Forums > Social Chat > Is it just me or are people getting dumber?
Login/Join to ParticipateFrom the Ashes of a Ninja Rise THE HIPS OF RAGE
371 posts
Location: Edinburgh
371 posts
Location: Edinburgh
Posted:
I was standing on a certain hill in brixton waiting for a bus and since it was going to be a while I got my stick out and started twilring (as one does). I'm just groving along when I hear an "Oi" behind me, I turn around and there's a guy with a pretyt healthy sized wang out swing it around saying "I can do that with this too." I told him I was very impressed and he moved on. While I was ruminating on this splendid experience a, you guys are gonna love this a police car drives past then reverses and tells me that I shouldn't spin my stick in the middle of the street, I pointed out that I wasn't in the middle of the street I was on a sidewalk so he said "well you could clock someone in the head" I was to tired of idiots to point out that the nearest person was behind a plexiglass bus shelter and the next nearest people were a good 400 meters away. I guess the point is what is the deal with all these idiots nowadays?
I was standing on a certain hill in brixton waiting for a bus and since it was going to be a while I got my stick out and started twilring (as one does). I'm just groving along when I hear an "Oi" behind me, I turn around and there's a guy with a pretyt healthy sized wang out swing it around saying "I can do that with this too." I told him I was very impressed and he moved on. While I was ruminating on this splendid experience a, you guys are gonna love this a police car drives past then reverses and tells me that I shouldn't spin my stick in the middle of the street, I pointed out that I wasn't in the middle of the street I was on a sidewalk so he said "well you could clock someone in the head" I was to tired of idiots to point out that the nearest person was behind a plexiglass bus shelter and the next nearest people were a good 400 meters away. I guess the point is what is the deal with all these idiots nowadays?
Viva UGLY STAFF
member
53 posts
Location: Brisvegas, Aus
53 posts
Location: Brisvegas, Aus
Posted:
ironic isnt it? that he walks away and you get spoken to, im sure the sight of his stick was alot more disturbing than the sight of yours ... funny in a what-is-the-world-coming-to kind of a way...
ironic isnt it? that he walks away and you get spoken to, im sure the sight of his stick was alot more disturbing than the sight of yours ... funny in a what-is-the-world-coming-to kind of a way...
--*SaM*--
BRONZE Member
Corporate Circus Arts Entertainer
3,989 posts
Location: Auckland, New Zealand
Corporate Circus Arts Entertainer
3,989 posts
Location: Auckland, New Zealand
Posted:
Ok, I'm likely to get flamed for this, but I feel quite strongly about situations like this.
So, a policeman sees you spinning a stick, that likely looks more like a weapon than anything else to him.
He asks you to stop spinning it in the middle of the street becuase in his opinion you might hit someone with it and you argue with him?
I find it even more ironic that you think other people are less than intelligent when you are arguing with a cop who appears to be doing his job as faras most of the public are concerned.
Poi'ers and staffers should be aware that spinning implements around our bodies in a public place is a pretty strange thing to do by most people's standards, and can be VERY intimidatng to a number of different people. Such as the elderly, for example.
On the other side of the coin, we should always be aware that we COULD clock someone, especially on the footpath.
Even when doing fire, I have had people not notice, and practically walk into me. If I hadn't moved or stopped spinning, they would have been seriously bashed by accident.
Sure, you can say these people are 'stupid' too, but the fact is that it happens all the time. If something happens all the time, we need to be aware that that seems to be part of the way the world works, and adjust our behaviour to suit.
I've been approached by cops and security guards when spinning staves in public, and I simply do what they ask me, or move to a less exposed spot a few metres behind me or whatever.
In my opinion, their request that I stop doing something that looks dangerous to them is completely reasonable.
Hell, somtimes I even explain what I'm doing and give them a card! (Got two gigs last year from the giving a card to cops who asked me to stop doing something).
Sometimes we forget that what we do as apastime is not really understood by the majority of the population, and as such, we are all 'ambassadors' for our pastime and should try conduct ourselves in a reaosnable fashion.
As for the guy who flopped it out and swung it, I think the cops request was the eprfect time to tell you'd just een flashed...
Ok, I'm likely to get flamed for this, but I feel quite strongly about situations like this.
So, a policeman sees you spinning a stick, that likely looks more like a weapon than anything else to him.
He asks you to stop spinning it in the middle of the street becuase in his opinion you might hit someone with it and you argue with him?
I find it even more ironic that you think other people are less than intelligent when you are arguing with a cop who appears to be doing his job as faras most of the public are concerned.
Poi'ers and staffers should be aware that spinning implements around our bodies in a public place is a pretty strange thing to do by most people's standards, and can be VERY intimidatng to a number of different people. Such as the elderly, for example.
On the other side of the coin, we should always be aware that we COULD clock someone, especially on the footpath.
Even when doing fire, I have had people not notice, and practically walk into me. If I hadn't moved or stopped spinning, they would have been seriously bashed by accident.
Sure, you can say these people are 'stupid' too, but the fact is that it happens all the time. If something happens all the time, we need to be aware that that seems to be part of the way the world works, and adjust our behaviour to suit.
I've been approached by cops and security guards when spinning staves in public, and I simply do what they ask me, or move to a less exposed spot a few metres behind me or whatever.
In my opinion, their request that I stop doing something that looks dangerous to them is completely reasonable.
Hell, somtimes I even explain what I'm doing and give them a card! (Got two gigs last year from the giving a card to cops who asked me to stop doing something).
Sometimes we forget that what we do as apastime is not really understood by the majority of the population, and as such, we are all 'ambassadors' for our pastime and should try conduct ourselves in a reaosnable fashion.
As for the guy who flopped it out and swung it, I think the cops request was the eprfect time to tell you'd just een flashed...
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member
53 posts
Location: Brisvegas, Aus
53 posts
Location: Brisvegas, Aus
Posted:
good point, i hadnt thought about the fact that people might see it as a weapon or something intimidating...
well done with getting the gigs though! thats what you call making the best out of a bad situation...
good point, i hadnt thought about the fact that people might see it as a weapon or something intimidating...
well done with getting the gigs though! thats what you call making the best out of a bad situation...
--*SaM*--
member
279 posts
Location: Bath, UK
279 posts
Location: Bath, UK
Posted:
I'm with Charles on this one
The exception is at Glastonbury, when people are walking around a field of people spinning fire, not looking where they are going.
I'm with Charles on this one
The exception is at Glastonbury, when people are walking around a field of people spinning fire, not looking where they are going.
Magnus... pay it forward
From the Ashes of a Ninja Rise THE HIPS OF RAGE
371 posts
Location: Edinburgh
371 posts
Location: Edinburgh
Posted:
I didn't argue with the cops I merely refuted their statement that I was in the middle of the street (I was on the sidewalk) I then put my stick down and pulled out my juggling balls which are soft and less likely to kill people. I don't have a problem with cops most of them are just trying to make the world safer (from sticks) admitledly some of them are just power tripping jerks out to make people's lives miserable. I had just seen a lot of jerks that night and the cops just capped everything off.
I didn't argue with the cops I merely refuted their statement that I was in the middle of the street (I was on the sidewalk) I then put my stick down and pulled out my juggling balls which are soft and less likely to kill people. I don't have a problem with cops most of them are just trying to make the world safer (from sticks) admitledly some of them are just power tripping jerks out to make people's lives miserable. I had just seen a lot of jerks that night and the cops just capped everything off.
Viva UGLY STAFF
SILVER Member
15,417 posts
Location: South Wales
15,417 posts
Location: South Wales
Posted:
i thought of something really witty to say but i realised it could backfire on me and so i have decided not to post it.
thank you for your time.
im calling ping as soon as coleman says it.
*sticks tongue out at Dizzy*
[ 02. August 2003, 01:55: Message edited by: The United Chains of Fire (Jon) ]
i thought of something really witty to say but i realised it could backfire on me and so i have decided not to post it.
thank you for your time.
im calling ping as soon as coleman says it.
*sticks tongue out at Dizzy*
[ 02. August 2003, 01:55: Message edited by: The United Chains of Fire (Jon) ]
GOLD Member
just lost .... evil init
2,474 posts
Location: Adelaide, Australia
just lost .... evil init
2,474 posts
Location: Adelaide, Australia
Posted:
u need to get some more mellow cops, i was twirling in the middle of the road on a main street with fire in town last friday and a police car drove past, reversed watched for a bit then cheered and left.
u need to get some more mellow cops, i was twirling in the middle of the road on a main street with fire in town last friday and a police car drove past, reversed watched for a bit then cheered and left.
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourself, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous and talented? Who are you NOT to be?
SILVER Member
big and good and broken
7,330 posts
Location: lunn dunn, yoo kay, United Kingdom
big and good and broken
7,330 posts
Location: lunn dunn, yoo kay, United Kingdom
Posted:
where would we be without your input eh jon? ;p
boredom is a terrible disease ain't it? ping...?
i think i would agree with charles to a point.
but we should remember that this was brixton, fairly late in the evening - i can't help but think that maybe their presence and time could have been better spent elsewhere...
to be fair though, i'm a little more than biased.
i don't hate the police, i just generally don't agree with the way the 'law' is enforced in this country.
where would we be without your input eh jon? ;p
boredom is a terrible disease ain't it? ping...?
i think i would agree with charles to a point.
but we should remember that this was brixton, fairly late in the evening - i can't help but think that maybe their presence and time could have been better spent elsewhere...
to be fair though, i'm a little more than biased.
i don't hate the police, i just generally don't agree with the way the 'law' is enforced in this country.
"i see you at 'dis cafe.
i come to 'dis cafe quite a lot myself.
they do porridge."
- tim westwood
Mr Dizzy....
154 posts
Location: Spiralling into uncertainty
154 posts
Location: Spiralling into uncertainty
Posted:
Pong!
D
Pong!
D
"To live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong."
A Fortune Cookie
Lemon-Aware Devilstick-wielding Operative
605 posts
Location: East London Wilds
605 posts
Location: East London Wilds
Posted:
While I might at some points agree with Charles, my problem is that over the last few years I have certainly seen the standard of policing decline. A year or so ago, some friends of mine were cycling two abreast on a road in Cambridge (UK). A police car overtook them, and as it was doing so, one of the officers inside shouted out of his window to them to cycle in single file. They refused, on the basis that it would have been more dangerous to do so. The police car pulled up in front of both of them, without warning, in such a way as that they had to slam on the brakes (no lights or anything). The police officers didn't have a copy of the Highway Code to hand (pretty major ****up if you're a traffic cop, IMO), so it was their word against my friends' (who were insistent that they were wrong). Eventually, I think my friends got an apology from the chief constable, and a promise of some sort of inquiry.
Now, that's an isolated incident, but given the fact that when I was mugged to have my laptop stolen, the police basically noted down the information so I had a crime reference to give to the insurers, but made it fairly clear that it was unlikely they'd follow it up, and it starts to make you wonder. Put on top of that all the furore over Cmdr Brian Paddick in Lambeth, and the fact that at some point, they pulled over the Bishop of Lambeth (who happens to be black), and searched him, with no reason to suggest that he might have been involved in any crime (other than the fact that he was black and driving a rather nice car), and these things start adding up. With all the current legislation being passed in the UK parliament, pretty much everyone has done something criminal at some point or other, and so it becomes up to the police as to who they decide to arrest. I don't see this situation as sustainable.
In terms of people walking into poi. I had it at glastonbury, I have had it at reclaim the beach, and I've had it elsewhere too. It's all very well to say that it's my fault (and normally I do manage to miss them, but I really don't have eyes in the back of my head), but not walking into fast moving objects is, as SpacemonkE has pointed out before, an important life skill. What I want to know is how these people ever manage to cross a road.
I do tend to look around before I start to spin, and maybe it was dangerous in their opinion, maybe they were just being arsey, because they can. However, their reversing on a main road is also dangerous, someone could easily have walked out into their path. That kind of hypocrisy, is, unfortunately, something I've come to expect from our police force. I suspect I've just become cynical with age... :-/
I also am not sure how one deals when you say "stand back, this is dangerous, yes I mean it", and people are still really close going "what are you doing?"... again, life-skills. Common sense and all that.
While I might at some points agree with Charles, my problem is that over the last few years I have certainly seen the standard of policing decline. A year or so ago, some friends of mine were cycling two abreast on a road in Cambridge (UK). A police car overtook them, and as it was doing so, one of the officers inside shouted out of his window to them to cycle in single file. They refused, on the basis that it would have been more dangerous to do so. The police car pulled up in front of both of them, without warning, in such a way as that they had to slam on the brakes (no lights or anything). The police officers didn't have a copy of the Highway Code to hand (pretty major ****up if you're a traffic cop, IMO), so it was their word against my friends' (who were insistent that they were wrong). Eventually, I think my friends got an apology from the chief constable, and a promise of some sort of inquiry.
Now, that's an isolated incident, but given the fact that when I was mugged to have my laptop stolen, the police basically noted down the information so I had a crime reference to give to the insurers, but made it fairly clear that it was unlikely they'd follow it up, and it starts to make you wonder. Put on top of that all the furore over Cmdr Brian Paddick in Lambeth, and the fact that at some point, they pulled over the Bishop of Lambeth (who happens to be black), and searched him, with no reason to suggest that he might have been involved in any crime (other than the fact that he was black and driving a rather nice car), and these things start adding up. With all the current legislation being passed in the UK parliament, pretty much everyone has done something criminal at some point or other, and so it becomes up to the police as to who they decide to arrest. I don't see this situation as sustainable.
In terms of people walking into poi. I had it at glastonbury, I have had it at reclaim the beach, and I've had it elsewhere too. It's all very well to say that it's my fault (and normally I do manage to miss them, but I really don't have eyes in the back of my head), but not walking into fast moving objects is, as SpacemonkE has pointed out before, an important life skill. What I want to know is how these people ever manage to cross a road.
I do tend to look around before I start to spin, and maybe it was dangerous in their opinion, maybe they were just being arsey, because they can. However, their reversing on a main road is also dangerous, someone could easily have walked out into their path. That kind of hypocrisy, is, unfortunately, something I've come to expect from our police force. I suspect I've just become cynical with age... :-/
I also am not sure how one deals when you say "stand back, this is dangerous, yes I mean it", and people are still really close going "what are you doing?"... again, life-skills. Common sense and all that.
Luv 'n' Lemons
purity :: clarity :: balance
Enter a "Title" here:
2,905 posts
Location: San Diego California
2,905 posts
Location: San Diego California
Posted:
Well... I usually have trouble with the military police/duty personel when I spin on base, fire or no, somone usually harrases me.
Anyhow, I guess karma paid off. We were spinning for my friend who had just passed away, and we saw the MPs drive by, we had a guy that was lit up at the time so we all thought "Ohh sh*t, there goes our evening." However they just slowed down took a gander and drove off. About half hour to an hour later, we were still spinning and another drove past and left us alone.
I was shocked and amazed that our local MP idiots actually decided to leave us alone.
Well... I usually have trouble with the military police/duty personel when I spin on base, fire or no, somone usually harrases me.
Anyhow, I guess karma paid off. We were spinning for my friend who had just passed away, and we saw the MPs drive by, we had a guy that was lit up at the time so we all thought "Ohh sh*t, there goes our evening." However they just slowed down took a gander and drove off. About half hour to an hour later, we were still spinning and another drove past and left us alone.
I was shocked and amazed that our local MP idiots actually decided to leave us alone.
Some Jarhead last night: "this dumb a$$ thinks hes fireproof"
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