A note for "helpful" people.

When you see the police officer on a traffic stop in your neighborhood, yelling to him, and getting his attention, and asking if "everything's all right"-- that's not actually helpful. If things WERE getting tense, you're not then a reassurance; you are a distraction.

Please don't do this, good citizen. Please.

This is not who we are.

This is indefensible.


This is abhorrent.

No police officer can defend this action by Michael T. Slager, formerly of the North Charleston, S.C. Police Department. Happily, I haven't seen a single officer try to.

Go to 1:35 in the video, and watch as Slager tosses a black object down next to the body. Immediately after cuffing the dying man, he is seen jogging back to where the struggle began, and at 1:08 he picks up that object. I will bet you a month's worth of paychecks that the object is a Taser. I've seen them and handled them for years. It is a gun-shaped black item, seen when he drops it to be a figure L.

So, seconds after the shooting, Slager is tampering with the scene. Hell, that's a third degree felony here in Texas.

And about that shooting. Even before Tennessee v. Garner (1985), this wouldn't have washed with regard to the Fleeing Felon doctrine.  But even if it were legal, it isn't right. You don't kill a man whom you have identified, just because of brief struggle and he ran away.

That video is hard to watch, but I'm so glad that it was made, and released. Because it will help us seek justice. It won't be enough, but it never is, in any shooting of any human.

That's not us.

Let's just stop this and maybe be the good guys again.

Good guys take responsibility for their own actions. When they hurt someone by accident, they still own up to it.

Good guys weigh the danger of what they're doing against the good that can come from it.

Good guys try not to hurt kids.

So when we throw a flash-bang stun grenade into a baby's crib and critically injure the child, and claim that we've done nothing wrong because OMG drugs!, well, we're not being the Good Guys anymore.

I'm done with people's grandparents dying in a hail of bullets as they respond with a gun in hand to the intruders in their house, who happen to be cops serving a search and arrest warrant on their grandkid.

I'm done with no-knock warrants. 

If there's not a hostage involved, we do it by the numbers, serving a felony warrant. We knock on the door, LOUDLY, and announce, LOUDLY AND CLEARLY, that we are the police. We explain that they have an extremely short time to open the door, or we will open it for them. We make clear that we are the police, serving a lawful order. We then make entry, announcing our identity and intent very clearly (Not just hollered incoherently.). We then go about making the scene safe, and serve the warrant.

Will some evidence be lost? Yes. You bet there will be. And that's a damned shame.

But it's not as big a shame as what has become to be far too commonplace, in the case of the No-Knock Warrant.

Handshakes. Do it right.

--I shook the hand today of yet another healthy grown man who didn't know how to shake hands. Friends, practice doing this correctly:
1. Open the strong hand (usually one's right) and blade the four fingers together.
2. Stick that blade of fingers straight out, vertically-oriented, with forefinger on top and pinky finger on the bottom. They are pointing in the Z axis, and stacked along the Y axis.  
3. Stick the thumb out at about a 45 degree angle from rest of the hand, looking at the hand from the rear (along the Z axis). If the hand is looked at from the back of the hand (along the X axis), the thumb should be seen to project out at a slightly acute angle from the hand, at say a 75 degree angle.
4. Hold out the hand thusly, and push it toward your target hand-shaker. Do NOT push it out all the way. You MUST retain some tolerance for the push to dock with the target's hand.
5. Glance briefly at the target's hand, and then look him in the eye. He will also attempt to shake your hand at this point, or will create an awkward moment. It is imperative that you believe that he will not leave you hanging.
6. When the target has similarly fixed his hand into shaking position, you push your open hand toward his so that the web between your thumb and forefinger firmly meets the web of his hand. This is mandatory. If this is not performed, start over.
7. Upon pushing hand webs together, ONLY NOW MAY YOU grasp the target's hand firmly, and shake it once or twice.
8. Do NOT try to break the target's hand. But don't just sit there limply like a dead fish, either.
9. It is okay to glance at the hands during docking, but during the shake, one is expected to look the other in the eye.
10. For special affection, gripping the arm of your target during the shake is permitted. This is called The Preacher's Handshake.

I shook the hand of every citizen that I met during traffic stops and calls, today.

Vultures.

CNN and Slate are both putting up the name of the coward who walked through a Connecticut school, murdering children. They're linking to his Facebook page. They're putting up his picture.

And they do this because they know that people will wonder what the face of such a monster looks like.

I'll tell you what he looks like: he looks like you and me. He just lost his grasp on humanity, and turned evil.

I beg you, friends: don't go look.

Every time someone clicks to go to these sites, then the vultures who linked to the stories, with Tweets and stories and teasers of his name and what he did-- they feel validated. The end justifies the means. Their job is to get people to come to their site. They did it. Good job!

Ever think of the cost, though? 

It would be an unusual reader here who didn't know the names of the murderers at Columbine.   In the months that followed that massacre, the names and pictures of K. and H. were splashed across the media like so much blood. That's notoriety. To a demented mind considering going out in a blaze of... something... that's star power, right there. Who remembers the names of the victims, though?

Enough of this. End this.

Condemn those who spread the names of the murderers for the salacious sake of "news." Don't visit the sites with these stories. Refuse to breathe their names on your blog, or in public.

Stop feeding the monsters.

Well that's it, then.

This past weekend, I was working off-duty at a dance recital, where hundreds of dancers of all varieties of ages from ~3 to ~45 (mostly kids under 18) danced. Given the season, the recital leaned heavily on Nutcracker interpretations.

One of the dancers was a professional master instructor of about 24, who appeared to have no bones or joints when he did a bit as a rag doll, dressed all in white. The crowd loved this guy. He was one of the two notable male dancers* there, and he was extraordinary. During intermission, I saw him in the lobby, signing programs that fans (as many men as women, I noticed) gushingly shoved in his face. Here, you could see that his monochromatic outfit was kind of a hodge-podge. He had a white cap, a white mask hung around his neck, a white UnderArmuor long-sleeved shirt, white gloves in his pocket, white skinny jeans, and white shoes. (I guess "slippers"?)

What I couldn't help but notice was that his trousers looked terrible.  Even though the close-fitting UnderArmour shirt showed that this young man was in the amazing shape that only a professional athlete who trains daily for lean muscle could get into, his low-cut, fully-pulled-up skinny jeans still looked like crap. Here was a guy who was arguably the epitome of the svelte human male form, and even he couldn't make these pants look good.

Give them up, gentlemen. You've got no hope.
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*The other guy, also a professional, was black. He had muscles on his muscles. I listened for, but did not hear, gasps from our provincial homogeneous town when the black man did lifts with the white ballerina. Hey, maybe we've come a ways. Then again, this was an arts crowd, many from out of town.

Keep it going, because the chances to win are rife.

If you donate money to Tam's tip jar to help her with her cancer surgery, the chance of you winning something amazing is surprisingly good.

No, REALLY.

Now, you may say, "If they're willing to donate that stuff, why not just sell it, and donate those profits?" Answer: because the chances of leveraging this into more money for the good cause is greater, and really, this is all about raising the most money for our friend. By buying a chance, you are getting a 100% chance of your money going to help someone who needs it.*

Also, this way, the swag stays in the family-- people who helped our Tam.

And, if you really want to, you could sell off your winnings and donate the proceeds back to the pot.

But you don't have to. :)

This Friday is payday for a lot of you.  Clink the tip jar, after clicking on the image below:

________________________________________________________________

*I swear on my badge that I know for a fact that this need is legit. This is not speculation. This is not hearsay.

Mussels.

I'd never eaten mussels before my partner ordered a dozen sent with a pizza we got earlier this year, while drinking beer. They were great.

Today, while at the Big City Asian Market, we picked up two pounds of live wild Maine mussels for $2. On the way home, my wife watched a brief video on prepping them on her iPhone (living in the future is fun), and when we got home, we de-bearded them, discarded a few that were slightly open or cracked, and then she steamed them in a pan with wine, garlic, parsley, onions, and cream. We served them with slices of crusty baguette fresh from the bakery, which we used to sop up the sauce of them.

Friends, this is one of the best cost-to-pleasure ratios that I've plated in a long time. When you do it? Grab an extra baguette. Trust me.

She's good. You should go read.

Normally, when I send folks to a URL, I mean for you to read their online stuff.*
For the past couple of days, I've been formulating in my head a book report on Kathy Jackson's book The Cornered Cat: A Woman's Guide To Concealed Carry, which I've been reading.

Kathy Jackson and I both posted a lot on TheFiringLine.com, and were co-moderators at TheHighRoad.org. She is a superb writer. She's also been training men and women to shoot in the Northwest for years. She has a lot of experience, and has thought about the issue in some new ways that I hadn't seen before.

While I was talking to Kathy at the NRA Convention in St Louis this April, Rob Pincus told me that Kathy's book is something anyone interested in concealed carry should read. I noted that, because Rob is not a girly man, and he was endorsing a pink book with a kitty cat on it.

After returning from St. Louis, the book lived in my suitcase for a few months, and when I was getting ready to head to Blogorado last week, the book came out. I've been reading it, and am half done. It's great. Seriously. Kathy points out some superb points about mindset, early on, which I will use for myself, and will pass on to others. I believe that it is Chapter Three which is called "Dying Of Embarrassment", and points out how people often permit their lives to be endangered out of fear that they will break a social more.

The book is written to be appealing to women. But that doesn't mean that it's not valuable to men. This is not a Secret antiperspirant advertisement-- it's a strong endorsement by a man who carries guns and advocates responsible self-defense. Guys, if you have to tell yourself it's for the woman in your life, then buy it, read it, and give it to her. But don't miss the chance to read it before you pass it on.

People that know me know that I don't give false compliments, ever. I wouldn't have written this if I didn't mean it.


___________________________
*But on that note: good news! Kathy Jackson has a blog, and is blogging on it lately.

Music interlude.

I believe that I'd like to hear a little more of Lisa Hannigan. Do me a favor: listen to this a second time.

If we don't hear more of that voice, then it's a shame.

Abolish the TSA.

At the very least, please try to see to the abolition of the current form of the Travel Safety Administration.

I just got an "A" in Homeland Security in my graduate studies this past semester. It is impossible to do this and still believe that the Travel Safety Administration are worthwhile and competant. They are an invasive, ineffective drain on our national resources that take away liberties, destroy an industry, and create new classes of criminals. They are worse than useless.

HIPAA

"HIPAA" is the dirtiest word I hear, some days. And given the profane things discussed in my day-to-day life, that's impressive.

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act was an important piece of legislature, passed too late in a time when people had suffered from their healthcare information under one insurance agency not being properly shared with another.  Part of that improper information sharing was the OVER-sharing of patients' private information. This law had provisions to protect Grampaw from having the highlights of his colostomy broadcast throughout the parish, or news of his grandaughter Suzie's prescription for antibiotics for a social disease picked up on spring break making its way around campus from the quack shack.

As soon as it was passed in 1996, everyone began to focus on the privacy concerns in HIPAA. So much so, in fact, that I've seen more than one healthcare professional misquote it as "HIPPA," for "Health Information Privacy Protection Act."[sic] Which does not exist.

If they can't even get the NAME OR THE ACRONYMN right, how are they expected to get the content of that large document right? Answer? They don't. I've had more garbage told to me under the umbrella of "We can't tell you that. Sorry. HIPAA."

I once was on duty on a deep night shift in the early aughts, when Dave, a buddy of mine from one of my undergraduate Criminal Justice classes and a sergeant for another police department in our county, was given a rather difficult roadblock to deal with. See, Dave had to work a major multicar crash caused by a drunk driver going the wrong way on a major highway. Dave and his comrades blocked the highway, saw that the wounded were transported by EMS, and had the highway cleared by the wrecker agencies.  Part of Dave's duties was to create a landing zone (LZ) for a private helicopter ambulance to land to pick up the suspected drunk driver, who was badly injured in the wreck. After it was all cleared up, Dave sensibly enough radioed our county dispatcher and inquired as to which hospital he should go for the mandatory blood draw that he was going to perform on the driver, who was now a suspect for Intoxication Assault. The county dispatcher called the helicopter ambulance dispatcher, who then, unbelievably, informed the county dispatcher that she could not release that information because of "HIPAA." 

Dave was audibly frustrated over the radio. I went to the PD, printed out the exceptions when medical information could be released, circled the section of Law Enforcement Exceptions ("...to identify or locate a suspect, fugitive, material witness, or missing person..."), circled the pertinent portion twice with a black Magic Marker, and faxed it to Dave's PD, to the County Dispatcher, and to the office that I thought might be the dispatcher for Moronic Private Helo Medical Transport. Then I sat down and read the document. It wasn't that hard.

The other morning, while visiting my partner in the hospital, I saw his wife smile as he happily dug into the fruit and yogurt that I'd fetched him from the cafeteria, and I whipped out my camera phone to take a quick picture, mostly to send to both their phones. The ICU nurse jumped in, speedy-quick: "You can't take his picture without his explicit permission. It's against HIPAA."

Okay, now look: I appreciate her looking out for my buddy. I really do. More than I can express. I appreciate that my partner isn't quite as fully alert right this minute as he is when he's at his best. But she had stood right there when he had told the doc that I was his partner, like family, and was thus privy to the doctor's briefing him. She had heard me jokingly suggest that he really wanted a Foley catheter while there, and she had heard him laughing with it. I'm on his team.  I come in peace. I mean him no harm. His wife, who saw me taking the shot, had leaned in close to him and smiled for the picture.

But most importantly, I'm not subject to HIPAA. I'm not a medical professional. I wasn't handling his information. I'm in no way licensed, medically. It doesn't apply to me.

"Consent is not needed for photography done by the patient’s family members or friends..."

Well, that's cool.

As I'm now 40, I finally got into the doctor's for my 40,000 mile checkup. "Check me out from head to toe," I asked.

The doc did the normal poking and vitals-taking, and looking, and ordered a bunch of blood tests to see what all was going on inside me. I allowed that I actually felt fine.

"As to the prostate exam," he finally said, "we use the Prostate Specific Antigen test.  The PSA is a much better indicator than feeling, through a rubber glove, and through a colon wall, a specific gland which we have personally  probably never checked before, for change. The digital-rectal exam is 60% accurate. We can do better than that. So we'll just look at your blood, and if the PSA is too high, we'll deal with it from there."*

I looked at him, realizing that I got to leave my pants on.

I pointed at my face in a circular motion. "This is not the look of a patient who is disappointed."

They should advertise this from billboards along the highway. "We'll check your prostate, without putting our finger where the sun doesnt' shine."

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*Yes, I'm aware of a fairly high incidence of false positives. But that's okay; you run it again, and if it's still positive, you run an MRI, CAT, and/or sonograph.

BEP fail.

I am not superstitious. I don't eat black-eyed peas* on New Years Day because I believe that they're going to give me good luck. Heck, given the fact that I've very possibly consumed them every single New Year's Day of my life, I have thus probably eaten them on the first day of the worst year of my life.

But tradition sticks to you, like a steaming bowl from a Big Pot Of Black Eyed Peas sticks to your ribs. For what it's worth, Homesick Texan gets it exactly right; that's the (heretofore unwritten for me) recipe that I've always used, generally served with a double or triple batch of cornbread.

But some years, as with this one, I just don't have my ducks in a row, and I don't get my dried peas on to soak in time the night before, so I have to resort to a can of peas to keep my yearly tradition. Hey, some of y'all have undoubtedly resorted to expedient measures to get your dose of turkey on Thanksgiving, too.

This year, I bumped the shelf, and a can of Ranch Style brand Blackeye Peas (Seasoned With Bacon) fell into my shopping cart.  Well okay. I've always liked the Trappey's Jalapeño Black Eye Peas (Flavored With Slab Bacon), but I figured hey-- let's give Ranch Style a try. After all, aren't they the good people who brought us the ("Husband Appetite-Pleasin'")  Ranch Style Beans** of greatness? 

I tried them, and something was badly off about the taste. It was... too sweet. Way too sweet. Why are my black-eyed peas sweet??

I read the ingredients list on the can, and I have an announcement for one and all: avoid Ranch Style Blackeye Peas!  First ingredient: Blackeye Peas. Second ingredient: Water. Third ingredient: Sugar.  Sugar?!? 

Wrong.

Complete fail.

Choose the greatness of Trappey's for the safest bet.

Ranch Style/ConAgra: Get your act together, or omit the Blackeye Peas product altogether. It puts a black eye on the superb Ranch Style product line that you've built over the last century.

________________
*You will note that I say it three or more different ways here. I have always said it "black-eyed peas" or "black eyed peas," but I note that Ranch Style and Trappey's have their own ways of listing them, which I fathfully reproduce here when referring to their respective products.

**I notice in the comments at the bottom of that page, a comment made by "Homesick Texan" from back in 2008. I wonder if it could be the same one whose blog I referenced earlier in this post? Huh. What are the chances? I mean, there are a lot of Texans abroad out there, and a lot (most?) are given to homesick, but how many regularly post about legumes?

Thursday afternoon thoughts.

--Why is the ATF SWAT team responding to a cop shooting at Virginia Tech? That's a local crime.

-- I'm surprised that I've only seen 29 of these 100 so-called cult movies. And some of them seem strange for "cult movies." Piranha? (saw it in the theatre as a kid) Superstar? Really? (Never saw it. Am I missing something?) How many have y'all seen? You'd be amazed at the gaps in my moviewatching history.

--Folks are worked up about the fires in the Chevy Volt electric that sometimes occur from the batteries a week or two after a major crash. This is worse than a gasoline-powered cars why, exactly? I've been to some humdingers of some fires after petrol-powered autos cracked up, and sometimes the driver have had trouble getting out* after the wreck.

--I was chatting with Stingray and Vine the other evening, and we agree that this is one of the best examples of the "mashup" genre of music that we've ever seen. As I've mentioned, Joan Jett was an early love of mine, and this "fanfaroff" guy (if he's the producer of the mashup) does a nice job of matching the hooks of some popular music. I can't figure in the RATM contribution in the bit, though.

--Appropos of nothing, what kind of computer is that with the faux wood cabinet used by the Eurythmics at 1:05 of this mashup vidjo, right after it is declared that it's Hammer Time?

--My geeky friend Susan (whose daddy really was a rocket scientist in the 50's and 60's, when they got to do cool stuff) pointed out this T-shirt as one she'd like to wear every seven years. I pointed out that someone who wore such a shirt had best know the ins and outs of what it entailed, and pointed her to this informative short documentary.

--That fanfaroff guy really does seem to have something.

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*No, not because "the seat belt trapped them." Usually it was because of injuries sustained in the wreck, which a seat belt would have helped to prevent, along with doors and windows failing to open after the wreck.

Regimental gentlemen.

We don't like talking about it. We don't want to think about it.

But here's the thing:
One in six men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer. If I've got 360 male readers of this post, 60 of you will get prostate cancer.

What's worse, about 1 man in 36 will die of prostate cancer. It's the second leading cause of cancer death among men, following only lung cancer.

I say again: 1 in 36 men die of this detectable form of cancer.

But then look at testicular cancer:
1 in 270 men get testicular cancer. But great news: the fatality rate for that form of cancer is falling. Why? Because of early detection and treatment. We can beat it. (Currently only one in 5,000 die of it.) And if we can beat that form of cancer, then we can beat prostate cancer.

The answer to the question "then why don't they...?" is invariably MONEY.

Kick in a bit. I'm not just interested in "raising awareness"-- I want to raise cash for this.

My good friend Ambulance Driver is all in on this one. For the month of September, he's going to dress every day in a fashion that makes it easier for a medical professional to check him for signs of prostate cancer (or testicular cancer, for that matter).
He's wearing a kilt.

Now, I didn't get my own kilt put together quick enough to join in on AD in the Kilted To Kick Cancer campaign, but I wish that I had; he's got some dandies put together. He's wearing them to work. He's wearing them to the store. He's wearing them to the airport where they will likely be probulating him.

That's dedication to the cause.

I want you, gentle reader, to weigh your discomfort at the thought of getting checked, against your discomfort at the thought of someone dear to you suffering from prostate cancer. Statistically, it's going to happen to someone you care about.

Click on my link here, and put in a few bucks. It's quick and easy. The money goes straight to the Prostate Cancer Foundation, without stuff getting siphoned off for "lobbying," or overhead.

You can do this without even having to leave your doctor's office without making eye contact.

The written word is more powerful.

If you would like to lodge your distaste with the Canton Police Department over Officer Daniel Harless' actions on 8 June, 2011, may I suggest that you write them a letter?

The appropriate address would be:

Dean L. McKimm, Chief Of Police
Canton Police Department
221 Third Street S.W.
Canton, OH 44702

Please be courteous. Please use calm, acceptable language.

Worthy talking points are the Canton P.D.'s Officer Code Of Conduct, Officer Harless' apparent cowardice, Officer Harless's continued rant beyond his initial surprise, the potentially criminal nature of his implied threats, and the damage that it does to the public respect for police.

Mine is mailed out.

It ain't haute cuisine, but....

When I was at Blogorado, I had a really simple appetizer that the Farm Fam prepared, that I loved. They took a large summer sausage, slit it to the center (that is to say, they made a single longitudinal sagital cut that went halfway through the width of the sausage), and stuffed the slit with canned pickled jalapeño slices. They then smoked it. What could be easier? Sliced transversely, and put on a cracker, it was Fan. Tas. Tic. A very flavorful way to feed a lot of visitors.

I mentioned this to a rather, um, heavyset friend of mine. He remarked that he likes to buy a cheap Armour summer sausage from Wal*Mart, cut it up into cubes, and put them into the left-over vinegar brine that he has when he finishes off his pickle jars of jalapeños*.

"That's it?" I asked. "You just dice the sausage into the brine?"

"That's it," assured my rotund friend. "Leave it overnight, if you can. I hurt myself, I eat so much."

I gave it a shot.

Mental note: listen to the fat man.**

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*A word of explanation here: it is a common tradition, in Texas, to save your mayonnaise and pickle jars when you are done with them, to be cleaned and stored until the next time you bring home a gallon can of pickled jalapeños. The jalapeños almost always come packed in an escabeche, which is a vinegar brine, with vegetables-- usually carrots and onions, but occasionally also with bay, oregano, and even cauliflower. The contents of the gallon can are then distributed to the various quart and pint jars, which are then sealed and stored. The empty can is then used for target practice.

**Make sure the meat is covered with the brine if you're going to leave it out. I put mine in the refrigerator, but it needs heating before eating, because cold fat doesn't feel right in the mouth. Lightly pan-fried, it's quite good.

Can we just admit that the terrorists won?

Bin Laden and his ilk, as disgusting as they are, have been completely successful. They have succeeded even beyond their own wildest dreams: they've got us taking our own freedoms away, so that they don't have to.

We're handling crying little three year-old girls as they sob and scream "stop touching me!"

We're manhandling amputee librarians until they are driven to tears.

We're groping nuns.

Why? So that planes won't fall out of the sky? Or just crash for no apparent reason?

Recall that we got into this frenzy after a bunch of religious extremists took over aircraft with box cutters, 9 years ago. We mandated lockable, hardened cockpit doors. We allowed pilots to go armed. We changed policy from "do what they say at all costs." Our passengers have learned to attack their attackers.

This isn't working.

Fire the TSA, keep the locked cockpit doors and armed pilots, and use the savings to put a few more Air Marshals on the flights. Otherwise, take us back to September 10, 2001, or before.

In the mean time, opt out, and then formally lodge your complaints against what's going on.


___________________
Hat Tips:
Breda: First They Came For The Gimps "

Alan: Abolish The TSA "Like the war on (some) drugs, the negative externalities arising from the TSA are costing us dearly for no benefit."


Say Uncle: "Personally, I’ll be driving whenever it’s practical."

Thin lines: You're doing it wrong.

During the Crimean War, on October 25, 1854, 'wayyyyy out on the southwestern tip of the Crimean Peninsula, the British Army had a little fight on their hands. Pulling back repeatedly, the Brits held the port of Balaclava, but their forces were meager, and they were in no state to fight.

Placed in charge of the port's security was the 93rd Highland Regiment, with some help from the Royal Marines. They were In Grave Trouble. The Russian forces were coming hard and fast, and vastly outnumbered the British defense force. The Brits had already pulled back, spiking their guns before the oncoming Cossacks, and now found themselves with nothing behind them but Balaclava and the cold Black Sea, as a force of 2500 Russian cavalry advanced hard upon them.

Sir Colin Campbell, a man who thought of his men like family, spread his forces in a line two deep, between the oncoming Russian mounted force and the port that they were charged with defending. He told them that there was no retreat. He told them that they would die where they stood, if need be. The message was clear: hold the line.

Now, standard doctrine would be to place the men four deep, so that there was some redundancy. But Campbell didn't have many men (a bare few hundred), and if he were to put up a proper defensive line without being flanked immediately, he had to spread them thinner. If any man fell, or ran away, he left a hole in the line that would allow the oncoming cavalry to penetrate the line and overwhelm his comrades. They depended on each other to each do his own part, to prevent the enemy from overrunning the port.

The men held. They fired three volleys at the fast-moving Russian cavalry. British Journalist William H. Russell, watching from a nearby high point, later wrote that the only thing between Balaclava and the rapidly-approaching Russian cavalry was "a thin red streak tipped with a line of steel," meaning the 93rd Regiment (wearing the red uniform jackets of the era).

The Russians checked their charge, and turned back. Some have said that they thought that it must be a trap, because their apparent opposition was so thin. Others have claimed that the fierce fighting of the 93rd stopped them. The truth probably falls somewhere in between, but it is clear that without the courage of the men to stand their ground and fight, maintaining their Thin Red Line, they would not have carried the day.

The term "Thin Red Line" took on the meaning of that vastly-important role that sheer grit and determination, even when unsupported by much tangible substance, plays in preventing civility from being overrun by the barbarians at the gate.

The term was, at some time in the late 20th century, applied to the force of police officers who serve to prevent crime and anarchy in our society. As the police traditionally wear blue, this application of the term became known as "The Thin Blue Line."

All well and good. I like the concept. Often our job, as police officers serving our society, is simply to patrol, and be seen, and stand by, being ready, should it come to it, to intervene. It is appropriate that in a free society the line of police be thin, as this is not a police state. The important thing is not to let your society down, by letting the "fight" against crime and anarchy go unserved. Skip patrols, fail to perform investigations and make important arrests, and the line is broken; the criminals break through, and society can become overrun. We are there to protect our society.

But it's true that among society are an officer's fellow police officers. If police fail to take action against dangerous criminals, then it is certainly true that they put their fellow officers at greater risk. To that extent, the concept of the Thin Blue Line also means protecting your fellow police.

THE "THIN BLUE LINE" DOES NOT MEAN THAT WE COVER UP FOR EACH OTHER.

There seems to be a fairly common public perception that "The Thin Blue Line" is a code of protection at all costs, by the police and for the police. This perception often seems to include the belief that most if not all officers are wrapped up in a cult-like fraternity that demands allegiance to the badge at all costs, which includes lying for a "brother officer," or tampering with evidence, to prevent other officers getting in trouble.

That's not the case.

An officer who knowingly breaks the law is not a police officer; he's a criminal who happens to have a badge. He's not my "brother," he's someone that we need to get shed of our professional association. The Thin Blue Line concept doesn't mean that I should protect a criminal officer; it means that I should take firm action against him.

If you're a cop, and you've been putting "Thin Blue Line" decals on your car, or images up on your website, or tattoos on your arm, or pins on your lapel, or whatever, consider what the meaning is for you, and what meaning the public at large thinks you're portraying.

While I do very much enjoy the camaraderie of my friends (and family) among the the law enforcement community, I'm not willing to let myself be thought of as intimidating others with my status, or as someone who's trying to be excused from a personal responsibility to abide by the law.

If you're using the term "Thin Blue Line" to mean a code of covert mutual protection among the law enforcement community, I submit that "You keep using that term. I do not think it means what you think it means."