THE BUZZING

The buzzing would not stop.

I sat at my desk, attempting to read some links whilst attempting to
follow the plot of an episode of Justified.

Buzz, buzz, buzz.

What the hell is that?

It went away.

A few seconds later the buzzing was back.

After what seemed like half an hour of this intermittent buzzing, my ire rose.
JESUS H. CHRIST!

Okay, I thought; it was finally time to act! 

Of course I was not in any kind of danger or physical harm or fear.

But the damn buzz would not stop.

The time has come for immediate action.

I decided to act surreptitiously, so as not to alert the tiny monster of my
true intentions.

So I slowly reached for my finished cross-word lying on the floor and I slowly
rolled it up.

The buzzing returned just as I had anticipated and I stood up and actually caught
a glimpse of my nemesis flying within a few inches of me.

AHA, I thought, THIS IS IT!

That was the moment when I began flailing my cross-word through the air; knocking over
my coffee cup and ALMOST tripping over a dish located on the floor that had once
held my afternoon snack...

But, I knew I had caught the bastard!

I sat down much relieved after I toweled off the desk, took the dish back into the
kitchen and refilled my coffee cup.

Now I could return to my nothingness, free of all interruptions.

Five or ten minutes later (but how might a human being gage events like this in
real time?) the buzzing returned.

Now I began to feel a twinge of the hero Ahab.

I immediately rose again and searched inside of my secret cache. AHA, I found the
weapon that might actually work!

I grabbed the can of insecticide and began spraying the entire area, ranting and
raving like a repub stuck in a room full of female liberationists with no idea of where
the fricking exit was.....

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

There are ten million people in this country who visit our jails every year? That figure is from
the NYT. I keep finding this figure of 2.2 million but that figure evidently refers to
those already convicted of some crime. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/16/magazine/the-bail-trap.html?_r=0

Finally, these cases make the news. In June, Sandra Bland was found dead in her cell in Texas 
after failing to come up with $500 for her release. But often, they go unnoticed. The federal 
government doesn’t track the number of people locked up because they can’t make bail. 
What we do know is that at any given time, close to 450,000 people are in pretrial detention in the United States — 
a figure that includes both those denied bail and those unable to pay the bail that has been set. 
Even that figure fails to capture the churn of local incarceration: In a given year, city and county jails 
across the country admit between 11 million and 13 million people. In New York City, where courts use bail far less than in many jurisdictions, roughly 45,000 people are jailed each year simply because they can’t pay their court-assigned bail. And while the city’s courts set bail much lower than the national average, only one in 10 defendants is able to pay it at arraignment. To put a finer point on it: Even when bail is set comparatively low — 
at $500 or less, as it is in one-third of nonfelony cases — only 15 percent of defendants(make bail)

You really should read this article. 

Here is another great article on this subject:

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/is-the-us-bail-system-unfair/

BUT AS I READ THESE ARTICLES as well as countless other accounts concerning the issues of bail, I kept hearing this buzzing...

Bob McDonnell, the former Governor of Virginia, was caught with his pants down.

And, evidently, his wife was caught with her dress down.

Here was another example of the great white hope with his pants down and his hand caught in the cookie jar.

Hell, this guy was caught living in the cookie jar.

But sometimes things APPEAR to work out.

This sombitch, a man who seemed to be headed toward greater things, a man who once seemed to be headed for the White House some day, a man who certainly could have been chosen as a candidate for VP someday, a man who certainly could have been cast as a Chief Executive in some movie and a man whom corporations would love was convicted by a jury of his peers.

Governor McDonnell was convicted of receiving bribes and of procuring special legislation in order to
'pay back' some billionaire patron. And I do not believe that campaign contributions were even
considered in this verdict.

Except this buzzer was convicted two years ago and has been flitting around, free from all kinds of
shackles as his appeal process continued.

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/supreme-court-hear-corruption-appeal-former-virginia-governor-n495886

Now I am not going to get into the legalities of all this. I mean there are issues concerning the definition
of Quid Pro Quo and issues concerning the fact that the briber is not in prison, and issues concerning
the origins of the bail posted and.....

But there is this buzzing in my ear.

Compared to real issues facing this country, compared to hundreds of thousands of Blacks and Hispanics and yes, even poor Whites who rot in jail for months and even years prior to trial, some rich white ex-politician who receives a pass following a conviction on charges of High Crimes & Misdemeanors should not interfere with  the real issues concerning bail. But for comparison purposes?

NOW WHERE THE FUCK IS MY INSECTICIDE?