people are strange

Forty-plus years after the Doors did that tune, we have Comic-Con in San Diego to show us that people are indeed still strange.

Here's a gallery of 75 pix from the convention, posted on a TechRepublic blog to entertain their geek readership. Yes, that includes me. The headline:

Comic-Con 2009 photos: Iron Man 2, Zombieland, and geeks in costumes

You know how they ask starlets on the red carpet, "Who are you wearing?"
Well at Comic-Con it should be, "Who are you being?"

My favorite pix (these are not people looking strange):
Cartman done in Legos
(GameSpot photo)

Director Jon Favreau wearing a cool NaCo t-shirt. Chido.
(MovieTome photo)

His shirt says Estar Guars,
spanglish for Star Wars,
in the movie's logotype.

These are people looking strange.

They say the top pic is someone being a character from Bioshock 2.

Gates's real offense

"contempt of cop"
That's the explanation I heard from a commentator on NPR. The offense is offending a cop. Hurting his or her feelings by not being nice. But since that one's not on the books as a real crime, the cops have to arrest the perp for something else, like disorderly conduct.

Here it is from the police blotter:
http://www.cambridgema.gov/cpd/News/newsDetail.cfm?story_id=2247

Disorderly Conduct

09-05127

On 7/16/09 at 12:44 PM, 58-year-old Henry Gates of 17 Ware St. Cambridge, MA was arrested for Disorderly conduct after exhibiting loud and tumultuous behavior.

I guess it's good to know that the police these days are so sensitive that things like talking back to them in Massachusetts and oooops, maybe even making gestures, scary scary gestures like at the Rainbow Lounge incident, yes, that things like that are so hurtful to the big tough cops, they just have to arrest somebody.

OK, I blame the moms of today. They must not have taught their children well. They must have left out "sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me."

Hmmm. Maybe that could be in the remedial sensitivity training curricula for cops.

*image from this blog:
BRAINPAN LEAKAGE
From the warped mind of paranormal thriller author M. R. Sellars

cops gone wild, in Fort Worth, in Cambridge

My absence from the blogosphere is caused by my struggle with a local issue with wide repercussions in civil rights. The cops and the TABC and the gays and the bar raid here.

It happened a month ago at the Rainbow Lounge in Fort Worth. It was gay bashing. Literally. At almost the same hour as the original riot-provoking raids at the Stonewall Inn 40 years before. Go figure.

Click on their webpage above and go to their site. A letter from the chief is front and center. Click and read. Gee, they look like nice people. They're my neighbors. Well, not literally, but I should love them just the same, even if I don't know them. So I do. And I really love my gay neighbors because I do know them.

I want to rant and rave and blog about it--and the healing that's started in the aftermath. But now the cops in Cambridge are the ones being hit with an ugly stick. They are looking bad ugly, after arresting Henry Louis Gates. Again, both sides probably involved men behaving badly. Both sides. Bad bad behavior.

Let's check the Cambridge cops' website. Nice pix. Nice-looking folks also.

Nice badges. Click the photos to go to their webpage.
And see the top item on their page--the press release about their peccadillo. At least nobody went to the hospital. This time.

Serving the public as a cop is a horrible difficult dangerous job. I wish we could fully staff the force without attracting the folks who want to be cops for all the worst reasons.

Jim Crow swims here

photo: Mark Stehle / AP
Kelbin Carolina demonstrates Thursday in front of the Valley Club in Huntingdon Valley, Pa., in response to allegations that the swim club blocked a group of minority children from joining weekly swims at the pool.

Kelbin's sign says it perfectly. Something happened last week--either mispoken/misunderstood comments or outright racism--in Huntingdon PA, at a swimming pool, at a private club, to little children, where people with Jim-Crow attitudes swim.

(I first heard about it Friday at one of my favorite blogs, Hasta Los Gatos Quieren Zapatos. Those hermanas come up with an amazing variety of compelling news, and their own views can make you stop and think.)

A stock photo (?) from their blog illustrates the situation. What's wrong with this picture? NOTHING. Well, nothing to my eye. It looks like the kids on my block playing.

Here's the story. Headline:

Pa. swim club defends self against race accusation

(read it if you haven't already)

A weekend under the media's magnifying glass burned them into a rapprochement. The club wants to host the kids now, somehow. But the kids might not want to go back. Would you? Could you, even as an adult, full of grownup strength?

When the hurtful words they heard were how their presence would "change the complexion" of the club, would you want to take your complexion of color back to that same sinkhole of bigots?

Just asking.

Sen Franken, D-MN day of victory

[MinnPost photo by Jay Weiner]
Coleman-Franken Senate race: The day the recount ended and the fight turned into something really nice

Justice triumphed on June 30, two Tuesdays ago.

Follow the links and read a really good recounting (oh no I didn't say that) of the day's events when Al finally won and ex-Senator Norm Coleman came to accept the agony of defeat.

Jay Weiner chronicles the day's events, to the minute. That's the funny part.

"At 1 p.m., " Minn Supremes give verdict...
"By 1:47, " Coleman lackey announces press conference at the now-ex-senator's home for 3pm...
"Just past 3 p.m., " Coleman concedes, tells the Gov to sign Franken's election certificate...
"As if on cue, at 3:17", the Gov sez he'll do just that...
"By 4:20", Franken emerges from his house (above) and accepts graciously.

By 4:20. Oh yeah, "by" heh heh 4:20. Heh heh heh, I'm laughing like Bevis. And Butthead. At 4:20. OK, it's 4:22 where I am.

Really itsa great story at MinnPost.com; read it.

conniption in Chinese

or at least that's what google said it was...

conniption fit
1. 1. [American English] [Spoken] 歇斯底里发作，大吵大闹；发怒，大发脾气

Follow the link and use the pop-up to hear the words pronounced in both languages. You will hear "connipshun feet" and three dialects of Chinese.

conflating business models

The pricey convenience-store chain, 7-Eleven, gave a big waaaaaaah today. They whined about the cost of doing business, namely the fee they pay Visa & MasterCard when they make a charge-card sale.

And they want you to sign their petition about those "unfair" fees so they can take it to Congress and show how we want them to fix it for poor lil ol' 7-Eleven. Who do they think they are? MoveOn.org?


Yeah, I'm gonna sign their petition right after I drop in at MoveOn, gas up the car and give 'em 5 bucks for a gallon of milk. Hello, 7-Eleven? You are a CONVENIENCE STORE. You sell overpriced crap and make your price point because you are SELLING CONVENIENCE.

Here, let them explain it themselves. (from the "about us" page of their website)

. . . Of the more than 5,700 stores the company operates and franchises in the United States, some 4,200 are franchised. . . .*

A World-Class Organization

At 7-Eleven Our Mission is: To consistently serve the changing needs of customers for their convenience.

Our Vision is: To be the best retailer of convenience.

Those fees aren't "fair" or "unfair", they simply are what they are. Somewhere between say 2% and 5% depending on whom you negotiate with to handle your merchant account.

Those people have to pay their people, come on, dontcha get it 7-Eleven? Convenience ain't cheap. Credit cards are convenient. Uh, what was your vision again?

Go talk to your bean counters, let them 'splain it to you Lucy that it's called a selling expense. That's how I booked it when I owned an import wholesale company.

Really I am not making this up. Go check the AP story (byline Candice Choi). Or even their document with FAQs about the petition.

Oh you gotta read the last one in which they ask themselves if this means they'd lower prices and they can't even say "yes" or "no".

Well, we know the answer is "no". Pity they didn't have the strength or the honesty to say so.

Notes:
*that's 1500 stores outta 5700, or 26% owned by corporate
D&B estimates 7-Eleven sales at $15,471,100,000 (oh my, that's about the cost of an Iraq-month)
Hoover's says the average convenience store grosses $2,000,000 in sales annually
7-Eleven is whining about an average of $28,000 in fees annually
Hmm. That's 1.25% of sales. Do you feel their pain yet?

For another credit card story, check Fred's blog: Your interest rates will increase and your credit limits will decline if you are not shopping like you used to shop with them.... in which he advises they even look at where you shop to see if you might be on hard times.