What's It Called In Your State?

This has been building up for a while. Watching a lot of true crime videos, I've noticed that different U.S. states call their criminal investigation agencies different things, and I thought it would be interesting to see how many different variants there are. And that led to other ideas ... there will probably be more installments of this kind of thing.

So, here are the names of state police agencies, by U.S. state:

• Alabama: State Bureau of Investigations (SBI) and the Highway Patrol (AHP)
• Alaska: Bureau of Investigation (ABI) and Alaska State Troopers (AST)
• Arizona: Highway Patrol (AHP) and Criminal Investigations Division (CID)
• Arkansas: Arkansas State Police (ASP) and the Arkansas Highway Police (AHP) (under two separate departments!)
• California: Bureau of Investigation (CBI), among other agencies.
• Colorado: Bureau of Investigation (CBI) Connecticut: Bureau of Criminal Investigations (BCI) Delaware: State Police (DSP) Florida: Bureau of Criminal Investigations and Intelligence (BCII) and Highway Patrol (FHP)
• Georgia: Bureau of Investigation (GBI)
• Hawaii: Department of Law Enforcement, which has a Criminal Investigation Division (CID)
• Idaho: State Police (ISP)
• Illinois: Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI)
• Indiana: Criminal Investigation Division (CID)
• Iowa: Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI)
• Kentucky: Department of Criminal Investigation (DCI)
• Louisiana: State Police (LSP), a.k.a. Police d’Etat de Louisiane
• Maine: State Police (MSP)
• Maryland: State Police (MSP)
• Massachusetts: State Police (MSP)
• Michigan: State Police (MSP)
• Minnesota: Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCI) and State Patrol (MSP)
• Mississippi: Bureau of Investigation (MBI)
• Missouri: State Highway Patrol (MSHP), which has a CID
• Montana: Division of Criminal Investigations (DCI)
• Nebraska: State Patrol (NSP), also with an Investigative Services division
• Nevada: Investigation Division (NID)
• New Hampshire: Investigative Services Bureau (ISB)
• New Jersey: Criminal Investigations Bureau (CIB) and State Detectives (NJSD)
• New Mexico: State Police (NMSP) Investigations Bureau (IB)
• New York: State Police (NYSP) Bureau of Criminal Investigations (BCI)
• North Carolina: State Bureau of Investigation (SBI)
• North Dakota: Bureau of Criminal Investigation (BCI)
• Ohio: Bureau of Criminal Investigation (BCI)
• Oklahoma: State Bureau of Investigation (SBI)
• Oregon: Criminal Justice Division (under the Department of Justice)
• Pennsylvania: State Police (PSP) Bureau of Criminal Investigation
• Puerto Rico: Special Investigations Bureau (SIB, or Negociado de Investigaciones Especiales, NIE)
• Rhode Island: State Police (RHSP) Detective Bureau
• South Carolina: Law Enforcement Division (SLED) and Highway Patrol (SCHP)
• South Dakota: Division of Criminal Investigation (SDCI)
• Tennessee: Bureau of Investigation (TBI)
• Texas: Rangers and Criminal Investigations Division (CID)
• Utah: State Bureau of Investigation (SBI)
• Vermont: Bureau of Criminal Investigations (BCI)
• Virginia: Bureau of Criminal Investigation (BCI)
• Washington: State Patrol (WSP) Criminal Investigations Division (CID)
• West Virginia: State Police (WVSP) Bureau of Criminal Investigations (BCI)
• Wisconsin: Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI)
• Wyoming: Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI)

That's a lot of SBIs, CDIs, CIDs and BCIs, and (I'm proud to say, as a Minnesotan) only one BCA!

I was also thinking about "What do they call the Department of Motor Vehicles in all 50 states?" Is it called the DMV or something else? So here's that run-down:

• Alabama: Driver License Division and Division of Motor Vehicles (under two separate departments!)
• Alaska: Division of MVs
• Arizona: MV Division
• Arkansas: Office of Motor Vehicle (singular!)
• California: Department of MVs
• Colorado: Division of MVs
• Connecticut: Department of MVs
• Delaware: Division of MVs
• D.C.: Department of MVs
• Florida: Department of Highway Safety and MVs
• Georgia: Department of Driver Services and Motor Vehicle Division (same story, one's public safety and the other is revenue)
• Hawaii: Driver License Division and Motor Vehicle Division (same story)
• Idaho: Division of MVs
• Illinois: Driver Services Department and Vehicle Services Department (same story)
• Indiana: Bureau of Motor Vehicles
• Iowa: MV Division
• Kansas: Division of Vehicles
• Kentucky: Division of Driver Licensing and MV Licensing System
• Louisiana: Office of MVs
• Maine: Bureau of MVs
• Maryland: MV Administration
• Massachusetts: Registry of MVs
• Minnesota: Driver and Vehicle Services
• Mississippi: MV Licensing Division
• Missouri: Department of Revenue
• Montana: MV Division
• Nebraska: Department of MVs
• Nevada: Department of MVs
• New Hampshire: Division of MVs
• New Jersey: MV Commission
• New Mexico: MV Division
• New York: Department of MVs
• North Carolina: Division of MVs
• North Dakota: Driver License Division and MV Division
• Ohio: Bureau of MVs
• Oklahoma: Department of Public Safety and Tax Commission (the same driver license vs. vehicle records split)
• Oregon: Driver and MV Services
• Pennsylvania: Driver and Vehicle Services
• Rhode Island: Division of MVs
• South Carolina: Department of MVs
• South Dakota: Department of Public Safety and Department of Revenue
• Tennessee: Driver License Services and Vehicle Services Division
• Texas: Driver License Division and Department of MVs
• Utah: Driver License Services and Division of MVs
• Vermont: Department of MVs
• Virginia: Department of MVs
• Washington: Department of Licensing
• West Virginia: Division of MVs
• Wisconsin: Division of MVs
• Wyoming: Driver Services Program

... So, a lot of them are DMVs but with some alternation between Departments and Divisions, with a few Offices and Bureaus thrown in. And some MVDs. And a bunch of lousy states where you have to apply to different departments for your driver's license and your car's tags. Washingtonians have the best deal, with a licensing bureau that also handles boat, business and professional licenses. I've personally written checks to several variants of this alphabet soup. It's nice to see at a glance which ones are which!

Nobody 2

About a week ago, I chose to see Nobody 2 at the local movie theater instead of whatever else was on offer. Sequels aren't usually my thing, but I enjoyed the original Nobody and I didn't mind if the sequel was basically the same movie all over again. So, I'm happy to report that the second movie is basically the same as the first, give or take a change of scenery to the most depressing theme park ever, and Bob Odenkirk's nice, middle-class family being right in the middle of – well, to be accurate, a few yards away from – the extremely violent action. It has a flamboyant villain, played with unbelievable malevolence by Sharon flippin' Stone. The fam turns out to be made of pretty stern stuff. Christopher Lloyd shows that he can still play a sociopath and make him fun. And if nothing else beckons you to see it, the film does a wonderful job of making your most disastrous family vacation look like a dream trip.

Odenkirk plays "Hutch," a hitman who owes a colossal amount of money to some bad people, and who is kept so busy paying off his debt that he senses he's about to lose his suburban family. So, he talks them into retracing his childhood steps to a place that holds happy memories for him – only to discover that Plummerville isn't really as nice as he remembers. Maybe it never was. But behind the bad cops and a theme park owner who is into some seriously shady business, there's an even bigger baddie whose flamboyant evil is blended with what seems like florid psychosis. A truly spooky person. Fulfilling the prophecy of the guy he owes bigtime ("Wherever you go, there you are"), Hutch stumbles into a volatile situation and blows it all the way up, all while seemingly inescapable doom closes in on him and his family. And he does it all with a put-upon, "I'm just trying to make memories with my family" attitude – viscerally incapable of backing down.

This sequel hits a lot of the same beats as the original movie, including the framing device in which a couple of police interrogators demand to know who the hell Hutch is, moments before getting a phone call where an indistinct voice yells at them to let him go and forget all about it. It also features Connie Nielsen (Gladiator, Wonder Woman) as Hutch's wife, who is surprisingly aware and accepting of his violent lifestyle; Lloyd as Hutch's dad, a retired hitman who lets loose a little in the climactic battle; RZA of hip hop's Wu-Tang Clan as Hutch's unlikely brother; Colin Hanks (Tom's son, known for TV's Fargo and Roswell) as a crooked sheriff whose demise is a gory pleasure to witness; veteran action movie heavy Daniel Bernhardt as (cough) a heavy; Colin Salmon (of the Bond franchise, Krypton and Arrow) as the crime boss who holds a huge debt over Hutch (a consequence of the trouble he stirred up in the first movie); and a 26-year-old guy named Gage Munroe, mostly known as a voice actor, as Hutch's teenaged son – just something I thought I'd mention because it struck me as weird.

The action is wonderfully ridiculous. So, so, so over-the-top. The hero, if he is that, takes a licking and, like the time bomb he is, keeps on ticking. Gives as good as he gets, as they say. When survival seems beyond hope, the insanity goes up another notch. When you think it's run out of notches to go up, it finds another one. It doesn't lack much that the first movie had, except maybe a certain indescribable edge of cool irony and black humor. Then again, it doesn't add anything that the first movie lacked. Not a disappointment if you saw the first movie and know what to expect. But not a surprise, either.

Three Scenes That Made It For Me: (1) Hutch realizes that the bully who antagonized his son is about to be murdered, just as he's making a tactical withdrawal from an enemy stronghold ... and for a breathless moment, you're not sure he isn't going to leave the kid to his fate. (2) As the bully's father describes Lendina (Stone's character) to Hutch, and warns that by now she's already on her way there, a scene of Lendina acting absolutely bonkers plays out over his off-screen voice. I'm watching it and thinking, as if I hadn't seen enough by now to know it, "There's something seriously wrong with this woman." (3) The four-on-one knife, fist and blunt-object fight on board a touristy "duck" boat. Not the military transport kind. A pontoon boat with an enormous rubber duckie on its roof. Maybe the closest this movie comes to that absurdist, darkly funny tone the first movie hit so much more often.

The Naked Gun

I'm having a nostalgic moment right now, thinking about my three high school buddies who went with me to see the original, Leslie Nielsen-era Naked Gun movie in a theater when it came out in 1988. I was just 16 years old! We had a blast. We sat in the back row and laughed so hard, we were falling out of our seats. I can't think of many times when I had so much fun.

Well, that's a tough act for this year's Naked Gun reboot to follow, I suppose. But I'm not holding any hard feelings against it. Liam Neeson turns out to have the chops to pull off the deadpan comedy act, loaded with sight gags and ridiculous non sequiturs and a paradoxically mature-yet-immature brand of humor. Pamela Anderson seems to have it, too. And although the villain's nefarious plan is perhaps a bit too derivative (I also saw Kingsman, you know), it's all in the execution. And like all the best executions do, this one kills.

Frank Drebbin Jr., played by Neeson as the son of Nielsen's character (who makes a cameo appearance as, um, an owl), is an ethically challenged representative of Police Squad. Pulled off a bank robbery case because of his slapstick brutality, he finds himself on crash detail ... only to recognize that the victim of a fatal crash is connected with the heist. And the link between them is a tech mogul who plans to unleash The Purge on mankind, in order to cash in on the ruins. Anderson plays the crash victim's sister, who is equally determined to solve the guy's murder and who, by the way, is a mean scatter. By "scatter," I mean that jazzy gibberish that Mel Tormé specialized in. By "mean" I mean bloodcurdling. It's one (1) of the Three Scenes That Made It For Me, of which the other two (since I mention them) are (2) the romantic montage involving a psychotic snowman animated by black magic, and (3) when the villain (played by Danny Huston of Yellowstone) goes "Ow" after taking the first punch in his climactic fistfight with Neeson.

There, I haven't given away too many of the gags. Go and fall out of your seat with laughter, and my blessing.

Sketch

Last Friday, I drove all the way to Detroit ... Lakes, Minnesota ... to see the movie Sketch, which was playing at the multiplex movie theater there. It's a family movie, marketed for kids, about a girl who deals with her negative emotions by drawing violent images in a notebook, and her brother who discovers a pond that restores broken things ... and what happens when the notebook accidentally falls into the pond. No, actually, it's about how it takes a rampage of scribbly monsters to get a widowed dad and two "m'orphan" kids to grieve properly. And also how a dad and a brother unsuccessfully try to help a troubled girl only to discover that they, not she, need help. And also how a "b-hole" of a tomboy uses aggression to try to tell the girl she likes how she feels ... and stuff.

It plays more like a horror movie than you'd expect from the pre-release marketing. You might be a little surprised by the tone of the movie, considering that it's aimed at kids. And in case you doubt that it's aimed at kids, wait for the mid-credits ad blitz about an app that turns kids' sketches into 3-D animated monsters. Which is maybe, after all, what this movie is about. I'm a past master at not spotting what a movie is about. Remember Healer? I thought it was trying at some kind of inspirational, Christian message, and it turned out to be a commercial for a line of camps for kids with cancer. But despite the mercenary aspect of this movie's apparent mission, there's definitely something in it about facing grief as a family.

It has some heartstring-pulling emotional bits, with relatable kids experiencing some tough feelings. It has thought-provoking bits, like how the brother sincerely wants to help his sister but ends up blowing up at her (because she resents being treated like she needs help) and immediately feeling ashamed. I think the actors, particularly including the hero kids, do a great job. I think the writers did a great job, writing dialogue that snaps with tension and character conflict and leaves enough unsaid that you have to figure out, at times, what the characters are trying to say. Like the line where the realtor aunt/sister says to the dad/brother whose house she's trying to sell, "I noticed something interesting about the family pictures on the wall. Something was ... Was that intentional?" I forget exactly how she said it, but I remember that there was an element of "extrapolating from incomplete information" and "hitting very close to the heart of the whole thing" in that line. It's a script that goes from hilariously funny to heartbreaking to spooky to downright disturbing in a few heartbeats, and circles back again.

The sketchy monsters are a unique visual spectacle, too. There's a tragic sensibility about them – the girl drew them in her notebook after being assured that once put there, her bad feelings could never hurt anyone; but now that her brother's magic pond has touched them, they totally can hurt people, and lowkey probably do. (We are spared the gore and death, however. One more thing uncomfortable, squirming parents can take comfort in.)

Like I said, the cast does well, though I don't know from any of them except perhaps Tony Hale, as the dad. I'd drop names to watch out for in the future if I hadn't learned that my doing so is almost a curse on young actors' future careers. So here, without further palaver, are the Three Scenes That Made It For Me: (1) The son tries to warn his father that he thinks his sister's drawings are coming to life. The father is like, "I don't know what you're dealing with, but when you're ready to really talk about it, I'm here." The kid's look of mixed incredulity and betrayal is priceless. (2) The kids fight off a swarm of piders – or are they eyeders? – in a battle that pretty well trashes their house. (3) The girl brings her kind-of-terrifying, drawn-on arm tentacles to life. She's a trooper in an unapologetically scary way. Honorable mention: The father realizes what his kid is trying to do with his mother's ashes, just when the kid realizes he can't do it. The result is kind of the emotional catharsis of the whole "dudes need to mourn" storyline, with acting worthy of it.

The Bad Guys 2

Last weekend, somehow, sometime, I managed to squeeze in a viewing of the DreamWorks Animation film, The Bad Guys 2, because it was either that or The Naked Gun and, well, I flipped a mental coin. I liked(ish) the first movie, and had read one or two of Aaron Blabey's kid-sized books on which this series is loosely based, and so there I was. And it was OK.

The movie features a wolf, a shark, a piranha, a tarantula and a snake who are trying to go on the straight and narrow after a career in crime, but not doing particularly well. The wolf wants to prove himself to a foxy fox, who happens to be both the governor and a crook-gone-straight herself, but these guys can't catch a break. Then they get framed for the heist of a Lucha libre championship belt and are basically blackmailed into joining a nefarious plot by an all-female criminal gang to steal, um, a space shuttle and then, um ... It's an animated movie, so I could say anything at this point and you'd have to believe me, but I don't want to say it because then there wouldn't be anything left for you to find out if you decide to watch this completely OK, not great, sometimes funny and often exciting animated adventure.

I do have a reservation about this movie before I get to the bit about scenes that made it for me. In the middle of the movie, I grew a little concerned by the sense that the storyline and character dialogue were making a persuasive case for choosing robbery and theft as a path to self-empowerment. And I guess I should mention the voice cast here, which includes Sam Rockwell, Craig Robinson (The Masked Dancer, The Office), Anthony Ramos (In the Heights), Awkwafina (Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Renfield), Alex Borstein (The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Family Guy), Zazie Beetz (Atlanta, Invincible), Danielle Brooks (Orange Is the New Black, The Color Purple), Natasha Lyonne (Orange Is the New Black, Poker Face) and Maria Bakalova (who played Ivana Trump in The Apprentice).

So, here are the Three Scenes That Made It For Me: (1) Mr. Snake realizes that his girlfriend has betrayed him ... and is completely turned on. This joke actually came around for a second try and got a laugh both times. (2) Diane, the fox, goes to visit Prof. Marmalade, the guinea pig villain from the first movie (voiced by British comic Richard Ayoade), in a scene cleverly patterned on Clarice Starling's initial encounter with Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs ... up until he challenges her to a game. (3) Snake is trapped in a space suit with piranha, who becomes hideously flatulent when nervous ... and that suggests a hilarious form of propulsion when the pair get separated from their spacecraft.

524. Penitence & Sanctification Hymn

I've been over the Seven Deadly Sins at least once before, but I was feeling a penitence/sanctification hymn coming on (the line "Amend my heart" came to mind in a flash) and it seemed like a convenient structure for the thought. Also, my thoughts were stirred by this past Sunday's Epistle lesson, Col. 3:1-11, and mental association with Matthew 15:16-20. As usual, and despite my record as a hymn-tune maven, I have no particular tune in mind, but this meter (7676 D) is lousy with choices.

Amend my heart, O Savior,
From whence comes every sin;
For all my misbehavior
Stems from misrule within.
Since You have paid to free me
When once for all You died,
Reshape me as You see me:
Both just and sanctified.

Head over heels I've tumbled,
Tripped up by selfish pride:
Now let my heart be humbled,
O Lord who meekly died!
My greedy heart refashion,
Now fixed on gain and fraud;
For You are all compassion,
My freely giving God.

Let envy not pervert me
My neighbor's good to hate,
Nor gluttony subvert me
To gorge and never sate.
From out my body banish
Foul lust, on pleasure bent,
Who when in wilds You famished
With God's word were content.

Of wrathful temper cure me,
Whose grudges never die;
With pardon reassure me,
That I the same apply.
My idle, cold devotion,
My slothful ways correct:
My footsteps set in motion,
In tireless love direct.

O Christ, lest I should harden
Against Your saving word,
Pour out Your blood-bought pardon
Till faith and love are stirred.
From sin my soul unshackle;
With favor full and free,
Rebuild the tabernacle
You set aside in me.

ART: Peter Paul Rubens, Christ's charge to Peter. Public domain.