common sense

“Won’t You Be My Neighbor?”

We all remember THIS guy.  He gave friendly advice, not just for children, but for all of us.

Mr. Rogers

How well do you know your neighbors?  Or do you even know them?

I currently rent a room in a townhouse.  The neighbors to the immediate South (sharing the common wall) have a practice of going into their backyard (just over a fence) and SCREAMING with each other about family matters.  I think it’s a mother and daughter, and some male hangers-on of some sort.  This sometimes happens well into the night.  Then, someone ‘over there’ is up early, like 0545, and makes a practice of throwing a bowling ball down the stairs, bouncing it off the wall in the process (again, common wall) REPEATEDLY.
(At least, that’s what it sounds like!)

This is in direct opposition to the North neighbors, again a mother/daughter team.  We rarely hear anything from them through the common wall, and they never seem to be in their adjacent back yard.  The word on the street is, however, mind your Ps and Qs, if mom spots someone parking crooked, or spilling trash, or some other small infraction, she will SCREAM.  To the Homeowners Association, at least.  And THEY will contact you.

I know these all folks on sight, and wave, all friendly-like, and sometimes even say “Hello”.  The neighbors North of the North women seem to be a nice couple.  He even helped J. corral one of her dogs when she ran loose (a favorite game – ESCAPE! Wheee, I’m FREEE!), when J was unable to catch her.

I think I know the first name of the North neighbor mom.  That’s it.

In my former neighborhood, I made it a point of knowing my next-door neighbors, the one across the street and across the alley behind me.  Just in case.

The Art of Manliness again addresses this issue.  In short, it says knowing your neighbor is lubrication for civilization.  Much as being polite can defuse friction.

I remember my childhood neighborhoods.  All the kids on the block knew each other, and so did all the parents.  If you did something wrong, not only did the neighbor yell at you, but, by the time your returned home, your parents had received a telephone call from said neighbor.  So you got it, again.  And, you could run to any neighbor’s home for help or safety.

Wouldn’t it be nice to have neighborhoods, again?

What’s the number for 9-1-1 ?

911 Dispatcher Tells Woman About To Be Sexually Assaulted There Are No Cops To Help Her Due To Budget Cuts

JOSEPHINE COUNTY, Ore. (CBS Seattle) — An Oregon woman was told by a 911 dispatcher that authorities wouldn’t be able be able to help her as her ex-boyfriend broke into her place because of budget cuts.

Oregon Public Radio reports that an unidentified woman called 911 during a weekend in August 2012 while Michael Bellah was breaking into her place. Her call was forwarded to Oregon State Police because of lay-offs at the Josephine County Sheriff’s Office only allows the department to be open Monday through Friday.

“Uh, I don’t have anybody to send out there,” the 911 dispatcher told the woman. “You know, obviously, if he comes inside the residence and assaults you, can you ask him to go away? Do you know if he’s intoxicated or anything?”

The woman told the dispatcher that Bellah previously attacked her and left her hospitalized a few weeks prior to the latest incident. The dispatcher stayed on the phone with the woman for more than 10 minutes before the sexual assault took place.  …

I feel horrible for this woman.  And for any crime, fire or accident victim.  But, I’m reminded of the old Amex commercial with Karl Malden.  ”What will you do?  What will you do?”

Karl Malden

911 service (or it’s equivalent) is well-prevalent in the modern world.  And, it’s nice that our tax dollars have set up a system of brave and competent first responders to react as agents of government to help should that become necessary.

But, the system isn’t foolproof, nor is it a panacea.  Nor does it remove personal responsibility.

Keep a first aid kit and fire extinguisher in your home and car.  Know how to use them!  Obviously, I expect all responsible adults to own firearms, with the same caveat.

“When seconds count, the police are minutes away.”

h/t Maddened Fowl

IDIOCY ON PARADE!

Sipsey Street Irregulars recounts for us idiocy in it’s highest form.

Those who know better.

Gunfire and moments of fear as a rural Oregon school tests its readiness.

Two masked men wearing hoodies and wielding handguns burst into the Pine Eagle Charter School in this tiny rural community on Friday. Students were at home for an in-service day, so the gunmen headed into a meeting room full of teachers and opened fire.

Someone figured out in a few seconds that the bullets were not drawing blood because they were blanks and the exercise was a drill, designed to test Pine Eagle’s preparation for an assault by “active shooters” who were, in reality, members of the school staff. But those few seconds left everybody plenty scared.

I’m with Dutchman6.  If I’d been present (and legally armed) I’d have shot the bastards!

Reminiscent of my security guard days, walking into a cafeteria right after an ‘armed robber’ put a gun in the cashier’s face.  It was Halloween and it was a friend of hers in costume.  I arrived five minutes later.

He would have been shot – right there.

Meanwhile, back @ TMCCC…

aka That Major Credit Card Company…

(from whence I medically retired)

Being a fraud investigator for a major credit card company was always educational.  Having worked with ex-military and ex-cops before as a PI, there were expectations with regard to fact-checking, double-checking and due diligence.

Because most of the staff had not the experience, background or education, sometimes short cuts were made.  (This is not to say that some of those investigators weren’t excellent…)

Fast forward to meetings for the IACCI  (The International Association of Credit Card Investigators, which later morphed into Financial Crimes Investigators in a new name).  Our building had lots of meeting space, so we always volunteered a place for the organization to hold meetings.  Folks from other financial institutions and local and federal law enforcement usually attended.

This particular day, the Attorney General for the State of Arizona was scheduled to attend and speak.  I was familiar enough with the AG’s Office to know he was a Democratic mover and shaker.  His name was (and is) Terry Goddard.

The black rubber marquee with white press-in letters stood proudly in the foyer opposite the main entrance, announcing both the meeting, and welcoming our guest speaker.  (I considered taking a photo of it with my cell-phone, but, only recently had personal photos inside the building been banned.)

The marquee read:

Welcome Attorney General Teri Goddard 

Whatever nimnul who had prepared the sign either had no idea who the AG was, or was a poor speller.

I toyed with the idea of letting it go, because I can sometimes be snarky that way, but did eventually alert management as to the error, and it was duly corrected.

Kinda wish I’d taken the picture, though…

(More) Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam…

Oops, I did it, again!

I recently (due to problems I had with Firefox and IE10) opened up Google Chrome.  I know, it’s the dreaded Google.

And I’ve been very happy with the result whilst blogging – lightening fast, no pop-ups.  Secure and stable.  A good choice.  (Which coincidentally works with my new (to me) smartphone (Android – another Google product).

But, I’ve noticed not only did I not have SPAM, I also wasn’t seeing email copies of post comments by many folks – some regulars.  And I finally got around to checking my SPAM files.

Huzzah!  Therein lie the heretofore unaccounted emails…

Hopefully, all has been corrected, now.  We shall see.

Everyman, the Ostrich

Above, witness the Ostrich-man, in his natural habitat.

He is an American, but in name only.  More than likely, he identifies himself (herself?) as a(n) (fill-in-blank-with-ethnicity or religion) American.  Even if he is here illegally.  He probably doesn’t have a computer.  But if he does, it’s for gaming, word processing and perhaps porn.

He doesn’t like politics.  He believes all politicians are evil, corrupt, self-serving, lawyers (liars) – whose only function (as they see it) is to get re-elected and get more lobbyist’s ‘gifts’.  But, not many pay attention to the ‘issues’ or even vote.

He pays no attention to the state of the economy, or the news, or individual rights.  Or to the Constitution and it’s ubiquitous erosion.  He’s too busy working to make enough to pay the high taxes imposed to pay for everyone else’s (fill-in-the-blank-gov’t-program-handout).  He wears blinders when yet another infringement occurs – be it  the FBI’s COINTELPRO (1960s), airport metal detectors (1972), sobriety checkpoints (1986), random stop-and-frisks (2012), no-knock warrants (1970), shotgun microphones, FBI ‘administrative’ warrants (recently overturned-thank you!), The Patriot Act (2001), NDAA (2012), NSA monitoring of all cellular and Email traffic, cameras on every corner, black boxes in cars, locators in cell phones, warrantless GPS on cars, DHS claiming Christians and conservatives are radicals – but Islamic folks are just practicing their beliefs, The Fort Hood shooting is deemed ‘workplace violence’ (NOT terrorism)…

I could go on, but I’m already physically, emotionally and spiritually ill.

(I keep telling myself) WE (persons who participate on the Internet) are NOT EVERYMAN, and we DO participate  and WE DO pay attention, and WE DO write our congressmen and senators and presidents.

And we DO bitch to each other.  Sometimes, vociferously.

WE NEED TO KEEP COMPLAINING!  To anyone who will listen, and yes, to those crooked politicians, yet again.

If we stop, we’ll be joining the rest of our Nation, with our heads in the sand.  Or up some orifice.

And we’ll be in the perfect position for the next infringement.

BOHICA  -  Bend over, here it comes, again!

For A Good Time, Call The KGB…

…the GRU, NKVD, MVD, Stasi, MSS – or the FSB (the current incarnation of Russian intelligence apparat)

It seems Borepatch has determined the FSB is using their own version of Google, and is quite happy with their algorithms.  Welcome to YANDEX.   He says:

1. Russia has a bunch of excellent computer scientists, and Yandex seems to have picked up a bunch of them.  The Russians always excelled at algorithms (I’d go so far as to say that their mathematics training beats ours handily), and search is a game of algorithms.  I’m told that the Russian language is more difficult for computers to deal with than English (it is an inflected language, unlike ours), and so the Yandex algorithms originally developed for Russian really shine when aimed at English sites.

2. It gives me very good results – for most things I’ve been looking for, better than Google.  Google’s blogsearch has become a joke, which is perhaps a testament to Google’s internal lack of focus.  I find that bloggy related searches are much more productive on Yandex.~

~And now we come to what brought me to Yandex in the first place: Google is evil.  We all know it.  Furthermore, Google seems to be playing footsie with the US Government Intelligence Agencies:

One privacy advantage Yandex has which Google never will: Yandex does not do business with American intelligence agencies.  I do not like the fact that Google has become an arm of US intelligence agencies. It is to their credit that Google discloses their relationship with the US government (most of Silicon Valley is in bed with the spooks, but they don’t talk about  it). It is the surveillance  state that I abhor. Yandex may very well be doing the same thing with the Russian government, but the FSB is a much smaller threat to American civil rights than our own spooks. While I see no imminent dangers from the all-seeing eye, and I am far from paranoid, the US is going through a weird time right now, and history is a dark and bloody subject. Do I really want the future government  to know what websearches I was doing in 2010? No, thanks,  tovarich.

Paranoia?  I don’t think so.  And, just for S & Gs, I ran Guffaw in AZ on Yandex.

20 returns on the first page – only one in Russian.  Only one about guffawing, and not the blog.  Seems focused, as Borepatch intones.

I’m thinking of using this occasionally (instead of BING), just to annoy the three-letter folks in bed with Google. Otherwise, what good is a “uncensored” Internet?

Hell, I’m already on ‘the list.’

Veggie Farmers Home Breached in Drug Sweep

My Daily Kona shares with us the tale of a couple retired CIA employees (not agents), whose home was raided in a two State drug sweep, because they had the audacity to purchase hydroponic gardening equipment to raise an indoor veggie garden.

Is this EVER going to stop?

Obviously going after real criminal marijuana farmers (who are growing an illegal drug for profit) could be dangerous.  Let’s go after a retired couple; they’re less likely to shoot back!

Kinda like going after an uber-conservative religious type after brow beating him into cutting 1/2″ off a couple of shotgun barrels (Randy Weaver).  Or going after a major guitar company for using hardwood illegal in some foreign country (Gibson Guitars).  Or making folks sign their life away to buy a decongestant in personal use quantities (most folks in most States).

Or…

That’s enough, rant over.

Personally, I think marijuana should be legalized.  Just think, then the jack-booted-thugs would have to go after real criminals.  Assuming they could find any.

Violence never solved anything!

Really?

It’s amazing how the p****fication  of America continues.  I saw an article the other day regarding violence in the schools, and how there was a ‘zero tolerance’ policy for such things.  Including the phrase:

Violence never solved anything!

Certainly juveniles need to be taught how to solve their differences without physical conflict first, but, failing that, learn next how to pick and choose their battles, then to win them!  These last two elements seem to have been lost to the dustbin of history.

This can and should be extrapolated to relations between nations.  Speak softly and carry a big stick works for me, for the ‘street’ and the schoolyard (although most schoolyards prohibit sticks or their moral equivalent).

Certainly children emulate their parents, more than copy their words.  If you solve problems at home physically, your child is likely to copy you.  I saw a stair-step family in the mall one day, six or seven kids in a row, in diminishing height, accompanying their mother.  (side note – father was nowhere to be seen.)  One of the middle boys punched his sister in the arm – the mom spun around and cracked the boy full-palm across the face screaming “Don’t you hit your sister!”   I wonder where he learned such behavior?

I remember my daughter, after two years of karate, being harassed at her bus stop by a boy who was a head taller than she.  This was happening daily.  Obviously, the boy was repeating something he heard at home, something inappropriate for this venue or 6th Grade girls, which my daughter was.  She implored me, “Can I hit him?, Can I?”  I asked if he had touched her, she said no.  I advised we would deal with it (by speaking with the school).  But, I did tell her if he did touch her, yes, she could respond with force.  Fortunately, he was moved to another bus stop, and she didn’t have to do anything.  She’d have hurt him, significantly.

I’ve never been the victim of an armed robbery (knock-on-wood) but if I were and the opportunity presented itself, I’d respond with appropriate force.  Not inappropriate force, but force.  Violence.  If necessary.  I have been the victim of multiple burglaries (in my former neighborhood).  Had I walked in on the miscreants, responding with force concurrent with Arizona law would have been appropriate.  And certainly necessary.

I was attacked by a mentally unbalanced person with a knife once.  It’s fortunate I was unarmed, or she would be dead.  I did injure her to stop the attack.

Violence isn’t always a first choice, but sometimes it is a choice.  And sometimes it does solve problems.

Guns & Ammo Brings It!

(click to embiggen)

I am SO GLAD to reside in the Free State of Arizona! – Guffaw

h/t Facebook