Posted on 12/15/2004 7:24:46 AM PST by Rakkasan1
A retiree who got fed up when a cell-phone user refused to clean up his language in a restaurant in July got three months' probation Tuesday. Unlike many defendants who walk into Ramsey County District Judge Paulette Flynn's courtroom to plead guilty to a crime, 79-year-old Bill W. Stevenson got thumbs-up signs from attorneys and others in the court who identified with his motives, if not his actions. "I felt a lot of sympathy, and they were giving me the thumbs-up when I walked out of the courtroom," Stevenson said after pleading guilty to a single count of disorderly conduct. "I think I could've won my case by going to trial, with a sympathetic jury. I've had over 30 calls and letters and e-mails, and I've not had one negative call. They're all on my side." The bagel bakery imbroglio happened July 15 when Stevenson and another retired 3M engineer, Sten Gerfast, 74, were sitting at a table at Bruegger's in the Sun Ray Shopping Center and going over a design Gerfast had invented. Jesse Russell Tabor, 40, of Minneapolis entered the bakery with his 13-year-old daughter. In an interview after the incident, Tabor said he was talking on his cell phone with a man whose home he was remodeling. Tabor said in the interview he didn't recall cursing while on the phone. Stevenson and Gerfast remember it differently. "He was using the F-word against this guy he was talking to," Stevenson said. "There was an argument on the phone. The third time he walked by our booth where Mr. Gerfast and I were trying to design something, Mr. Gerfast said to me, 'Should I do something about it?' I thought a moment and thought, 'What can you do in a case like this?'
(Excerpt) Read more at twincities.com ...
I am sure there are posters posting under different names. But, I fight for what I believe in. Just like on that dem site that is bringing us so many laughs, nowadays. LOL. That is what is wrong with some of this country now. Not many have beliefs that they really believe in and will fight for them. I think that the tide is changing though.
I know! I have been here long enough to find that out. Just like some of my groups I belong to.
Take the following short quiz to immunize yourself from future contact with Cousin It.
You're out for a walk and you spy some crud on the path ahead. What do you do?
A: Walk through It.
B: Step over It.
C: Go around It.
(Correct answer: C: Go around It.)
Or like the wittle bittle babies who post from that other dem site!! They post and then will not answer anyone when the other posters do not agree with them. Oh, well, they can not be helped.
bttttttt
You've just described Old Cracker to a tee. He has repeatedly been trounced by several posters and now resorts to character assasination because he knows he would be fighting outside of his weight class if he debated directly.
Sad, really. Cowardice is a liberal characteristic.
My, but you're creative. Did you come up with that all on your lonesome, or did you have help?
Brueggers has a policy that says no employee is supposed to
"interfere" with anyone's cell phone calls.
This is according to Sten , who was interview on local radio today.He said he's repeatedly contacted Brueggers. BTW
, Sten said he immigrated here in 1969, hold 28 patents,
still works , and loves the USA.
I'd say Chatty Kathy the cell phone cusser was WAY out if his league both physically and mentally.
| 8 | “"Can you get a manager over hear? We have a pervert here who thinks his hat is great to show to small children." I said, "You're no different than a flasher on a playground, you know it? You get off on this don't you?" ” |
LOL, my hat's off to you!
--Boot Hill
I knew if I touched the jerk it would be assault. So I figured, if he's using his first amd right to put a profanity on his hat in front of children, I can use my 1st amd right to call him a sick pervert flashing children.
Will you marry me?
LOL
So, just because we've never had perfect agreement,
we've never had any agreement? Also, you have to look
at the subculture and the setting ... racial or ethnic
group, class, gender, region, neighborhood, degree to
which the behavior in question is public or witnessed
by women and children, etc., etc. ... I'm not saying there's one set of rules that's perfectly consistent
in all locations and contexts.
As for bar fights -- unsavory, yes. But are they never
justified? I would think that some are.
Must be my day. Someone said nearly the exact same thing in response to another post of mine.
You'd better consider the source. You get someone using that type of language, *loudly* in public, inside a restaurant yet, and you come off with that sugarcoated, pollyanna pretty please request, they'll probably ring your bell just for good measure.
If you saw me, you would understand why they would think twice about mouthing off to me, especially after they figured out I was being nice and did not need to be.
Telling him to quit cursing or risk having the phone shoved in a very awkward place probably would've yielded a better result.
Nope, that's what gets you shot.
Even when this elderly person raised their hand against the other person first?
I was being a bit facetious with that reply. That said, I think your wishy-washy approach isn't likely to accomplish much. I think the restrained but firm approach this old guy adopted was right for the situation.
It probably sounded wishy-washy as I wrote it. But, I think of it more as a wearing them them down approach. Unless they are a real jerk, it usually takes them off their mark. I've found direct confrontation usually results in pushing back. Better to take your side of the debate to the ceiling, look down on the situation and use other than direct confrontation to accomplish what you want.
I mean, to the extent you can get the guy to listen to any of that nice, long winded, when are you going to get to the point approach, he will have stopped cursing, right?
I guess another approach would have been for the friend of the old guy to fake a heart or other ailment and tell the guy that was curing on the phone it was a medical emergency and he needed to use the guy's phone to call his wife to delivery medication.
Old Cracker, I think you are drawing analogies here on actions I am not supporting by my statement.
Years ago if some jerk used foul language in front of a woman or kid, he was generally treated to a five-finger sandwich by the closest real man. I guess I'm an older Cracker than you are because I remember those days. Today, the foulest of obscenties are spouted with impugnity in public and blasted out of car radios. People hearing this are justifiably offended but unable to respond.
Thanks to the over-civilized society in which we have become accustomed to live, anyone who did so would find themselves subject to legal action.
The same thing happens in many jurisdictions today should a home owner use armed force against a burgler or thief, or even intended rapist or murderer.
This is part and parcel of the same emasculated mind set with which we have permitted our society to be dominated, as well as our culture, and and what we have allowed to determine what we consider "acceptable" and "non-acceptable" behavior.
Personally, I feel somebody using vulgar profanity in the presence of women and children is far more offensive than the act of physically retaliating against such an oaf in order to silence him, should it be necessary.
Obviously the level of reliation should equal the offense and I'm certainly not equating blowing away another driver who makes an obscene jesture, with the appropriate but no longer legal responses I have just presented.
We live in a society where "honor" and "respect" are empty terms. A society where tolerance by the majority, of unacceptable actions by minorities, is mandated, and all other social standards are sublimited to "minority rights" even when those "minority rights" are undermining our culture, society, civlization, and the rights and wishes of the majority.
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