Johnstown, Penna.                   Friday, Sept. 30th '05
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                 WHEN COPS GO WILD,             
              and Barbara Streisand, too

    For Sandra Catena, it was just going to be another en-
joyable day at an arts festival.  Unfortunately for Sandra,
the festival hadn't started yet, so she decided to take a
load off her feet and enjoy a warm Autumn day relaxing on
a park bench. It's too bad that she had to relax on a New
York City park bench.  You see, she committed a felony by
doing it and will now face 90 days in jail and a thousand
dollar fine.  

    Sandra apparently  didn't read the fine print, which in
this case was an inconspicuous sign posted at the entrance
to this "vest pocket" park on Manhattan's fashionable East
side.  Oh, and just what did that piece of literature spe-
cify with your safety in mind?  Well, it specified that no
one could enter that particular park "...unless accompan-
ied by a child."  Yes, it was Disney gone mad.  Adults
apparently need special supervision when they enter a 
child dominated playground   I don't blame them, because
children scare the hell out of me too.

    Years ago, when I actually had the misfortune to live
on Manhattan's Eastside, I was walking through the neigh-
borhood one Saturday afternonn which also happened to be
Halloween.  Ahead of me, a brutal gang of ten-year-olds
was accosting adults with their hands out singing a chorus
of "Trick or treat, trick or treat."  Now these particu-
lar little tykes were lacking one thing that most trick-
or-treaters in the greater Johnstown area take for granted
--costumes   But then, I saw a true Halloween horror.
The adults were actually giving in to this pre-pubescent
blackmail and giving the little bandits ... money.  It
was extortion, pure and simple.
                          l.

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    Of course, I was a man.  No gang of ten-year-olds
was going to extort me.  I could see that I was next on
their victim's list.  When the chorus of bandits surroun-
ded me with their greedy little paws out, I merely stared
at them mutely.  Finally the ringleader got the message
and said,  You ain't gonna give us nuttin', are ya?"
With a smirk on my face, I said, "No, I ain't."  Their
little fists flailed at my back as I waded through them
and continued on my way down the street.

    I'm sure they all grew up to be something appropriate
to their role playing as children, something like union
bosses, councilmen, or police. In fact, may well have been
one of these little demons from my past whom Sandra
Catena met while whe was taking in the sun on a city park
bench.

    Although Sandra hadn't seen the fine print posted
outside the park entrance, two of New York's finest, fresh
off a doughnut break, did.  They ticketed her for failing
to heed the sign and being in the park and ... childless.
For Sandra, the penalty for being childless and in this 
particular park will be a thousand dollar fine and (not
"or") 90 days in Riker's Island.  Now, I know that the 
State of Missouri use to fine bachelors one dollar per 
year, but this is certainly no way to right the sexist
injustices of the past.

    I'm sure that by now you're asking yourself just what 
the point of such a law could be?  Perhaps it's to encour-
age fertility on the part of the public that pays the bill
of the welfare state.  Actually, the motive is, if you can
believe it, safety.  

    The city park's department is worried about that great
scourge of modern times--the pedophile.  You see, the sign
is designed to keep pedophiles out of the park.  Of course,
it's a mystery to me, and probably is as well to Sandra,
                          2.

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just how this particular law will accomplish that.  I 
would think that a sign saying, "Pedophiles prohibited,"
would be more to the point and maybe even more effective,
too.  Of course, a p dophile would say he's accompanied by
every child in the park and thus find the loophole.  Or,
I would think he would just bring his own child 
into the park with him.  Better yet, he probably does his
molesting at home.
                               
 So, New York City's attempt to create utopia in a park
catches poor Sandra Catena, whose only crime is that she
was nowhere near a child   In trying to create Heaven on
Earth, Puritans-without-God usually end up creating Hell.

    A spokesman for the Parks' Department told the Daily
News that he hoped the police would use some common sense
in enforcing the law.  Why blame the police?  I would have
hoped that  the Parks' Department would have used some 
common sense in creating regulations in the first place.
                        ***
    In other news, Barbara Streisand went nuts during an
interview with ABCs Diane Sawyer. She was ostensibly pro-
moting a new CD, when suddenly she became panicky and 
declared a "global warming emergency" whose cause was 
apparently the two recent hurricanes we've suffered.
According to the Drudge Report(c), "citizen/artist" 
Streisand declared, "We are in a global warming emergency
state .. these storms are going to be more frequent, more
intense ...".

    Now, I certainly wouldn't listen to a lecture on 
brain surgery if it was given by Streisand, so why in the 
world would I listen to her babble on climatology?  Hell,
I wouldn't even listen to what she had to say on music,
let alone buy one of her CDs.

                          

                          3.

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