Chit Chat #2 - Talk about anything

[Lady ♥ Belleza, Gif Princesa]

Just remember to be polite and don't make the moderator puke.

Links to previous chats below:

Chit chat

[Fishface]

They kept playing "Imagine" all day Monday and Tuesday on the radio, and finally a DJ explained that for the 9th time, Mark David Chapman has been denied parole after killing John Lennon.

Imagine life in prison
It's easy if you try...

[Terri]

Fishface wrote: "They kept playing "Imagine" all day Monday and Tuesday on the radio, and finally a DJ explained that for the 9th time, Mark David Chapman has been denied parole after killing John Lennon.

Imagine..."

It's a wonderful song but over and over? Nonetheless, good he was denied again.

I still am angry they let Hinckley out

[Koren]

My grandson said he thinks I mention serial killers a bit too much. He's worried about me. Wonders if they have had an unusual amount of deaths where I work. What he doesn't know wont hurt him.

[Fishface]

Last night a client was expressing worry about someone who assaulted him, and is in prison. I showed him how to look the guy up on OTIS to find his release date. And sure enough, I learned that his middle name is WAYNE.

[Koren]

Just shows what a small world it is. A new girl started where I work. She has the same last name as a girl that already works there. Mind you, we are in Minnesota. I asked the older employee if she was related to the new employee. She didn't think so. The start talking and find out they are both from Laredo, Texas originally. So they are going to ask their families to see if they are related.

[K.A.]

I recently emailed a company for some information after finding an old, brass letter-opener in among stuff I had gotten from my grandfather. Out of curiosity, I had looked up the company whose logo was engraved on the rather ornate handle and found them to still be in existence. I got a nice email back explaining that the letter openers were made between about 1900-1910, which means it probably belonged to a great-grandparent, since my grandfather wasn't born until 1903 and I doubt he had a letter-opener as a child. I wrote back thanking the company rep and mentioned that my ancestors had lived in that area (where the company is located), but moved to Saskatchewan by 1905, so had probably gotten the letter opener earlier than 1905. The rep wrote back and said that HER ancestors had lived in the area but moved to Saskatchewan in the early 1900s...so now we're trying to figure out if there's any connection between our families!

[Shelley]

I went to look at crime rates in New York City vs. Los Angles. I don't know who to believe or where to go to get accurate unbiased stats.

Apparently New York's violent crime rate has gone down in recent years. That's great if it's true. I would also love to know why.

Apparently LA has been under-reporting its violent crime and the rate has actually increased in recent years. I wonder if that's true and why.

Anyone have any words of wisdom to offer?

[Gregory]

Shelley wrote: "I went to look at crime rates in New York City vs. Los Angles. I don't know who to believe or where to go to get accurate unbiased stats.

Apparently New York's violent crime rate has gone down in..."

Shelley:
I'm not sure what kind of biases you might be concerned with, but a place to start might be the FBI's Uniform Crime Report data:
https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/...

[Shelley]

Thanks, Gregory. That's a good place to get it all (all of the US) in one place. However, did you notice the caveat the site says? "Figures used in this Report were submitted voluntarily by law enforcement agencies throughout the country." That's the part that I wonder about because I have read that LA under-reported violent crime numbers.

BUT my biggest question is this: It appears that New York City has had decrease in violent crimes in recent years and I wonder what they did right. :)

[Fishface]

Shelley wrote: "Thanks, Gregory. That's a good place to get it all (all of the US) in one place. However, did you notice the caveat the site says? "Figures used in this Report were submitted voluntarily by law enf..."

New York City introduced "broken windows" community policing a couple of decades ago. In community policing, something most police departments have been working towards for over 30 years, you can't police an area you don't live in. A lot of people cheat by having an address in the area where they don't really live, but the idea is that you need to live with & know the people there, and therefore there is more trust on both sides, whether you're the one slapping on the handcuffs or the one wearing them. I suspect we'll find that a lot of the police-brutality cases we're hearing about lately will come down to people who are not policing their own neighborhoods, but (in their mind) policing foreigners from another city/space-time continuum/species.

"Broken windows" policing has made even more difference. At one time small offenses like vagrancy, shoplifting, pot possession, and vandalism were treated very lightly -- you might get a stern talking-to, a warning, or a small fine. Now those little crimes are treated very, very seriously, with months of probation, drug testing, court reviews, community service, restitution, victim's impact panels, court-ordered counseling, you name it. They make your life miserable and cost you thousands of dollars even for very small offenses. It works like magic, because when you get away with something small, the next, bigger crime looks a lot easier to do. When they land on you like a ton of bricks for a small offense, you don't even want to know what they're going to do to you if you do something really big.

[Shelley]

Fishface wrote: "Shelley wrote: "Thanks, Gregory. That's a good place to get it all (all of the US) in one place. However, did you notice the caveat the site says? "Figures used in this Report were submitted volunt..."

Oh wow, great information, Eileen! Thanks!! So interesting too.

[Fishface]

If I had the brains to remember an actual book title I would direct you there, but...

[Lady ♥ Belleza, Gif Princesa]

Fishface wrote: "If I had the brains to remember an actual book title I would direct you there, but..."

It finally happened:

[Fishface]

A guy's head exploded?

I am now about 2/3 to 3/4 through A Trail of Corn: A True Mystery. I feel as if I personally sat through every day of the almost-2-month trial. And there are still another 200-some pages to go.

[Koren]

Fishface wrote: "A guy's head exploded?

I am now about 2/3 to 3/4 through A Trail of Corn: A True Mystery. I feel as if I personally sat through every day of the almost-2-month trial. And there are ..."

Is that good or bad?

[Fishface]

Both. I feel really, really informed -- but I also want to go home and rest although I'm lying in my own bed reading this story.

[Hari]

So, "On Point" on NPR has an episode on a new book titled "Hidden Figures", about a group of African/American women who were instrumental to the success of NASA missions to the moon, etc.

This is truly a True Crime because their efforts have not come to the public attention until now. It's 2016, for Christ's sake! (Full disclosure: I'm an atheist).

[Hari]

So, just some thoughts about denial, enabling, and simply being scared to report suspicious behavior, etc.: that German guy (I forget his name, probably on purpose) who built a whole complex under his existing house in which to keep the daughter he was systematically raping and having multiple children by): is it really possible his wife never knew? Is it possible his neighbors didn't question his clandestine activities? Is it possible the neighborhood grocery pervayors never noticed he was buying at least twice the food he needed for his visible family? So, how complicit are all of the above?
Thoughts? Conjecture?

[K.A.]

I feel like his wife must have known something. The neighbors - not so sure. I don't know much about what's going on in my neighbors' houses here. I can't see into their yards (six-foot fences and vegetation) and I never hear much except loud music from across the street. I don't know that I, an ex-law enforcement officer, would know if something untoward was going on inside these houses. As for the 'neighborhood grocer' - how would a grocery clerk know how many people someone was feeding in their household? At least around here, I don't know the grocery store employees personally. I think only close family could be expected to know something was wrong - and they must have been in a state of some intense denial.

[Fishface]

When I read John Glatt's book about Josef Fritzl he made it pretty clear that his wife was quite a few notches lower than he was on the IQ scale; he ran everything, including paying bills, so if there was a rise in water usage or electricity in his secret dungeon they would never know about it; he carefully built the place to be totally soundproof. In fact, he had 4 renters in the house, including a friend of the imprisoned daughter, and nobody heard, saw or suspected a thing. Forcing her to periodically produce phony letters describing the cult she belonged to helped nail the lid down.

[Sheryl]

Fishface wrote: "Both. I feel really, really informed -- but I also want to go home and rest although I'm lying in my own bed reading this story."
Fishface -- I didn't want to say anything when you first started the book, but I tried reading it several months ago, and got really bogged down in all the detail before getting very far at all. I had to put it in my "started but not finished" section on Bookreads. Sheryl

[Fishface]

I cannot imagine how the jury dealt with all this conflicting timeline and alibi information. I'm not surprised deliberations took half of forever!

[Sheryl]

Wow! I can't say I got that far in the book to know this....

[Fishface]

Heard from A.R.! She said she is dealing with other stuff that is taking her away temporarily from social media. I only hope that doesn't mean that one of the test tubes of weaponized HIV in her office broke...

[K.A.]

Today I was touring a local rural cemetery when I met a 'local character' who said he was visiting the ghosts. He also told me about the only local lynching, in which a gentleman stabbed his wife in the neck and was summarily strung up by a mob, in 1888. That led me, later, to this lovely site: http://www.coloradoan.com/story/annou...
for later perusal...

[Koren]

K.A. wrote: "Today I was touring a local rural cemetery when I met a 'local character' who said he was visiting the ghosts. He also told me about the only local lynching, in which a gentleman stabbed his wife i..."

I have lived right next to a cemetery (some of the land in the cemetery used to be part of our property but the previous owner sold it off) for 25 years and I have never seen a ghost. For my birthday this year my daughter in law finally consented to go through it at night. Nope, we didn't see one. However, she thought she saw a Pokémon.

[K.A.]

Much more likely to see a Pokemon - or a geocache, in my case!

[Fishface]

Says here 1 in 5 senior executives are demonstrably psychopathic, the same proportion as you find in prisons:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/...

[Koren]

Fishface wrote: "says here 1 in 5 senior executives are demonstrably psychopathic, the same proportion as you find in prisons:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/......"

I believe it!

[Fishface]

I think that figure is probably a little low...

[Shelley]

If you are interested in all that, I would recommend Snakes in Suits: When Psychopaths Go to Work by Paul Babiak (and Robert Hare).

When it comes to politicians, especially on a national scale, it's higher than 1 in 5.

[Fishface]

He couldn't do the study with politicians; the respondent sample would have been unmanageably large. And it's too hard to get permission to visit so many guys in prison...

[Fishface]

The most incredible thing happened to me today. For 9 years I worked at a place up the road a piece, and the boss there argued with every single word I ever said. Nobody can ever be right but him, and he makes himself right by making you wrong. You know the kind I mean.

Well, sir, I just got an angry e-mail from the mom of one of my clients who is about to be transferred over to my old workplace because he is doing too well to qualify for our services anymore. She said that when she took him in on Friday, the boss there said that everything I put in the treatment summary I sent to the office was...CORRECT.

[Koren]

Fishface wrote: "The most incredible thing happened to me today. For 9 years I worked at a place up the road a piece, and the boss there argued with every single word I ever said. Nobody can ever be right but him, ..."

Of course you were right. You are incredibly smart. I totally identify with the boss thing.

[Fishface]

I'm actually good at my job in part because having to argue every single case with that guy made me really, really aware of the importance of a careful diagnosis. In other words he made me learn to LOOK smart.

[Terri]

Fishface wrote: "I'm actually good at my job in part because having to argue every single case with that guy made me really, really aware of the importance of a careful diagnosis. In other words he made me learn to..."

Of course, he would disagree with that. LOL

[Fishface]

:)

[Terri]

Just came across a poll:

Which Serial Killer Makes your Skin Crawl?

http://www.the-line-up.com/poll-which...

[Shelley]

That's an interesting site. Thanks, Terri.

Hard to vote in the poll...no "all of the above" option! I picked BTK probably because I am reading Ramsland's new book on him right now and I am having a hard time finishing it. I can only take it in small doses. He makes me sick. Yuk!

[Terri]

Shelley wrote: "That's an interesting site. Thanks, Terri.

Hard to vote in the poll...no "all of the above" option! I picked BTK probably because I am reading Ramsland's new book on him right now and I am having..."

I picked Ramirez because of all the blood drinking etc... but yes all of above would have been a good option to have

[Koren]

Terri wrote: "Shelley wrote: "That's an interesting site. Thanks, Terri.

Hard to vote in the poll...no "all of the above" option! I picked BTK probably because I am reading Ramsland's new book on him right now..."

I voted for Bundy, based on the picture that was shown. The eyes are scarey. Interesting that Gacy is the most popular answer as of the time I took the poll. Seems like its the new thing today to be afraid of clowns. I've seen lots of scary clown postings on social media.

[Fishface]

What, no Dahmer? No Fish?

[Terri]

Koren wrote: "Terri wrote: "Shelley wrote: "That's an interesting site. Thanks, Terri.

Hard to vote in the poll...no "all of the above" option! I picked BTK probably because I am reading Ramsland's new book on..."

Koren - I hate clowns always have

[Fishface]

Me too! Ugh!

[K.A.]

I like clowns.

[Fishface]

You can have mine, K.A...

[Koren]

I don't get why people hate clowns. Well, aside from the whole Gacy thing.

[Shelley]

I think it's the fake facial expressions. Some people (and I guess I am one of them) don't like not seeing people's real expressions. I can't say I even like heavy bushy beards on men for the same reason. Masks too much of the face.

[K.A.]

I like clowns because my grandmother painted an oil painting of one for me and it hung in my bedroom all during my childhood. And it still does. It's a very friendly looking clown. I can take a picture of it if you want! (laughs maniacally) It's my guardian clown.