Highway Robbery

So I got a ticket the other night.

I was driving my friend's car because she was drunk, and we get pulled over on the way home. As we're sitting there on the side of the road gathering all the proper identification and paperwork, we're wondering, "What the hell are we getting pulled over for?"

Tags current? Check. Blinkers in good working condition? Check. License plate properly lit? Check. Speeding? Nope.

Turns out, I was getting pulled over for making a "California" stop, or, as the cop put it "rolling right through that stop sign back there". Back where? Oh, the one I stopped at for a half second because its fucking midnight and there's no one on the road but me?

While the officer was back at his car spending twenty minutes doing heaven only knows what, my carmate informed me that the law states that you must stop for a full three seconds. Oh.

So after making us sit on the side of the road for ages, the officer finally gave me my citation. We went home, and I got real drunk and had some cake.

Its a couple of days later now, and I decided to do some research. Apparently, Arizona law does not state a particular length of time that you must be stopped, only that momentum of the vehicle must completely cease. Since I did stop completely, though it may have been for the briefest amount of time possible, I think I'm going to fight the ticket. It should help that the officer only visually estimated my speed.

I know this ticket shouldn't affect my car insurance prices, but still... it's the principle of the fucking thing. Police officers are supposed to be there to "Protect and Serve" right? Who was this officer protecting? There was absolutely no one on the road, and certainly no pedestrians crossing through that particular intersection at midnight. He couldn't have been protecting me, and there's no way in hell he was serving me either.

This was a fundraising ticket, plain and simple.

The town I live in loves their tickets. We have Red Flex traffic cameras at several lights and mobile photo vans parked along strategic stretches of road at all times. This cameras have been in use for a few years now and are universally hated (on account of due-process rights and whatnot). Aside from that, it seems far to easy for certain individuals (cops, namely) to have their own tickets conveniently erased from the system.

Thankfully, the Arizona House is working to repeal these cameras right now. Most people are pretty thrilled about the idea, and the rest believe that without these unmanned sentinels watching drivers along every major road, people will go back to driving line a bunch of dickheads.

That's possible. I don't think that the cameras prevent anyone from driving like an asshole anyway. They just slow down where they know the cameras are and speed right back up once their through. Maybe if this state (and others) worked on educating drivers properly before they get the keys to their own car, we'd have less accidents and assholes on the road to start with. I believe that drivers' ed programs used to be mandatory for all high school students, and now its an optional course that you need to pay upwards for $100 to put your kid through.

Beyond that, I think the people of this country need to stop being such ignorant, self-centered douchebags in general, but that's just me.

Science LULZ

Caregivers

 

Say hello 

To the rug's topography
It holds quite a lot of interest with your face down on it
Say hello 

To the shrinking in your head
You can't see it but you know it's there so don't neglect it

I'm taking her home with me

All dressed in white
She's got everything I need, pharmacy keys
She's falling hard for me 

I can see it in her eyes
She acts just like a nurse with all the other guys

The Nurse Who Loved Me- A Perfect Circle

 

What is it about nursing that has transformed this profession into inspiration for sexual fantasies? "Sexy Nurse" Halloween costumes are immensely popular, and nurses are a fairly commonplace feature in pornos. They have been sung about and featured in music videos and on album covers.

Blink 182, Enema of the State. 1999.

Mariah Carey, "Up Out My Face" music video. 2009.

 

The Beareau of Labor Statistics states that, aside from holding the obvious degrees and qualifications, being a nurse requires a "caring, sympathetic" disposition and the "emotional stability to cope with human suffering, emergencies, and other stresses". I'm sure it's because of these factors that nurses are mostly women.

Apparently, from 1600-1800 nursing was not considered to be a real profession (and by modern definitions it probably wasn't, considering the medical technology of the time). Nurses were viewed by the general public as being women of "low morals". Nursing as a profession only garnered real respect in the mid 1800's with the arrival of Florence Nightingale. Nightingale and her work in the Crimean War brought light to the importance of nurses in the military. In 1916, during World War I, The Royal College of Nursing was founded.
(Timeline of nursing history.)

After that, the arrival of a second World War and the arrival of great pin-up artists such as AlbertoVargas and Gil Elvgren brought a new face to nursing. It'd be my guess that the popularity of the pin-up girls are what originally started the stereotype of the sexy nurse.

 

I can see why the idea of a sexy nurse is so appealing, especially for the soldiers who were bed-ridden in crowded hospitals surrounded by the stench of bodily fluids and chemicals and the moans and screams of wounded or dying comrades. A caring, compassionate woman who's always there to nurture you, care for all your injuries, and supply you with an endless supply of morphine and medications would be fucking awesome. Plus they wore cute little hats and stockings.

In reality, nursing is a pretty damn difficult profession. The college I go to has one of the best nursing programs in the country, and competition for placement in the program is fierce. A gal I know was Salutatorian of her graduating class and had an average GPA of 3.8 for all of her prerequisite classes at the college. She didn't get into the program. Also, real-life nurses wear scrubs. With Winnie the Pooh on them.

I'd like to know what nurses in general think of this stereotype. Baltimore based group The Truth About Nursing is working to change some of the common stereotypes about nurses. From what I gathered by skimming their website, it seems that just about every television show on air right now doesn't give nurses enough credit. They either portray them as the "silent handmaiden" (i.e. gofer for the doctor), or the nurse is not compassionate enough and merely collects readings in an unsympathetic, methodical manner. Oh, and they got really pissed about Mariah Carey's music video. This is what they had to say: 

"Pop stars like Mariah Carey can actually use sexual imagery to sell their work without reinforcing the naughty nurse stereotype, which has undermined real nurses for decades, presenting their work as being all about female sexuality. The naughty nurse imagery that continues to permeate global pop culture tells people that nursing is just a tired sex joke, not a profession for educated men and women who need more clinical and educational resources if they are to keep saving lives. So maybe the image could get up out our faces."

Personally, I do not think any differently about nurses because of the Naughty Nurse stereotype. I know that nurses work their asses off to earn their degrees and to do their job. The fact that high school and college chicks dress in nurse costumes and get all drunk at Halloween parties doesn't change this fact. I also don't think any less of teachers, maids, traffic cops, Marie Antoinette, pirates, or... Sesame Street characters.

I think it all boils down to one thing which is that women are sexy, and men like ogling pictures of women. It doesn't matter a whole lot what they're wearing, or not wearing. They could be wearing a discarded potato sack. Nurses have more appeal simply because of the helpful, nurturing aspect (and the pharmacy keys don't hurt either).

 

Oh, get over it...