The Tangent

ostensibly continues:

As an attorney for a large corporation with a lot of real estate extending throughout multiple city, county, state, federal and tribal jurisdictions, and a private, armed security force with arrest powers, I'd worked with lots of cops.  As an attorney practicing in a city and states where taxes and fees paid by lawyers provided a huge chunk of public workers' salaries, I could call any prosecutor on anything short of vehicular homicide and make it disappear (nolle prosequi) in an instant. This came in handy, as my work required frequent last-minute, high-stakes filings (before the internet, babies) that had to be driven to various courthouses late on the last day of the deadline. Thus, I'd been pulled over by police literally 112 times in ten years, in various jurisdictions, many of those at triple-digit speeds.

I had not a single conviction. Police knew the game and didn't want to waste time, either. Upon seeing multiple Bar membership cards tucked by my license, they might run a check to ensure I wasn't wanted, then let me go with yet another warning.

As my second wife noted: the only time I drove under the speed limit was on the way to see her parents.

I'd also been a county prosecutor for six months after losing the corporate gig, then represented the insurer of many city and county police forces for a few years in the Northwest, before crushing student debt and the moral tension inherent in zealous representation of the Praetorian Guard sparked a personal conflagration that rages to this day.

That story--how I became and remain a pauper refugee in my own country--will have to be told soon.  But not today.

Point is, I knew cops as clients, adversaries, witnesses and otherwise, and between me and the Mad drunk Dutchman who sat astride the controls of the KGT, and who tended to view traffic laws with a European playfulness that does not translate in America--it should definitely be me answering the questions.

His question hung there: You boys ever see the movie Thunderheart with Val Kilmer?

I reached over and switched off the engine.

"Yeah," I lied. "Of course."  Jens started to speak, then saw my face and thought better of it. Speeding, drunk, reckless, possession. The grappa.  The pot.  The pipe.  The tabs of X I hadn't heard about yet.

The Ranger folded his arms. The sunglasses made it impossible to tell where he was looking, what he might see.

"You know the scene where Levoi, the FBI agent played by Kilmer is pulled over by the Tribal cop played by Graham Greene?"

"Sure," I said, having no idea.  "I think so--"

The Ranger continued, deadpan.  "Levoi asks to see the radar, and Crow Horse tells him 'I don't need no radar.  The wind told me how fast you were going--'"

And just as we gave him what must have been astonished--if bleary--WTF are you talking about looks, he can't contain it any longer, and laughs, delighted--

"When I see a rooster tail of dust shooting 150 feet in the air, from two miles away--" he waited for our realization to dawn, then:

"I pretty much know you're exceeding ten miles an hour."  He walked back to the Explorer, tossed in his hat and climbed in after it.  "Slow it down, gentlemen."  He trundled off with a wave.

And that was that.

That Ranger, had he been so inclined, could have made life very difficult for us--me to prison, loss of professional license, and Jens to some ICE hellhole...

Sure, he knew we were speeding, driving recklessly, were probably drunk, high and holding, but we were literally in the middle of nowhere and hardly an actual threat, even to ourselves...

So, after tamping down our speeding, a Rules violation that we put in his (and his superiors') faces, he let the rest of it go.

Back in the present, the University of Oregon, its security, and the Eugene Police have assumed, for now, that same spirit of cooperation.

Across the country, more and more military and police are supporting the Occupiers.  Even the MSM admits it.

Like the cops at Burning Man, deep in their hearts,  many really do just want to join in.

We must encourage them to do so.

Peace.

P.S. The Dutchman has fled town for a week.  KGT pictures will go up eventually.  Hope they're good.

UPDATE:  A couple of pictures of the KGT: