Sunday 24 February 2008

Wikileaking Wikileaks

Any of you who have been following the drama over at Wikileaks will be glad to know that following this here linkage: http://88.80.13.160/wiki/Wikileaks will get you there (a mirror site from Sweden) for the time being anyways. Alternate linkage outside of the United States was part of the original plan-- to have sites set up in various countries should the courts of one country succeed in getting a shutdown order. Here's another one, this one is based in England: http://www.wikileaks.org.uk/wiki/Wikileaks .

Wikileaks protects whistle-blowers from corporations (or governments) who would much rather not have folks tattling on any suspicious practices. Recently, a Swiss bank challenged Wikileaks and now the site is facing a court battle with the United States versus responsible exercise of the First Amendment. Bloggers across the internet have protested the February 15 court decision and this blogger too joins in the fray. Buzz-flash has quite a few things to say about this whole mess over at: http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/contributors/1545 .

Quite amazing to me is that the court case took place in the United States. While the order to erase the D.N.S. from U.S. servers will certainly not hold up on appeal,http://commons.globalintegrity.org/2008/02/us-court-order-shuts-down-activist-site.html<--- here it is disconcerting that this case involving documents regarding a Swiss bank doing business in the Cayman Islands made it court on United States soil. Still, we are far better off living here than in places like Egypt where one can be severely physically beaten for dissident web-surfing and document leaking or in Red China or even Vietnam where folks have been imprisoned for similar activities.

radical sapphoq
cross-posted all over




Tuesday 19 February 2008

Broken Things


I.

It was cold outside, but not that cold. Still, the ice hadn't fully melted and pissed-off-woman wasn't real good at maintaining an upright position on the slick stuff, even with the fancy smancy ankle braces. The dog required walking and so p-o-w headed to the abandoned building where the roof overhang kept a bit of sidewalk free from the troubling stuff. P-o-w parked along side the building so she didn't have to slide across the parking lot to get to the sidewalk in question. Three women, two golden retrievers, and one schipperke were heading for the same sidewalk. None of the dogs were attached to leads. Two of the women were dragging their goldens along by the collar and the third had picked up the schipperke and was cradling him in her arms.

P-o-w stuck her head out of the car window. "Are your dogs friendly?" she asked. The three women looked at her. "Friendly?" p.o.w. repeated while pointing to the two goldens and the schipperke. "No," one of them spoke up at last. Undeterred, p-o-w parked her car in front of the targeted sidewalk, where the small party of women and allegedly unfriendly dogs had just been heading. They turned around and left. That was their right. And indeed their obligation if their dogs truly weren't friendly and they weren't able to control them.

P-o-w hung the required placard on the mirror since she had just created a parking space. She hooked up the dog and grabbed Benjamin Copernicus Galileo (the cane). She locked the car. She and the dog walked. The dog was happy and p-o-w smiled.


II.

"Are your dogs friendly?"
"No."

"Are your dogs friendly?"
"No. We happen to have the two most vicious golden retrievers with us right here. And the schipperke is a little daemon."

"Are your dogs friendly?"
"We are afraid of other dogs."

"Are your dogs friendly?"
"We are afraid of you because either you intend to kill us or your disability is contagious."

"Are your dogs friendly?"
"We aren't friendly. We don't want to talk with you at all. Your need for an accessible place to walk your dog inconvenienced us."

"Are your dogs friendly?"
"We really just wanted to be alone in this wide space and you weren't invited."

*Epic fail*


III.

Pissed-off-woman stamped out letters in the snow. The letters read: F U c k U 4 J U d g i N g M E . She and the dog walked. The dog was happy and p-o-w smiled.

sapphoq healing tbi

Monday 18 February 2008

Survivor Needs Meme

spikeneeds



SPIKE SELF-CARE LIST:

  • play with or pet or walk with the dog
  • play with or pet the cats
  • watch the birds at the feeder
  • sit on the deck
  • watch a funny movie

  • read a book
  • blog or write something
  • surf the net
  • computer art
  • draw or color

  • go to a meeting
  • call someone
  • call someone else
  • visit a friend
  • go to a bookstore or greenhouse

  • movement
  • hold a frog
  • take a bath
  • take a nap
  • meditate

  • ice cream
  • coffee
  • chocolate
  • power bars
  • diner or take-out


SPIKE WANTS:

  1. to have oodles of money.
  2. to travel around.
  3. to write a book that is good enough to be banned in 14 countries and challenged in 2.
  4. to continue living in a house that we own.
  5. to meet more of my blogging buddies.


Rules of the "Survivor Needs" Meme
:


  • Please link back to: http://survivorscanthrive.blogspot.com/2007/12/ive-created-survivor-needs-meme.html because that is where the meme came from. Marj aka Thriver created the meme specifically for survivors of any sort of abuse or assault, violence, etc.

  • List 25 needs and five wants. Needs are the things you need in order to take care of yourself, not a list of things that other people, professional helpers, critics, and in-laws think you need. Your wants list can be anything that you want!

  • Use this list to remind yourself to take care of YOU. It's nice to have other people around; however, it is not always possible. Those of us who call ourselves adults are ultimately responsible for getting our own needs met. No one other person can do it for us. Or: no one can be my everything. And I certainly am not looking to be anyone else's everything. We are all alone in our own skins. In my opinion, society as a whole needs to step away from the victim stance. Helplessness is a learned state and can be unlearned. It takes time and work. Anything worth having is worth working for.

  • Pass on the meme and tag five people if you want to. As usual, I tag no one. Even if you are not a survivor, you can still do this meme. I'm not going to claim that we survivors have the monopoly on pain because it just ain't so.
spike q. human bean

Saturday 16 February 2008

A Murder of Crows - Volume 15

And then there was Roger. Am I qualified as a Red Sox fan to make any proclamation of Roger Clemens? I’m not really sure of that, but I am really sure that there is a circus going on in Washington that requires some sort of commentary from someone that has logic. I am not even sure if I have enough of that to deal with the situation as it is going. I know that I can shed some light on something tat many in the country haven’t really paid attention to, but has everything to do with the story. Roger Clemens was, after all a .500 pitcher when he left Boston if his stats for the last 3 years of his career here are to be examined. His 50 and 49 record over those years did not in any way dictate that he had the abilities to be the ace of any staff, much less the Boston Red Sox, and the apologists who like to point out that the rest of the team was lousy, aren’t looking at the job of an ace. Bad teams get dominating performances from an ace, and the Red Sox were getting a mediocre performance from theirs.

Most people who were not caught up in the romance of having Roger Clemens on the staff were thoroughly convinced that he was on the downslide of what was a great career, and he left Boston with a major chip on his shoulder. Who wouldn’t after being told that you were washed up? He went to Toronto and after looking every bit as bad as the general manager of the Red Sox said he would be for half of the first season there he transformed miraculously into the huge, dominant pitcher that he once was, only far more. The next season he won a Cy Young again being over the top dominant, and was sticking it in the eye of the Red Sox, which he deserved to do as he was reborn like a phoenix from the flame. Later on he moved to the Yankees to get the World Series that the Red Sox were never going to get him, and later on became the eternally youthful Roger Clemens that created a feeding frenzy every year as he would “un-retire” and come back to baseball for one last hoorah. Now he is involved in the steroid investigation, and everyone is taking sides.

I remained apathetic purely because I was jaded into believing that it was simply obvious, and Roger should have just made up a lame story about doing it 3 or 4 times and put himself on the mercy of the fans. It would have been over and done with and in 5 years they would have put him in the hall of fame, hands clean, continue. Instead he decided to do some of the most idiotic things I have ever seen, and what slays me is that people are still defending him when logic dictates that he is probably affected by steroids beyond the physical and probably mentally damaged. I would have ignored all of this if it wasn’t for the fact that prominent members of the political party I have given my heart and soul too over the last decade got involved. This is where it gets interesting because if I thought Roger Clemens was a dolt, then I would have to say that the Republican senators that he bought and paid for at that hearing were lunatics. I have blocked their names from my mind in the hopes that I won’t have to wash my eyes out with soap, but watching the Republicans acting like Clemens lap dogs was humiliating to me. The fact that tax payer dollars was spent on this is humiliating to us all.

In order for anyone to believe that Roger Clemens is innocent, you would have to believe that McNamee told the truth about Petite and Knoblauch but lied about Roger. You would have to believe that Debbie Clemens took HGH without consulting with the man she is married to, who happens to be a professional athlete. You would have to believe that Roger Clemens couldn’t remember the name of a nanny that coincidentally was invited to his house that weekend to talk about some things. You would have to believe that a man who throws broken baseball bats at people when they are running to first, or the baseball in general at their head when they “show them up” isn’t possibly having roid rage. I don’t believe that the Republicans sitting in that room believed these things in the least. I don’t believe that they ever have, and I don’t believe that I have ever supported any of those bozos.

Here’s where I part company with any of this in general, because I know that steroids is a major problem in the world, and think without general medical supervision it is a tragedy to be going on. These people that are searching for “the truth” to not believe the same way because the answers to these things are a lot easier then they make them out to be. Using steroids is a crime, and it is supposed to be prosecuted as a criminal activity. It is not in the least and it doesn’t carry the stigma of the loss of freedom associated with most crimes. I mean seriously we have heard about people flunking drug tests and facing a suspension, and it simply looks to me to be an associated “job risk” with no perceivable reason to NOT do it, and I have been rather rabid about these things for a long time now. My education in sports medicine brings me back about 20 years on this debate and I remember writing an article {that was not well received} about Shawn Ray back in the early 90s when he was stripped of the Arnold Schwarzenegger Classic title. He flunked the steroid test really badly and title was given to someone else. There was a long article in Flex magazine talking about how he hadn’t gotten off the juice early enough, and within a year he had gone back and won the title after cleaning out properly.

My reaction was black and white to this little “problem” that Shawn Ray had had, and that was that he should have been in JAIL! For the love of God, we had a man with a vial full of tainted blood and an admittance that he had been using illegal steroid, and there wasn’t even so much as an inquiry. I have been watching this whole “steroid issue” for the last two decades and as always it is just an “embarrassment” to these people to commit crimes and every politician in this country knows about it and has NO right to sit in judgment of it now. If Roger Clemens or Barry Bonds or any of these people using illegal substances end up going to jail for perjury then should we really feel bad for them or defend them? I realize that we are a nation of feelings, and not laws or common sense, but when do we place the brakes in? How am I to feel sympathetic about the children of the world and the bad messages that we send to them when we live in a lawless culture full of innuendo to the contrary?

I could care less what happens to Roger Clemens because I watched a deplorable human being, sell his own wife to the tabloids in front of the congress for no other reason then to save his own amazingly tarnished name. The senator that sat there and ranted that McNamee was a liar while Roger sat there smiling showed me beyond a shadow of a doubt that we have walked over the threshold of logic, and into the mire of spectacle for the sake of face time on the media outlets. Worse yet we have two political parties running the country, both pathetically corrupt, both damaged beyond repair, and we are at the mercy of them and the idiots that support them in lockstep. Blissful ignorance runs foul in both of them, and people are left wondering if we were not better off without a king. I only bring this up because I am sick of the princes and princesses that the media in this country are making for us anyway, and then desperately trying to tear down or bring up out of their own sport ;8o)

Other Crap This Weirdo Publishes... Mental Notes& Random Musings {Daily Blog} The Crow's Nest {The Homepage of J~ Crow}

Nothing that was printed here was intended to offend anyone, and if it did, screw ya, you begged for it. If you believe that there are some measures that can be taken to change me, then please feel free to pray for me, and while you are at it yourself, because you read this far, and if you hated every minute of it, then you are an idiot, not me, or the other people who like what I have to say! .. Jeremy

All writings Copyright © 2008 .. The Crow's Nest

Thursday 14 February 2008

God Bless ME Damnit! - Volume 2

And the saga continues …

It was now time for me to deal with something I will admit that I have ignored for the last two years. It was one of the few parts of my credit report that I knew was there, didn’t deserve to be there, and I didn’t have the patience to deal with. The credit agency now had me in the mood to start a war. A link from my friend from the land of Woodchucks brought me to a site that is totally devoted to credit and the legalities surrounding credit reporting, and law. I was amazed at all of the information there and set forth to use as much of it as viable on my quest to take on Capital One. Oh yeah, the great Satan of the credit card world. A little history on this one for those that have either been caught in the Capital One trap, or are peering into the eyes of the snake, would be in order here, so away we go.

After my second divorce, the ex took my kids, my money and most of my shit. She also took a majority of my paycheck, and the People’s Republic of Maine was there to do so every week. Oh well, life goes on, and I had to do what I could to make it by. My credit was terrible and my income was terrible as well. I took a credit card from Capital One with an interest rate of about 18 percent {which I hear is chicken feed compared to what they do now} and it helped me through all of the hard times, and I was never late on my payments etc. Two years later I was living in Mechanicville NY and I had two Capital One credit cards. A Mastercard and a Visa, because rather than giving me more credit they gave me more cards, so that they could get two payments out of me a month instead of one. That’s fine, I get it, and I was never late and I made all my payments. Simple story so far, but it gets complicated from there.

I had just sold my house and had plenty of disposable income at this time; I called Capital One and cancelled my cards after paying off the balances. It was confirmed and all was right with the world. I didn’t need two high income credit cards, so I went without them and used the debit card that came with my checking account. As some know my son burned down the apartment building that my ex wife was living in, and it was because of her neglect. I left NY {unfortunately} and moved back to NH to take full custody of my children, and I had to do it the day it happened before my ex wife took them all and moved away where we couldn’t find her. Long story, but she is a loser. I placed a forwarding address and dealt with all of my business in NY in one day, my landlord was fine with it and understood completely, my job was sad to see me go, but understood, utilities were paid, and I went back to NH and spent most of my money fighting the state of Maine for custody of my kids. The state of Maine being terrified that they were losing another one of the 80 percent of their population that lives on welfare, made sure that I was flat broke before I could win, but I won.

Move ahead 3 years and I get a phone call from a credit collection agency telling me that I owe Capital One 900 and some odd dollars. I was dumbfounded over this, and the person on the other end of the phone had no shame in telling me that a 10 dollar charge was put on the card and they added bounce fees and interest charges to it for 3 years. He pointed out to me that in my contract I had agreed that within 30 days of the account being closed that if a charge was placed on the card it would remain open. I was then told quite unashamedly again that they had gotten back all of the mail from the address that they had, but their mail was not forwarded, and that under the contract that was my problem as well. Now on top of my confusion I was incensed. I was especially pissed that they could find my phone number to call me out of the blue and never sent me so much as a warning that this crap was going on. I told him to stick it, and have continued to do that over the last couple of years when they call me, because there appeared to be no way out of that jam.

Last week I got the Better Business Bureau involved, and let me tell anyone reading this that most credit card companies have tons of complaints against them. I was told a few of the things that I read online last night, and used them to my advantage already. First and foremost I used their record keeping against them. “Show me proof that I owe this money,” is the first thing to say. 9 out of 10 times the credit card company in question has deleted their records of your claim the second the agency purchases the debt for pennies on the dollar. The credit collection agency doesn’t actually have any authority to the debt unless they actually are working on behalf of the company. Capital One didn’t actually just screw me in this instance, but they screwed the collectors.

By placing that erroneous 10 dollar charge they amassed what looked like a fortune to a collection agency for little money. The company paid Capital One 5 cents on the dollar for the debt owed at the time. I tricked the guy into telling me this when I was talking to him, but I will explain that in a minute. They ended up paying Capital One about 45 dollars expecting to have about 900 some odd dollars to screw me out of somehow. Even if they got it down to about 300 dollars they made a very good profit, and as Capital One had turned 10 dollars into about 45 they had made a very good profit. Pretty sick stuff huh?

Here’s how the conversation went as I called them armed with a lot more information then the average person has on hand. I pointed out to the guy that I would require the proof of signature of the fact that I owe the money on the original contract with their company name on it. He stated that that would be impossible, which I knew, but I continued by pointing out that I originally owed them 10 dollars on a closed account, but “might” be willing to pay them their acquisition fee of my account if they eliminate the poor credit mark but would require the original document with the sale of my account on it. He started giving me a spiel and I said {in typical credit collection agent fashion} that it was a take it or leave it on the spot, so I need to know the amount and will send in the amount upon my approval of the submitted document, but I had to know how much NOW.

After he cracked and gave me the amount they paid for the debt, I started laughing like a lunatic, and through tears said “Capital One screwed you guys, and you think I am going to bail YOU out? Take me to court so that the judge can laugh at how crooked you all are,” to which he ripped back like a child that this can sit on my credit report forever! I personally find it to be a badge of honor, and intend to call the collection agency once or twice a week to laugh at them and make fun of them. God lemons can be made into lemonade at the strangest of times. ;8o)

Other Crap This Weirdo Publishes... Mental Notes& Random Musings {Daily Blog} The Crow's Nest {The Homepage of J~ Crow}

Nothing that was printed here was intended to offend anyone, and if it did, screw ya, you begged for it. If you believe that there are some measures that can be taken to change me, then please feel free to pray for me, and while you are at it yourself, because you read this far, and if you hated every minute of it, then you are an idiot, not me, or the other people who like what I have to say! .. Jeremy

All writings Copyright © 2008 .. The Crow's Nest

Wednesday 13 February 2008

Viking Kitties


http://www.rathergood.com/gaybar/
http://www.vikingkittens.com/

Autistic Kids Grow Up...

Christopher DeGroot had autism. Because he reportedly would bolt from the apartment that he lived in with his parents Nicolaas and Agnes, they locked the windows and doors. Because they needed to go do things like feed their horses without their son, they left him alone in the apartment which was secured against his escape into traffic. Their 19 year old son who had severe autism was left alone in their apartment for several hours a day so they could go do chores. In my opinion,leaving a severely disabled man alone in an apartment without supervision is wrongon so many levels. Even if Christopher DeGroot possessed the knowledge of what todo during an emergency, the deadbolt on the door and the locks on the windows precluded any means to get out. And if he was unable to act during an emergency on his own behalf due to his disabling condition, he should have had a (hired if necessary) caretaker supervising him in his parents' absence.

On Sunday May 14th, 2006 the apartment did indeed catch on fire. Two family cats were saved. One firefighter was injured. 77K of damage was caused to the apartment building and stuff inside of it. Christopher, then 19, had to be airlifted to a hospital in Portland, Oregon. The burns covered 80% of his body. He died on Friday May 19th, 2006.

Nicolaas and Agnes reported to the police station as requested for questioning. They were charged with first-degree arson and first- or second-degree manslaughter. (Report of the manslaughter charges differ in degree). The fire was thought to be caused by arson, specifically by Nicolaas and Agnes DeGroot setting fire to paper in the middle of the living room floor and then leaving their son to burn while they left to feed the bloody horses.

Yeah, they had their day in court where they (via separate attorneys) were allowed to Alford plea the charges. An Alford plea means that the defendants admit that the State can prove its' case against them, but falls short of admitting any guilt on the part of the defendants. The original charges were pled down to criminal negligent homicide.

Two people testified that Nicolaas and Agnes De Groot were cool and devoted parents. Nice to their autistic son, caring about his needs, blah blah blah. The judge decided that the parents did not intend any bad vibes when they left their severely autistic son alone in the apartment without any supervision. He sentenced Nicolaas and Agnes DeGroot to six months in the county jail.This is a case that in my opinion should never have been allowed to be Alford plea'd.

Autistic kids do grow up to be autistic adults unless their uh devoted parents kill them.

spike

Parents charged with first-degree arson and first- or second-degree manslaughter:http://democratherald.com/articles/2006/05/22/news/local/news02.txt
http://www.cityofalbany.net/services/news_releases/show_item.php?id=521

Alford pleas and a sentence to six month in the county jail:
http://www.dhonline.com/articles/2008/02/08/news/local/2loc01_jail.txt#blogcomments



A Murder of Crows - Volume 14

This was the week of the telephone wars. I hate having to deal with creditors because they are in the business to make money, and I am not the personification of money. What’s worse is that there are a few companies out there that are screwing me, and a few of them have been screwing me for quite a while. Like most good businesses, they have been using the “Ivory Tower” approach to keep me from keeping more of my own money. The few of these that have made themselves the most impossible to get a hold of and rectify were on my radar and I just wanted to get it dealt with. Needless to say it doesn’t make your mood any better.

The very first one that I was intent on getting dealt with wasn’t exactly a creditor, but makes its money based on my credit. Experian is the credit monitoring service that always seems to be associated with any bank I try to join, or any credit card I try to get. I have the feeling that they must charge the creditors less and make their profits through extortion of some sort, because in my case, they were so wrong that it should have been easily resolved. It wasn’t, and it became a bit of a family joke over the years. I’m sure that most people would assume that it is just the case of someone that has bad credit and is pissy about it, but I have chronicled my Experian saga {knowing that somehow it would make some good info for others} and am ready to share it. Whether this is truly over or not, I don’t know but will explain that in a bit.

Over the last 10 years it has been very hard for me to get credit anyway because I am poor and I have been divorced a lot. That has been the reasoning that I have used, and figured that it made as good a reason as any. When I moved back to New Hampshire about 6 years ago other things started factoring in, that I couldn’t understand at all. I couldn’t open bank accounts for some reason, and was being kept out of the better credit unions in the area because of my credit report. Two years ago, I finally got a credit report sent to me after I failed to get into the credit union that I had wanted to again, and was shocked at what it said. Of course, here’s where the extortion comes in because YOU do not get the credit report that your creditors do in this free fashion. You get a watered down credit report with innuendo in it, but I was able to deduce a few MAJOR flaws that should have not been in there if THEY did their job. Most importantly was the fact that I had 4 social security numbers according to them. I also had several “Aliases” which included my father and my uncle.

I was furious, and took the several hours that it took to fill out their forms. I figured that the fact that these people that they had me merged with actually existed should have been reason enough to take them off of my credit report, but they obviously didn’t care. Last year I went to get my credit limit increased on my credit card with the credit union that I am a member of, and was denied. More over they took my credit card away from me because from what they deduced from my credit report, I was a fraud. The woman at the credit union was practically in tears having to tell me this because she had seen me come in every week and deposit my check, and confided in me that this happens often. She knew all of the signs of a catastrophic Experian screw up, but was impotent to do anything about it. I didn’t blame her, but I ordered another credit report which had included a few more social security numbers and an uncle that had never lived within 100 miles of me, and when he was within a hundred miles of me I was 8.

They had gone further this time, as they had my date of birth being 1939, and even put in my report that it appeared that I had credit from before I was legal age. A lot of the credit cards I had closed out on bad terms were actually closed the year before I was born. I was incensed and filled out the reports again. I have three children, no wife, a shitty job, no child support, a car that the wheels fall off, a bad back, and a credit reporting agency that is obviously out to get me. Realistically I came to the realization that I am not that important and they aren’t actually out to get me, or anyone for that matter. They simply don’t care if they get it wrong, which is a bit scarier because they are in charge of the credit worthiness of most of America. At that time I was a bit too busy working over time, and trying to get my own life in order with my sick father living with me to try to deal with all of that crap, and I was completely right at the time.

I’m sure that you all have seen the commercials on TV for Free Credit Report Dot Com, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Experian. By Federal Law {politicians create laws to look busy but never keep track of whether their laws are really being followed} the credit reporting agencies were forced to make it easier to get your credit report. They set up this site https://www.annualcreditreport.com/cra/index.jsp so that you can “Quickly and Easily” get your credit reports and “Fight the good fight” with them. It’s a joke really because if the feds looked at it they would see that it isn’t very good. It will take you to each of the credit reporting agencies sites so that you can fill out their forms, and then they will each give you an erroneous error as to why you can’t have your report. Well I should say why you can’t have it unless you pay them for it. My battle at this time was with Experian so I went to Free Credit Report Dot Com {I don’t actually use the site url because I will NOT advertise for them} and gave them my credit card information, so that I could have my credit report.

This was infuriating to say the least. After extorting me into getting my credit report I looked at something that was amateurish at best. It had my name on it, with a string of aliases including my father and my uncle, as well as two social security numbers that I don’t recognize. It had places that not one of us have lived, and credit cards that I had cancelled many years ago that were just accumulating bounce charges. I don’t blame them for that, but will save that saga for the next blog. As it was Saturday, I couldn’t call and get any of this crap straitened out. In other states you could, but because the law in MY state doesn’t specify that they have to talk to me on a weekend they abruptly hung up on me. This gave me two days to stew over this. When Monday rolled around they wouldn’t talk to me because my credit report from Saturday didn’t have a complaint number on it and I would have to pay another 20 bucks to get a new one. I was abruptly hung up on again.

After getting my complaint number {by going through the cache in my browser … fuck them} I called them back and found no options for rectifying my problem, and was hung up on again for taking too long. I called back {this had taken me 2 hours by the way} and found a spot in the automated number pushing sequence where I could press 0. Now keep in mind that you couldn’t do that on every sequence, so I had to try it on each one, being hung up on with every one that you “couldn’t” use that on. 20 minutes later I was talking to someone, who put me on hold for someone else, who put me on hold for yet another, and another. It was precisely the amount of time that it took for my phone battery to die, but I was smart enough last year to get a cordless with two headsets. The fact that the guy was startled I was still there pissed me off to no end, and he knew it. After another half hour of explaining it to him he stated “Well obviously we have some erroneous errors on your report,” … NO SHIT! I was sent an e-mail confirmation later last night telling me that they had fixed the problems. It will cost me 20 bucks to see if they really had or not. Cancelling my Free Credit Report Dot Com account took a while too as I sat on the phone carousel, but made me feel better because I used a lot of foul language and threats when they tried to talk me out of it. Tomorrow I will hopefully find time to write about Capital One and Sprint. ;8o)

Other Crap This Weirdo Publishes... Mental Notes& Random Musings {Daily Blog} The Crow's Nest {The Homepage of J~ Crow}

Nothing that was printed here was intended to offend anyone, and if it did, screw ya, you begged for it. If you believe that there are some measures that can be taken to change me, then please feel free to pray for me, and while you are at it yourself, because you read this far, and if you hated every minute of it, then you are an idiot, not me, or the other people who like what I have to say! .. Jeremy

All writings Copyright © 2008 .. The Crow's Nest

Tuesday 5 February 2008

Good Mourning Stupor Tuesday

Teens used to be given ice pick lobotomies. I once knew an old man. He was given one back in the day. He was a rebellious teen. Among other "horrid" transgressions, he smoked cigarettes. He still does. Years wasted on the back wards. Oh bloody hell. Shove him into a group home. The food is better there at least. Here's some more pills. We don't know if you truly would have needed them as an adolescent but you sure do need them now.

Every label is a catch-all. So the labels will keep devolving.



Briefly the nation mourns the fall of another pop icon star into the throes of mania.
Dressing without underwear is grounds for psychiatric imprisonment even of the the rich and infamous. I feel badly for her doggies. I weigh in on the side of animal welfare, not animal rights. I detest PETA and their dog houses for wolves campaign over at Penn's Caves. Evolution, anyone? The wolves came first. They didn't want the dog houses that you forced the owners of Penn's Caves to airlift/drop in. They pissed all over them and tore them up. And went back to their dens which they had carved out of the side of the mountain that is theirs. We have forgotten how to live. My feet have forgotten how to feel the nuances of bare uneven ground. The cane leans against the wall of a hallway. I force my feet to feel. I never gave a damn about the supposed window of improvement after a traumatic brain injury. There are no bars on my windows. Somewhere in a locked ward, a pop star is forced to put on underwear daily. Compliance has its' own rewards. If she is proper and placating and fawning, she may get to pick today's movie. If she becomes invested in the goals you have set up for her, she may get out in ten days.

Devolving from dogs to wolves, from dog houses to dens.



Neuroleptics have helped people to become productive members of society. Some folks who weren't able to work, who were plagued by hallucinations and or other rotten malfunctions of their neurology are now able to work. A few even manage to hold down real jobs, not the legalized poverty of sub-waged existence found in the sheltered workshops or T-projects. "It's better than staying home," the salaried proponents of The System retort. Oh yeah. Warehousing the different is good because society is judged by outward appearances. Shove the disabled out of sight. We the forgotten people-- fat people, people who hallucinate, curse too much, limp, are missing limbs, don't wear proper white cotton underwear, aren't properly happy about our situations-- don't deserve to have a voice. So a charity made up of parents sues an autistic teen for daring to mock it with her own website. These parents think they can speak for us who endure their sterilized tandrums. Some folks get diabetes or T.D. from the wonder drugs. Hard to tell. To weigh the good against the bad. For some folks with frucked neurology, the drugs are very very necessary. For the rest-- bright shiny pills with their empty promises of happiness. It's not happiness that the world needs now. And it's not love. And it's not bunches of parents coming out with bright shiny videos about how we have frucked up the family finances and broken their hearts. If only there was a cure for ignorance. For all of our shiny packaged advancements, we still can't figure out how to live together on this planet without blowing each other up into smithereens.

From grappling with tough stuff to neuropathy and smart bombs.



We need more research. More development. Psych drugs with better profiles, less side effects. The same care taken for psych drugs in clinical trials as is taken for all the others. The same attention to what is judged acceptable when it comes to side effects. What male teenager will greedily suck up any medicine that has "not being able to get it up" as a side effect? Only the truly insane. In the space provided below, list all of the non-psychotropics which have impotence as a side effect that we routinely administer to teens and young adults. Shrinks, first do no harm. Parents, saltpeter calms down raging hormones. Are you insane? We need to stop the guesswork. We all deserve more than that. Genetics, genomes. That is where the future of medicine lies. And once the neuro patients make room in the waiting room for the "psych" patients, we all might be better off. The N.A.M.I. mommies are WRONG. The vast preponderance of their kids do not need to be drugged. We are all wrong. Everything is neurology. Too bad the neurologists can't diagnose worth a damn.

Don't despair, repair.



My friends-locked Live Journal post about the so-called war on Christmas got flagged. Someone decided that my take on the news was an adult concept. Teens should be shielded from grappling with something that was freely available on Google news. Oh for crying out loud! I changed it back just before I put all entries save for this week's into private lockdown. SUP sanitizes the site, Aggregated feeds with advertisements and sponsored content pop into reality on the browser because sometimes we are oh so bored. We need entertainment. We are all excited now as we skate over to Explore Live Urinal. Uh, no thanks. Go sanitize your own toilet. The essay on the so-called war on Christmas can be found on other journal sites where the religious reich hasn't taken over.

I could have been great. Instead I am reduced to dead black words. I too piss on your dog houses.


spike

Sunday 3 February 2008

Once upon a time...

Once upon a time, in a nice little forest, there lived an orphaned bunny
And an orphaned snake. By a surprising coincidence, both were blind
From birth. One day, the

Bunny was hopping through the forest, and the snake was slithering
Through the forest, when the bunny tripped over the snake and fell down.

This, of course, knocked the snake about quite a bit. "Oh, my," said the
Bunny, "I'm terribly sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you. I've been blind
Since birth, so, I can't see where I'm going. In fact, since I'm also an
Orphan, I don't even know what I am."
It's quite ok," replied the snake. "Actually, my story is as yours. I am
Also blind from birth and an orphan. I tell you what, maybe I could
Slither all over you, and work out what you are so at least you'll have
That going for you."


"Oh, that would be wonderful" replied the bunny. So the snake slithered
All over the bunny, and said, "Well, you're covered with soft fur, you
Have really long ears, your nose twitches, and you have a soft cottony
Tail. I'd say that you must be a bunny rabbit."
"Oh, thank you, thank you," cried the bunny, in obvious excitement. The
Bunny suggested to the snake, "Maybe I could feel you all over with my
Paw, and help you the same way that you've helped me."

So the bunny felt the snake all over, and remarked, "Well, you're smooth
And slippery, and you have a forked tongue, no backbone and no balls.
I'd say you must be either a team leader, supervisor or possibly someone
In senior management."

The Show must go on


I can remember the call I received, it was later in the morning. My sister had been trying to get ahold of me for awhile. When she did she was filled with so much emotion, she could barley speak. The news of our Uncle who was in UofM Hospital and with very little time left to what life his body had left to hold onto.
My partner and I had rushed to the Hospital as quickly as we could with our daughter. I got to see Jim, but as sadly as I am to say, it may have been too late. I said my words, to my Uncle.
I couldn't believe that this was happening. My Uncle shared his life with many in the community in the City of Ann Arbor, and I understood that since I was little. I was glad to see him, when I could. He was always there when their was important event in our life.
I have little words left to say that would go the depth of my Uncle. To shed some light onto who my Uncle was, and the difference he has made. I just hope those life's that Jim has touched through the many years of teaching, and directing that those people take this opportunity to pay it forward and treat the next generation as Jim treated everyone.
Every show is still going on, actors are still casting for that one roll to make the difference, and people are lining up to see the show that everyone is talking about. Which is great, as if
everything came to a stop that moment in the hospital, I could hear that the show must go on. For that moment I started to think we were the ones that were passed along.