More whackerism

… who says you have to be a Ham to be a whacker? Not us!

There are lots of examples of whackers existing without a smelly ham in sight. All one has to do is visit any REACT or weather spotter’s webpage to see them in action.

A reader of the site sent us this gem, the website of the Sundance Citizens Patrol, serving the fine citizenry near Sacramento.

Like most whacker groups, they have a very inflated sense of their worth… according to their website, their goal is to franchise their concept to branch teams across America. This is Whacker Warning Sign number one: make themselves out to be greater than they are.

Their goals, according to their website:

Sundance Citizens Patrol and Emergency Services is dedicated to the growth of our team and it is our goal to be able to provide our services through branch offices throughout the United States. We plan to be associated with the Office of Emergency Services, American Red Cross and Homeland Security. We are currently in the process of providing all of our members with Sundance S.E.R.T. training.

I think he meant to say “C.E.R.T. Training”

Whacker sign number two is assigning their members ranks. Headed by a chief  (who has his own Myspace page, btw), he is joined by a mismash of Officers, Captains, Commanders, etc. He also is thoughtful enough to include his recruits on the Officers Page, but keeps their swelled ranks from us by declaring this information “classified”.

Whacker sign number three is outfitting vehicles as ‘response’ vehicles. The only photos of such vehicles belongs to the good chief himself, an older-model Jeep Cherokee. While it doesn’t have the plethora of decals and other pseudo-police markings that is a hallmark of whackermobiles, it does fulfill sign number three by having a copious amount of emergency lighting. Another tick in the checkbox of whack is the fact he calls the jeep his “Traffic Control Response Vehicle.”

There’s a video on Youtube of the Jeep in all its amber glory. In fact, it reminds us of the COVERT/V.E.T.S. Hamsexy Venture Van featured on this very website about five years ago. We aren’t claiming that the good chief uses tie wraps to secure his lights, but who knows.

As for what this group uses for radio communication, they are surprisingly quiet. Usually an enormous interest in radios is a common thread in whacker groups, but here its significantly absent. There is but a single antenna on the green Cherokee of whack, and it appears to be CB whip.

So, let’s break it down on the Hamsexy patented Whackometer:

For their goals of franchising their original idea, they get the full score of four peppers. For Assigned Ranks, they only get two because their self appointed ranks aren’t nearly as elaborate or unnecessary as we’ve seen. As well, the leader of the group calls himself “chief”, and not “Supreme Commander” or something. They only have one Whackmobile (that we know about) instead of a fleet of vehicles with UNIT 802 on them or something, so again they only get two peppers. The Lights and Sirens category sees three hot peppers, because of the garish display on the youtube video. They would have gotten the full four points, but they didn’t prove they had a siren (or maybe the gay music in the video *was* the vehicle’s speaker, who knows). For Radio Obsession they only get half a pepper, because of the CB antenna. So, all in all, the Sundance Citizens Patrol gets 11.5 out of a possible score of 20. Not too shabby.If you know of a local REACT/ARES/WeatherWhacker/Citizens Patrol group that deserves to be put under the Hamsexy microscope, drop us a line at [email protected].