Defending the Cobalt

Ah, technology.  As I write this on my laptop from which zero wires protrude, my television is streaming a movie for me, and my phone (also no wires) seems to continuously vibrate - indicating that a friend living on a distant island (I'm not that close to Manhattan) has sent me another message.  All this is possible due to technology.

However, there is a dark side to all this tech.  When They begin to use the tech for the powers of evil, people must stand up to the machines.  This week's evil technology is the red light cameras.  Police officer-replacing gadgets suspended from street lights and charged with catching evil doers running red lights.  The robots are taking over.  You should all know this.  It's well covered in the Terminator documentary series.

You may have surmised by now that someone I know was sent that letter in the mail detailing their infraction through text and images.  That's true.  My wife opened her letter this morning, and there, in vivid detail, were two pictures of the car moving through the light, undeterred by the change in color from cautionary canary to criminal crimson.

Luckily, they also included the date, because on that particular date - gasp! - my wife was not driving that car!  We quickly called the municipal court in question, and the kind woman explained to me that the ticket was not really against my wife; it is against the car.  This means that she won't get any points, nothing on her record, she just pays the $85 fine, and that is the end of it.  At which point I asked, "Will the car have the ticket on its record?"

The question is glib to be sure, but certainly well within the bounds of reason.  The car has no bank account. It would never be able to cover the debt it would owe to my wife.  It can't pick up more hours at work, and it certainly can't speak up in its defense were this thing to go to trial.  If the car is responsible for running the red light, is the car also responsible for the speeding of the driver that day?  The report from the first image stated that the car was doing 58 miles per hour in a 30 mile per hour zone.  That seems a bit excessive.

What else can we pin on the car?  Surely the car has been guilty of other, driving related missteps.  I know for a fact that the car has parked on the wrong side of the street.  That car has changed lanes at an intersection.  That car has sped on other occasions.  The car has operated with an expired inspection before, and it has also traveled the roads with a defective directional signal.  

In our country, we hold people responsible for their actions, and they have the right to being innocent until proven guilty.  My wife was not driving that car that day.  She wasn't even in that car that day.  The truth is that she hates that car.  She doesn't ever drive it.  She drives her big mom-mobile, and runs errands in an apartment on wheels.  She is innocent, yet because her name is on the registration, she is being held responsible for something that she didn't do.  When an innocent is told to plead guilty in the name of a machine with her name on it, I have to question the methods by which the law is being upheld and also the way punishments are handed down.  

Before you, out there in reader-land, decide that this is an over-protective husband looking to get his darling wife out of a traffic ticket, you need to understand that I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that she wasn't driving.  How can I be so sure?  Because I was driving to work that day at that time at that intersection.  I was speeding, and I tried to beat a yellow light.  I apparently didn't.  I also would have grudgingly pulled to the side of the road if an officer of the law saw me do it and encouraged me to take a driving break for quick color lesson.  I would have taken that ticket, with my name on it, and put a check in an envelope to pay my debt to society.

However, this is not what happened.  A camera took a picture of a car, and that camera wants the car to pay.  I think we should just let them work it out.  We can let an ATM be the judge, and a self-checkout line in the A&P can be the bailiff.  The jury can be entirely comprised of dishwashers, toaster ovens, and Roombas.  Robot court is now in session!

Thoughts on Fatherhood

My wife told me I should write a bit about being a dad.  I told her that generally people are supposed to write about things they know.  Don’t get me wrong.  I know about being a dad.  I am one.  Unfortunately that’s about where my knowledge stops.

My son has a knack for making me feel like I don’t know what I’m doing.  I teach high school English, and I see some eighty high school students day in and day out.  They’re chuck full of hormones and energy drinks, and I never know what they’re going to do next, but they’re a pack of bingo-playing octogenarians compared to my two year old.

The little guy reacts really well with me.  I know ways to keep him quiet and calm.  Usually my methods work pretty well.  However, he can go from zero to nuts in the time it takes to fill a sippy cup with milk. The nicest little boy I’ve ever seen will smile at me, and before I can wink, he’ll give me a quick shot to the pills.  I tell myself it’s never malicious, but it makes me wonder where he was hiding the capacity for such random violence. 

He constantly reminds me that it’s easy to forget that there are things I had to learn.  Usually times like this also remind me I’m not nearly as in control as I like to think.  Like the night I was driving home from work, talking to my wife on the phone and we learned that our son was tall enough to take steak knives from the table.  He didn’t know that the shiny end was dangerous, but he learned it when my wife screamed in horror at seeing his little fingers wrapped around the blade of a knife.  That’s also the night I had to face the realization that there are things in my home I will never be able to control.

Maybe that’s what I know about being a dad.  Maybe the biggest lesson I’ve learned or that I can try to pass on to other first time fathers is that every second can be different from the one before it.  It’s all good though.  I’ve learned what works.  I’ve learned to look for his signs that what works isn’t working anymore.  Most of all I’ve learned that as he continues to grow and change, I will have to do the same.


(Spring 2009)

Revolving Doors, Bears, and Pop Culture

6 different times. Fiiiiiive Jersey towns. 4 central counties.  Treed by state officials. Over just 2 years. And always the same bear. (If you read that line to the tune of "The Twelve Days of Christmas," you'll chuckle.)

A couple weeks ago, bear authorities in the state of New Jersey took down the same bruin they had nabbed five times previously.  Talk about your revolving door system.  How hard must be trials and tribulations of the ursine inhabitation quest?  What are they looking for? Good schools?  Access to public transportation?  Low property taxes?  Not here in the great state of New Jersey.

Just how small has the list of options for Location! Location! Location! in the bear world become?

Let’s face it.  New Jersey carries with it a connotation of over-development.  The Garden State has become a punch line - famous for its highways and byways, parkways and parking lots, strip malls and strip clubs.  There even exists the perception that the real Jersey shore is covered with garbage, due in no small part to MTV’s portrayal of the Jersey Shore garbage.

When my family, all of whom reside in rural New England, consider coming to visit, it is their notions of my adoptive home state, fueled by media and pop culture images of factories, traffic, and murder that make them opt to just stay in their quiet, picturesque, safe homes and Skype their visitation.

The truth of the matter is that there is a premium for quality land in this state.  The bear needs to understand that unless he’s willing to get down to South Jersey – another state entirely – every spare bit of land has been tagged – parlance a bear really can relate to – for some sort of residential dwelling or commercial development.  No wonder the bear has been forced from his habitat and finds himself trying to make a go of the morning rush on 18 out of East Brunswick.  Quite frankly, the real wonder is how he’s managed to live this long whilst dodging the ever-present traffic and profiling tactics of animal law enforcement.

Maybe they put this bear in a zoo.  Maybe he meets a nice girl bear.  Someone who gets him.  Someone who has been there.  Maybe they start a family in some remote corner of the Turtleback bear exhibit – nice amenities there.  At the very least, he avoids further run-ins with the bear 5-0.  It could be good for him.  After all, it’s just a matter of time before he confuses a toddler for an amuse bouche and finds real trouble.  Or – worse yet – he comes across a gun-wielding, jersey-licious Real Housewife and can’t be caught a seventh time.

Fin.

(Summer 2011)