{"id":49,"date":"2010-03-20T09:45:52","date_gmt":"2010-03-20T09:45:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kith.org\/peter\/2010\/03\/20\/justice_tempered_with_mercy_a\/"},"modified":"2018-01-07T00:00:02","modified_gmt":"2018-01-07T08:00:02","slug":"justice_tempered_with_mercy_a","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/peter\/2010\/03\/20\/justice_tempered_with_mercy_a\/","title":{"rendered":"Justice tempered with Mercy: a parking-ticket story"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This is a letter that was on Peter&#8217;s computer&#8217;s hard drive. I assume that he actually mailed it; it would not have been out of character.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve tried to reproduce the formatting of the original, which was mostly ordinary, with a couple of exceptions.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>January 12, 2004<\/p>\n<p>To Whom It May Concern:<\/p>\n<p>Today at 10:51, 10 minutes after I parked, parking ticket #29774 was issued on my 1975 Thunderbird sedan. I had cruised up and down the upper employee parking lots and found absolutely no spaces. I then parked in the tiny space just inside the entrance. I parked next to a very long pickup truck which stuck out 2 or 3 feet farther than my car did, but neither vehicle was over the line or obstructing traffic in any way.<\/p>\n<p>The citation states that I parked in a &#8220;striped zone at the north entrance&#8221;. When I read the ticket, I inspected the pavement, and <u><b>there were no stripes to be seen!<\/b><\/u> If people are to be ticketed for parking in a &#8220;striped zone&#8221;, then it seems to me that there ought to be visible stripes painted on the ground&#8230;.<\/p>\n<p>Also, half a dozen parallel parking spaces alongside the entrance road have been eliminated, and there is a serious shortage of parking spaces. I needed to get to the Tutorial Center by 10:50, and that was the only space I could find. I was only parked there from 10:45 a.m. to 12:55 p.m., having tutored for an hour and taught a math class for an hour.<\/p>\n<p>For these reasons, I appeal for clemency. Please let this be a warning ticket: now that I am aware that that space is off-limits, I will not park there again. It has been said that<\/p>\n<p class=\"no-indent\" style=\"font-size:24pt\"><b>&#8220;Justice must be tempered with Mercy!&#8221;<\/b><\/p>\n<p>As Lt. Colombo says, &#8220;Just one more thing&#8230;&#8221; I have worked as an editor at two publishing houses, and I offer the following suggestion for the citation form.<\/p>\n<p>At the top of the ticket, it says, &#8220;This vehicle is illegally parked for one or more of the following reasons&#8230;&#8221; However, the first five boxes to be checked (speeding, etc.) are not parking offenses but moving violations. When this form is re-ordered, perhaps it could be changed to say, &#8220;You have been cited for one or more of the following parking offenses or moving violations, and may be subject to towing at your expense.&#8221; Also, on the back side, I.3) &#8220;BACK IN PARKING&#8221; should be &#8220;BACK &#8211; IN PARKING&#8221; &#8230;.<\/p>\n<p>Thank you for your consideration in this matter.<\/p>\n<p>Best regards,<\/p>\n<p>[blank space for signature]<\/p>\n<p>Peter Hartman, instructor<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>History does not record whether his request for clemency was granted, nor whether his edits were incorporated into a future version of the ticket form.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This is a letter that was on Peter&#8217;s computer&#8217;s hard drive. I assume that he actually mailed it; it would not have been out of character. I&#8217;ve tried to reproduce the formatting of the original, which was mostly ordinary, with a couple of exceptions. January 12, 2004 To Whom It May Concern: Today at 10:51, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-49","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-funny-things-peter-said","category-peters-skills"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/peter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/peter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/peter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/peter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/peter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/peter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":154,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/peter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49\/revisions\/154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/peter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/peter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/peter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}