What are blogs for anyway?

I continue to puzzle about what my Crime blogs are supposed to achieve. Are they the story behind the story? I'd prefer they be fun, given the heaviness of my subject.

This week's Crime 101 article about sex crime wasn't fun -- the subject isn't fun. In fact, it's such an emotional issue I had to do some soul-searching, and I came up with my somewhat cold-blooded side. Maybe that has to do with having raised four children and sometimes being almost nauseated at the thought of some whacko getting at them. Maybe it has to do with having a spate of grandchildren and still having the same concern.

I've saved the testiest material for next week's article and hope I can be forgiven for needing a cooling down period, so here goes.

Here are a couple of really funny tales from the past week's array of dumb crime:

A woman was busted for impaired driving and was duly placed in the back of the police car. She wriggled through the partition, got in the driver's seat and fled the scene, leaving the arresting cop standing on the roadside, notebook in hand. As if to make his case, about a mile up the road, she missed a turn and sent the police car sailing into a river, in which, of course, it promptly sank. Her defence should be very interesting, but definitely not water-tight.

In another case, a speeder's defence was definitely put out of joint - well, sort of. This dude ran radar and then kept right on going, constables in hot pursuit. They twisted, they turned, they got off pavement and churned gravel, swerved, swiveled, gunned engines, and squealed brakes. The speeder's dog, originally snoozing on the front passenger seat, had finally had enough. The dog attacked the driver, growling, snapping, chomping. Finally, the speeder pulled over. The arresting officer rushed him to a hospital. He took the tip of his nose in a handy doggie bag. With luck and a good surgeon, the speeder may recover the balance of his beak. As for the dog, the item didn't say.