Thursday, November 29, 2001
[November 29, 2001 | 11:05 AM] Howard Roark
I just returned from some program called "Police Pride". Description: Community police officers come into the school to interact with the teeange children. Its purpose is to place the adolescents in the shoes of the police and give them a taste of what is like to be a cop. Most of us teens do not have favorable impression of the police, and rightfully so.
We see the police every day after school. They watch us closely. They mace us whenever there may be an "altercation" between two students. I, for one, being involved in local politics, get harrased along with my compatriots by the cops under the umbrella of the part machine in power.
But after this program, I along with the other class leaders that were chosen by the principal to participate, acquired a new perception of the police - one that is more understanding and more appreciative. It seems easy what the police do on a daily basis, but this program showed us that it really isn't as it seems. We saw that a crowd of people can esaily turn into a mob. We saw that a simple car stop can turn into a total shoot out.
posted by Howard at 8:21 AM
Monday, November 05, 2001
You enter the offices of Dr. Daniel Nozza and you see political lawn signs hanging on every wall. Next to one door, someone has taped an "End Tolls" bumper sticker on a door. Every room and hall has been stripped from the medical tools and tables and replaced with campaign lit, computerized voter lists, and telephones. Only the faint, unmistakable aroma of a doctor's office remains.
There are four rooms. In each one, there are about two or three people assigned to a city, pulling up voters and calling them up.
"Goodafternoon, is this the Dalton Family? . . . I'm calling from the 20th District Republican Party . . . Will you be voting on November 6th?"
No one is being paid. Every single person, including the senate, assemble, and freeholder candidates are there on their own spare time with the same purpose: to defeat the Democratic party machine.
posted by Howard at 7:27 AM
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