The View from a Drawbridge

Tag: police

  • Water, Water, Everywhere

    If you’re a fish, you don’t know you’re in water unless you jump out of it. That stands to reason. We humans are much more self-aware, and yet most of us don’t spend much time thinking about the fact that we’re in air. (Would that we did. We’d probably be less apt to pollute the…

  • An Unsolved Abduction: Should Women Feel Safe in Seattle, South Park or Tukwila?

    Around 6 pm on Friday, November 24th, 2017, a friend of mine was walking on South Park Bridge, which spans the Duwamish River between Seattle, Tukwila, and South Park, Washington. He noticed a woman on a bicycle, but didn’t really think much of it at first. It’s hard to go anywhere around here without seeing…

  • People are Strange

    Apparently yesterday was Crazy Dude on the Bridge Day, and nobody warned me. I should actually read the e-mails, I suppose. But no. My first tip-off was when I heard a blaring of honking horns. (I’m making it official. A group of honking horns is called a blaring.) I looked out, and there was a…

  • Seattle Speaks

    So many of us are in a state of shock, trying to adjust to this new world we’re living in. We are wondering how we’ll fit in now if we’re women, minorities, immigrants, or part of the LGBT community. I know I’ve really been struggling with this. Fortunately, there’s a place that I have been…

  • Cop Avoidance

    Back in the early 80’s I was studying abroad in Guanajuato, Mexico. It was one of the high points in my life. I learned so much about myself and the wider world. It had a profound effect on how I see this planet and its many inhabitants. I felt very safe in that welcoming community.…

  • Stop and Frisk

    I find pretty much everything that comes out of Donald Trump’s mouth to be outrageous. But when he claimed that New York City needs to reinstate its old stop and frisk policies because crime increased after their policy was deemed unconstitutional, I nearly hit the roof. These lies are just more of his “be very…

  • MAKING America Great

    I have no idea why, but I’ve known a lot of ex-cops in my lifetime, and have had some disturbing conversations therewith. I strongly believe that certain jobs attract certain personalities, and I have to confess that I’ve always been sort of creeped out by the cop culture, as much as truly I appreciate that…

  • Suspicious Package

    I was walking to the south end of my bridge to do some much-needed maintenance when I came upon a large shopping bag, apparently stuffed full of clothing. It was right in the middle of the sidewalk and no one was in sight. I wasn’t about to go rooting around in this bag. After all,…

  • Forcing the Issue

    As I mentioned in yesterday’s blog entry, I got a chance to see Bernie Sanders speak here in Seattle on Saturday night. It went really well. At 15,000 attendants, it was his largest crowd to date, and about 3 times larger than Hillary Clinton’s largest gathering. But earlier in the day, he attempted to speak…

  • Cop-ophobia

    Growing up, I was taught that policemen were your friends. If you got lost, find the nearest police officer. He would help you. As law-abiding as I always have been, I assumed that all cops were Officer Friendly, and I maintained that view until I was 18 years old. So imagine my shock as an…