No parking in rear

This actually happened last week, which is right and natural when you consider what a shitstorm last week was: when ELSE would it have happened, right? Instead of our usual fun flamewars, toying with the early drinkers and short bus riders of the blogosphere, this one went a little bit sideways and turned into something akin to watching hara kiri right there in the comments section on Gawker. What people are willing to do in front of strangers, and blame upon those strangers, never ceases to fascinate me.

There’s no question I was guilty, but what of exactly what, nobody is quite sure, except for the victim, who is quite sure of many things despite being quite wrong.

What is pretty much certain is that some grownups still have to learn that lesson about when to keep your mouth shut, the one most of us learned around the time we first encountered those savvy genii of the interwebs, Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer, not to mention Socrates, who came later (what with him being an old man and all).

Judge for yourselves, as always. This is from the comments section of a Gawker post about a “Spiderman” who freeclimbed a 58-story building with suction cups and was arrested for trespassing once he got to the top.

raincoaster 09/07/10

If residents gave him water en route, he can persuasively claim to have been a guest who was there with their permission.

lethedrinker 09/07/10

@raincoaster: How about the floors in which nobody gave him water? If I invite you to my apartment does that mean you get to visit all my neighbors? How about reckless endangerment of parked Dodges? How about his impending Darwin award nomination? Questions, questions for the jury..

Seriously, this will be only a misdemeanor, no? 

raincoaster promoted this comment

raincoaster 09/07/10

@lethedrinker: Presumably even if you don’t invite him in, if your neighbors are okay with him walking by, he’s allowed to walk past your door via the hallway. He didn’t invade the apartments.

Registered 09/07/10

@raincoaster: Well, he climbed past their windows without their permission. I’d consider that an invasion of privacy.

This happened to me a few months ago. I live in a high rise condo looking directly at a bay, so privacy is not usually a concern. It’s a 1BR with a window in the BR; the LR has floor-to-ceiling doors to the balcony.

I got a notice saying that the window washing crew would be there on a certain date, and that they did not clean the windows in the LR, so I shut the blinds to the bedroom and thought I was all set.

Imagine my surprise when I was seated in the LR wearing only panties, and the crew appeared in my LR window to clean the glass balcony! I gently sank lower in the chair and raised my kindle to try and hide the tits. Not that they are anything to look at, I just prefer that people don’t.

They took 30 minutes to clean the damn balcony, and I couldn’t move in all that time.

So, with respect, your defense fails.

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lethedrinker 09/07/10

@Registered: Isn’t there some merit to the argumenet that by keeping the blinds up or door open, one implicity lowers the threshold for reasonable expectation of privacy. According to my lawyer friend, cops often use this excuse (made up or otherwise) to get around fourth amendment restrictions – not directly relevant to the privacy argument..

Registered 09/07/10

@lethedrinker: I don’t know about open front doors – they’re against the fire code here, must close automatically – but if I live in, say, a 26th floor condo that faces directly onto the ocean (or bay, in my case; you’d need the Hubble telescope to look in unless you are on a scaffold cleaning the windows ) then I would say the police lose their case.

Also, are you suggesting that people should live in caves with the blinds shut and the doors closed, or else lose any right to privacy? Bushish. 

raincoaster promoted this comment

lethedrinker 09/07/10

@Registered: I said reduced not lose any or all. Bushish? I bet such dubious arguments existed long before either Bush and will continue to be used till 2084.

Anyway, it was a generic comment not specific to the 26th floor dwelling, bay watching, automatic door closing kindle readers.

raincoaster 09/07/10

@Registered: If you got a notice that the window washing crew would be there washing your windows on a certain date and you’re sitting in your apartment topless in your panties, SOMETHING ain’t an accident. And it ain’t invasion of privacy, either.

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