Women and Friendly Fire

I was watching a US TV show, Bones. The episode was about war heros, men in the war and the afterwards, the after care and how they are not understood or respected for what they went through.

My mind went to women who have been through an attack or stalking and other violence and victimization. We aren’t given much respect, understanding either.

Also, we go through it all alone. We are alone when attacked, no team has our backs, no group of soldiers. Mostly by our own choice because we don’t feel chatty about it all either. So many of the same emotions but so much difference in how people react and how women are misunderstood, blamed and treated afterwards.

Women don’t think to be proud of having survived being preyed on the way soldiers are told to be proud they served their country.

The question is – what do women serve , other than being a survivor, what is there for them to be proud of? Should we think we serve men by being abused? Is that what we can be proud of, like a soldier?

Ironic that the TV show I was watching ended up being about the death and cover up of a soldier killed by friendly fire. Is that how women should look at it? Attack or death by friendly fire? It doesn’t seem friendly to me.

DNC – Using the Do-Not-Call List for Sales Phone Calls

donotcalllist

Is your home phone number on the Do Not Call List? I don’t know if every country has set this up. But, here in Canada, this is what it looks like when you verify that your number is still coming up as DNC (do not call).

I noticed that the calls pretty much stopped the first several months. Then they began to trickle back. Until now there is a stream of them again. Not as many as before, but enough that I logged in today to check that my phone number was still on the list. I know it does expire after some time. But, mine isn’t expired, not by a few years.

Continue…

Ruins in New York

As seen on a post in Design Corne r: One misty morning while in New York City, take a cab uptown to West 64th Street in Manhattan. When you reach the Riverside park, observe a dark undulating skeleton sticking out of the Hudson River. The twisted metallic construction that stimulates comparisons with Frank Gehry’s architecture has been there since 37 years ago. Before Pier D was consumed by raging fire in 1971, it was a part of the New York Central Railroad Yard. Today Pier D is the kind of design form that quite literally follows the function – chronologically leaving its original practicalities behind in the smoke of Manhattan’s industrial past. Back then, Pier D’s utility was to be used as a deck for longshoremen to unload bulk cargo. Now Pier D is all about emotional significance – it serves no purpose other than the aesthetic one. However, the official confirmation of the site’s new aesthetic status was issued no earlier than in 2003 – through a timely gesture of Adrian Benepe, the parks commissioner who has been known for his protective stances vis-à-vis the city’s natural and historic beauty. He was called on the phone one day to be put on notice that a crane had begun dismantling the pier – according to approved plans deliberated and finalized in Benepe’s absence. The commissioner rushed to the site and ordered to stop the demolition. Accidental landscape design… In the opinion of a nearby dweller, since the arrival of Trump Place “everything looks so new here, […] we need a reminder of what it was like 80 years ago.”

Oh Goodie Goodie

It’s very unfair. We have those tiny tomatoes growing in the garden, they are just now all ripening up and are so juicy and warm from the sun, like biting into summer (only the good edible parts). But, each time I have a few of those tomatoes I feel sick, like I’m getting a the flu, that night and the next day. It is very unfair. I love those little tomatoes. I ate almost a dozen of their little red, orange and yellow bodies this afternoon and now I feel yucky, shivery and cold. Bleh. I still don’t think I can give up eating the tomatoes. Let them punish me for it.

Tomorrow I am babysitting again. Did I mention that my sister is due to pop out another baby in November/ December. As much as I like seeing the kids, especially Zack who started high school this year, I am tired of babysitting. Mostly, I am tired of her house. It is a dump and they seem to not even notice it. When I came over last week she told the girls to clean up cause I was there. She had been home all day but didn’t think to clean up because that is what people should do! No, it’s only because I’m queen bitch who will throw away all their toys and stuff. Get real. I told one of the girls that instead of bringing a garbage bag for all their stuff I wish I just had a blow torch instead. Would be much easier to clear a path through all the crap at the front door that way. I really am that fed up with it all. People who can’t train their children to be something more than feral animals should not be having another baby.

I know she has businesses to run. I know she sees herself as a business woman/ career goal minded. But, then, logically you don’t have four children set lose to fend for themselves. Know yourself. If you aren’t Mother material don’t keep popping them out thinking other people will do the job for you.

I do like the children, I’m not completely evil. Just annoyed, mostly just annoyed. I know when I am there tomorrow the floor of the entryway will be covered in coats, boots, books, games, assorted clothing, toys and other mindless debris. Plus the fish dying quietly in the fishtank placed right at the door for some odd reason. Then the kitchen, dishes and food left out all over the counters. The table will be coated in crayons, papers and assorted other remnants of the feral animals who live and eat there.

I’m sick of being the one who has to bitch those kids around into cleaning up after themselves. I don’t even see the point of doing so any more. Each week it is the same. They do not change, they do not learn and they certainly have proven that they do not care. I’m fed up with caring, with being told I’m a bully and being made to feel that is true. I really could cheerfully set fire to the lot of it. Just as the sleeve of my sweater caught fire for a second tonight when I moved the broccoli off the jet on the oven. (I blew it out and there is only a scorch mark on my sweater which was already one of my rag bag sweaters just for wearing around the house when I work, not a great loss).

Anyway, I can at least look forward to taking Zack out shopping for some school supplies tomorrow. Odd you may think that school has been started a few weeks ago and wouldn’t his parents have already checked that he has what he needs. Why, no. My Mother and I bought him most of his school clothes for starting high school. My other sister, the redhead took him shopping downtown and bought some expensive jeans and a shirt. His parents attended the meeting at the school for parents and gave him the money he needed for a student card which the school asked for. That’s about it. I know she loves her children, she just seems to be attending the school of Don’t Bother. The same school my Father attended all my life and likely his own.

Has this been enough of a bitchy whine? I could go on. I’m kind of tired though and I have to get up early to babysit. Goodie goodie.

Public Safety Communications

I’m looking into the 911 Operator course. It will start in February at the Georgian College in Orillia. These are some links I found tonight which I want to save. Kind of interesting to find so much out there. I didn’t expect to find anything much at all.

Proven Ways – designs and provides quality training and consulting in Emergency Services Communications. PROVEN WAYS has partnered with Ontario Colleges to offer students the opportunity to become certified as a “PUBLIC SAFETY COMMUNICATIONS PROFESSIONAL”. This full service communications course is designed to fit everyone from people interested in becoming communicators to senior communications operators. These courses are all best practices in areas of dispatch, call taking, 9-1-1 and advanced CRITICAL CALL MANAGEMENT subjects.

Note : Proven Ways is the business offering the course I am taking through Georgian College. I cut and pasted the above description from their site, that’s why it has the extra large punctuation.

Ontario Fire Communicators Association –  Fire Communicators are those responsible for the processing of requests for emergency and non-emergency assistance received via 911 lines, administration lines, the radio system or direct contact with the public. We work closely with Communicators from Police, EMS and other services to provide rapid, effective responses. We take our role in Public and Responder Safety most seriously, and continue to seek ways to enhance professionalism and our levels of service. The occupation of Fire Communicator is indeed a proud one, the vital link between the public and the emergency service response.

The Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials- International .
The Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials – Canada – The Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials, Canada, Inc. is a voluntary, not-for-profit organization dedicated to the enhancement of public safety communications. It serves the people who supply, install and operate the Emergency Communications Systems used around the Country from coast to coast to coast. Members come from every type of public safety organization in the country, including 9-1-1, police, fire and emergency medical services as well as emergency management, disaster planning and federal search and rescue personnel. Job postings for Canadians.


National Emergency Number Association
NENA (National Emergency Number Assoication) Ontario NENA is an association that brings together a vast community of people who work diligently to make the 9-1-1 system what it is today. It is a group in which to generate ideas, share information and plan the the future of systems and services that keep the public safe. NENA is made up of individuals from Police, Fire and Ambulance agencies as well other interested parties who work together to make sure that the system works and keeps working well into the future. Includes job postings for Ontario.