The Wordsmith's Forge

This is an adorable post about a man who thought he was straight, until he realized that he'd fallen in love with his best friend, who is another man.  Yes, it can happen, and when it does it's more often like that than love at first sight.  I am fondly reminded of Victor/Igor and Stan/Lawrence, in different ways.

The March 3, 2015 Poetry Fishbowl made its $200 goal, so you get a free epic.  Everyone is eligible to vote in this poll.  I will leave it open until at least Thursday night.  If there's a clear answer then, I'll close it.  Otherwise I may leave it open a little longer.

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Here is a terrific list of things you can do to protect yourself and your data online. 

Terry Pratchett has passed away.  I enjoyed some of his books, and particularly his portrayal of witches.

While fans may mourn his departure from this world, Death must be downright ecstatic -- he has so few friends, it's nice to pick up someone who's appreciative instead of abusive.  I hope they have a jolly good ride.

This article and video explain that police officers customarily and sensibly wear holsters designed for maximum control of their firearms.  That makes it impossible for an officer's gun to fall out of a holster or be misappropriated by someone else.  Further safety features address specific parts of the gun such as the slide and trigger, again to prevent it from firing accidentally or under hostile action.  In order to the remove and fire the gun, it is necessary to know the exact method which the holster is set to permit, in which case the officer can draw and fire quite easily.  Without the knowledge and practice of how this holster works, the gun is not coming lose, because the technology is quite well designed.  Responsible gun owners use equipment like this to avoid stupid accidents like shooting themselves in the crotch or having children fire a gun.  Concerned about your safety?  You could bolt one of these to your bed and not have to worry about shooting yourself in your sleep, yet still have your weapon ready at hand.

None of this does any good if the officer is paranoid and delusional.  By paranoid, I mean generally inclined to believe that everyone is out to get him when it is not the case.  By delusional, I mean believing something which not only did not happen, but could not  happen as claimed.  

There is equipment designed to protect officers and other people around them.  Regrettably it cannot overcome all human failings.  If officers do not understand their equipment, use it properly, and trust  that it will perform as designed -- then they can't take advantage of the safety features as intended.

Put these two factors together and the result is a loss of life which was entirely preventable.  This is just one incident in a widespread pattern of police brutality marked not just by physical violence, but by deep psychological distortions.  When one officer makes a mistake which unnecessarily kills a civilian, that person needs to find a different line of work.  And when the same problem occurs repeatedly throughout multiple departments, then it indicates a pervasive flaw in law enforcement as a whole.

Of course, another consideration is that parts of this problem are not mistakes but are desired goals of a police state.  That's a political issue and somewhat different. 

This poem came out of the November 5, 2014 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by a prompt from janetmiles. It also fills the "innocent" square in my 10-6-13 card for the origfic_bingo fest. This poem has been selected in an audience poll as the free epic for the March 3, 2015 Poetry Fishbowl reaching the $200 goal. It belongs to the series Starfather, which you can find via the Serial Poetry page.

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