Tag: society

Hypocrisy – Mugshot

There is a reason why no illustration accompanies this post. The picture that I wanted to use is just too unflattering.

It is a mugshot of an old friend who had been arrested for trying to get into a car that he believed belonged to his nephew, and then getting combative with Santa Cruz Police Officers who tried to stop him from doing so. He had been missing for three days prior to that, after escaping from the post acute care facility where he lived near the end of his life as he succumbed to a variety of ailments, particularly lung cancer and dementia.

We do not know where he had been or what he had been doing during those days that he was missing. He could not explain any of it. He was very tired and very hungry, and looked ghastly by the time he was found. Fortunately, the Police Officers who arrested him were quick to determine who he was and that he was missing, and then return him to the post acute care facility from where he had escaped. It was an efficient process.

He would have been located much sooner if only the haters had helped. They found his mugshot immediately. Within hours, they had paraded it thoroughly over Facebook and perhaps other social networks, complete with the typical vitriolic accusations, blaming, judging, criticizing, threatening and name calling that they are so proficient and indulgent with. Is dementia really that serious of a crime?

Perhaps it does not matter. To get the process started, haters need only a mention of a crime that includes the names of the perpetrators to find their mugshots online. They often take useful information that is posted on the Facebook page of the Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office, and embellish it for their own sadistic entertainment. The rest of us simply want to know about crime in our Community, and maybe, who to be wary of.

After noticing the potential beginning of another display of public ridicule following a post on the Facebook page of the Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office a few months ago, a former neighbor questioned one of the main participants in this routine derision, in regard to particular mugshots that she had neglected. This particular hater had always been the most proficient at procuring and exhibiting mugshots for public disparagement.

The hater immediately became hostile to the former neighbor who questioned her, and predictably initiated the typical vitriolic accusations, blaming, judging, criticizing, threatening and name calling that only haters employ to demonstrate their exemplary civility and concern for the Community. Despite her attempts to redirect and end discussion, the former neighbor limited his questions to the topic of the neglected mugshots, but to no avail.

Just as predictably, after failing to dissuade the former neighbor from continuing to ask why the neglected mugshots were not discussed, the hater blocked him from responding, without acknowledgment of the mugshots.

The mugshots in question are of a young lady who had been arrested for DUI (Driving Under the Influence of an inebriant), which really seems like it should be a more serious crime than dementia. I mean, those who drive while inebriated sometimes kill people! However, the young lady who was arrested for DUI is a daughter of another main participant in the routine derision and disparagement of ‘other’ people with mugshots.

World Wide Web

We never know who will read what we post online. It is not like old fashioned newspapers that could only be read as far away as the printed pages got dispersed. Everyone with access to the internet has access to this.

Nowadays, there is nothing unusual about that. Just about everything is online. What is unusual is that so many outside of our distinguished Community are interested in reading about us.

This ‘blog’ (Gads! I hate that word!) is not even a month old, and contains only a few brief posts that are not particularly compelling. Yet, posts have been read by quite a few visitors, including some who are nowhere near here. There is certainly nothing wrong with that. In fact, it is rather gratifying. It is just unexpected.

Many of the issues that concern our minor local Community are common concerns that affect many other Communities all over the World. Nonetheless, different societies contend with such issues in their own unique ways. Are our techniques somehow relevant to other cultures and other societies? How similar are they? How are they different?

It will be interesting to see where outside of America our posts get read. So far, they have been read in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, India, France, Switzerland and China. If it were possible, it would also be interesting to see where within American the vast majority of those reading our posts are located.

Furthermore, all this interest in our distinguished Community stimulates interest in others who are concerned with some of the same issues that concern us, but from within the context of potentially very differnt cultures. Is homelessness really as tolerable in India as so many of us believe it to be? How do the homeless of Switzerland survive the dangerously harsh winters? That is what the World Wide Web is for.