people who described as Dedmon as a racist thug for years before the incident.

Dedmon – of course – found religion prior to his sentencing hearing and made much of his conversion for the judge.  The judge was unimpressed and called Dedmon’s act a “stain” on the state of Mississippi that will take years to fade.  An understatement, if anything.  Now Dedmon will spend his life in prison, likely consorting with racists, in part to protect his skinny, pretty self and in part because they will laud him for his hate crime.

Another CNN report quotes the assistant police chief in Dedmon’s hometown saying the whole incident was blown out of proportion by the media. The dumbass, racist Southern cop is as much of an inaccurate stereotype as the hateful images Deryl Dedmon carried in his head, but Assistant Chief Chris Butts isn’t helping things.  He’s not even smart enough to shut up.

The police department in Sanford, Florida isn’t helping its own case, either.  As you ought to know – unless you too are trapped in a stereotype – this is the department that has yet to arrest self-appointed vigilante George Zimmerman after he gunned down 17-year-old candy purchaser Trayvon Martin almost a month ago.  Zimmerman is white; Trayvon was black.  Do I need to mention that or did you guess from the last sentence but one?

According to a letter penned Sanford’s City Manager Norton Bonaparte, Police Chief Bill Lee could not arrest Zimmerman.  “Mr. Zimmerman provided a statement claiming he acted in self defense which at the time was supported by physical evidence and testimony,” Bonaparte wrote.  “By Florida Statute, law enforcement was PROHIBITED from making an arrest based on the facts and circumstances they had at the time.”

Thanks for the capital letters, Norton.  Makes it easier to read.  Next time I kill someone in Florida, I’ll know what to say.  I guess cops believe anything from the mouth of a white guy holding a still-smoking pistol.

What do you think that bit about “at the time” means?  They know better now?  Guess not, as Zimmerman has yet to be arrested or charged.  Here are some other things the Sanford police don’t know.  They don’t know if Zimmerman was drunk or high on drugs when he took Trayvon Martin’s life.  They tested Trayvon’s body for drugs and alcohol (it was clean) but not the man who killed him.  Funny that.  They also didn’t bother to check to see that Trayvon was on his cell phone just before he died.  A good cop – even a piss-poor cop – might want to find out whom Trayvon was talking to when he was killed and see what that person had to say.  The media reports that Trayvon was speaking with a young woman who said he was scared for his life from Zimmerman.

Witnesses to the shooting said they heard Trayvon call for help, only to have Sanford cops “correct” them and say it was Zimmerman calling for help.  Who you gonna believe, your lying ears or Sanford’s finest?

Oh, and the Sanford PD seems to have missed Zimmerman using a racial slur when he called 911 to report Trayvon as a suspicious person.  To his credit, the dispatcher who took the call told Zimmerman to stop following Trayvon, an order he ignored and proceeded to shoot the youth.  What do you think happens to black men in Florida who disobey direct orders from the police?  Do you think police are PROHIBITED from arresting them?

Wow, that’s five basic things the Sanford PD failed to do.  I say fire ‘em all, including Mr. Bonaparte, who should be sent to an island in the South Atlantic.  And take Chris Butts with you.

© Mark Floegel, 2012

* Although it now seems trivial, I promised last week to let you know how I’m doing in the NCAA tournament.  I’m 28 for 48 and it doesn’t seem trivial.  It is trivial.

Less than a week until the end of winter and it’s warm and sunny, supposed to approach 80 degrees here this weekend, but no sermon on fossil fuels and carbon dioxide equivalents (for now).

No, today is also the beginning of (the second round of) the 2012 NCAA basketball tournament.  I’ve got my computer set up so I can check scores this afternoon during the monthly staff meeting.  (I have the NY Times crossword handy too, just in case.)

I’m not a huge follower of college basketball, but I participate in this pool every year, because it’s only five dollars, because I like the challenge of, essentially, trying to pass a test for which I have not studied and because it gives me something to do during at least one staff meeting a year.

Another reason is because my neighbor Margaret is one of the few people in our neighborhood who has cable tee vee.  I know this flies in the face of most American neighborhoods and certainly displeases a teenager of my significant acquaintance, but the point is that Margaret generously allows the whole horde to trample through her sitting room for the Super Bowl, World Series, US Open, NCAAs, Oscars, Emmys, etc. etc. (Not that everyone views everything.)  The local version of the tourney is called “Marg’s Madness.”

Every year at this specific time, I’m struck by the baseless feeling of confidence I have once I’ve made my bracket choices.  I do a bit of homework, Googling search terms like “upset,” but mostly I make uneducated guesses.  (I’m absolutely heartless about this.  I even picked my alma mater to lose its first game.)  Once this is done, I start to wonder how often someone has predicted a perfect bracket, the idea being that I’ve just managed to do just that.

The operative word in the paragraph above is “baseless.”  This is what sells lottery tickets.  I think evolutionary biologists need to get busy figuring out what biochemical my body secretes (endorphins, serotonin?) that make me think – against all available evidence – that I will win this year’s office pool.  (There were a few years in the early ‘90s when I would consistently finish second to rabid hoops fan and seasoned prognosticator Venola Johnson, but have I ever won the whole thing?  No.)

Let me give you an example.  This year’s pool covers 64 teams and excludes the eight-team “play-ins” that preceded the start of today’s action.  Just for fun and to help determine which teams I’d pick in the round of 64, I picked all four games, three of them incorrectly.

Am I discouraged?  Hell no.  As I see it, I’m bound to make some bad calls; I really don’t expect to pick a perfect bracket nor do I need to take first place in the office pool.  By making three bad calls of four in the play-ins, I’m using up my bad calls on games that don’t count.

Does that make sense?  Not a bit.  Do I still feel unjustifiably confident?  You bet (or more accurately, I bet).

(n.b. – As I post – or post up – I’ve got two wins and one lead under my belt, but Montana better get their act together.  Update next week.)

© Mark Floegel, 2012