Good and Bad things

[richlevy]

Ever notice that life is a mix of good and bad? Yesterday was an bit of a roller coaster for me as far as little bits of bad luck and serendipity.

Got a $15 parking ticket in West Chester and there was still 1 minute left on the meter when I got back to my car.

Went to use a %75 off rain-check at a local pharmacy for 64MB Kodak compact flash cards ($20*.25=$5). They didn't carry the 64mb anymore so they substituted a 256MB Kodak compactflash with the same deal ($29.99*.25=$7.50).

Found an open box nimh recharger with batteries at CompUSA for %50 off. I'm trying to move the household to rechargeables. Found open box Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory for $7.50. Picked up open box but still in wrapper CD holders with 6AA alkalines for $1.50 each.

Found the movie I was looking for (Prime) finally was available in the used section of Blockbuster after waiting for a month.

Now I realize that all of this has to do with money and possessions, but the point is that from an economic standpoint, things evened out. From an emotional standpoint, the small injustice I experienced was tempered by my chance to watch a movie I was looking forward to.

BTW, I did call the parking authority and they will check the meter. However, I don't hold much hope. If anything, I did learn a very small lesson in justice, one which suburban white boys with no criminal record rarely get to experience. I even considered writing a commentary about it to submit to the papers.

Take this little injustice and compare it to this case, or these cases.

So all in all, I lost money, was able to make up for it, and was taught a lesson in injustice.

I almost felt like Earl.

Earl: Karma. You gotta love it!

From here

The young woman was on edge for months, keeping a lookout for the stranger who had robbed her, raped her, and threatened to cut her throat.

She had gotten a good look at him before and after the attack in her basement apartment, not far from Rutgers University campus. At one point, their faces were just two feet apart. She'd never forget that face.

Then one April day on a New Brunswick street corner, more than seven months after the rape, she froze.

There he was. Strolling along with a boom box, walking with the same side-to-side swagger she remembered when the rapist left her apartment.
She ran to call the police. A few minutes later, they arrested the suspect, a black man named McKinley Cromedy.

The ensuing trial helped trigger an overhaul of the way New Jersey treats the oldest and most dramatic sort of courtroom evidence: an eyewitness pointing out the person who did it.

Cromedy's defense attorney took an unusual tack. He questioned her ability to tell black men apart, noting that she was white, that she grew up in an overwhelmingly white northern New Jersey suburb, that there were no black students in her high school class.

The victim was undeterred.

"It's just something you don't forget after what happens and everything," she told a jury of 11 whites and one black person. "It was him."

More than 61/2 years later, science would prove her wrong.