I'm not trying to put down your brother, Andrew, or what he does. I think it's pretty cool he made it into the paper and that's why I said congratulations. As I said, everybody was being too uniformly positive. Remember, this is a forum where even a potting mix preference can lead to blows. So I was trying to liven things up. The doughnut thing is fun, just like what I'd expect if I mentioned being a state worker. Within that number of posts, someone surely would have asked whether I sleep at a desk or in a truck. It's part of the territory. But I do disagree with one thing a lot have said, because I think the media overall gives a pretty rosy picture of people in law enforcement. Especially when you factor in the generations of police shows most of us grew up on.
To say something in support of police officers, in my fair and balanced Fox News kind of way, I get a lot of my work health & safety training at the state fire academy. Years ago, we got to talking about heart attacks and someone wondered how much the stress of fighting fires caused firefighters to have more heart attacks. The instructor said he thought it worked the opposite because he felt that fighting a fire let him release all his aggression beating back the fire. When it was over, he felt pretty good about everything. He said to compare that with a police officer, who goes into similarly stressful, life-threatening situations but can't attack a suspect the way a firefighter can attack a fire. At the same moment a firefighter goes in for the kill, a police officer has to pull back, bottle it up and keep it inside. Unfortunately, that job hazard isn't as photogenic as flying bullets and tends to be ignored.
There are police officers who are stellar examples of the human race, others who are jerks, and then a whole lot that are in between, like most of us. They aren't inherently better because of being police officers. I'd hate having to do their job and suspect most would hate to do mine.