This Wouldn’t Happen With Barney Fife

I recently read a Reuters story about cops in China. In China, it airs on the Panda Network. Get it, Cops is on FOX here and in China it would be a Panda? Seriously, I worked on that one during my entire conference call the other day. Oh well. It seems that a new policy has been issued for police in one of China’s provinces. I guess instead of a police policy, it should be called a policey? You’re right; that wasn’t funny. The new policy states that officers who have received a write-up (as we call it here in the states. My Chinese is a little rusty, so we’ll just go with that) or are facing relationship or financial stresses are going to lose their department issued guns. Uh, does that strike anyone else as you know, ODD?

Does this redefine the term ‘police state’ for anyone else? Does anyone else wonder how bad things are when officers can still be on patrol but are deemed too ‘something’ to be able to carry weapons? Does anyone else refer to police as ‘Barney’ or ‘Ponch?’ Is anyone still reading this? Do you know where I put my sunglasses when I got home from work Friday? Can I write an entire paragraph consisting of nothing but questions? Yes, I can! Oh crap, that wasn’t a question. That’s what I get for gloating…

I thought that law enforcement organizations have strict background and personnel checks for the officers they hire to prevent possible mentally unbalanced people from getting the authority that comes with being a badge-carrying officer. I’m guessing China’s police force doesn’t have a ‘personal leave’ program either. ‘It’s not that we don’t trust you with a gun, we just don’t want you to have a gun until you get out of debt or your divorce is final. Now go out there and keep the streets safe! Well, just keep your hand in your pocket and point it at the suspect as if it were a gun. I swear no one will notice the difference, just don’t make those fake shooting sounds with your mouth again and everything will be fine.’

The story I read didn’t say what the officers stripped of their guns are being given as a replacement, which allows me to speculate about it, which will be much more fun than if we had all been told what the officers were being given instead of guns. Isn’t speculation exciting? It allows us to just throw things out there as if we know what we are talking about and it certainly sounds more official than guessing. When you think about it, it really IS guessing, just in a much fancier wrapper. It’s a lot like those generic brands of soda at the grocery story where the label looks a lot like the original, but instead of being called Dr. Pepper, it’s called Doc Salt or Hill Mist instead of Mountain Dew or Sprike instead of Sprite or something like that. Essentially, it’s the same thing, just with a different presentation.

Is it apparent to you yet that I really hadn’t thought out what else I was going to say after I told you about how odd I thought it was that officers in China of questionable mental state were losing their weapons instead of their jobs? It’s a shame too because the idea seemed so full of potential and then it just ran out of fizz, just like those generic brands of soda at the grocery story where the label looks a lot like the original. I’m now thinking I should have allowed this post to more fully explore the whole world of generic supermarket sodas instead of the whole Chinese Police losing their guns but keeping their jobs thing. Or, perhaps I should better think out what I want to write next time instead of just typing out what occurs to me as I am pounding away at the keyboard. Oh am I getting hungry. I wonder if I remembered to turn off the coffee pot this morning. Right behind my left ear itches, I’d better scratch it with my right hand. But scratching my left ear with my right hand isn’t as efficient as scratching it with my left hand since my left hand is on the same side of my body as the scratch. See what just happened there? I just kept typing as I was thinking. Although on the bright side, I was finally able to prove to you that I don’t think about cheese every minute of the day. However, on the downside, you can now see why it takes me 40 hours to do 8 hours worth of work. I guess that’s just good job security though.

Oh shoot, I forgot to speculate on what police officers in China are being given as weapons when their guns are taken away. Well, in light of how unorganized I was today, I’ll just write down my speculations and present them to you another time. After all, you the reader deserve a well organized and completely thought out post instead of me saying that police officers in China should be issued rubber chickens, silly string, skunk smell in aerosol cans (I think it’s called Essence of Skunk) or a 45-second recorded loop of Rachael Ray laughing. Phew, for some reason now I am exhausted…


***Programming Alert: Be sure to come back tomorrow to see what is reflected in Mr. Cheney’s sunglasses in the photo below. The answer will rock you to the very core of your existence. Or possibly just surprise you.***