Sending folks to jail for breaking the law? Have you gone loco?

'Sending people to jail for breaking the law: That's just plain stupid.'

Question: Why can't we take care of our cops like they do in D.C.

I mean look at what these guys from Jan. 6 are getting for assaulting officers. (See today's Top Story)

Five months for throwing "something" (coulda been a gum wrapper) and another guy gets eight years for throwing a fire extinguisher.

Now contrary to that, I've never seen a person go to jail for hitting, or spitting at, or kicking a Rochester Police Officer.

Now, before you start pounding out a nasty letter on your Olympia typewriter, let me be clear, some may have, I just don't recall it.

But very, very often in the case of many arrests for various things, the assault charges get nol prossed, which mean not prosecuted ... just dropped.

Now if we just had a flat punch a cop, year in jail law, don't you think those assaults would pretty much disappear.

Trust me word on the street gets around fast.

But the larger question is why such a tough sentence in D.C. and not in Rochester, or Milton, or Somersworth or anywhere else?

And maybe, if we had tougher sentences on everything with real jail time do you think there's a chance arrests would go down, breaking laws would go down, people would be safer. Whadda ya think. Am I crazy, or is it just all relative, as they say.

Speaking of relative, I had an amazing conversation with a man at an area market.

He was working in the seafood department.

I asked him to slice me a half pound of swordfish (it was on sale).

He grabbed a piece out of the cooler, slapped it on the scale and said, "Is that OK?"

The scale read 0.83 pounds.

I made a slight frown (funds are tight in these Bidentimes) but said, "Yeah, I guess that's OK, it's quite a bit over but I'll take it."

"Whadda ya (that's two whadda yas in this column, which is the limit) mean?" he snorted.

"It's like a quarter of a pound over," I said.

"It's all relative," he replied matter-of-factly. "What are you saying?"

"It's not a half pound, it's .83 pounds, that's way over."

Seeing the blank stare, I knew there was no point to continue and walked away.

As I looked back there was no anger in his expression, only mild consternation.

Here's some more relative stuff for you.

An "area" paper reported a traffic accident recently in which the police reported alcohol to be a contributing factor. But the paper never mentioned it.

It's all relative, dude, like you know what I mean?

Now I sound like Maynard G. Krebbs from the "Dobie Gillis Show."

I would urge the young'uns to go watch some of those shows and see how we got where we are!

The show is also quite funny! Or is comedy relative, too, dude?

Alas.