The city of New York has been preparing for all sorts of security for New Year's Eve. I'd have been reading the news articles anyway, but now I'm reading them to see what I'm going to face when I join nearly a million people at Times Square. So far, it looks like bags will be searched, people will go through metal detectors and the federal government will provide extra helicopters. What the helicopters will be able to do while fireworks are shooting up at them remains to be seen.
The air security was definitely visible today when I rode the Staten Island Ferry. This CNN article shows a picture of a Coast Guard officer in a helicopter over the Statue of Liberty. That was likely one of three helicopters I saw circling the statue today (yes, three helicopters for one statue), so I'm curious to see what Times Square will be like.
Am I scared or worried? No. Are the terrorism warnings keeping me from going about my normal life? No. I don't think that's any way to live, and I'm certainly not going to let some freaks terrorize me emotionally. I try to keep an eye out to protect myself, but I'm not going to fear an unknown that would be beyond my control -- if it even happened. Life is not intended to be lived that way.
This weblog update is being posted from the third floor of a New York City apartment building near the campus of New York University. It is being typed by someone who has taken 154 photos and written 3,800 words since she boarded a plane in Oakland last night. (Laptops are wonderful, wonderful things.)
I think I forgot to mention this New York trip earlier, so the basics are as follows: I'm seeing the city -- and state -- while visiting my sister. I fully intend to drag her along on various touristy adventures, including Times Square for the ball drop on New Year's Eve.
However, since I've only slept for three of the last 40 hours and we're getting up early tomorrow to make an attempt at getting discount Broadway tickets, that's all folks.
I've devoured every version of every Strom Thurmond article that came across the Associated Press news wire this week, and now I was just reading the transcript of an online chat with the Washington Post reporter who broke the story. It took her 25 years to get the story, but she got it.
In case anyone's been hiding under a rock this week and hasn't heard, a 78-year-old retired teacher came forward this week and acknowledged that she is the half-black daughter of former Senator Strom Thurmond, who died this summer at age 100. It turns out that the man who spent more time in the Legislature than anyone else and was a strong segregationalist until his later years actually had some sort of affair with a 16-year-old maid when he was 22.
For reasons that some of my blog readers know, the story has affected me quite a bit. But I've also been thinking, "I want to be the one to tell her story." The Washington Post reporter who got the exclusive story was patient. She kept working on it, kept pushing sources and, when Thurmond's daughter was ready to come forward, she contacted the Post reporter. That is probably the highest compliment a reporter could receive.
I'm a reporter because I want to tell stories. True ones. And I can think of no other story I'd rather tell than this one. This woman's story is already being told, but it gives me a goal and reminds me that nothing is impossible if I really want to do it. This I know.
In my previous entry, I said that I'd been able to quote a prosecutor who was in Thailand. I didn't put more of the story in my blog, on the off-chance that some local media agency stumbled across it and managed to get the story. I know that's highly unlikely, but there's no way I'd run the risk of giving away a story.
Anyway, a man who killed his wife in Lodi 13 years ago escaped from a Montana prison this weekend and was captured the following day.
The case was pretty big when it happened, and it dragged through the court system for two years until the guy was convicted and sent to prison for life without parole. I've heard about that case from police, attorneys and a judge, so when I happened to be browsing the Associated Press wire last night and came across the guy's name, I was stunned.
I know the lead detective and the prosecutor on that case pretty well, so I called them both -- at home. I had no idea the prosecutor (who's tried a few cases I've covered, including the Dutra one) would happen to check his answering machine less than an hour after I called. Combine that with some of the AP story, a tid-bit of new info from the Montana prison and a letter the convict wrote to the paper last year and happened to be properly filed in my drawer, and ta-da! And that, folks, is why I love the crime/courts beat.
There is nothing better than being able to quote a prosecutor for a breaking story and throw in, "... he said by telephone from an island off the coast of Thailand." (Yes, I love my sources.)
I'll update this within a few hours and with a link on Wednesday.
Saddam Hussein's daughter went on television to say that the family is supporting the captured former leader of Iraq, and that they think he was drugged after U.S. soldiers captured him in a hole Saturday.
"Every an honest person who knows Saddam knows that he is firm and powerful. Saddam was tranquilized when captured," she said in an interview with the Dubai-based Al-Arabiya television station. "He would be a lion even when caged," she said.
OK, so she wants her daddy to live. That's understandable. What I don't understand is her reasoning for thinking her father was drugged. If he would be a "lion," why didn't he fight U.S. soldiers when they found him? Why didn't he fire the revolver he had with him? Why didn't he try to be a martyr, like so many other people who were once under him?
His daughter says he would be a lion. I'm thinking she's been watching The Wizard of Oz and was thinking of the Cowardly Lion.
I caught the end of the Bachelorette wedding (that's actually an interesting article) tonight on TV, and I now know one thing for sure: When/if I ever get married, there will be no helicopters circling overhead. Of course, getting a $3.8 million wedding for free might help drown out the choppers. (For those who haven't followed the tale, Trista Rehn was on "The Bachelorette," where she had her pick of a whole bunch of guys. She chose a guy named Ryan Sutter.)
I didn't plan to watch the show, though I knew it was on because a friend of mine was so into it that she and her roommate unplugged their phone for the two-hour show. However, I happened to turn on the TV to see something else, and the whole screen was awash in pink. That's another thing I know about any future wedding of mine: No pink.
My conclusion about this televised wedding stuff is this: It's an interesting phenomenon, but it made me feel lonely, then stupid for feeling lonely, then more lonely. And old, even though I'm not.
A Sacramento Bee columnist who frequently mentions police officers in his columns was arrested today on suspicion of misdemeanor domestic violence. The accuser has already recanted.
R.E. Graswich is a likeable guy who was both funny and interesting when he spoke to a column writing class I took a few years ago. I do wonder, though, if the woman recanted because he has an insane number of connections and works for the Bee. The wounds don't sound serious, and I wonder if I'd do the same thing, knowing that such an arrest could become a story of national interest.
Actually, if the claim was legitimate, I wouldn't recant. I'm not that type of a person. If the claim was not legitimate -- no, I'm also not the type to make a bogus claim.
I went, on my own time, to the Lodi City Council meeting tonight. (Check back here in about 10-12 hours for a link to my co-worker's story.)
I had reasons to believe the annual mayoral election might not be a typical election, so I wanted to see the political fireworks. I saw them.
You see, the City Council is made up of five members who serve four-year terms (elections are every two years). Those people are elected by the public, and the council members then vote among themselves on who should be mayor and vice mayor. Traditionally, it rotates so that they all get a turn to be vice mayor and then move up the following year to be mayor.
This year, the council has been made up of a male banker, a female school principal, a female stay-at-home mom who was a physical therapist, a male retired police chief, and a male attorney who last worked as an aide to a Congressman. The last two are the newbies on the council, having just finished their first year on the council. The school principal has been mayor and the stay-at-home mom has been vice mayor -- the first time two women have held those offices at the same time and only the third time a woman has been mayor.
The nomination/election process came two hours into tonight's council meeting. A whole bunch of relatives had traveled from quite a distance to see the stay-at-home mom become mayor, and her husband was even videotaping the event. The banker nominated her. And then the woman who had been mayor until minutes earlier nominated the retired police chief.
They took a vote for the stay-at-home mom. It failed, 2-3. They took a vote for the retired police chief. It passed, 3-2.
I love the humor found in the U.S. Supreme Court justices. They ruled today that police with a warrant did not need to wait more than 20 seconds before breaking down the door of a man believed to have drugs. (Yes, this was another 9th Circuit case that was reversed.) The Supreme Court reasoned that if a suspect had more than 20 seconds, he might flush drugs down the toilet.
The funny part is when Justice David Souter points out in his ruling that not all evidence could be flushed down the toilet: "Police seeking a stolen piano may be able to spend more time to make sure they really need the battering ram."
NYC security
The city of New York has been preparing for all sorts of security for New Year's Eve. I'd have been reading the news articles anyway, but now I'm reading them to see what I'm going to face when I join nearly a million people at Times Square. So far, it looks like bags will be searched, people will go through metal detectors and the federal government will provide extra helicopters. What the helicopters will be able to do while fireworks are shooting up at them remains to be seen.The air security was definitely visible today when I rode the Staten Island Ferry. This CNN article shows a picture of a Coast Guard officer in a helicopter over the Statue of Liberty. That was likely one of three helicopters I saw circling the statue today (yes, three helicopters for one statue), so I'm curious to see what Times Square will be like.
Am I scared or worried? No. Are the terrorism warnings keeping me from going about my normal life? No. I don't think that's any way to live, and I'm certainly not going to let some freaks terrorize me emotionally. I try to keep an eye out to protect myself, but I'm not going to fear an unknown that would be beyond my control -- if it even happened. Life is not intended to be lived that way.
Posted by Layla at 2:27 AM, December 31, 2003. Comments (0)