Now I'm wondering how many cities have laws about not being in parks without a child.
It's not parks, it's playgrounds. Specifically, fenced-in playgrounds with nothing in them except for children's play areas. (There are also playgrounds which are fully public - in Prospect Park the easiest way to tell the difference because the public playgrounds have chess tables.)
So someone who enjoys watching children play but isn't in the company of a child is by default a pedophile? Lovely.
No, someone who enjoys watching children play but isn't in the company of a child can by default eat their goddamn doughnuts on one of the many benches on the sidewalk or bike path right outside the fenced in playground.
It's entirely possible that in this case, the police officers were in the wrong. But it's not stupid or crazy for a city to carve out safe spaces for children and caregivers.
I don't mind the law so much, but I think it's there as a tool for the place to shoo off shady characters instead of two young women on a donut spree.
It's the officer's discretion that I find faulty in this instance.
It's the officer's discretion that I find faulty in this instance.
Under the Bloomberg administration the police have been fairly ticket-crazy. I have a feeling this case was about meeting a quota more than keeping the city safe.
All the parents and nannies and whoever are sitting there looking at the kids, aren't they?
Yeah, but they're there
with their own kids,
and primarily watching their own kids; I'd find it just as off-putting and strange if they wandered over during their kid-free time, plonked themselves down, and said, "Oh, well, I ran through my Netflix list and nothing good was on cable, so I thought I'd watch your kids for a while."
And ITA that the officer was using poor judgment in this particular case; I just can't get that exercised about the oppressiveness of a law preventing total strangers from pulling up a chair to sit close and stare at kids in a designated kids-and-caretakers-only space.
And ITA that the officer was using poor judgment in this particular case; I just can't get that exercised about the oppressiveness of a law preventing total strangers from pulling up a chair to sit close and stare at kids in a designated kids-and-caretakers-only space.
I dunno, I have concerns about it both from a civil liberties perspective (restricting areas of a public park skeeves me) and from a false-sense-of-security parenting persepective.
how does the sun stay burning if there's no oxygen in space?
The sun is a mass of incandescent gas; a gigantic nuclear furnace. Where hydrogen is built into helium at a temperature of millions of degrees.
The sun is a mass of incandescent gas; a gigantic nuclear furnace. Where hydrogen is built into helium at a temperature of millions of degrees.
The sun is a miasma of incandescent plasma, the sun's not merely made out of gas, no no no.
The sun is a miasma of incandescent plasma, the sun's not merely made out of gas, no no no.
That doesn't rhyme so it can't be true.
You'll have to take that up with TMBG - [link]
