Rambling Rhodes

Use Technology to Solve the Panhandler Problem

The wise Solons of the Rochester City Council recently decided to take a closer look at the expanding popularity of panhandling in our fair city; this after the mayor and others experienced the effrontery of beggars hitting them up for a buck or two on the Peace Plaza.

It's one thing to have cardboard sign poets staking claims on off-ramps and overpasses, mining motorists of their compassion—that's tolerable—but when they start migrating downtown and advance to shoulder-tapping, that's something else entirely.

Whether the downtown beggars are cut from the same herd as the overpass panhandlers is questionable. I've personally been hit up for spare change by beggars downtown in times pre-dating the panhandling phenomenon. I've even been asked by individuals, on occasion, if I've found Jesus, as if one has gone missing. Regardless of their origin or intent, the downtown beggar variants are admittedly annoying, and for some people I can imagine they're somewhat intimidating. The panhandlers, by comparison, are mostly a visual nuisance.

So, what to do about the problem? The city council wants to look into the possibility of licenses for beggars, which is a curious solution. A panhandler is just a panhandler, after all. But a Licensed Panhandler almost sounds distinguished, as if they're panhandlers who can also inspect a house's electrical work.

Rather than legitimizing panhandlers, I think it might be far more effective to give them one of the biggest things they hate: exposure. This being the information age, with the omnipresence of digital cameras, cell phone cameras and relatively-inexpensive digital video cameras, I propose having some fun with the panhandlers.

Take their pictures. Conduct video interviews with them, if they're willing (don't be a jerk about it). Just as they're free to park themselves on an overpass and mope for dollars, so too are we free to take their pictures. They may not like it, but there's nothing they can legally do about it.

But pictures and videos aren't enough without a place for them to live. To the Internet! I figure, if Web sites dedicated to dog and cat pictures can thrive online, there simply has to be an online audience willing—nay, eager—to surf through panhandler images that have been altered to include humorous captions, along the lines of http://www.icanhascheezburger.com.

Yes, I can envision millions of people Googling their way to http://www.panhandled.com (looks like that domain will have to be purchased from GoDaddy.com. Figures!), where hilarious content awaits of panhandler images with such captions as "I'm on ur overpass, lackin' mah dignity" or "Oh, hai guyz! Spare me some change?"

After awhile, the word will get out to the panhandlers, and they'll eventually find themselves one evening in their apartments, perusing the Web on their laptops (which they totally have, trust me), and they'll see some of the most unflattering pictures of themselves imaginable, complete with captions mocking them mercilessly.

The results of such an online approach to the panhandler problem, I imagine, will be twofold. First off, panhandlers who don't respond well to merciless mockery will give up their career path and seek actual gainful employment. Second, it will make panhanders a national laughingstock, and motorists will opt to take their own pictures rather than hand over cash.

I'm telling you, this is a surefire cure.

Just a duck, taking a nap

Tonight after work, as I walked the seven minute trek from my office building back to my car, I happened upon a female duck that was taking a nap about a foot away from the sidewalk. It was so close, and so perfectly at peace, I probably could have reached out and touched it.

Rather than reach out and touch it, and contract bird flu, I opted to take out my Flip minicam and film the little critter. I don't know why I wanted to film it, exactly; there was just something about the dumb napping bird that struck me as somehow cute. After all, the sidewalk was a high foot traffic avenue, and there were cars and buses cruising by, yet the duck found that specific spot and decided it was perfect for a quick snooze. How could I NOT film it? Besides, I've been carrying that damned Flip camera around with me for months hoping to capture a major event on film so I could sell it to NBC for millions of dollars. It may have been a napping duck, not a major event, but it seemed filmworthy.

Now, my strength lies in writing. As far as public speaking goes, I'm hit and miss, and mostly miss. Further, as impromptu speaking goes, I'm borderline retarded. Further still, for the last eight months, I've been speaking in baby talk. Taken together, you have this:

"Nappy duck."

Nappy duck. The more I said the term silently in my head as I continued to walk back to my car, the more it amused me. Nappy duck.

By the time I got to my car, I was imagining a scenario in which both Daffy and Donald were calling my fictitious radio station, demanding my immediate termination for the insensitive slur against the duck community, with Daffy calling me "Dethspickable" and Donald so beside himself with rage he could only squawk unintelligibly and moult feathers in that endearing way he does. I was being called out by maligned mallards nationwide.

Sometimes, I think the walk back to my car after work is perhaps the absolute best time of day.

Unions Apparently Really ARE Evil

Screen shot from MSNBC.com:

And Suddenly He's a Little Boy

I was told, while my wife was still pregnant, that babies really start to exhibit personalities after three months. So, I was a little surprised at how much personality I actually saw reflected during the first week.

He was smiling--yes, actually smiling, not just gas-induced smiling--within the first month. For some reason, that still amazes me.

I look at him now, and personality abounds. I never know what he'll find amusing or interesting from moment to moment. His brain is going a mile a minute, and I would give almost anything to inhabit his mind for even a minute just to see what he's thinking, although I suspect it would be something along the lines of "HOLY SHIT!! EVERYTHING IS AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!" in a perpetual loop.

Some nights after he's been put to bed, I steal myself away in my office and I watch some of the earliest videos I have of him, and I feel somewhat dismayed by the fact I almost can't remember what those early weeks and proceeding days were even like. I mean, I remember many of the details, but I strangely can't recall what emotions I was feeling. Exhausted, sure, but that's not really an emotion.

And now we're entering a phase, very soon, where he'll be crawling, opening a whole new world of exploration that will no doubt include the discovery of the cat door to the basement, and I'm forced to agree with the conclusion my parents reached during one of our many Skype sessions.

"He's really a little boy now."

I guess he is. I just kind of wish I would have noticed when that happened, exactly.

Baby laughs At Me crawling

Helen Thomas in Limerick Form

Helen Thomas long covered the White House
Against Democrats and Republicans she groused
Now press secretaries
Who she so long had teased
Will no longer be able to look down her blouse.

Helen Thomas looked regretfully at her shoes
After her ill-advised meltdown about Jews
She said some dumb things
And payback sure stings
Tonight she'll no doubt be hitting the booze.

As a White House reporter for nigh 50 years
And annoying press secretaries to tears
Despite her maturity
She lost job security
Anti-semitism can at least end SOME careers.

"Go home to Poland" Helen Thomas suggested
Which is a stupid thing for her to have requested
It's a pretty big mystery
How she's so ignorant of history
Perhaps in school she wasn't adequately tested.