First let's arrest the historians

[Lanya]

What an odd thing to do.  Is there a quota system in effect for fines in Atlanta, or what?

http://hnn.us/articles/33409.html#Day3

 On Friday the Tufts historian Felipe Fernandez-Armesto was arrested by Atlanta police as he crossed the middle of the street between the Hilton and Hyatt hotels. After being thrown on the ground and handcuffed, the former Oxford don was formally arrested, his hands cuffed behind his back. Several policemen pressed hard on his neck and chest, leaving the mild-mannered scholar, who's never gotten so much as a parking ticket, bruised and in pain. He was then taken to the city detention center along with other accused felons and thrown into a filthy jail cell filled with prisoners. He remained incarcerated for eight hours. Officials demanded bail of over a thousand dollars. To come up up with the money Fernandez-Armesto, the author of nineteen books, had to make an arrangement with a bail bondsman. In court even the prosecutors seemed embarrassed by the incident, which got out of hand when Fernandez-Armesto requested to see the policeman's identification (the policeman was wearing a bomber jacket; to Fernandez-Armesto, a foreigner unfamiliar with American culture, the officer did not look like an officer). The prosecutors asked the professor to plead nolo contendere. He refused, concerned that the stain on his record might put his green card status in jeopardy. Officials finally agreed to drop all charges. The judge expressed his approval. The professor says he has no plans to sue. But the AHA council is considering lodging a complaint with the city.
[..................]

[Amianthus]

From another site:

What people are neglecting is that the "street" that people were being denied their constitutional right to jaywalk across between the Marriott and the Hilton was a very heavily traveled local throughway via which cars are dumped into downtown proper. Crossing it against the light and in the middle of 6 lanes from 7 AM to 9 PM or so is VERY DANGEROUS. One of my friends from Atlanta says that people get killed every year.

The cops were placed there to keep historians from being road kill. None of the cops I saw ticketed or arrested anybody, even when the historian kept on doing what he/she was doing after a direct command from a law officer to cross the street at the light for their own safety — and talked back to the cops as they did so.

The problem is that the hotels are not connected by any usable path, yet the AHA chose to flow important business — jobs and messaging from the Marquis panels and meetings at the Hilton. I can’t see blaming the cops. The flagrant contempt shown to them by some historians was truly amazing.

Some of the historians I saw were really abusing the cops, continuing to walk across the street and making snide comments as they did so. I can imagine that sort of thing escalating. Not that it excuses any sort of rough treatment, but what’s being left out here is the cops were there to keep people safe from traffic going 50 plus along that stretch — not to harrass historians.

— AHA attendee    Jan 8, 11:34 AM

http://chronicle.com/news/article/1492/atlanta-police-protect-historians-meeting-from-rogue-jaywalkers

[Michael Tee]

<<Some of the historians I saw were really abusing the cops, continuing to walk across the street and making snide comments as they did so.>>

Snide comments, eh?  SHOCKING.  Truly shocking.

[Mucho]

<<Some of the historians I saw were really abusing the cops, continuing to walk across the street and making snide comments as they did so.>>

Snide comments, eh?  SHOCKING.  Truly shocking.

They probly said just awful things like "poo on you , you non-intelectual you"
What jerks.

[Plane]

Did the Historian fail to display his intellectual brassard?

I can hardly beleive that a policeman in a big city like Atlanta would try to make an intellectual obey the same law as commoners.

[hnumpah]

Did the Historian fail to display his intellectual brassard?

I can hardly beleive that a policeman in a big city like Atlanta would try to make an intellectual obey the same law as commoners.

Only one misspelling in the entire post -- I can hardly believe Plane typed it.

 

[sirs]

Did the Historian fail to display his intellectual brassard?  I can hardly beleive that a policeman in a big city like Atlanta would try to make an intellectual obey the same law as commoners.

OUCH....Plane with yet another zinger     

[_JS]

Ah yes, anti-intellectualism, that's respectable.

[Plane]

Ah yes, anti-intellectualism, that's respectable.

Should intellectuals be insulted to be considered equal under the law?

[Plane]

MY GOD! THE ARROGANCE!

http://boortz.com/nuze/index.html

Yesterday I opened my show -- a portion of my show that most of you don't hear -- with a bit of a rant about a story in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. It seems that a British historian was arrested for jaywalking in Atlanta. To make matters worse, he wasn't detained and "taken down," as it were, by a uniformed Atlanta police officer, but by an off-duty cop who was working as a security guard at a nearby hotel. At first my sympathies were with the Brit. After all, it's hard to forget the Atlanta woman who was body-slammed by a cop at the airport a few years ago. Now, after reading this column written by the historian, I'm ready to buy that cop/security guard some lunch.

The professor has this to say about our his experience as it relates to our country and our president:

"I have long known, as any reasonable person must, that the courts are the citizen's only protection against a rogue executive and rationally uncontrolled security forces. Though my own misadventure was trivial – and in perspective laughable – it resembles what is happening to the world in the era of George W. Bush. The planet is policed by a violent, arbitrary, stupid and dangerous force. Within the USA, the courts struggle to maintain individual rights under the bludgeons of the "war on terror," defending Guantanamo victims and striving to curb the excesses of the system. We need global institutions of justice, and judges of Judge Jackson's level of humanity and wisdom, to help protect the world."

So .. there you are. "The planet is policed by a violent, arbitrary, stupid and dangerous force." And what would that force be? Why, the United States, of course! No mention of the threat of Islamic fascism. No mention of the violent, arbitrary and dangerous nature of flying airplanes into office buildings. In fact, Professor Frail puts scare quotes around his reference to the war on terror, so as to say that he doesn't really believe that there is any terrorism to be fought! Then he goes on to say that what we really need is some sort of an international court to protect the world from the United States.

Some historian. Perhaps he doesn't remember the role of the United States in saving his precious Europe from Hitler and Soviet expansionism.

Now none of Professor Historian's arrogance and seeming hatred of the United States .. and most certainly of George Bush .. would be a sufficient excuse for an Atlanta cop to throw him to the ground and arrest him for jaywalking; but you are left wondering just what this man said to the cop to provoke such an action. I think that we all know that a simple "I'm sorry, officer, I'll be more careful the next time" would have been more than sufficient. Clearly it escalated beyond that. Is it possible that the good professor used some of his "George Bush is Stupid, America is violent, dangerous and arbitrary" nonsense on the cop?

Yesterday I had to chose sides .. between a member of European academia and an Atlanta Cop. I chose the wrong side. For that I apologize. I should have known better.