The day I got punched in the face -- Part 2

(Continued from Part 1)


I waited a good 10 minutes for Deputy Hernandez to come back so I could tell her what happened. I was eager to get home, so I was tempted just to leave and forget it. But I also felt that I owed it to my fellow Metro passengers to have this sort of incident documented, and to do what I could to hold this man responsible for his actions.


I'm glad the deputies were there and able to arrest this man, but in other ways they seemed to take only a lukewarm interest in the assault. They made no attempt to find witnesses and get their statements (even though two witnesses had already found me). When I told Deputy Hernandez that, yes, I would like to press charges, she implied it would be a big hassle and perhaps not worth the bother.

She said that in this situation, since police hadn't witnessed the punch, it would be classified as a misdemeanor and I would essentially be making a citizen's arrest, then going to court to testify against my attacker. There was also a fair chance that this man would never show up in court (why would he?).

I went up to street level with the deputy, where her car was parked, and she spent a good five minutes looking in the trunk of the car trying find the right form to fill out.  I continued to stand and wait as she wrote information on the incident down. I'd been standing with her for 20 minutes before she gave me a form to write down my description of events. Even when all the paperwork was done, I still had to wait five more minutes for a "report number."  Clearly, not the most efficient process. All in all, I spend about 40 minutes, mostly standing around doing nothing, waiting for the police to do their work.

Initially, Deputy Hernandez told me that since this guy was clearly mentally unstable that they would try and find some reason to keep him in custody longer, perhaps by requesting a mental evaluation  But just a few hours later when she called me – she had forgotten to put my birthdate on the report – she said they were about to release him.

She suggested that he might "plea out" and there won't be a trial. About the best result I think I can expect out of the situation is putting the incident on his record, so perhaps someday it and other crimes will add up to some real jail time.


There are some bigger issues in this whole incident, one of which is the question of why there are so many mentally ill people wandering Los Angeles' streets. That's a topic that's too big for me to tackle here.

This episode also raises anew questions about Metro's peculiar "honor system." On Metro trains, you're supposed buy a ticket, but there's nothing to force you to do so. Anyone can walk into a station and onto a train without a ticket.

The catch is that if fare inspectors find you without a ticket you can be cited and fined as much as $180. That's a pretty substantial penalty, but there are some big problems with this system. First, they rarely check for tickets. I've gone for months of daily commuting without any ticket inspection.

Second, there's little penalty if you ignore your ticket. The Los Angeles Times said in 2007 that "most of the 60,000 passengers cited each year never pay up or go to court to fight their citations, resulting in the low collection rate, according to court statistics." True, the court may issue an arrest warrant for those who don't pay, but that's hardly a deterrent for transients.

In the end, Metro train lines end up as the transportation of choice for the kind of people who don't care if they're wanted by the law. And that makes Metro dangerous for all of us.

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The day I got punched in the face

I've commuted on Los Angeles' Metro train lines for some 15 years. During that time, I've seen several near-fights and some scary, ranting people on the train, but the only actual violence I've witnessed happened was when one young man got pummeled by two others in the aisle (he walked away, though shaken).

Then came March 6.

I was on my way home and transferring from the Red Line subway to the Blue Line, just like normal. It was about 5:30 p.m. and the underground Seventh Street Metro Center was abuzz with commuters.

As I headed up the stairs to the Blue Line, I vaguely noticed two men just ahead of me. The second man, who was wearing a black sweatshirt, was closely trailing the man ahead of him, and it appeared that they were together. There was nothing particular notable or unusual about that, so I only gave it a moment's thought.

As I ascended the stairs, in a hurry as always to reach my train home, I found the second man oddly taking the steps more sideways than upward and getting slightly in my way. So I shifted farther to the left and by taking the stairs two at a time, I moved ahead of the second man, but behind the first.

At the top of the stairs, commuters heading to the Blue Line must do a U-turn and then touch their "Tap Card" to a kiosk to register payment for the ride. As I made the turn, the second man suddenly rushed ahead of me and deliberately blocked my path to the kiosk. At this point, I thought was just dealing with a very rude person and said, "Excuse me!"

He turned around and looked at me – he said nothing – and punched me right between the eyes. It was stunning. I took a step back, checked to see if my glasses were broken (they weren't), and said "What the fuck was that all about?" He didn't answer.

(In retrospect, I find it interesting that I did not instinctively try to hit him back. That's probably a good thing; retaliation would have led nowhere good.)

At this point I got my first good look at him. He was black, maybe 35 to 45, perhaps 5-foot-9 or so, lean and compact, and with a slight growth of beard.

I stepped away to look for a police officer – since Seventh Street Metro Center  is a major transit point, cops are often around. I looked back at my assailant, to make sure he wasn't coming after me; we locked eyes from 10 yards away and he pointed at me threateningly.

As I was looking for an officer, the other man – the one I thought was with the guy who punched me – came up to me. I didn't learn his name but I'm going to call him Luis just to make this story easier to follow.  Luis said he'd seen what happened, was as stunned as I was, and was definitely not with the other guy. Luis said he'd noticed the other guy following closely behind him, almost as if  the second guy was trying to "protect" Luis. Indeed, it looked as if Sweatshirt Guy had taken some offense when I got between him and the person he was "protecting."

Sure, that doesn't make sense – but neither does punching a stranger in the face. Clearly, my attacker had a few glitches in his hard drive.

After a minute or two, I found two female sheriff's deputies and told them what happened. Luis pointed out that my assailant had gotten on a Blue Line train that, luckily, was still waiting at the platform. Looking through the windows of the train, I spotted my attacker and pointed him out to the deputies. They boarded the train, asked him to stand up, and handcuffed him.

As they walked away with him, I followed. Deputy Hernandez came back to talk to me, but at that moment, the attacker started trying to get away from her partner, so she rushed back to help. (They later told me that he had seen a girl he wanted to talk to and was trying to go her.)

They eventually took the attacker away.

What happened next? See Part 2.

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Amazon fails on Goldfish math

Amazon's listing of Pepperidge Farm baked Goldfish crackers, in a 66-ounce package, shows the price as $16.99.  Conveniently, for comparison shopping purposes, Amazon shows that the price works out to "$0.21 / oz".

But that's wrong. The $16.99 price, divided by 66 ounces, works out to 25.7 cents per ounce, not 21 cents. If it really was 21 cents per ounce, you'd be paying $3.13 less.

Who's to blame for this false advertising?  Perhaps it's D&J Shopping Connection, the vendor who is selling the product. But this is Amazon's website, so they bear ultimate responsibility for what's on it.

Let dying languages die

The Los Angeles Times had a story yesterday on school children in Northern California being taught the nearly extinct language of the Yurok Indians. Everyone quoted in the story – elderly Yuroks, the teachers in the program, a professional linguist – seems to think this is a swell idea because it will prevent the language from dying out. (You can read the story here.)

But no one seems to be asking a key question: Is this good for the students?

Under the program, elementary and high school students spend precious class time studying a language that is spoken by only about 400 people on Earth, almost none of whom use it as their primary language. As the story notes, only 17 people are considered "conversationally fluent" in Yurok.

So while the program pleases a few academics, it gives kids a skill that is virtually worthless. Why not spend the class time having them learn Spanish, or Mandarin Chinese, or any of the many widely used languages spoken around the world?  Why not give the stidemts a skill that will be valued by employers, help them to travel confidently to other countries and allow them to communicate with millions of people, not just a handful?

Languages die out as a natural part of cultural change. This is not something we should mourn. The loss of a language means that more people are sharing a common tongue and can communicate clearly and freely without translators or the risk of misunderstanding. That's a good thing.

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Review: "The River of Doubt" by Candice Millard

After an arduous and unsuccessful run for president in 1912, Theodore Roosevelt was spent. He needed to get away. Never one to do things halfway, Roosevelt REALLY got away.

The next year, Roosevelt was on a boat heading to South America to explore the rain forest. The expedition, organized by Father John Zahm, would take Roosevelt and other participants onto several rivers to see wildlife and visit remote jungle areas. It promised to be an interesting trip, yet hardly a groundbreaking one.

But upon arriving in Brazil, an official asked Roosevelt a tantalizing question: "Why don't you go down an unknown river?" The question changed everything. Roosevelt, who craved the chance to be a "real" explorer, jumped at the opportunity.

The "River of Doubt," a wonderfully written book by Candice Millard, is the story of the 1914 Roosevelt-Rondon expedition to explore a 1,000-mile river that was literally was not on any map. When the 22-man team set out, no one knew where the Rio da Duvida ("River of Doubt") would take them, how long they would be gone or what kind of dangers they would face.

As it turned out, the difficulties of the trip were far beyond what they had imagined. The men had to deal with disease, swarms of insects, snakes, hostile Indians, dwindling supplies of food, waterfalls and their own internal conflicts. Roosevelt nearly died and ... well, I don't want to give too much away. Like the River of Doubt itself, this book takes some surprising turns.

Millard leads the reader along step-by-step on the entire trip, beginning with its planning stages in the United States, helping you feel as if you are going along with the expedition. Unlike many survival stories, this one does not hinge on a single disastrous moment. There is no shipwreck, avalanche, or plane crash. Rather, we see scores of small flaws in the planning and execution of the trip, along with the extraordinary difficulties of travel, add up in a death-by-a-thousand-cuts style to cripple and hamper the expedition.

Millard details a fascinating cast of characters, including the vainglorious Father Zahm, Roosevelt's hard-working but reckless son Kermit, and various scientists and laborers. Some are strong and headstrong, some fearful, some lazy, and the interaction among them adds color and depth to the story. (Sort of like "Lost" on the Amazon.)

Of course, the main character is Theodore Roosevelt, my favorite president. This book illustrates many of his strengths - he is tough, fair-minded, decisive and selfless. Yet I have to say that part of the expedition's problems stem from his failure to take charge of the planning early enough. He left many of the details of supplies and equipment to Zahm and others. Due to poor planning, the high-quality canoes they brought with them never reach the river and they have to rely on unreliable native dugouts. They also discover too late their food supplies are inadequate.

The other unforgettable individual in the book is Brazilian Colonel Candido Rondon, the co-leader of the trip. I had never heard of him, but I gather that he is a national hero in Brazil. He had led numerous expeditions into the Amazon to explore and lay telegraph lines, and worked hard to bring peace with Indians. He was stern and demanding, and seemed immune to the jungle diseases that afflicted, and often killed, the men around him.

"In the most remote reaches of the Amazon," Millard writes, "Rondon was unreachable and unstoppable. He had never allowed his men's suffering or even their deaths to affect his work in the wilderness, and he never would."

Millard broadens out the story with historical background of the Amazon and descriptions of the strange flora and fauna of the jungle. Much of this is fascinating, but she might take it a bit too far. As the expedition progresses, you want to stay with that story and see what happens. Millard may interrupt once too often with a scientific lesson.

If you enjoy this type of story, you should also consider "Undaunted Courage," Stephen Ambrose's story of the Lewis and Clark expedition. Also, there are many good books on Ernest Shackleton's troubled Antarctic expedition that are worth a look.

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How to tick off your customers the My Lifetouch way

My Lifetouch, a website for purchasing school photos, has a unique three-step process for ticking off its customers. Pay attention – here's what to do: 

First, make it impossible for customers to do a simple one-time purchase. They must create an account first.

Second, when customers try to order pictures, include one field – My Lifetouch uses "country" – that is grayed out so that nothing can be entered in it. Then require customers to enter something in that field. Make it impossible to move forward.


Third, when customers call your help line during hours it claims to be open, answer with a recording and then hang up on them. Every time.

One, two, three – it's a simple plan that My Lifetouch seems to have perfected.
That may be why, when you email them, they say, "We're proud of our accomplishments."

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Movie review: "Planes, Trains and Automobiles"

I got three hearty laughs out of this 1987 movie and assorted light chuckles. That's good, but it's not enough to make it a great movie. Unfortunately, the plot is thin and the love-hate relationship of the two main characters is too obviously contrived.

Everyone has had a bad trip, so when things go wrong for Neal Page (Steve Martin) and Del Griffith (John Candy) as they're trying to get home for Thanksgiving, we can all share their pain and empathize. And when things go particularly bad, it's particularly funny.

Still, for a road trip movie, "Planes, Trains and Automobiles" loses momentum and stalls a surprising number of times. And parts of it just don't make sense.

The second half of the movie shows Page trying to get from St. Louis to Chicago. He finds he can't get a plane or a rental car. But his wife is waiting for him in Chicago, so why doesn't he just call her and have her come get him? Yes, that's a four-and-a-half-hour drive, but given that he doesn't seem to have any other options for getting home for Thanksgiving, wouldn't any wife do that? Or at least get a friend or relative to go?

Somehow that doesn't happen. By luck, Page gets a ride with Griffith, who is also heading to Chicago. The passage of time is unclear at this point, but their drive starts in daylight, goes into the darkness, they switch drivers twice, Page falls asleep in the passenger seat. Surely by this point they must be REALLY close to Chicago, right?  You'd think so, but somehow no.

When more trouble ensues, they again fail to call Page's wife (how far away can she be?). Then when they get a ride in a truck, Griffith says that they're only three hours from Chicago. Huh??

That's not the only part that doesn't make sense. At one point they end up driving the wrong way on a virtually deserted freeway. C'mon – even in 1980s Illinois – no freeway is that empty.

One fun element in this movie is that several actors who go on to bigger careers can be found in small roles – Kevin Bacon, Ben Stein, Michael McKean.

While this movie isn't great, it might make an OK family movie – except for one scene where the f-word is used about 50 or 60 times (attention parents: It's the scene at the rental car counter; skip ahead). That's too bad. Sometimes I wonder if filmmakers intentionally do this to avoid getting a PG rating, which is somehow considered "lightweight."

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