A Solution to Rising Crime rates

Almost daily the newspapers publish statistics on how the crime rate across the United States is on the rise. Local police departments decry the lack of personnel, police cruisers, and armament to deal with criminals that roam our streets and alleys. Citizens hire off-duty cops to patrol their neighborhoods and petition their lawmakers to let them carry guns. The time for a modern day “OK Corral” shootout may be nearer than you think.

Fear not fellow citizens, the solution to rising crime rates is as close as your television set. Daily, hourly, minute by minute, murder, child abuse, rape, robbery, extortion, kidnapping culprits are being arrested, tried and convicted on TV series like “Law and Order” in all its forms, “CSI” in all its permutations, “Without a Trace”, “NCIS”, “The Mentalist”, “Lie to Me”, and on and on and on. Just think of how the load on police agencies would be alleviated if we were to parcel out crime to the appropriate TV show. Not only that, but think of the time saved by the judicial system when the criminals are brought to justice in an hour, minus time for commercials of course.

And speaking of commercials, surely Congress could find a way to share in the millions of dollars that sponsors would pour into these real “reality” shows. And don’t forget product placement fees. Cops would prominently display the Starbuck brand on their coffee cups, chomp on Dunkin Donuts, and offer the reluctant guests in their interrogation rooms a choice of regular or diet Coke. The nation’s trillion dollar budget deficit could be wiped out in the click of a remote.

So people arise! Demand that Congress launch an initiative to establish a Department of Television Justice in an Hour (DTJH) to distribute the pursuit and adjudication of all crimes across the full spectrum of related TV series. It is our patriotic right to demand that all crimes be solved and that all the perpetrators be appropriately punished in an hour so that our police officers can more fruitfully spend their time giving tickets for parking and jaywalking as soon as they get back from their coffee and donut breaks.

Cars I Have Known

I am driving around in brand spanking new Toyota Corolla and enjoying the smell of a new car and the feeling that I m going to get to my destination on time. This was always problematic with the Chevrolet Blazer that preceded it. I will swear that I logged more miles behind a tow truck than useful miles in the last few months before the Blazer became a trade-in. But to it's credit, the Blazer was twelve years old and ready for the big scrap yard in the sky

But this got me to thinking about the cars I have owned and how they, in a sense, reflect where I was at a particular phase of my life. For example, my first car was a 1932 Ford Model B coupe which my Dad bought for me after a winning day at the horse races. It was a perfect car for teenager who did not know anything about cars and whose sole commitment to basic maintenance was to wipe the windshield from time to time.

My second car came after I returned from Navy service after World War II ( yes, I’m that old!). It was an orange 1938 Mercury convertible. I fitted it out with twin mufflers and a set of ripple disk wheel covers. But I soon found out that putting the top down in the hot California sun was not as glamorous as it appeared in the movies.

Following the Mercury, due to demands of a growing family, there was a spate of nondescript no-character cars whose main job was hauling kids and groceries around. The brightest spot during this period was the acquisition of a second car, one that I always dreamed of but could never quite justify in my mind --- an MG-TD convertible roadster. It was sheer pleasure to join the sports car fraternity and buzz around town waving to other sports car aficionados.

But the era of the sports car lasted only a couple years until a cracked crankshaft relegated the MG to the scrapheap to be replaced by a totally unhip Plymouth two door coupe. The family car, however, continued to be succession of station wagons, an Aero Star van that leaked oil like a sieve, a Ford Explorer, and ultimately the aforementioned Chevrolet Blazer which I hoped would last forever. And it almost did, until it developed a mysterious ailment which caused it to die at the most inconvenient times. When my mechanic finally threw in the towel and told me there was no remedy, I knew it was time to admit defeat and invest in a new vehicle.

So I threw in the towel as well, in a manner of speaking, and got the most dependable, gas efficient, and prosaic car I could think of --- a Toyota Corolla. I guess that will curtail my trolling for chicks but at least I will get to where I’m going.