July 2009

Believe it or not, I do understand the necessity of using modern tools to deal with modern problems – the use of new technologies to battle technological crimes.  I understand that criminals are getting more technologically sophisticated and globalized, and I do understand the need to employ contemporary technologies to battle the new threats. What I don’t understand is the need to control every idiot on every medium as a precautionary measure.

Elvis Rodriguez, 30, flashed Latin Kings hand signals on his
MySpace.com page and called himself “King Kamel,” according to his
arrest report.

Richard Figueroa-Santiago, 22, used his MySpace page to post
pictures of friends making “Eastside” hand gestures, detectives said.

Now, in the first cases of their kind in Florida and in the nation,
both Lee County men face five years in state prison for the
gang-related content of their Web pages.

Their prosecutions are the first under a state law passed last year
that criminalizes the use of electronic media to “promote” gangs.

Yes, the state that brought you the hanging chad and the voter who didn’t know the difference in casting a ballot for Pat Buchanan and Al Gore, now brings you jail for people who harm no one and who do nothing wrong other than being stupid on the Internet. You don’t have to be a member of a gang. You don’t have to have killed anyone, raped, sold drugs or done any other thing that gangs do. Just flash a gang sign on MySpace, and you get a stint in the state pen.

What’s next? You wear a red shirt in a photo on Facebook, and you’re arrested for wearing gang colors?

“Gangs are evolving, they’re changing… would challenge
that once someone said spraying walls was freedom of expression.”

That from the tyrannical assbag who sponsored the bill.  Difference is, assbag, that MySpace is one’s own page – not the defacement of others’ property via graffiti. It’s one’s own site – their own expression – and it’s up to the owners of MySpace to ban said communication, since it’s their site – NOT yours.

Yes, gangs are evolving and changing, but criminalizing expression on one’s personal page is not a proportional response to the progressive nature of gang activity. It’s prior restraint on someone whose actions have been criminalized in the name of “security” even though the actions themselves are not criminal in nature.  It’s simply a tyrannical measure that will put people who have not harmed anyone in prison, use up taxpayer resources to prosecute non-crimes and destroy any semblance of free expression left.

You know… he’s a great guy.  Really.  We get along well.  We have healthy debates, and we don’t agree on everything.  That would be boring. He likes to play practical jokes, and he’s very inventive with them.  That’s probably because he’s one of the brightest people I know.  Just to illustrate that point, when I was stressing over my comp exam, he looked at me and said, “If I can take two bar exams, you can do this.”  He knows how to put things in perspective. But the man definitely likes his little jokes.  He likes to needle me -
mostly because I really think he enjoys the new obscenities I invent
when I’m angry. I think I’m a source of entertainment when I get
frustrated and begin to invent invective that would make convicts in
most federal penitentiaries blush. He’s got a great sense of humor.

But sometimes, he’s really an asshole.

Now with the spider gone, I go back in the house, still holding the
box. Nicki is vacuuming my library, and she’s not too happy to see me
come back in with the box, which I’m now holding with the lid closed,
as if the spider is still inside. I tell her that I changed my mind
again and want to put it out in the back yard. I agagin ask her if she
wants to see it, and she says “Fuck no! Get that thing out of here!”

“OK,”
I tell her, as I walk to the back door. But then I “trip” over
something and drop the box. It lands right up against the back of her
legs and pops open.

Before we go any farther, let me tell you
that I would never have believed that Nicki could ever jump that high
or scream so loud.And I confess that when I saw her start to shake and
hyperventilate, I actually felt bad for a few seconds.

But then
she began hitting me and cursing me and told me that I suck in about
five different languages, and it was just funny again.

I have no idea where my fear of spiders comes from.  Anything that has that many legs and is big and hairy and bites shouldn’t be anywhere near me. It’s creepy, disgusting and somewhat disturbing to be sharing space with something that large and gross. Additionally, anything crawly gives me the heebie jeebies – likely because as a kid, when we first moved to the U.S. from the U.S.S.R., we lived in an apartment that was so roach infested, you’d walk into a room, and there would be roaches having a dance party with strobe lights and a DJ.  I’d go to sleep and they would crawl all over me. I’d walk into the bathroom in the middle of the night, and there would be a blanket of these foul insects covering the sink.  No amount of fumigation would get rid of them. The apartment was theirs.  They laid claim to it. They took over. And they certainly weren’t afraid of a little kid like me.

So maybe it’s the memories of the foul roaches that make me hate anything vaguely insect-like.  And yes, I know spiders are arachnids, so get off my ass. The damn things upset me. I actually cry if I see one that big, and I have this urge to empty my Glock into them.

So yes, I did hit him. A lot.

To his credit, when he saw how pissed off I was, he did apologize and tried to make me feel better.

But still… Sometimes he sucks.