The New York City police department is more representative of the city it serves than most law firms, university faculties, and media companies.
I don't think we treat people very well in the media, both as customers - and I call them customers - of newspapers and magazines, or TV news, and we don't understand that the greatest story that we could tell, each and every day, is the story of the people around us.
Politicians in Washington work in a small, sheltered world where they lurch from crisis to crisis that they create, nurture and use as ideological triggers in their selfish pursuit of re-election.
Sadly, it seems as if there is no longer any real history. Just momentary reactions to events that disappear like sky-writing with items like Twitter, texts, Meerkat, Snapchat, and Instagram.
Most cops are not looking for understanding. They work in a world filled with a sense - real or imagined - of danger lurking around each corner and every hallway. Most cops are merely looking for respect.
If you want proof of what the country is really all about, just walk through the National September 11 Memorial Museum. Here it is, in the faces of the victims, in the stories of bravery, in the souls and memory of the survivors, the next of kin.
