Saturday, October 04, 2008

Well - Madison

From Certain Prey by John Sandford.

Lucas is talking to Detective Sherrill, nailing down a case on a suspect.  A Maguffin in the form of a book called "Mayor's Select Comission on Cultural Diversity, Alternative Lifestyes and Other-Ableness in the Minneapolis Police Department: A Preliminary Approach to Divergent Modalites [Executive Summary]" [1] makes an appearance.  The city of Madision is lightly mocked.

Lucas nodded, looked at his watch.  "Good idea - think of some stuff.  And I'll think of some.  But right now, I've got to go to the Reality Commision, we're talking about noncertifiable minorities tonight."  He thumped the Report, which sat on one side of his desk.  He was on page four hundred and thirty.

"Noncertifiable . . . what is that?"

"Well, you know: minorities that don't fit into racial, handicapped, sexual-determinant, age-determinant, religious, ethnic or national-origin-groups."

"Jeez, I would have thought that covered everything."

"Oh, no.  There was a case in Wisconsin of a white Episcopalian male in his early thirties, nonhandicapped, heterosexual, English heritage . . ."

"A perfect WASP."

"Wouldn't even pee in the shower," Lucas said.  "Anyway, he was a member of one of the animal-protection groups, and his coworkers tormented him by dispalying photographs of pork chops and link sausges in the workplace, and they'd talk about going to McDonald's for cheeseburgers.  He got $740,000 from the city of Madison for emotional imperialism."

"Well - Madison."

"That explains a lot of it, of course," Lucas said, nodding.



[1] 600 pages of executive summary.  I think I saw something like that for SOX two years ago.
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