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Law-Enforcement Officers Exhibit Less Malice and Fewer Major Errors than Other Professions
How many bad cops are there? What is the percentage? According to this: “In 2018, there were 686,665 full-time law enforcement officers employed in the United States.” What is the percentage of truly bad cops? How does that compare with the percentage of bad sports figures? How does that compare with the percentage of media figures who do not do their jobs or harass coworkers? How does that compare with the number and percentage of soi disant journalists who make up facts or interviews or get their data from kids’ science projects where the kids made up the numbers?
Let’s face it, if a law-enforcement officer does something bad, reporters will report on it, even if it does not involve the death of a black man. How many of these do we hear about in a year? A handful? Is it even that high? Or is that the number over several years where the stories have stuck with us and the stories told over and over and blown out of proportion? The Ferguson Unrest (as it is referred to in Wikipedia) was in 2014. How about the original “I can’t breathe!” Eric Garner who died while being arrested for selling loosies on the streets of New York City? That was 2011. We seem to be getting one of these major incidents about every three years. Whatever your profession is, can you say that you have one major incident every three years per 650,000 employees? Is your profession’s record that low? Does your profession have so few scandals? Medical doctors don’t. Priests don’t. Teachers don’t. Politicians sure as shootin’ don’t.
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After struggling for days with (mostly very distressing, and, as much as I hate to admit it, downright at times depressing) ideas of how to write about the monstrosity which has descended upon us in the form of “mostly peaceful” riots in numerous cities with untold loss of life and property, deliberate murders like those of retired Police Capt. David Dorn in St. Louis, injuries all across the Nation we love and revere, my search ended when I saw this heart-rending sign in a shop– begging for mercy. Begging! Figuratively on her knees pleading to the animals of lawlessness to please, please, please let her continue to make a living and provide for her children. Please!






“The Analytical Engine has no pretensions whatever to originate anything. It can do whatever we know how to order it to perform.”–Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace
Mattis: “When I joined the military, some 50 years ago, I swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution. Never did I dream that troops taking that same oath would be ordered under any circumstance to violate the Constitutional rights of their fellow citizens—much less to provide a bizarre photo op for the elected commander-in-chief, with military leadership standing alongside.”

Cable news is in the business of division. For decades, they have sown discord whether Republican vs. Democrat, Black vs. White, Civilian vs. Cop. I stopped watching their nonsense years ago, saving me from endless hours of people screaming at each other over lurid B-roll.
COVID-19 was an epidemic. But is it anymore? What characterizes an epidemic is its growth and effect. It moves quickly through a population affecting a disproportionate number of individuals and is of public concern because of the impact that that number of illnesses on society as a whole.
Greetings fellow Ricochetti knitters (you know who you are). I just got fired from KnitCamp!