Paul Blart, library cop

Every time I’ve walked by the local public library lately, I’ve noticed a security guard out front. I guess that’s a permanent fixture now? What a sad commentary on the state of things here in the Bay Area, that even a freaking library needs someone menacing to stand at the entrance. Let me guess: teenagers were doing wayward things inside the library during the afternoon hours. I can’t imagine anyone would actually rob a library. Used books on the secondary market aren’t that lucrative.

The local mall not only has its own security guards, but some of the shops inside - the ones with highly prized merchandise - feature their own security detail at the entrances. (Yo dawg, I heard you like mall cops…) This is a fantastic situation for rent-a-cop businesses: look at all the jobs being created! But for the patronizing public (read: me) it’s a jarring reminder of the reasons these security people have proliferated. We’ve seen the videos: the concerted looting, and rowdy teens (respectively or not).

Target closed down its self-checkout aisle because too many folks were scanning and leaving without paying. We really cannot have nice things around here. The utter tyranny of the minority of people breaking the law, and ruining the entire experience for the rest of us.

We laugh at China for being a policed state, with cameras everywhere. Have anybody noticed the we - at least in the San Francisco Bay Area - are getting there as well? I mean, at least here it’s not government sponsored! There’s private security guards at stores (and public libraries, apparently), and there’s private security cameras outside homes, businesses, and inside public transportation. We’re are absolutely being surveilled whenever we go outside. A price worth paying for being safe?

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But does it work?

A house is not a home

Hate crimes and attacks targeting the Asian American community are very much in the news lately. The worst of which occurred last week, when a lunatic shot up a few massage parlors in Atlanta, killing eight people. The entire community is on edge, lacking a sense of safety when we step outside of our homes. You always have to be on alert, a certain amount of underlying stress that shouldn’t be there in a civilized society.

As someone who grew up in the south-eastern side of San Francisco, I am innately familiar with that specific kind of stress. It only takes a few muggings for the young me to realize I need street smarts to walk around my neighborhood. The five senses are always tuned in to the surroundings, always on alert for anything - or anyone - untoward. You relax for one moment, and the next thing you know, you’re getting robbed of your iPod (remember those?) violently. I still have the scar on my chin. 

The subconscious trauma never leaves, so long as I never the left the neighborhood. Even as the crime rate fall as the years advanced, I could never relax in that corner of the city. Surely that’s the same feeling felt by Asian Americans presently, especially our elders. I can attest it’s the worst not being able to feel safe walking around your home neighborhood. Is there even an area of San Francisco where an Asian person can feel completely at ease? I am not so sure.

One of the reasons I love traveling to Asia is because the aforementioned type of stress simply does not exist. In major cities of Asia, I can walk anywhere, at anytime, and feel absolutely safe. The lack of stressor is so freeing, a sense of calm that I miss dearly every time I step off the plane back onto American soil. Safety - isn’t that what living in the first world is about? 

Never mind the fact that gun violence and gun deaths are uniquely American. The problem is both structural and cultural. 

I understand and empathize greatly with the trauma and anxiety that Asian Americans are feeling these days. I don’t have much of the answers, but one of them has to be that perpetrators of crime need to be persecuted to the fullest extent. There has to be stiff penalty for doing harm to others. Robbery may only be of material loss, but I speak from experience: the mental harm can last for a very long time. 

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House of Cesar.

Safety recall on the 911

A few days ago, I received a safety recall notice mailer from Porsche Cars North America. My initial reaction was one of mild annoyance, because my favored dealership is some 40 miles away, and having to take my 911 there out of schedule would be a pain in the butt. That’s right, I was more concerned about logistics, rather than what the recall was about. Because I knew that whatever it was, I would not be out of pocket for any costs, and honestly I had some curiosity on exactly what Porsche - the vaunted German automaker - can actually screw up on.

Turns out, it was much to do with nothing: the safety recall was about insufficient documentation in the owner’s manual, particularly the section pertaining to the child safety restraint system - think car seats for kids. Inside the same envelope was the remedy/fix: a new supplement to the manual, printed on solid paper stock, with the freshly printed smell you’d expect. I’m sure to Porsche all of this is but a drop in the bucket cost-wise, but from my decidedly plebeian perspective, spending hundreds of thousands just to print and send out a supplement seems a bit excessive.

Especially considering, and I’m confident in saying this, no GT car owner has ever used the child restraint system in their specialized 911. These are thoroughbred sports cars of the highest order, not a vehicle to ferry the babies around (that would be a Porsche Macan, naturally). Not to say we shouldn’t: I would wholeheartedly salute the GT 911 owner who actually uses a child car-seat regularly. People who uses their cars rather than letting them sit in a heated garage are the true heroes of car enthusiasm, like this guy who takes his GT 911 to the snow.

Now that I think about it, when it’s time for me to have progeny and god-willing I still have my GT3, I’d totally put a child-seat in the front passenger space to shuttle the baby around. It’s never too early to get a kid started on the path to passion for Porsche and cars in general.

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White space.

Limousines are not safe

The horrific news from this past weekend of the limo crash in NY that killed 20 people keeps sticking in my mind. The stretched Ford Excursion allegedly blew a stop sign, then ran right into a tree, killing all 18 onboard and two innocent pedestrian bystanders. What an awful, Final Destination-like way to die. Most of the deceased where young adults in their early 30s, so it’s doubly tragic that a whole chunk of productivity and promise gets removed from the population.

When I was a kid I used to think limousines were some of the coolest vehicles on the planet. There’s something awesome about taking a typical passenger car, split it into two separate pieces, and then rejoin them with a body extension. I’ve always wanted to ride in a limo, and figured that as I became an adult I’d get the opportunity. However to this day I’ve yet to tick that box on the list, but having read about this tragedy in New York, I’m not sure I ever want to now.

It never once crossed my mind how dangerous limousines can be: essentially a structurally compromised vehicle that was never engineered for such extreme modifications. Ford didn’t produce the Excursion with limousine duty in mind: it’s raison d'être is to be an all-capable, absolutely massive sports-utility vehicle. What is the likelihood the companies in charge of hacking it into a limousines have the same battery of engineers and crash-testing methodology as an auto manufacturer?

None, that’s what. I’m not sure a single thought have been given to passenger safety when stretching standard cars into limousines. Comfort is first and foremost, isn’t it? The utter lack of safety belts and proper crash-tested seating was probably a huge factor contributing to the death of the people sat inside that Ford Excursion. What a stomach-turning sight it must have been for the first-responders: 17 bodies mashed together and piled up at the front. Surely a day that makes the job almost not worth it.

It’s been reported the particular Excursion limousine was deemed not road-ready during its most recent inspection, but the rental company flaunted that decision and operated it anyways. There’s also the lack of clarity on whether or not the driver was properly licensed to commandeer a vehicle of such mass and length. The myriad of lawsuits to to come out of this will be most interesting indeed.

The main lesson to take from this is to not get into a “limousine” ever, unless it’s a vehicle that’s meant for such capacitive duty such as a bus. Also, if your personal car isn’t road-worthy (like having super old tires), don’t tempt fate; you’re seriously endangering yourself and others on the road.

Heading out to the surf in Santa Cruz.