Bent Corner

Hagerstown Police Chief Arthur Smith reported that there were 47 traffic accidents in the city on Wednesday, December 24 from the hours of midnight to 8:00 a.m. The reason? Because the city failed to spread salt, that magical high-tech substance that lowers the temperature in which water freezes.

Only a partial salt spreading crew was scheduled to be on duty. Whatever that means.

The totally retarded aspect of this story is that everyone knew that the weather forecast was calling for freezing rain on Wednesday. If there are two words you don’t want put together its “freezing” and “rain”.

I’m guessing that there were even more accidents than the 47 that were reported. Most fender-bender type of accidents don’t get reported to the police. The city screwed up by not scheduling salt to be spread on a night where freezing rain was in the forecast and it’s going to cost people a lot of money.

All criminal charges have been dropped against 24-year old Hagerstown police officer Curtis W. Kelley. He had been charged with first-degree assault, second-degree assault and reckless endangerment after his live-in girlfriend told the police that he pointed his service weapon at her during an argument.

He allegedly said he wouldn’t shoot her because she wasn’t worth the bullet.

Officer Kelley’s lawyer was able to get the charges dismissed because Kelley’s girlfriend originally testified that she “did not believe he would shoot her,” but that she was concerned Kelley might harm her later. His lawyer argued that the assault charges required the victim to be in fear of bodily harm at the time of the incident.  Being fearful of harm later on didn’t count.

Either pointing your weapon at your girlfriend during an argument is wrong or it’s not.  I don’t quite understand exactly how her mental state at the time should be a factor.  Frankly, it’s officer Kelley’s mental state at the time that should be a concern, not his girlfriend’s.

Hagerstown police officer Curtis W. Kelley, 24, has been placed on leave with pay and has been charged with various crimes in connection to allegedly pointing his departmentally issued handgun at his live-in girlfriend.

On September 12, Officer Kelly and his girlfriend got into an argument after she told him she was meeting a male friend she has known since kindergarten. Officer Kelly picked up his handgun that had been sitting on a table in their apartment and pointed it at her. He then allegedly said he wouldn’t shoot her because she wasn’t worth the bullet.

Now that is just rude. I’m pretty sure that the Hagerstown Police Department provides bullets to their officers for free. How bad must a woman be if she’s not worth a free bullet? It’s not like it was a special or exotic bullet. It was just a plain old regular 40-caliber bullet.

That’s no way to treat a lady, especially one you share your life with.

It’s also not a good idea to destroy your girlfriend’s self esteem before she heads off to spend time with a male friend. That’s just asking for trouble. [Herald-Mail]

Hagerstown’s local newspaper, The Herald-Mail, has a section on their website entitled “Top Jobs“. I think they simply republish on their website the jobs printed in the paper version of the newspaper, but I’m not sure.

While looking over the website this morning, one of the ads caught my attention.  It’s for “exotic” dancers at a strip club.

Only the Herald-Mail would refer to a job where a young woman is required to remove her clothing on stage to entertain perverts as a “top job”.

The local newspaper has a photo slideshow on their website that featured various photos taken in Washington County on Election Day.  The local newspaper being what it is, failed to put the photos into any sort of context.  They didn’t identify anyone in the photos.  They offered no explanation as to what the photos were capturing.

For instance, what is this man actually campaigning for?  I don’t remember seeing a candidate on the ballot with the name “Bible”.  I also don’t remember anything on the ballot that had to do with abortion.  I think I would remember that.

If he is Pro-Life, does that mean he is against the death penalty too?

There was something on the ballot concerning gambling.  It had to do with allowing slot machines here in Maryland.  Personally, I could care less about slots.  I don’t gamble or play games of chance.  It has nothing to do with my morals or anything like that, I just find gambling to be extremely boring.  With that said, I voted to allow slots here in Maryland.  The reason?  Who am I to tell someone that wants to play slots that they can’t.  It’s none of my business.

What exactly is this man trying to get across to the voters?  He has a checkmark in the box next to Pro-Life and an “X” next to gambling.  Don’t they mean the same thing, a checkmark and an “X”?

I take it that this man was a McCain supporter.  I find that to be extremely ironic in that out of the two candidates, Obama is the one that is a born again Christian.  He’s the only one that has been married to the same woman his entire life.  McCain on the other hand, not so much.  He left his first wife for a woman much younger then himself, a woman who’s vast fourtune was built on selling of beer.  Most Christians frown on drinking beer, let alone making millions of dollars selling it.

Today’s Herald-Mail had a semi-interesting Mail Call entry. It’s from a person who claims they were “verbally assaulted” on election day:

I am writing this to the gentleman and his wife who verbally assaulted me on Election Day as I stood outside E. Russell Hicks Middle School. I would like to remind these fine U.S. citizens that I was well within my First Amendment rights to be there, just as much as they were. Not only am I also a U.S. citizen, but I am also a Christian. I appreciate the constitutional rights that our forefathers fought so hard for. … I was merely peacefully performing a civic duty and standing up for something I very strongly believe in. It would be a dismal day in this great country to wake up and realize that those unalienable rights had been taken away from us.

Except the gentleman and his wife also have First Amendment rights which means they are well within their rights to tell this Christian person standing outside the polling place exactly what they think of him or her. Freedom of Speech works both ways.

This person never bothers to say where exactly they were standing while “peacefully performing a civic duty.” It’s an important point because this person may have been breaking Maryland election law. In Maryland it’s illegal to canvass, electioneer, or post any campaign material within 100 feet of either the entrance or the exit to a polling place (Maryland Election Law § 16-206).

Hagerstown’s newspaper of record, the Herald-Mail, allows readers to go to its website and respond to the many articles it publishes.  Yesterday’s article chronicling President-elect Barack Obama’s historic win really brought the whack jobs out.

Here is just one example:

What is wrong with the people in this country? Don’t they realize that they just put the enemy in the highest position possible in this great country? A year from now there will be no Bibles, our children will be forced to be trained to destroy innocent people for no other reason than power and greed, and we will have no one to thank, but our own people. God have mercy on us all. He’s the only one that can save us now. Take a good look around you, because 4 years from now you won’t have the freedom to. Look at what we’ve destroyed.

This person thinks that Barack Obama as President will not only confiscate all of our Bibles, he will turn our children into suicide bombers.  I don’t remember reading anything about that on the Obama website.

Sharpsburg resident Dean Joyce has been notified by the Washington County Commissioners that he has to mow his natural meadow habitat down to 18 inches or he will face huge fines. Joyce decided to return his 3-acre field into a natural grassland habitat shortly after moving into his home in 2000. He is originally from Australia and he wanted to learn more about the flora and fauna of the United States.

I have to hand it to the Washington County Commissioners. When they decided to illegally give $10,000 to a Hagerstown all-star Little League team to supposedly cover travel expenses that were already being covered by Little League, I thought they couldn’t do anything as stupid ever again. Clearly I was wrong.

Joyce’s field is the way a field is supposed to look. It’s natural. It’s the way God intended a field to look. [The Herald Mail]

Yes, this says what you think it says. Click here to see a larger image.  I don’t know what is more disturbing, that something like this could be found in Hagerstown’s own Rocky Ridge Collectibles or that the seller wants $45 for it.

And that was not the only piece of racist crap sitting on the shelf.  No, it was only the most agregous.  There were other similarly framed works of racism for sale along with this one.

Sorry for the crummy quality of the photo.  I took it with my camera phone.  I had to temporarily move a stack of cowboy hats to get a clear picture.  Who would have guessed that the same vendor that was selling this framed piece of historical hate would also be selling cowboy hats?

It’s 2008.  It would be nice if we could finally get past this type of stuff.