Poor Linda

and poor everybody else. Her latest blog details a trying night. She thinks the guy is getting harassed by the fuzz. She is probably right. She (and you and I) deserve that and more.

About once a month the local stations talk about Commander Burge who lives in Florida after retiring with full pension from the Chicago P.D. He had a great conviction rate. He got it by torturing people he thought deserving of imprisonment and/or death. A number of the people freed from Illinois death row by DNA analysis were ‘his boys’ and the city has paid million for his activities. He has a very nice Florida home and no remorse.

I called our local cops twice. Once on a stolen canoe, that I’d located on my own. They got it back for me but didn’t even bother to question the guy who’d stolen it. I was there and watched their bored response. Another time I had an irate father of the tenant’s wife, pounding and screaming at my door about the damn utility bill. I’d helped the guy out by leaving it in my account and that wasn’t working so I told him to get it in his name. In doing so, they transferred my bill to them. They kept it 80 degrees in the winter and ran the A/C 24-7 in the summer. The difference in bills was over 100 bucks for the month they paid mine. With this guy calling me a crook when they got the lower bill, I called the police to get him off my door. I showed them the bill (always had shown the tenant) and tried to explain. They told the idiot, I was a crook and to see a lawyer. That made it all worse. Thankfully, the husband had a brain or it could have got nasty. Joe Friday they ain’t.

Mike Matusow was recently on PokerRoad and detailed a bit of his problem when the L.V. Police decided they could use him as an informant. My advice to Linda’s friend is to get out of Dodge.

All this is a great example for poker players and the new age crowd. The UIGEA walks all over our rights. It is a no brainer to drive smokers out into the cold. We have a pile of nanny government laws. Many folks love the law acting in place of their spine. Believe it or not, I’d been asked to not smoke in situations before the law got involved. That worked. I was taught courtesy as a youth. And the neighbors were neighbors when I was a kid and would keep my parents better informed than the fuzz could.

Today we all do our own thing. Courtesy is provided if it is convenient. As an anachronism, I open door and pull chairs out for ladies. I don’t ignore the world about me expecting my elected representatives to go ahead of me to make the path lovely. Many think the nanny state can do that for us. They don’t realize that when they beat down a smoker or poker player they are being beat down as well by abrogating their citizen responsibilities.

So, as I’ve said about the UIGEA repeatedly, I must now say to Linda, “Sorry it happened but you (we) deserve it.”

ADDENDUM:

Speaking of nanny state and its consequences, the State of California Gambling Control just declared :

It has come to the attention of the Bureau of Gambling Control that some gambling establishments conduct “ladies only” poker tournaments that exclude men from participating, or admit them on different terms from those accorded to women. It is the Bureau’s view that such tournaments may violate California’s anti-discrimination laws.

In other times, all it took to have ’segregated’ events like this was a bit of peer pressure to keep everybody but the Tilt Girlie Boys out of the event. These days, though, we depend on the other guy to protect us and protect us they do.

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 2nd, 2008 at 10:11 am and is filed under Journal, poker legislation. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.