You probably think I’m going to make fun of Marche Taylor for wearing a skimpy dress to her prom and getting escorted out in handcuffs, don’t you? Admit it: you think I’m going to go off on a rant about how the kids are out of control these days and the world is going to hell in a handbasket and nobody knows how to make a decent handbasket anymore. That would be a great rant for an older, more conservative blogger¹, but me? Come on. I can actually relate to Ms. Taylor’s plight, because I went through something very similar at my own prom.

The year was 1999. Limp Bizkit and Smashmouth were at the top of the charts, people were legitimately concerned that their computers might kill them on New Year’s Eve, and there I was, standing outside my senior prom in a leather harness and a pair of assless chaps.

Our principal, Dr. Louis Killjoy Sr., was standing in front of the doors with his arms folded across his chest. “You’re not coming in here dressed like that,” Dr. Killjoy said.

“I completely understand,” I replied. “This is a ridiculous outfit for me to be wearing to senior prom. What was I thinking?”

“Well, I’m glad we see eye to eye on this. Put ‘er there,” he said, holding out his hand. I tried to shake it, but my hand kept slipping out. “Are you slathered from head to toe in baby oil?” he asked.

“No,” I lied.

“Thank God,” he said. “If you were, it would be nearly impossible for us to catch you if you tried to run through this security gate into the prom.”

A few minutes of blank staring went by.

“I see,” I lied.

“You know - because you’re too slippery to grab.”

Another minute or two went by, and we both looked at our watches. Mine was too smudged from the baby oil to read, but I pretended I could read it anyway and looked around impatiently, as if to say, “Come on, people - let’s move it along.” A few dozen people stood behind me in line with the same expression on their faces.

“You’re an idiot, Wolinsky,” Dr. Killjoy said. “Go home.”

I took his advice, and the next day I went out for pie with my friends. They all told me the prom had been lovely.

A few weeks later we all went to college and never saw each other again.

Ba-dum ching!

¹ Like an 88-year-old, for example.

I remember it like it was last Thursday. Because it was last Thursday, and I have an excellent memory. I remember showing up to Jack O’Brien’s office (house?) with my suitcase in hand, hope in my eyes, and a smile on my face. And a flask full of Jack Daniels in my pocket. It was April 24th, the day before April 25th, a day I’d been looking forward to all year. I took a quick swig from my flask and dropped it off with Jack’s secretary. He has a “thing” about me drinking from a flask.
While on the clock.
And at 2:00 in the afternoon.
Jack can be pretty uptight sometimes, but I wasn’t about to get on his bad side. Not today. While his secretary stared at the flask, clearly puzzled, I showed myself up the stairs to Jack’s cubicle (bedroom?). I had to make sure to stay on my absolute best behavior. After all, the ROFLCon was the next day and Jack had personally selected me to appear on behalf of Cracked. The ROFLCon, for the girlfriend-having readers of the blog, is the first annual conference for internet celebrities and the founders of internet memes. All of the net’s royalty was invited: Tron Guy, somebody from Fark, Homestar Runner, those I Can Haz Cheezburger shit heads, and others. This was an exclusive party, a special gathering designed to celebrate and praise internet super celebrities.
People like me.
I wasn’t sure how much ass I’d be able to snag at this party, but my most conservative estimates put it somewhere in the triple digits. I might have to buy a U-Haul truck so I have somewhere to stockpile all of the skanky blonde hood-rats that will undoubtedly be throwing themselves crotch-first right at me. I love the internet.
Jack was waiting for me, and I could barely contain my anticipation.

(more…)

So have you heard about this site RateMyCop.com? It’s a place where users can sign up and write reviews of their dealings with police officers, all based on this massive database of cops from across the country. Although the site doesn’t include personal information like home addresses, or the names of undercover officers, police organizations have roundly condemned the site, and the resulting controversy has gotten it kicked off a couple hosting providers. Seeing as we already have sites that rank the popularity of movies, video games, and Cracked articles, what’s wrong with a site that ranks cops? Are the police just being babies here?

Right off the bat the site has a huge problem. Any data gathered will have a pretty strong selection bias - people who have positive interactions with the police are unlikely to visit the site, so the only people to write reviews will be the ones with complaints. Statisticians refer to this as the “whiny bitch bias.” The whole site could very easily turn into a big cop-hating bitch fest. Anyone who’s predisposed to disliking cops, will upon visiting the site be presented with a litany of evidence that all police everywhere are arrogant dicks. The truth - that no more than 60% of the nation’s police officers are arrogant dicks - will be lost on them.

On a positive note, rich new veins of pig/bacon/pork related humor may be discovered and exploited within the site’s forums.

Any attempts to compare police officers or rank them will also be flawed (Try to imagine this site not having a top 10 list of the worst cops in the union.) Police officers will have different reviews based on their different duties and the community they work in. An officer who works traffic duty is going to be taking a lot more flak than that guy they send out to talk at school assemblies. And a straight laced cop might unfairly garner negative reviews if he was teamed up with a burnt out cop who plays by his own rules.

Also, how will the site handle cops who are identical twins?

From the police’s point of view, the worst case scenario here is sadly very plausible: Certain individual cops will be singled out on the site, unfairly or not, and will then be harassed by the site’s most ire-some members. Maybe that harassment will be of the legal variety (formal complaints,) but what if it’s the distinctly illegal sort (poo in the mailbox?) Clearly unacceptable, but it also hasn’t happened yet. Can a site be shut down because it may one day be the root cause of a hazmat team gingerly holding a mailbox in a pair of enormous tongs? Probably not, I guess.

Most importantly, and I say this in my full legal authority as a Cracked blogger, I’m pretty sure there’s nothing actually illegal about this concept at all. Police officers are public figures, their names and badge numbers are public information, and complaints about them are already handled in the open. Any attempts to make police officers more anonymous or to make police-work less transparent should be strongly resisted, lest it provoke a wave of bloggers flooding the Internet with clumsy references to 1984, or worse, Judge Dredd.

In short, I think the site could so either good or harm, but probably not much of either. Consequently, I don’t think it should be illegal, but I also won’t be checking it out. Kind of like fecalphilia, or American Idol.

___

Chris Bucholz is a writer and a robot. His personal blog, robotmantheblog.com contains a great deal of other humor articles, all of dubious quality and taste.