12-year-old charged with burning playmate, 11.
Ooo! Let’s spray ourselves with bug spray and then light it. Sounds like great gobs of fun!
I Smell Something Burning. It’s Common Sense!
A friend sent me a story that pissed me off, so I thought I’d write about it.
Let me try and sum this up for you. At a housing complex in a tough neighbourhood in Winnipeg, a bunch of kids between the ages of 8 and 11 decided to set fire to a shed in the playground. A 14-year-old boy saw them trying to burn the shed down. They started calling him names, shoved him into the shed, which wasn’t hard to do since he has trouble walking, jammed the door shut and set the fire. Someone heard the commotion and managed to get the boy out and firefighters took him to hospital. He escaped with some smoke inhalation, but he’s fine now, at least physically.
Now, because of their age, the kids who did this to him can’t face any kind of charges or consequences whatsoever. The best the police can do is send them to a voluntary program to tell them about the dangers of fire. But, the story says these kids’ parents aren’t really a major presence in these kids’ lives. So how many of them do you think will show up for the program?
Some people are thinking, obviously, that something needs to be done about this. They don’t want to send kids to jail. But they want them to face some kind of community service, and maybe their parents should be made to pay fines for the damage the kids did. Maybe that would teach them to supervise their little rascals.
But of course, people are screaming that this is unfair, “draconian” even, as stated by federal Liberal justice critic Sue Barnes. She thinks maybe these kids didn’t understand that what they were doing could have hurtor killed somebody.
Ok. When did your teachers and parents teach you that when the fire alarm goes off, get out because it’s not safe to be in a building with a fire? I think I was about five. If I know that fire can hurt or kill me, I think I can think far enough ahead that maybe we shouldn’t lock someone in a burning shed because no good can come of that.
The ridiculous statements continue. >> “As far as we know from child development literature, this whole idea of future consequences is something that … probably is not fully developed until well into late adolescence,” said professor Barry Mallin, who teaches school psychology at the University of Manitoba. Oh yeah? Then why are kids aged 12 and up able to be charged with a crime?
Then there’s this gem. “I would think (children) don’t see the whole physiological aspect of saying, `You know, you put a kid in there and he starts inhaling smoke and he’s going to be incapacitated and he’s eventually going to die,'” said Professor Glen Bergeron, who teaches kinesiology and applied health at the University of Winnipeg.
Congrats, mr. Big words. Congrats on making “Fires are dangerous and can hurt you, they could even kill you,” into something harder to understand than it has to be. I think those kids can understand that. And if they can’t, well I guess mom and dad need to keep a closer eye on them, don’t they? Maybe they need to teach them a few things.
It’s sad that, in a world where personal responsibility is a dying concept, some people want to kill it even faster.
Wear Pants Next Time
Are There A Lot Of Kidnappings In Spain Or Is This Guy Just An Idiot?
Woman “kidnaps” son four times for ransom
MADRID (Reuters) – A Spanish woman staged fake kidnappings of her son four times and got his father to pay her more than a million euros ($1.26 million) in ransom money, newspaper El Mundo reported Friday.
Police in the southern Spanish city of Seville arrested the woman and five accomplices, including the 15-year-old son who cooperated in the deception by calling his father on the telephone and begging him to pay up.
The father paid ransoms after the first three fake abductions without realizing the involvement of his son’s mother, from whom he had separated. He became suspicious the fourth time and hired a private detective, El Mundo reported.
Oh Shut Up!
It seems that the mother of a Muslim grade 5 student in Edmonton is very upset because the new issue of a booklet used to teach students about current events had the nerve to run a story about the recent plot to blow up commercial airplanes that was discovered by British authorities. The people behind the publication, called “What in the World?”, had the unmitigated gall to mention in their article that all of the suspects arrested in connection with the plot were Muslim which, at least last I heard, they were.
But that doesn’t matter to Sabah Fares, who says that her daughter felt like “running away” when the story was used in her class because she is the only Muslim there.
“I don’t blame her,” Fares said. “This is what I’m going to do if everybody is looking at me like ‘Oh, they did it,'”
I don’t know about any of you, but I think this might be a good time for someone to call a waambulance.
I know through experience that there’s discrimination out there, and I know that people, especially children, can be really, really mean sometimes. But to sit there and say that the authors of a news article are stereotyping your people by presenting the facts is just flat out ridiculous, there’s no other way to say it. If that were the case, why not go after CBC or CTV or any of the thousands of other media outlets who because it happens to be their job, told the same damn story? The people you have to worry about aren’t the people who wrote the story or the teacher who decided to use it. The ones you should be concerned with are the ones who A are ignorant enough to look at all Muslims and say “oh, they did it” and B your fellow Muslims who were ignorant enough to try to blow up airplanes to prove a point. Attacking a school for teaching kids about news that you don’t happen to like won’t get anybody anywhere unless your ultimate goal is to shield your child and others from the world. If anything, maybe you should be happy that stories like this are getting out. Perhaps if we teach kids from an early enough age that violence in the name of peace is fucking retarded no matter what colour or faith you are, maybe a few generations from now we’ll have taken some serious steps towards stamping out the idea that such a thing is acceptable. I know it sounds crazy, but it worked on slavery, so anything’s possible.
Somebody Really, Really Loves Jonathan Coulton!
Oh my god this is funny. This guy, whoever he is, sat down, took all the titles of the things a week from Jonathan Coulton, whipped out the tune from The Presidents, and made a tribute to the Things a week. It’s kinda geeky, kinda funny, kinda shittily recorded, kinda got too many syllables, but ah damn, it just has to be heard. It even has solos that sorta sound like excerpts from Jo Co’s things. If you listen to it, after the ad finishes for the service hosting the file, turn the volume way up. Hopefully, this direct link will work, but if it doesn’t, the link to the lyrics has a link to the page where you can download the mp3, for as long as it sees the light of day. So grab it now! It’s hillarious!
I am Blind! Not stupid!
God! What is with anything in a specialty market? The people who are selling these products think, and let me emphasize the word THINK, that they have the people who want it by the short and curlies and can sell it for whatever inflated price they want. They also think that their customers sincerely believe they can only get these things from one place. Companies selling these things perpetuate this by not giving you the name of whatever company manufactures the products they distribute, so those who are newbies to this whole thing will be convinced of this, and won’t bother to shop around. To add insult to injury, they think they can condescend to their customers and treat them like stupid, worthless piles of shit when they call. After all, we should be grateful that this company is willing to sell these specialty products to us at all, right?
Wrong!
Hey bud, when a product is $50 U.S, do you think that you can honestly expect me to buy it from you for $120 Canadian, just because you’re Canadian? Do you think I’ll actually believe the dollar is that bad? Even at its worst, it wasn’t that abysmal. Wake up!
And bud no. 2, if you’re an hour away, do you think I’m going to swallow $15 worth of shipping? Hell I could probably get a drive down there and pick it up from your slimy hands for less than that!
And bud no. 3 who actually makes these things, how can you expect me to believe that the reason you don’t ship to Canada is because it costs more than the product’s value to ship it? The one I want is $50 U.S. Who is your shipper, and who is doing your books? You need to fire him immediately for not noticing that you’re getting gouged to the tenth power on shipping! You can’t tell me that’s the real reason and expect me to believe it.
Here’s a message to all of these companies who think that charging insane prices for this shit is a good idea. I will leave you with a name to chew on. Anne Moris. She once sold the same products that other people did, but her prices were nuts. Do you know where Anne Moris Enterprises is now? Gone! Dead! Nonexistent! 404! Out of business! I don’t know precisely why, but those insane prices sure didn’t help, partly because they’re ludicrous, and partly because word gets around. Soon we tell our friends, and they find other places to buy the stuff. The whole small market thing can work both ways.
The Canadian National Institute for the Blind (CNIB) should learn this soon, or they won’t be able to keep their tech aids store open any longer because no one will shop there. But it may close anyway, just like everything else of theirs is doing. Oops did I say that out loud? Seriously, though, of all the people guilty of trying to rip customers off, they are second only to Maxiaids, who I won’t even link to because I won’t give traffic to people who are called fraudsters by anyone who has dealt with them. I tell everyone I can to not buy from the CNIB. First of all, they don’t even know who manufactures their products. Second, they charge exorbitant prices. Third, when you ask questions, they treat you like you shouldn’t even dare ask these questions and just buy the product, which is bad because some of the stuff they sell doesn’t even work as advertised. And then they wonder why I won’t buy things from them sight unseen.
And here’s a message to all the companies who think that they don’t have to worry about customer service. You do! When I phone up and ask a question about a product, don’t speak to me like I’m a. 2 years old and b. troubling you immensely. If you don’t want to answer customer inquiries, don’t open your god damn business! I phoned one place this morning and asked this guy who sounded like the slimiest swindler on the planet how much the shipping was on a product. He very slowly asked me, “Where do you live, dear?” I told him and he said, “Gee, how much *does* it cost to ship to there, dear?” I said that’s why I was phoning him. Then he just went, “oh…hmmm…I’d say about $15.” Did you just dream that figure up? Or are you actually going to look it up for me like a normal person would? Needless to say, I’m not buying it from there.
There has only been a couple of adaptive product companies who have treated me well, and they consistently get my business. This is why it pisses me off to see so many of them trying to treat me like crap. If there were a zillion places to choose from, I’d just shrug it off that this one company sucks and move onto the next place. But there are so few that sell this stuff, and it sucks to have to dig for the good service. But here’s a lesson for you folks who sell products like these. I *will* dig for the good service. We *do* have options. The sooner you realize this, the sooner you can start working on saving your company from going under.
Wow, am I ever lucky!
For a while, when I thought about writing this post, I was afraid it would sound like that whole twisted appreciation concept I was talking about last year. But I will try not to make it sound that way.
Just recently, I had to do some training for a place where I volunteer. The organization helps women who have been abused in one way or another. There’s the shelter, there’s the place where someone who has been sexually assaulted can get some counselling, there’s the rural women’s support program, the transitional support program, and then there are community events designed to raise awareness. But the thing that shokcs me when I go for these trainings is not the content of the training. It’s the things the other women say who are also coming to the training. I am always amazed at how many of them are survivors of some form of abuse.
I know the statistics are high. I know it happens to a lot of people, and that saddens me. But when it’s suddenly possible to put faces, not just one face, but a whole room-full of them, on those statistics, it sure has a lot more power. I suddenly felt like the odd one out, and I know this sounds absolutely horrible to say, but I felt unbelievably lucky!
Let me try and explain, try and make that sound better. I didn’t feel lucky in the “Remember, someone has it worse off than you…” sort of way. I just meant statistically. When it happens to so many, how did I manage to escape? How did I make it through childhood without having my innocense destroyed? How did I not meet that horrible, possessive boyfriend who turned out to be a complete and utter asshole? How did I go to university and somehow avoid being raped somewhere along the way? How did I stay so free and clear of what so many people have the unfortunate experience of meeting head on? A more ominous question comes to mind. How long will I be able to stay so lucky? Will I meet the wrong friend one day who will try to take what I don’t want to give? I know I don’t have to worry about the abusive boyfriend/husband thing unless, *shiver* something happens to Steve and I meet someone else much, much later. But when we were not together, oh that thought scared me. I was afraid some manipulative asshole would read that I was low, make me feel good to get to me, and then once he had control of me, I’d be screwed. So I didn’t really super go out looking for dates. I just watched the weirdies come out of the woodwork. But even with that worry behind me, with my tendency to meet freaks, how long will it be before I have to fend off some creep?
And now I’ve probably made some people think I’m neurotic, pissed off some others, and made some others very uncomfortable. Hopefully I make sense to someone.
Ah, Sweet Revenge
Man, I wish I had half the creativity of Tom Mabe in this clip. Now there’s revenge on a telemarketer. The fun part is watching the telemarketer squirm. That’s just beautiful. I’d love to do that to those Capital One fuckers that keep calling.
What a Dirty Trick!
Ok, this morning, after I got off the bus, I realized that I was kind of hungry. Since the place where I was going to answer the phones doesn’t have a lot of food, I thought I’d nip into this cute little restaurant nearby and grab some takeout. So up the street I came, not sure if they would be open or not. As I crossed the street, I could smell the wonderful aroma of hope! It smelled like they were open! So I walked up to the door, and damn it, they were still closed! Damn those bastards, teasing me like that.
