Wear them.
And some interesting stats from Maine:
Medicaid paid out, on average, $24,500 for crash victims who were wearing their seat belts at the time of the incident. . . . The Medicaid payout for unbelted victims, meanwhile, was nearly triple that figure, or roughly $74,000 per patient, Steele said.
In an earlier review of Medicaid patients at EMHS, 10 of the 11 patients whose bills were in excess of $100,000 were not buckled up at the time of the accident.
Jean Marbella has a good column in the Sun regarding trial of two brothers accused of torching a pit bull in West Baltimore in 2009:
Somehow, I feel It’s come to this: The rest of us turn our backs on these neighborhoods, and the blue-light camera is the only one still looking.
…
No similar urgency for justice swells up around most crimes in Baltimore, the largely anonymous shootings and other mayhem that afflict some neighborhoods on a near-daily basis. The reason, some will say, is because Phoenix was totally innocent and so often the human victims aren’t.
I have no problem with innocent victims (people who don’t know the criminal and weren’t doing something criminal at the time) getting more sympathy than non-so-innocent victims. But I do find something slightly disturbing when people care more about animal suffering than human suffering. It’s all just a bit too precious for me.
Of course there are animals being hurt in this world right now. (It reminds me of some friends in Bali last year telling me, “Of course we kill and eat dogs–but only the bad ones.”) But to cry over animal suffering while ignoring human suffering? I don’t get it. Only one-in-twentyfelony prosecutions ends up in trial. I mean, of all the crimes in Baltimore, is this really a good use of limited resources? Right now this same courtroom would better be used to prosecute someone who has inflicted human cruelty.
My mom just got off of an L.A. jury. It happened to be the same courtroom as the OJ Simpson trial.
The accused was pulled over in South L.A. for a traffic violation and had an outstanding warrant (for what, naturally, she doesn’t know). Search incident to arrest found cocaine.
Seems open and shut… but not for a city jury. The vote was nine-to-three guilty and a hung jury.
Three of the 12 simply wouldn’t believe the police. My mom argued that (but didn’t tell them her son was a police officer). One said the guy was being picked on because he had cornrows.
I told my mom about jury nullification. She didn’t like the idea, even though she thinks that cocaine possession shouldn’t be a crime.
A bit sloppy, but the good guys won. You could also file this one under, “just another day at the office.”
Bank Robber Takes Hostage, Slips and Falls on Ice, then Shot and Killed by Police: MyFoxDC.com
“[Moskos’s] ego barely fits into the room.”
“His book which he wrote is not great at all, pretty boring, although he thinks its the best. He also has that ‘oh, look at me, I went to Harvard, I’m so great’ attitude at times.”
“Doesn’t really seem to connect with his students. I also found his way of lecturing rather disjointed.”
“For the graduate level, his teaching is Amateur. . . . Pointless.”
“He’s a liberal, its all the same poor me i;m blacka and under privlaged stuff.”
Those are some of the comments you can read about me at rateyourprofessor.com.
Students sometimes get asked if I read ratemyprofessor. Of course I do. But not too much. Still, I check every year or two because I want to know what other people can read about me. And if all the rankings were negative, then I would worry.
I do think the school’s student-written evaluations of teachers are valid and useful. Professors, myself included, can always improve listening to constructive criticism. And I take my teaching seriously; I enjoy teaching and I want to be good at it.
But it’s silly to get obsessed over website rankings because I have all of 19 comments on that website (and not onesays I’m hot). And I’ve taught over 800 students. As any social scientists knows, a 2-percent response rate is worthless. In many ways, it’s worse than worthless because people will draw false conclusions. Put another way, in hundreds of hours of classroom instruction: is that all you got?
Honestly, I’d be worried if none of my students didn’t hate me. As everybody knows, you can’t please all the people all the time. I’m happy to please most of my students most of the time.
What if the tables were turned? Honestly, I really like my students. All of them. Well, almost. But in seven years of teaching, I can only think of three students I did not like (And interestingly, all three were graduate students. One was emotionally unstable. And another later put me down as a reference, which was odd).
I want to look at the impact of cell phones of crime prevention. I can’t seem to make any progress getting such data from the NYPD. The San Diego paper has this story. Maybe I’d have better luck there. Besides San Diego has always been an interesting case vis-a-vis crime reduction because they mirrored the crime drop in New York in the 1990s but the police then all-but refused to take credit for it.
Anyway, before I start cold calling, I thought I’d ask to see if anybody has police connections in San Diego. If you do feel free to send me an email. Basically I’d want to look a bunch of 911 and 311 call data going back years, with a focus on “crime in progress.” And calls from cell phones, if it’s broken down that way.
Of course if any other city wants me to look at this for them, I’d be happy to.
(I ask not what I can do for the blogosphere, but what the this damn blog can do for me!).
“…they’re bringing an ass-kicking with them.” — Chris Rock
Here’s videoof Houston police beating a 15-year-old burglar. He was convictedback in October. But the video of the arrest was just now released.
Did he “deserve it”? I’m not going to go there. But police should take note: seven officers no longer have jobs. And for what? To give some 15-year-old a lesson? It’s not worth it.
Not the sharpest knife in the drawer.
[thanks to Alex]
Attack Camels?! This is not a picture I ever expected to see:
Luckily, and unlike the tear gas, this tool of repression doesn’t have “Made in U.S.A.” stamped on it.
[“I mean whoa!”]
This is from an 1871 newspaper article. It seems as if times never change.
The average police officer may be divided into two classes, the honest and untiring patrolman, constantly on post when duty calls, alert in performing his rounds, and courageous when confronted by sudden peril or danger, and the one who shirks his duty and skulks at every opportunity. To walk the deserted streets of a great city at the dead hour of the night, requires more courage than the policeman usually gets credit for. He must keep a sharp lookout for suspicious persons, test the fastening of every door on his route, listen for unusual noises in the houses, alleys, or yards, be ready to detect fires at the earliest possible moment, and render assistance on occasions where the lives or persons of individual are in peril.
The lazy or inefficient policeman is a most deplorable follow. He is always grumbling, now at one thing, now at another. Nothing suits him. If it rains, he is out of temper because he cannot find convenient shelters under awnings. Should it be a fine night, he is dissatisfied because there are so many people out. In warm weather he is too hot to do duty, and in Winter he finds it too cold. You always hear that his captain or the sergeants are hard upon him, and object to his loitering on post or unaccountably disappearing occasionally when in the vicinity of a dram-shop. Averse to honest labor of any kind, the lazy policeman endeavors to cheat his superiors in evading his duties, and invariably finds himself detected and dismissed. From that time forth he predicts the seedy downfall of the system, and secretly wonders how so many men continue to remain in service so long.