Calling For Help

Reference

When I was at work and saw the news alerts coming sequentially as the situation went on, especially that the person had called a news station specifically, I couldn't help thinking he was in desperation.

Could it have been his feelings about how the VA was treating him? Was it some underlying illness that was rising to the surface? I'm not certain, and we'll probably never know since he's dead…

He'd held up the bank — and if my memory's not completely failing me, I think this branch had a robbery about a year or two ago, too — and I thought there had to be more to the story.

#RASP - Rant Around Several Paragraphs #5: Driving Habits

On May 2, 2017, I'd felt awe at people's driving habits like I haven't felt in a while.

I've spoken about my distaste for people and their driving habits before, but that day really had me in awe and frustration.

There's the person who wanted to turn into my lane, and I into hers. I was ahead of her, but she wasn't slowing down (so defensive driver me didn't pull over). She revs forward and then comes in front of me. Is it so hard to apply the brakes?
Thinking about it on the way home, though, I think it might be partly strategy: let me hold everyone else behind me back and then that person can get into the lane.

Then there was this stupid driver at my exit who, just because she's driving a big vehicle, muscles her way into my lane so she can get in front of me. Then another vehicle tries to get into the same lane from the opposite side, and so she muscles her way to get back in front of the other vehicle. This same pushy/bully driver then muscles her way back into a third lane in front of everyone else.

Today, traffic was really worse than I'd seen it in a while, and it's partly because people were using other lane to try to cut in line in front of everyone else. There was a multi-vehicle trailer that literally held up a lane for about two miles back trying to cut into an exit lane.

People who drive like this, I'm trying to understand. We all have places to where we'd like to arrive, but I don't understand the lack of patience, the lack of concern, and the utter offensiveness of their driving.

One of my co-workers got in an accident that totaled his car yesterday. I don't mean to victim-bash, especially when hearing a description of how the other person drove it sounds sad, but I've seen the way my co-worker drives. He's not a saint on the road himself, and has even expressed he dislikes road rules and speed limits.

The Midtown Atlanta/Buckhead I-85 Collapse "Disaster"

I've had a couple days to think about this "bridgepocalypse", as one of my co-workers had said he'd heard someone call it.

I'd already been home at around 5:45pm and then an hour later the news alerts started flooding in. Then the large slab of the highway fell through and that made it all the more awe-striking with all the fire videos and the clips of cars driving slowly through choking smoke.

I understand it's very inconvenient for a lot of people (and will be for at least several weeks while people work out exactly what to do) because vehicles oversaturate this area and things are really widespread (partly) because people have had an attachment to their vehicles and the relative independence they provide.

Because of the way it suddenly affected people's lives, it could be a one-star affair.

Simultaneously, this disaster/tragedy/descriptor-first-world-people-use-to-term-something-that-affects-lives-though-no-one-has-lost-a-life/relative somewhat-large-scale inconvenience deserves another star just because it's now forcing people out of their comfort zones.

What partly sets human beings apart among the other things in creation is we are intensely creative. We rise above our inconveniences (most of the time). I'm certain this "opportunity" is making people re-evaluate constant dependence on their vehicles when it's probably partly everyone's dependence on their vehicles why there's congestion, traffic, and (coincidentally that same day, only a couple hours earlier on a completely different stretch of often-congested roadway, but with only tacit relativity) road rage murders.

This is making people (re-)consider MARTA, making alternative routes,carpooling,  and/or actually leaving at times that would actually not force them to break speed limits or drive like they're in The Fast and The Furious to get to where they need to go (and ,*gasp*, show up on time or early!). The fact they're investigating, now (however unlikely), how the possibility that really-long-term and relatively reckless storage of construction materials in these places might be a bad thing is yet another possible silver lining.

I give this relative inconvenience a two: it's paving the way for something better.

Today's Yelp Review Doozies

Every day lately I've been going into Yelp and looking at reviews, sending messages, and just getting to know what Atlanta offers (seven years late).

So, yes, there are always those reviews that have pretty bad things to say about places, whether for dining or just a service generally.

Today, though, took the take. These four were in pretty decent succession of each other, and some of them left me just shocked.

David B - Kacey's Home Cooking

In this one, the manager flat-out and unprovokedly told them to get out. I mean, what? I understand, people have lives, and having someone come in relatively close to closing time might not be the most ideal thing. Having worked in various customer-facing and serving positions, I totally get it. But dude…

Jessica B - Shaking Crawfish

This one is probably the draw between laughing at how ridiculous the service was and just throwing one's hands up in frustration. I mean, the people laughed at the fact they were about stealing the customers' money. 🙄

Leah B - Burger King

This one is probably the tamest of the four because it was the most passive. Simultaneously, it's probably the saddest because the service person – basing this on the review – seemed to not care she'd spilt a drink all over the customer and her car. I mean, now she's got soda she has to clean out of her car somehow, and it's full of sugar, the soda!

Nina L - QuikTrip

Then this one, it is anger-producing, partly because it involves multiple people. There seems some racial profiling in it, as well as some misogyny, some assumptions about the writer, some sexual harassment… It's just a complete clusterfuck, and I don't blame her one bit for just walking out… I've messaged her she should bring it to corporate.

And I mean in Oklahoma!

Risk of Positivity

Craig Davis sentenced to 10 years
http://www.myfoxatlanta.com/story/24788331/craig-davis-sentanced-to-10-years

You know, this really kind of gets to me. This is the second high-profile-ish "I-have-HIV/AIDS-but-I'm-going-to-sleep-around-anyway-and-btw-I'm-straight-identifying" trial that's gone on in this state since 2014 broke.

It's pretty angering, actually, because… well, okay. The supposed Bareback Brotherhood — and sorry if it ruffles feathers bringing it up — does this all the time, and I think the defense I've heard is that if people want to go around doing this at he risk of infection it's their business (For those who don't know, that group is a bunch of loosely-affiliated group of mostly gay and bisexual men who'd been rather vocal in 2010-ish on the Internet, who eschew condom use during anal sex under any conditions. The backlash to them has been strong that I think that's why I only hear ably them sporadically nowadays.). They at least seem to understand it's a risk and thus announce their beliefs and lifestyle openly (sometimes with blissful ignorance) that others might understand (or "understand") and act accordingly. 

With this case, though, these poor women, they not only could get infected themselves, but because they're women they could become pregnant, bringing something akin to what happens in a lot of the developing world — because it's almost they don't know better— to the United States. It brings the fear, hate, and uncertainty hundreds of thousands of women primarily in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, and South Africa feel to the United States.

And then somehow, I think these guys do this because they may have some homosexual hangups like a lot of Black guys have: go sleeping around because they want to prove they're "not gay". And sure, they might not be. They might be intravenous drug users and sharing. They may have caught it, as low as the odds are, from an HIV-positive woman and kept "sharing the joy".

An argument for chemical castration.

I don't know what goes through these guys' heads if anything does, but they've got to stop. But then, maybe some of the women knew and it's a straight version of BBBH?

Fraud, I Think - Martins Yellow Foundation

You know what's more frustrating than job-hunting? Frauds.

After having written in response to a job posting, my name and all, I get this:

Dear Applicant,

Thanks for your response for our Admin Receptionist/Personal Assistant opening, we really do appreciate your willingness to work for MARTINS YELLOW FOUNDATION.

I am Mrs. Shannon Hunt, SALES/LOCATION MANAGER for MARTINS YELLOW FOUNDATION. We are seeking an individual who is motivated, a team player, energetic and reliable to work with good understanding in setting up our new locations in different locations in the United States. You will be needed to assist in setting up the new office location in your area and keep me updated with activities on needed supplies and office items.

We are establishing a new location in specific areas in the United States which you will be a part of the team upon office completion. I'll need your services 30-40 hours weekly in helping out with running errands for the orphanage home prior to our arrival for start up. We will set up a formal interview as soon as possible to sign all necessary documentations including a W2-W4 Forms.

Duties and Requirements:
*Scheduling programmer's, flights and keeping me up-to-date with them.
*Handling and monitoring some of my financial activities.
*Filing, Faxing, Creating and sending out letters, scanning documents.
*Purchases of office supplies for the new location
*Meeting and picking up clients from airports upon arrival to the states

Weekly Salary: $500

Please note that this position is not office based for now until the office is officially open in your area and the  flexibility means that there will be busier weeks than others. I would like to give you an immediate trial, so if you are interested kindly get back to me with the following information.

Full Names:
Mailing Address(apt):
City, State, Zip Code:
Cell Phone Number:
Home Number:
Personal email for correspondence:

Thanks in anticipation of your prompt response.

Yours Sincerely.

Mrs. Shannon Hunt
shan.hunt11@outlook.com
admin@martinsyellowfoundation.com
http://www.martinsyellowfoundation.com/

Now, this already looked weird, because why in the world would this be so generic after my having replied? Still, just to give it complete fairness, I started by doing an Internet search for "Martins Yellow Foundation", which gave nothing, of course.

So, I'd gone to the provided website. It was already looking dicey:

Generic-looking handsome guy at the top, marginal-at-best web designing, pixellated pictures that only result when copying it so many times... Woman wearing a tee-shirt from a completely different organization... It's just... wow!

Then one ventures to the "About Us" page, where i don't even think I'm going to go into a full-on analysis of its contents.

The first entry is the president/executive director, who has a completely weird name for an Italian, "Martins Yellow", is perhaps a hermaphrodite.

One would think with credentials linking [s]himself to Oxford, [s]he'd take a little more pride in English grammar.

Then you have a media specialist whose birthdate is on the website:

A person on the website who doesn't even seem to be part of the foundation at all (and strangely, she kind of looks like someone I'd gone to high school with):

And the writer of the generic e-mail, pictured with her ghost dog:

The establishment date of the website is 2000, which means effectively that in 13 years and four people in the "About Us" section who are, apparently, Metro-Atlanta-based and have been for a while, they've not been able to establish an office here at all?

I go to the trouble of this because it's these types of probably-scams that completely disenchant people like me. These types of scams, where people who want to believe so badly they'll fall for even the most glaringly obvious of non-sequiturs, are baneful parts of human existence I wish were gone.

It's not fair for those of us who want to have hope that his/her dream job is out there and that we'll actually achieve those dreams in our lifetimes.

I want my dreams to come true, but this just sliced a little bit away.

Government Intervention

Now, I can understand why some people are suspicious of the government. We've seen historically what can happen when one entity has too much power and/or control over a group.

Pogroms might occur, slaughters could happen, oppression can ensue, and sadness may run rampant. There could be little, if any, higher regulation or co-regulation.

It doesn't have to be that way, however, if we do it correctly.

What sparked this rant-of-sorts was me hearing on our local news station a few people expressing their gripes about the City of Atlanta possibly banning smoking in public parks. Some said, among other things, that the government is too big, that it should be smaller, and has no right to "meddle" or "infringe" in/on the affairs of the general populace's "right" to do as they choose with their lives.

My take is this:

Certainly, there are elements one most likely can govern by oneself.

The government doesn't need to tell you when you eat, if you eat, if you exercise, if you watch television, if you decide to dye your hair purple… This is because these are personal decisions affecting only you. If you eat sporadically throughout the day, that's your choice. If you decide to not eat because it's Ramadān, trendy, or you don't feel like it, that's your decision influencing solely your physical/mental(/spiritual) health and well-being in general.

If you don't eat and you're pregnant, however, that's different. You are willingly - though it may or not be wittingly - influencing another's life. This may bring in the debate on when that clump of mitotic cells becomes a cute bundle of joy, but that's another debate.

The point is, you're influencing another life.

Speed limits, traffic signs, signals, and regulations, and lots of other governmental interventions in these regards exist because somewhere along historically the "powers that be" left us to make "common-sense" decisions, we'd failed at it — perhaps killing someone in our devices-leaving — and so they left it *again* to us as a voting population, or those we'd entrusted to have our best interests at heart, to protect the majority of us from those who made the life-canceling (and, me judgmentally saying, stupid) decisions.

So, I think they should ban the smoking in public parks. People have been in the presence of smokers and have asked them to stop, and some graciously do or move to prevent further offense. From what I've witnessed, though, there is a strong, vocal subsection of smokers who believe they should smoke wherever they choose, and that those who don't smoke and feel uncomfortable around smoke should be the ones to move.

This insensitivity influences others. It's your personal right to smoke or not, because you are affecting your own life. You can smoke among other smokers because you each are willing participants unbothered that others are smoking around you. Smoking around non-smokers who do not wish smoke in their breathing space does affect someone else.

There is a half-joke in Loganville that the City and Gwinnett/Walton County doesn't do anything until someone dies. This seems to be true, because traffic light referenda don't seem to happen until someone dies. Special Local-Option Sales Taxes (SpLOSTs) don't go to ballot until there's a death, it seems.

Even one death.

If there is one person who feels the personal right to live healthfully is under threat because of another, and that other does not respect the first person's personal right — and that continues despite the sense of dignity/deference to all healthy personal rights, (quanti-/quali-)fiable over time — the government should intervene.

God knows, the petulant children harming others for their own comfort aren't making the right decisions themselves…