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Top Comments: Notebook #57: On the benefits of war stories and assassination coordinates [1]
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Date: 2022-12-16
Originally, I had a story for this space tonight with a perfect mixture of sports and politics but Elon Musk had to blow that all up, too.
Last night, Musk suspended a number of journalists from posting at Twitter because apparently, the journalists “doxxed” Musk by posting his location on a plane in flight. I always thought, for one, that flight patterns were a part of the public record. Passenger lists are confidential but the flight patterns of the airplanes/airlines are public. So, for example, I got into the habit of being obsessed with the football head coach search at the University of Michigan and I spent more time than I probably should looking at flight patterns, for example.
So tracking Elon Musk’s supposed movements on what I assume to be his private jet should have been easy peasy. And available for publication, if newsworthy.
Musk called it something else
“Assassination coordinates”
I mean, really? “Assassination coordinates.”
Fine. A hearty laugh was had by many with that choice of phrase. And then early this morning I saw this
x There were two directories one Yellow that was for businesses and then the white pages that was for residential listings.
In my youth it was a right of passage when you got your own listing. And you had to pay extra to be unlisted. pic.twitter.com/3anjgVrIE9 — ZuD (@ZuDfunck) December 16, 2022
After I tell you who we are and what we do at Top Comments, I’ll tell a “war story” (that is, a story that members of 12-Step programs tell about their days of active substance use) about the time that the ability to trace so-called “assassination coordinates” in the White Pages probably saved me from prison.
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Back in the early 1990’s, the South Loop section of Chicago was nowhere near as developed as it is now and it was where I lived, drank, and did all sorts of petty stuff, including crimes.
One day, I was drinking a bottle of...whatever... with a buddy (who’s also been sober for years now) in an alley by the el trains. We came upon a purse lying on the ground. I picked up the purse and found about $3.00 worth of change in it. I already had a couple of dollars so we went and bought another bottle of...whatever...and drank that.
We were running low on cash so some reason I came up with the bright idea of calling the lady whose purse I had so that she could retrieve it and she could give me a cash reward.
One of my favorite spots in the South Loop in those days was the Harold Washington Public Library, which had opened only a few months prior. I remembered that they had Yellow and White Pages for Chicago and many of its suburbs by a bank of pay phones. So, I looked at the lady’s ID and was fortunate (I think) to find the white pages for the suburb and the listing for the name on the ID. I called the number, it went to an answering machine and I left the message that I had a purse and an address where the purse could be picked up.
I walked home and past a couple of cops who thought that it was weird that I was holding a purse so they questioned me about it, looked through the purse and found the ID. They took me to central headquarters at 11th & State Street and locked me up for...possession of stolen property, I think.
About a half an hour after I was locked up, the police started questioning me about the purse and I told them the exact story that I just told you.
Then the police told me that the purse in question was part of an armed robbery in the same general area. Over $1,000 cash was stolen at gunpoint from the woman who owned the purse.
And I had the purse in my possession. All I could do was repeat my story but seriously...I thought was fu*ked.
About three hours later, I was released on an I-Bond. The cops called the woman and verified that I had made the phone call. They kindly informed me that the next time that I found property like that, to turn it in immediately, without thought of reward (although they understood that particular motive).
I’ve always wondered why the woman (who I know had to be a bit traumatized from the armed robbery) told them about the phone call. Maybe if the case were prosecuted as a robbery, it would have come out anyway. No one had any reason to believe me.
I just know that in one particular case, I’m glad that I was able to trace someone’s “assassination coordinates” in the White Pages.
Because the life that I saved— from prison, in that instance—may have been my own.
Comments below the fold.
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