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Apparently, a Mark Zaid was given a $50 ticket for flashing his headlights to warn an approaching driver to slow down because police were monitoring the road ahead. Zaid was told that flashing one’s lights while driving is an offense in Maryland, and could even result in a charge of interference with a police investigation. Nevermind that the flashing of lights prevented a crime, and achieved what the County says it’s trying to accomplish with it’s speed camera program by slowing the oncoming driver down. No, the problem for the County is that it lost a chance to ticket the oncoming driver. The solution? Ticket the other one! Thank goodness someone got ticketed, don’t you agree?
I’m so glad Zaid took one for the team (he’s considering filing suit on the matter), and the Post told the story. Otherwise, how would I know that flashing my lights when I drive home at 1am to make the deer move out of the way was an illegal act? I’d hate to have my children observe me violating the peace when I try to warn another driver heading toward us that their headlights are not on. Even worse, if I flash to let my daughter know it’s me approaching when I pick her up at the mall or the bus stop, I wouldn’t want to be responsible for being an unsafe, automotive evildoer.
It may just be a case of Richard and Sandra Thomas getting caught and panicking to come up with the wildest explanation to throw off the hounds. I’d take it more seriously at this point if Jose Canseco was there at the bust to confirm it. Frankly, I don’t believe it, and I’m perfectly willing to wait for the investigations by the Florida police and Major League Baseball to play out. BUT, a fleeting thought crossed my mind – if it turns out that our Capitals heroes and the Nats we pray for (at least I do!) ARE tainted, are we going to handle it like the fans in San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego and, worst of all, New York?
Barry Bonds, Shawn Merriman, Manny Ramirez, Alex Rodriguez and Roger Clemons are names that became synonymous with cheating. In each case, except perhaps for Merriman, the player was vilified by his sports’ followers – at first. Watch the video of their teams’ games after their exposure as cheaters and it’s pretty universal – no shortage of jerseys in the crowds bearing heir names or cheering fans wearing fake dreadlocks in the stands. The one case that was somewhat different was Rodriguez’s. His fans also love to hate him in NYC. BUT, when he comes back from shameful isolation and hits a homerun in his first at-bat, it all turns to unbridled love!
In fact, I confess I HOPED it was! What journalist wouldn’t want to report on an “epidemic” firsthand? Granted, maybe one who is saner than I. Further, we are in the traditional Ratings Sweeps Period, when the media tends to get a bit more overheated in story coverage and more risqué in the story selection (one reason the flu pandemic story was guaranteed to turn into a big one).
What News Director wouldn’t be interested in letting his audience in on what it’s like to suffer/die of the “plague of the month”? As it happened, I never got the chance to find out if our ND is among that number. I went to see Dr. Michael Vaughn at Potomac Prompt who promptly dashed my dream of filing a “Going Inside the Swine Flu!” report.
“Your problem is pollen. It’s just a sinus infection and it’s also affecting your vocal cords now.” “But I’ve never had sinus infections from hay fever before,” I told him. Then, apparently drawing upon his years of study and practice he said, “So?”
Actually, Dr. Vaughn explained what many of us have been experiencing in this region but have been unable to pin down. The last three winters have not been cold enough to thoroughly kill off each year’s foliage. As a result we now have ’06, ‘07 and ’08 pollens in the air now with ‘09’s contribution. Any one or two years on their own is not a major problem. It’s when you get this many generations of stuff in the air at the same time that you begin to overrun the human immune system and drive our histamine production off the charts. That’s the stuff that makes the noses run and the phlegm build up, and in cases like mine, lead to afflictions in parts of the body outside of the sinus cavity.
“I’ve seen more patients this Spring for pollen-related sinus infections than I ever have,” he told me, “and I can’t tell you how many of them think they have the swine flu!”
Glad I didn’t tell him what I was thinking.
June
