Posted on 01/23/2009 9:55:34 PM PST by June K.
The legendary folk singer yesterday came running to the rescue of a California woman forced by Port Authority cops to hand over her iPod to a cabby after the taxi's credit-card reader declined her card.
Taylor promised to send Natalie Lenhart a brand new music player filled with his songs, as well as a personal note.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
June K.
That really was nice of him to do that for her...
:-)
No comment.
Good for Taylor--even liberals react to this kind of thing at a gut level. But it's a wonderful metaphor for the state of the country in years to come--evil person with THINGS has to give them to someone who doesn't, never mind that he gets over $100 more value for his service.
The cop is a disgrace. The woman's declined credit card should have led to the cop taking her information and saying she had to get the cash to the cabby within 24 hours or something, if any decision was to be made on the spot at all.
Read to the end, where the tool cabby "offers" to give back the ipod in return for the cash. He should give it back to her and apologize.
Fifty stitches! OUCH!
I don’t hire a cab unless I have the means to pay for my transportation.
Call me a conservative......
Thanks, MM
If I don’t have the $$$ I walk the distance, cook my own food, color my own hair or paint my the walls of my living room myself.
I wonder if she really knew who James Taylor is. She’s only 20 after all. She probably had to Wiki or Google.
Wow!! Bizarre....I’m listening to Fire and Rain on my IPOD when I click on this post. Thanks....I think?
Sorry, I’m with the cop — the woman committed to pay the cabbie $49 for a ride and was unprepared to actually do so. Take down info? What, is the cop supposed to become a long-term collection agency? Now if the cabbie refused to accept money later in exchange for the return of the iPOD (she should cover shipping and offer him added compensation for his inconveniences), then he’d be in the wrong.... but at the moment and on the spot, the woman had entered into a payment for services and she was unprepared to meet her commitment. I’ve take loads of taxis in and around NYC (and many other cities), and I always check first to make sure I can pay, in fact I always have the cash. I’m not any big fan of cabbies but they are not providing charitable services.
Take down info? What, is the cop supposed to become a long-term collection agency?
Cops do this every single day. It's called "doing their job". And please, don't twist my words--I said the cop could have said "You have 24 hours." Then the cabbie could call the cop, and follow up. Are you unfamiliar with the daily duties of police, where a cop will break up a domestic situation, a street confrontation, etc? They aren't judges.
I know we may live in a police state once Obama gets going, but for now, we don't have roaming Judge Juries and Executioners. We have police, and their job is "to protect and to SERVE". If you don't want them to act as collection agencies, why do you want them to act as enforcers who strongarm people to pay 150% of a bill?
BTW, from now on whenever someone's credit card is bounced, do you think the person owed the debt can demand personal belongings amounting to 150% of the debt incurred?
I'm not defending the woman, she was in the wrong. But are we really talking about having the cops act as leg breakers, instead of letting people work things out on their own? Whatever happened to getting government off people's backs and letting people work out greivances on their own?
Taylor read about the case in The Post, which broke the story Wednesday, quoting Lenhart saying she's a big fan of artists like Taylor and The Beatles. In fact, she said, she had recently bought a signed copy of Taylor's album "Gorilla" - featuring hits like "How Sweet It Is" - on eBay.
Come on, the woman was leaving the state and not a resident of the state. The cabbie would have utterly no recourse once the woman got on that plane. How do you collect on a $49 debt from someone who is 3,000 miles away? 24 hours later the cabbie would have been up the liberal creek without a paddle for being soft-hearted.
In the situation described, the cop isn't there to negotiate payment. She should have said "Figure this out or we go down to the station." End. That's not what happened. She became a judge, and invented this ridiculous solution.
I'm always astonished when conservatives want to give the state these incredible powers when we're always arguing that people should deal with this stuff on their own.
I read that, but do you actually believe everything you read or what a 20 year-old tells you? I sure don’t.
Haha, for someone who just complained about twisting words (which I didn't do to yours) that certainly makes a mockery of mine.
It's perfectly "conservative" to believe in law & order, and to believe that LEOs are there to uphold the law. If the 2 people could have worked it out themselves they would have done so. If the woman had walked off without paying and without some guarantee of payment that was acceptable to the cabbie, then a crime would have been committed. Now we certainly don't have all the details of what was said, but if the cop's position was simply that you either pay now or satisfy the cabbie that you are guaranteeing future payment with something of sufficient value, yes that's just fine with me.
“Good for Taylor—even liberals react to this kind of thing at a gut level.”
Yes! It made me feel good that JT would go to this trouble for a fan.
“The cop is a disgrace.”
I agree that this situation was handled badly. I can't see any justification in this person turning over property worth 3 times what the fare was.
June
ButThreeLeftsDo
“I don’t hire a cab unless I have the means to pay for my transportation.”
:) I’m thinking this young woman was unaware that her credit card would be over the limit with this cab fare amount.
I can’t imagine a young person of 20 deliberately doing something like this-on her own in a strange city ...and just trusting her luck that a cab driver would be generous enough to say, “Forget it!” I don’t think it was a planned thing to beat the cab driver out of that fare!
June
“Wow!! Bizarre....I’m listening to Fire and Rain on my IPOD when I click on this post. Thanks....I think?”
:) I also had been listening to that song yesterday - before I read the story - and had put it on my song/playlist on my blog.
Yah-Bizarre! :) But that’s life!
June K.
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