Thursday, May 28, 2020

A little of this and a little of that

It would appear New York City itself is the last region of New York State that will gradually reopen for business, per Governor Andrew Cuomo.

While Nassau & Suffolk Counties in Long Island will begin Phase 1 of reopening today, the five boroughs of NYC will lag further behind. You can't make this stuff up.

Here at home, I'm continuing to work from home. My employers feel they're not ready to open the office to the public just yet, per a virtual meeting yesterday. If I were a betting man, I'd say it'll be July-August before I start commuting to work again.
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The National Hockey League is planning on going straight to the playoffs with a 24 team field this year in order to complete the season. Unwieldy? Yep. 12 teams from each conference instead of the usual 8, with the idea of making it fair for teams who were within shouting distance of a playoff spot when play was suspended in March. We'll see how this plays out, and, yeah, I'll watch.
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Major League Baseball now is in a bit of a dispute over----what else?----money as far as getting the 2020 season underway. There is at least one online pundit who thinks there won't be a season, but that's pessimism for you.

Meanwhile, Tampa Bay ace Blake Snell is upset over a prospective cut in pay, as are a number of other players, so he decided to dump his agent in favor of everyone's favorite leech, Scott "20 Mule Team" Boras. To tell you the truth, Snell should've considered J. G. Wentworth, but that's just me.

And if you don't get the joke, I'm embarrassed for you.
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Speaking of things you can't make up, there's the story that broke earlier this week in Central Park's Bramble section. I'm sure you've heard about it by now.

A composite image showing Amy Cooper in an image from the viral Central Park video and Christian Cooper talking about the incident on NBC New York.

Amy Cooper (left), at the time employed by Franklin Templeton Investments, was "walking", and I use the term with quotes for a reason, her dog when she met Christian Cooper (no relation, obviously), and his sister, Melody. Christian is a former writer for Marvel Comics, and a bird watcher. Seems Amy mistakenly assumed Christian was going to do her harm. All he tried to do was remind her of the signs around them that say you need to keep your dog on a leash in the Bramble. Amy looked like she was abusing the dog. She called 911 and put on the act of being threatened.

The cops, thankfully, weren't buying. Franklin Templeton, on the other hand, first placed Amy on administrative leave, then terminated her Tuesday morning. She swears she's not a racist. Fellow blogger Chuck Miller included her in a piece on "Karens" on Tuesday at his blog, Chuck The Writer, but I don't think she feels like a "Karen" right now.

Christian Cooper feels the same way, and is "uncomfortable" with the fact that Amy lost her job. She also gave up her dog to a local shelter. None of this would've happened if she had "over-reacted" to the sudden sight of Christian & Melody, the latter of whom recorded the incident on Twitter.
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In Minneapolis, there is some turmoil over a white police officer suffocating George Floyd, an African-American to death. Despite the fact that the officers involved in the incident were fired by the city, it isn't enough to silence the protesters demanding justice.

What you have here are white officers over-reacting in arresting Floyd for passing a counterfeit bill. The victim was unarmed, from what I understand.

In football, defenses are taught to "read & react" to what the offense is attempting to do. "Read & react" applies here, too, but, too often in these cases, the police misread the situation for whatever reason. We've had a couple of those kind of cases here the last few years.

The common motto of the police is "to serve & protect". That credo applies to everyone, not a select section of the populace. The sooner police departments root out the "bad apples" stuck in the mid-20th century, if you will, we'll all be better served.

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