Real Crime

Absolutely chilling, but 100% true story in this month's Vanity Fair about a private dick tracking down a serial rapist. Not to be read before bed or checking into the Miami Dade Airport Regency Hotel.

Half Bummer Half Uplifting Story of Healing

I don't know if you know this or not, but the reason that Adam Walsh hosts America's Most Wanted, and in fact the only reason there is an America's Most Wanted, is that Walsh's 6yr old son was abducted and gruesomely murdered in 1981. Sad.

Until today the murder was unsolved which is crazy town, that's 27yrs!!!

I have a soft spot for Adam in my heart because I always used to watch Cops and AMW on Saturday nights while I was getting ready to go out. That is, until I started having nightmares and checking the door locks 10 times a night.

So congrats, I guess. Though the sucky thing is, is that Walsh was right the whole time about who the murderer was, this drifter slash serial killer but the cops wouldn't bite. He even wrote a whole book about their ineptitude called, "Tears of Rage".
I think that title says it all.

A Moment for Mumbai

Check out the Big Picture today for some unbelievable photos from the aftermath of the 60hr gunman attack on Mumbai.













Almost unbelievably, this man was shot at 5 times and was saved by the belt he was wearing!!!












Muslims release doves at a peace rally.

Picture 22 has been getting a lot of press in the media first as the face of suffering for the Mumbai attacks and subsequently to illustrate what white centric, imperialist, devils we are. Check it out.

Mail Man Get's Probation, My Admiration

Here's another poor bastard for you! Why don't you give thanks you aren't Steven Padgett, a North Carolina mailman who for years hadn't been delivering anyone's junk mail.
Good!

Poor guy couldn't keep up with the tight schedule the Postal Service made him keep so he started only delivering 1st and 2nd class mail. The rest was hidden in his garage or BURIED in his backyard. Whoa!
Check out this picture

That's a lot of junk mail!!
He was facing 3 years in jail and a $250,000 fine but luckily he only got probation.



Um, 3 years in jail for not delivering junk mail? Really? What he should have gotten was some home baked cookies and a hug!

You Seem 'Nice'

On BART this morning I spotted this headline in the newspaper of the guy in front of me:

'Nice guy' fatally shot outside S.F. bar

The quotes are meant to represent what friends said about him, but doesn't it just seem sarcastic? Plus then this is the photo they run of the poor guy -

This is his very last chance to make an impression on the world and this is what he gets??? Sarcastic 'nice guy' quotes and then probably the worst picture ever taken of him.

Plus he was shot out on Broadway in SF where all the strip clubs are, in front of a smut shop, which he will now always be associated with. I do not want my memorial anywhere near strip clubs and drunk horny tourists.

So, RIP Richard Barrett, sorry you got such a bum rap. You seemed so 'nice', plus the article says that your drink was Patron and that's my fancy drink of choice too.

Gnome Thrower Sentenced Today

A Pennsylvania man got 2-4 years in jail, 5 years probation and drug counseling for getting ripped and pissed and throwing a garden gnome through a glass door at his 16yr old step daughter. Either gnome pieces or door pieces ended up hitting her face and giving her a pretty nasty facial laceration.

The gnome thrower retorted, "Obviously, you don't care," before being restrained by two sheriff's deputies and being dragged out of the court room.

This was all clearly an excuse to google image search garden gnomes.

Oakland, the sunny side of the bay

A lot of times people (people who live outside Oakland) think I live in Oakland only because I lack the funds to live elsewhere. That, given the chance, I'd move to SF. They usually try to commiserate with me or tell me about their friend who's subletting a room in some part of the city I would never want to live.
Well, such people need to step. I have many metric tons of Oakland pride and wouldn't move to the city even if I did have gobs of money. Which I obvs don't, but whatever.

I also tend to think my neighborhood is very safe. Of course everyone thinks their neighborhood is safe. My friend who's seen 3 murders on her street, and I mean on her block, including one corpse IN THE STREET, worries about parking on my street over night.

In fact I was giving her and my other friend and the bf a big indignant speech how living below Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd doesn't always indicate shady times no matter what Chris Rock says, when our friend called to say he'd just been punched in the face right on my doorstep!! And for no worse crime than being dressed dorky and having a basket on his bike.
Heh, dork.
Anyway I never got punched, my car's never been broken into and no one's ever said anything worse to me than 'damn you look sexy today' and really, that's kind of nice.

HOWEVER I checked out this interactive map of homicides in Oakland this year, and there have been 3 murders within 3 blocks of my house. Gulp.





And then I read this choice quote from the East Bay Express's crime blotter. Note for non East Bayers: Piedmont is a town that's basically inside Oakland, but became it's own thing when it realized it was full of money and didn't want it's taxes going into Oakland's coffers.

Between 7 a.m. and 3 p.m. on July 5, Piedmont police records show reports of a house being egged, a loud leaf-blower, a blocked driveway, two off-leash dogs, a car parked too long, "a suspicious person carrying a plastic bag," a dead rat, and a dead cat. That's it. Within those same hours in Oakland, police records show five shootings, an assault with a deadly weapon, three armed robberies, a strong-arm robbery, an assault with a deadly weapon, and an unexplained death. That's it.

Oh is that all?