"I will break your f*****g camera!"

A couple of days ago, during their lunch break, Troy Holden and Stuart Dixon were taking a walk ... on public property ... through the financial district of San Francisco.

They stopped in front of number 555 California Street (formerly known as the Bank of America Center) to take some photographs. It's a pretty impressive building, being 52 storeys high and the second tallest building in the city.

What happened next, together with a photograph, is recounted by one of them, here.

Oh dearie me. What is it with police and security guards? This happens all over. It happened regularly to me, and to people I knew, when I was living in Zambia.

Are they lacking some critical part of their brain?

Or maybe they have an extra bit of brain that ordinary people don't have, making them honestly believe that any terrorist, before carrying out an attack, is going to stand in front of his/her target, in full view of everyone, get out a camera ... often a big one ... and sometimes a tripod too ... and take photographs. Take photographs in full view. Not hiding. Or anything.

Having an altered brain ... that sounds plausible.

I was reading yesterday about a parasite of cats called toxoplasmosis. It spends part of its life cycle in rats. But the problem it faces is that rats naturally fear and avoid  cats. So the little parasitic beastie could have trouble in getting passed on. To overcome this it has evolved a strategy whereby it alters its host's brain, and infected rats lose their fear of cats. So they get caught, and the parasite moves on. Clever, huh?

Could a similar thing ... sort of in reverse ... be the case with police and security guards? Could something-or-other have happened to their brain making them dislike and fear photographers?

And that raises another question - does this whatever-it-is that changes their brain make them more prone to becoming police and security guards? In other words, does it happen before, and they gravitate towards those sorts of jobs? Or do they catch it as a result of taking up that particular profession?

Medical research is needed.