This Week: Ankles, Earthquakes and Hurricanes. Next up: Torn ACL and Locusts.

I imagine there aren’t too many times in a man’s life when he really starts to wonder, in a non-joking fashion, if some supernatural force is out there to get him.  I also imagine sprouting a tumor four days before the most important exam of a man’s life might be one of those times.  And if not then, then certainly when his diagnosis gets changed again and again and again, two months after he started treatment.  And if not then, probably when a nice, gentle round of “prophylactic” treatment turns his life into a horizontal hell from which he fears he might never emerge. 

And if all of the above events left your faith unwavering, perhaps it would be the week where that higher power decided to incapacitate him just before flinging a couple natural disasters in his general direction.  What do I mean?

I’m sitting there on Sunday watching a floor hockey game, waiting for ours to begin (I’m playing floor hockey now).  Forgetting the power of my words – remember the time I taunted chemo and then it got revenge by half killing me? – I mentioned how it was odd that “more people didn’t get hurt.” 

Minutes later, a stick would separate from blade and catch a player in the eye.  About an hour later, during my own game, I break into the zone without the ball and pivot, preparing to receive a pass when KABOOSH:

  It’s only a flesh wound

In roughly 20 years of playing sports, including hockey and football, I have never been unable to get up because of an injury.  I don’t recall ever leaving a game because of an injury, and I can think of one game I missed because of an in-game injury (sprained knee in high school).  Until one hour after I noticed how odd it was that more people didn’t seem to be getting hurt during these floor hockey games. 

The funny thing about ankle injuries is that everybody on earth has an o-pinion on them.  Like “You gotta rub some mayonnaise on it! That will make the swelling go down!” opinions.  Some guy mentioned something about filling a styrofoam cup with water, letting it freeze, then peeling the styrofoam off and…I don’t know what the hell I was supposed to do with that.  But I did this in the first period of the first game of a doubleheader, so I had to listen to about two hours of ankle rehab tips from a bunch of Doogie Howsers.

I was debating whether or not the injury was hospital worthy.  I didn’t think it was, but after hearing a steady stream of with doctor remedies followed by “oh yeah, my ankle hasn’t worked right since,” I decided to go see my old friends at the GW ER once again.  At the very least, they could give me the supplies I needed.  And I really couldn’t put any weight on the foot, so I figured it couldn’t hurt to have somebody who went to med school look at a picture of the inside of my ankle.  I’d prefer to use the thing and have it work properly in the future. 

There was virtually nobody in the ER, so it was the right call.  Plus, I have now been to the ER more times in my seven months in DC than I had been in my 25 years in Michigan.  So that’s a cool stat.  And they punched my GW ER frequent customer card, and my next visit is free.  I’m in no hurry to use it. 

***

So Monday I’m in some serious pain and I need to go get some meds, which turns into a roughly 45 minute ordeal with the damn crutches.  I get a little bit of work done, but with mobility limited and simple tasks taking three times as long, not much is getting accomplished.  I’m not in the office, which isn’t usually a problem – most of what I do, I can do just as well at home, and half the time nobody will even notice if you’re not in the office for a day.

Except on Monday.  On Monday, people wanted to have meetings.  And there were deadlines.  And all that jazz.  So I spilled the ankle news, got some heartfelt condolences (seriously – they’re all good people), and said I would be in on Tuesday when I would hobble into the office and into whatever conference room I needed to be in. 

So that’s why I went to work on Tuesday.

Tuesday was the second day in my life I had been on crutches.  On 50% of those days, we had an earthquake:

 

I’m probably with the west-coasters on this one – chill the F out, east coast – hence the picture above.   But it was at least an interesting experience.  First you wonder who’s rolling a giant cart down the hall, then you wonder if there’s a helicopter overhead, then, since we’re in DC, you think bomb/airplane/some other terrorist attack, and then, once the shaking continues (and gets worse), you finally think “Shit, I think this is an earthquake.” 

Well I had another step in there: a very calculated, “There’s no damn way I’m going to be running out of here, so what should I do if this gets real.”  Fortunately, it never did.  By the time I went through the above progression and was just planning to dive under my desk (which would have been a slow process in and of itself), things stopped.  And the entire city was reduced to a sort of “bemused milling about” as one friend put it.  Except the government, of course.  They freaked out, sent everybody home, and half their buildings still aren’t open.  Real confidence-inspiring. 

Props to the co-worker who asked me if I needed to be “piggy-backed out of there,” though.

***

Which brings us to this weekend, and, as you might have heard, this:

You’ve probably heard the comments – God is after all the jackass politicians; he’s specifically targeting DC; the universe is trying to finish us off out here.  Entirely plausible.  I mean, how often do you get an earthquake and a hurricane hitting the Northeast in the same week?!

Well how often does a guy get incapacitated, run through an earthquake, and subjected to a hurricane all in the same week?  Fortunately I have the old man’s advice, via e-mail:

I think you should buy snorkeling equipment and submerge yourself in the pool on the roof. I'm not sure what to do with Brady.

Which, even if for some reason I decided to take that course of action, I couldn’t.  Because the damn Georgetown Law students in our building broke a beer bottle in the pool:

The lap pool…is down until further notice. Glass was found in the pool and DC health code states that we have to drain the pool, have it thoroughly cleaned out, then re-filled.

This is why our rules clearly state that absolutely no glass is allowed in the pool areas. Anyone caught with glass in the pool areas will be issued a lease violation, and repeat offenses will result in an eviction from this community.

They should force those GLaw students to clean the pool themselves.  It will help them prepare for post-grad employment.  BAM.  

***

So yeah…you know those dreams you have where you’re running, trying to get away from something but you’re just moving so slow and you just can’t get away…that’s how I see this ending up.  Me with a busted wheel, Hurricane Irene, a serious aftershock from Tuesday’s quake, and Georgetown Law students…those are the four horsemen of the apocalypse right? 

So you know what I’m going to do?  I’m gonna go all Lieutenant Dan on Irene.  I’m gong to drag my gimpy ass to the roof with some Whiskey and/or Gin, and meet that sucker head on.  And if I don’t fall off the roof, I will have made my peace.

What happens if the flash mobs started drinking Four Loko?

It’s late summer.  The debt ceiling fiasco is over.  Congress is in recess.  It’s hot.  Osama is dead.  We’re bored.  Nobody even remembers what Four Loko was.  Weren’t they an indie band or something?

We need something new to entertain and scare us. 

Media, soil thyself!

Police scramble to fight flash-mob mayhem

This week in Germantown, Maryland, it took less than a minute for a flash mob of teenagers to descend on a 7-Eleven, ransack shelves and make off with hundreds of dollars worth of stuff.

It's going to take much longer for police in Montgomery County to figure out how to prevent it from happening again.

…

This summer, spontaneous incidents of group violence -- dubbed "flash robs" -- have happened in Minneapolis, Chicago, Cleveland, New York and Washington, among other cities. Most episodes involved groups of young people looting stores or assaulting pedestrians and then running off.

Authorities said they believe at least some of these incidents were triggered by calls on social-networking sites to meet up and wreak havoc, although they cannot say for certain.

Success!

 

The Germantown, Maryland incident was particularly awesome for the late-summer news cycle because it included video.  Really scary video.  Perfect for 30-second spots on the evening news:

 

And borrowing a page from Mitch Albom, here come the scary buzzwords for the baby boomers:

"Part of the challenge is generational. Older officers in management positions -- the ones making decisions -- are often not as savvy as younger officers with social media," said Nancy Kolb, who oversees the International Association of Chiefs of Police's Center for Social Media.

…

More than 70% of responding agencies also said they had not identified any goals for officers' use of social-media tools such as Facebook and Twitter, even though the vast majority of law enforcement officers were using them.

…

Since the spring of 2010, police have reported a series of violent flash-mob incidents in central Philadelphia. In one episode last year, a crowd of some 200 lawbreakers, mostly teenagers, roamed the streets robbing bystanders and breaking windows. Authorities suspect the group gathered after seeing a call on Facebook or Twitter to meet up.

…

Philadelphia police investigators also have been friending younger Philadelphians on Facebook in the hopes of monitoring chatter about potential mayhem.

…

Name the social-networking site, and Parker has used it to help track down a criminal or do a background check. The skill he most often teaches other officers is how to recognize a Facebook posting or a Twitter hashtag that suggests flash-mob planning is under way.

…

"This is so basic, but if you know there's going to be a dance, you have to get on the invite list," Parker says. "You have to be on these sites -- Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, Flickr -- with the mindset that you're not just watching passively. You're engaging."

Social media?  Social networking?  Facebook?  Twitter?  Foursquare?  “Monitoring chatter” like our 14 year olds are in Al Qaeda?  And “hashtag” sounds like either a drug or something that could rip my face open!

The Washington Post has been milking the Germantown incident like an immortal cow (I’m out of similes).  But some of these stories just…didn’t quite make the case.  Example, in a WaPo article rife with chatter about Facebook, Twitter, social networking, and all the good stuff:

In April, about 20 teenagers entered G-Star Raw, a high-end men’s clothing store in the Dupont Circle neighborhood of the District of Columbia, and stole about $20,000 worth of merchandise despite employees’ efforts to grab the apparel back, store manager Greg Lennon said. D.C. police have investigated leads but have not made arrests in the case.

Lennon said he later saw Twitter postings, apparently written after the robbery, that referenced the theft, with one person describing having been in the store and making plans to come back.

That’s…not a flash mob.  That’s a bunch of people stealing stuff at the same time, yes.  But it’s not a “flash mob.”  It might be relevant to the economy, public safety, education, morals, or who-knows-what.  But the fact that somebody Tweeted about stealing stuff from a store after stealing stuff from the store…what does that have to do with anything?  You can’t write thousands of articles with lines like this:

Police in Maryland are not alone in their scramble to find creative, affordable and efficient ways to fight mayhem from flash mobs -- groups of people who gather in one location quickly after being summoned online. Law enforcement in big cities and small towns are all scrambling to, as Smith put it, "catch up with teenagers" when it comes to monitoring crime planning on the Web.

When you drop kinda-sorta-story-destroying disclaimers like this:

Authorities said they believe at least some of these incidents were triggered by calls on social-networking sites to meet up and wreak havoc, although they cannot say for certain.

“Authorities said?”  “They believe?”  “At least some?”  I mean, who are the authorities?  Why do they believe this?  If it’s on a social networking site, shouldn’t it be out in the public domain?  Isn’t this widely available information (and the reason these “mobs” are such a threat)?  And “at least some?”  Well if some of these incidents aren’t examples of “flash mobs,” 1) why the hell were they mentioned in an article on flash mobs, and 2) why are police departments “scrambling” to “monitor crime planning on the web.”  More cops sitting behind computers isn’t exactly the best way to combat, hypothetically, a group of teenagers who spend the night at a fair, take a bus to a transit center, and impulsively – without the aid of any scary “social media” decide to storm a 7-11 and take what they want. 

Or, not hypothetically.  The latest from the Washington Post on the Germantown flash mob:

Although D.C. police have not identified suspects in the latest incidents, Montgomery County police say the group that surged into the Germantown store did not organize over social media.

The participants all had been at the Montgomery County Fair. They traveled by bus to the Germantown Transit Center and, once there, made plans to rush into the store, where they stole about $450 worth of candy, snacks and drinks, according to police.

Which is a little different tune than we were singing last week:

A police report details what happened: Late Friday night (technically Saturday morning), 30 kids walked into a 7-Eleven and stole items including snack food and drinks. The group stayed in the store for approximately one minute and then exited, also as a group. Many of the suspects had covered their faces with items of clothing.

Hersh said his team does not know how the heist originated, but said it seems obvious that it was coordinated via cellphone or social media. As to whether the kids arrived via foot or car, he said, the answer is one of those the investigation seeks to determine.

But hey, never let facts get in the way of a good scare, amiright?

It’s tough to pray five times a day when you have an IV in your arm

I did the majority of my chemo in the fine city of Dearborn, Michigan.  Dearborn, you might have heard, is home to one of the largest Arab populations outside the Middle East – about 1/3 of its approximately 100,000 residents are Arab, most of whom are Muslims.  And while my experience might have been different than everybody else’s, nobody ever tried to convert me.  Or impose Sharia law on me and my visitors. 

So I was a little surprised (actually, not at all surprised, but go with it) to see that the imposition of Sharia has apparently become a real problem in Michigan since I left.  To the point where we need to pass laws to ban it:

A state lawmaker wants Michigan to join the trend of states banning "foreign laws," but Muslim activists say the effort is a thinly veiled attack on Islam.

Rep. Dave Agema, R-Grandville, is pushing a bill to bar the implementation of foreign laws. It doesn't mention Sharia — Islamic law — but he acknowledged it would be prohibited in courts under the legislation intended to prevent anyone "who tries to shove any foreign law down our throats."

"No foreign law shall supersede federal laws or constitution or state laws or constitution," Agema said. "Our law is our law. I don't like foreign entities telling us what to do."

Jesus, man.  What immigrant pissed in your Wheaties this morning, Dave?

Best I can tell, the bill (pdf) does absolutely nothing of consequence.  Every provision prohibits applying foreign law in a manner that would “violate the constitutional rights” of an individual.  Which, to the best of my knowledge, is pretty well foreclosed by, you know, the Constitution. 

Perhaps Agema could enlighten the rest of us as to why this bill is necessary, or even what it would actually do in practice.  But instead, he just seems like a really pissed off Lee Greenwood on steroids:

"If anybody has a problem with this that means they don't agree with U.S. laws," he said. "If they don't want it passed then they have an ulterior agenda. It shows the people accusing me of that (bigotry) are guilty of it themselves."

And while you don’t want to read too much into anything on the internet, the public seems to be buying this bigtime:

 

The erudite highest-rated comment on the Free Press story is also worth an excerpt:

This is the United States of America, we are ruled by common law. If you want to live under sharia law, than move to a country where sharia law is the law of the land.

Charming. 

I’ll leave the message board comment alone, except to say 1) it’s wrong, and 2) no argumentative sentence that includes the phrase “the United States of America” has ever succeeded, with the exception of Otter’s closing argument in Animal House. 

The real issue is how dangerously stupid this pretty damn racist publicity stunt is.  The Detroit News, to its credit, tries to figure out the potential impact of this law:

Christine Brim, a spokeswoman for the Center for Security Policy in Washington, D.C., said her group has identified 50 cases that could be influenced by Sharia. Most involved divorce or child custody and one was in Michigan, she said.

That sounds scary (actually it doesn’t at all.  It just sounds like we’re proposing a pretty racist and incendiary law for pretty much no reason whatsoever.  But the "women and children” implications could be construed in such a way).  But what does it really mean?  UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh explains:

Every year, millions of people from other countries legally come to America, whether as citizens, permanent residents, temporary workers, students, tourists, or whatever else.

American law naturally wants to know certain things about them. Are they married? If they were married, are they divorced? Were the supposed adoptive children they’re bringing with them really adopted? How about the property they’re bringing with them — who really owns it? If they go back to their country of origin, and come back claiming that they divorced the spouses that are still living there, are they telling the truth?

The way that American law generally answers these questions is by looking at the law of the foreign country in which the actions initially took place, especially if the parties to those actions were citizens or residents of that country — for instance, the place where the marriage supposedly took place, where the supposed divorce or adoption decree was procured, or where the property was acquired. If the question is whether a marriage contracted in France between two French citizens is valid, you look to whether the law of France was properly complied with in entering into the marriage. If the question is whether two Taiwanese properly divorced in Taiwan, you look at the divorce decree from the Taiwanese court, and if there are questions about its validity or scope you consult Taiwanese law…

This is not some newfangled international law theory. This is deeply established American law — specifically the body of law called “choice of law” — which has long called for the consideration of foreign law in such situations.

The thing is, I have no idea how the proposed law would impact this situation.  I have no idea how it would impact any situation.  I’m not sure who exactly is trying to “shove foreign laws down our throats,” or how an American court could somehow use German law to violate an American citizen’s First Amendment rights.  The legal issues here are rather complex, but the best I can tell, this is a meaningless political stunt.   

But I do know that this bill will stoke political and racial firestorms and promote ignorant views about our legal system.  And given Agema’s “America, F*** Yeah!!” defense of this stupid bill, it seems that’s exactly what he wanted.  This is something that should get you criticized.  But in politics, it gets you elected. 

Bigger threat to Detroiters: Bullets or Big Macs?

Detroiters cut off from healthy food options, screams a Detroit News headline.  “Panelist says lack of access killing residents,” reads the subhead, ratcheting up the drama. 

So how are Detroiters “cut off” from healthy food options?  How do they “lack access"?  Apparently, like this:

The obstacles discussed included everything from city residents' attitudes about eating and government officials' failure to back local growing efforts to lack of access to fresh food.

Eesh.  I know these panelists had nothing to do with the headline-writin’, but…we seem to have a little disconnect.

So when government officials do decide to “support” fresh food options, this is the reaction:

Among the city's food experts, the pending arrival of a Whole Foods in Detroit's Midtown is a mixed blessing for efforts to get healthier foods into more local hands.

…

"Their customer base isn't Detroit," Spady said. "… And there are a number of local businesses that are very concerned about their economic future as it relates to (Whole Foods' arrival)."

Gah?  We’re in the middle of a discussion about how Detroiters “lack access” to healthy food, we see an example of government granting tax breaks to bring healthy food into the city, and the objection is…the “number of local businesses” that sell healthy food options are “very concerned.”  Don’t they…not exist?  Isn’t that the reason Detroiters “lack access” to healthy food?  Are there a “number of local businesses” selling this stuff or not?  The article mentions people who “live too far from Eastern Market and other markets,” which, great.  But is that even true?  Or relevant?  Also, cool code word there in the first quote. 

Anyway, there are independent retailers in the city that offer healthy, fresh options – we just heard from them during the recent Whole Foods ordeal.  Here’s the experience of one:

Kim and Hollis Smith left the affluent Ann Arbor marketplace to fill what they saw as a void in the food landscape in Detroit. Five months ago, they opened Kim's Produce, a storefront full of fresh food on Woodward at Willis in Detroit's Midtown.

Fresh food, in a city that has no major grocery store? Customers must be beating down the doors!

Um, no.

"When we first opened up here it would be pretty much Kim and I playing Scrabble," says Hollis, 42. "We would look over at McDonald's right across the street and their line would be wrapped around the building, out onto Woodward, causing traffic confusion, and people would wait. We would want to just go out and say, 'We've got fresh options over here.'

"But I think those golden arches are just like magnets, and some people are just hard-wired to feel that pull. And it just pulls people to McDonald's -- almost like zombies."

They're not doing the volume they did at their roadside stand in Ann Arbor. "Last summer we went through 150 pounds of tomatoes a day," says Kim. "Here we sell 10 pounds in two days."

Kim’s produce, by the way, is just down the block from the new Whole Foods site.  They gotta be thrilled. 

Anyway, Detroit's reputation as a giant food desert (I once had a friend ask me, “Is it true that there aren’t any grocery stores in Detroit?”) doesn’t seem to be entirely appropriate.  At least, according to the government:

Perhaps we should be lamenting Ann Arborites’ lack of access to healthy options:

So how do these “experts” propose to remedy this crisis?

Panel members debated solutions such as a tax on pop or other drinks that are generally considered unhealthy, as well as a new emphasis on education such as home economics-style courses in local schools.

Forgive me for asking what reporters apparently cannot, but how does any of that improve access to healthy food?  How does any of that help people who are “cut off” from healthy food? 

It doesn’t, of course.  Because that’s not the point.  The point is that certain people are not eating what their mommies and daddies in positions of authority want them to eat.  And if there’s anything I’ve learned in the past eight years, it’s that poor people are stupid and cannot be trusted to make their own decisions, and therefore, “smarter” people must make decisions for them…or at least not-so-gently nudged in that general direction or “educated” by their superiors.  And I am an elitist asshole for objecting to that.

Look, if we’re talking specifically about people who have no job, no car, no access to public transportation, no urban gardens, markets, or grocery stores nearby, and are unable to afford the $2.50 it costs to consume the daily recommended amounts of fruit and vegetables, and actually want to eat that food, then we can conceivably discuss how people are being “killed” because they are “cut off” from and “lack access” to healthy food.  But if we’re talking about voluntary choices, even if those choices are “easier”…come on.  Let’s drop the hyperbole.