daveAdams's blog http://www.universalhub.com/blog/800/atom/feed 2007-03-03T09:05:53-05:00 Do they have all the color glossies as evidence? http://www.universalhub.com/node/11249 2007-11-05T14:35:25-05:00 2007-11-05T15:19:29-05:00 daveAdams A friend of mine who lives in Cambridge received a $1000 ticket in the mail for "illegal dumping". When she called Officer #4 to ask why she received this ticket, as she doesn't even live in Boston and hadn't been anywhere near the dump site, she was told "your address was on something we found".

]]> A friend of mine who lives in Cambridge received a $1000 ticket in the mail for "illegal dumping". When she called Officer #4 to ask why she received this ticket, as she doesn't even live in Boston and hadn't been anywhere near the dump site, she was told "your address was on something we found".

When she asked "what did you find" she was told "we can't tell you because it is evidence against you". She called back and asked for a supervisor, and was directed to a man by the name of - get this - Officer Stockbridge. He also told her that they couldn't tell her what they found because then she might be able to defend herself.

Aside from the sloppy police work (your address was on something) and being told that she has no right to see evidence against her, I'd like to ask the hive mind at UHub: what can she do about this? Where can she turn within the city to get the information she needs to defend herself?

Why should she have to hire a lawyer to protect herself against a forgone conclusion that the city should have to prove? What does the city have to hide? She can prove that she was nowhere around the dump site when the "offense" allegedly occurred, but that may not be enough.Boston doesn't seem to have much use for that pesky little innocence presumption bit in the constitution.

]]> Wagging the dogs http://www.universalhub.com/node/7858 2007-03-03T09:38:46-05:00 2007-03-03T09:05:53-05:00 daveAdams Well, this was a week I'll long remember. I was in a crappy mood Monday night. I had a ton of work due on Tuesday. I had to give mid-term progress reports on all my students. I was behind on grading tests, which needed to be done if I was to give an honest assessment on the reports. But I also needed to get an expense check and a month worth of pay into the bank before the mortgage came due.

So that's how I found myself driving from ATM to ATM Monday night. Apparently the whole deposit network was down, because even when I got to my 10th ATM, finally an ATM owned by my credit union, even that one wouldn't take the deposit. It was in this frame of mind that I heard Cedric Maxwell's now infamous "Get back in the kitchen" comment.

Yes, in retrospect I can tell he was making fun of Tommy Heinsohn. To a lot of people I've spoken with since, that doesn't make a lick of difference. To me, it was just a bit of poor judgement on Max's part. Regardless of his intent, at the time I was pissed.

I told my sons and wife when I got home. The four of us reached consensus that I ought to at least try to put it on a blog somewhere. I've kinda been getting hooked on UniversalHub, so that's where I wrote about the incident. I didn't even know for sure what the user interface meant by differentiating between writing a "blog entry" or a "story", but I figured it was a story.

Next thing I know, there's some discussion -- some reasonable, some knee-jerk reaction from jerks who ought to be kneed. I figured the story would get cold before I bothered to try to alert the "real" media.

But then I was driving home from school Wednesday. Being the hopeless sports fan I am, I tuned into WEEI.

]]> Well, this was a week I'll long remember. I was in a crappy mood Monday night. I had a ton of work due on Tuesday. I had to give mid-term progress reports on all my students. I was behind on grading tests, which needed to be done if I was to give an honest assessment on the reports. But I also needed to get an expense check and a month worth of pay into the bank before the mortgage came due.

So that's how I found myself driving from ATM to ATM Monday night. Apparently the whole deposit network was down, because even when I got to my 10th ATM, finally an ATM owned by my credit union, even that one wouldn't take the deposit. It was in this frame of mind that I heard Cedric Maxwell's now infamous "Get back in the kitchen" comment.

Yes, in retrospect I can tell he was making fun of Tommy Heinsohn. To a lot of people I've spoken with since, that doesn't make a lick of difference. To me, it was just a bit of poor judgement on Max's part. Regardless of his intent, at the time I was pissed.

I told my sons and wife when I got home. The four of us reached consensus that I ought to at least try to put it on a blog somewhere. I've kinda been getting hooked on UniversalHub, so that's where I wrote about the incident. I didn't even know for sure what the user interface meant by differentiating between writing a "blog entry" or a "story", but I figured it was a story.

Next thing I know, there's some discussion -- some reasonable, some knee-jerk reaction from jerks who ought to be kneed. I figured the story would get cold before I bothered to try to alert the "real" media.

But then I was driving home from school Wednesday. Being the hopeless sports fan I am, I tuned into WEEI. Ordway and his gang of washed-up bullies was talking about, what was that? Bloggers? Maxwell? Joking intent? Political correctness? I didn't hear enough of it to be sure until I came inside to tune in to UniversalHub. Sure enough, my little story had tipped.

I'll admit to a bit of chest-pounding, letting my family know of my involvement, letting a couple of the teachers I work with in on my little secret. But frankly, it was a huge relief that I got to remain relatively anonymous, even though I used my real name on the story and on my comments that followed up. The "came from a blog" angle of the story showed up on the Big Show, but not on the wire services or in the opinion pieces that popped up on op-ed pages on Thursday.

Some of the criticism on the Big Show was of the standard "blogs aren't real journalism and aren't responsible to the truth" variety. Well, no duh. I was careful in my original post to state that I didn't have all the facts. But then, I think any of us who has been involved in a real news story realizes that the MSM usually gets significant facts wrong on a daily basis too. Reality, once you get outside of a math classroom, is more than a little subjective anyway. I am psyched that I played a part in Cedric Maxwell apologizing for his remarks, and equally glad that he has not gotten any further punishment. But I'm especially proud that I set an example for my kids, while getting untold thousands of people around the country to at least have a decent water-cooler discussion about sexism this week.

Now it's back to grading the latest batch of tests, quizzes, and essays for me.

]]>