doomdragon6
Staff member
Rant VIII: The Reckoning
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What happens if you don't pay your credit card?
We had an officer-involved shooting here on Thursday. The first I heard about it (Thursday is my Sunday, so I was taking a class on sex crimes investigations) was my sergeant from the riot team calling me.
"Charon, we're mobilized. Get your shit and get over to the staging area."
"... Are you serious? *grabbing binders, coffee mugs, biography I'd been reading and scurrying for the door*"
"Shooting on the west side. Crowd's getting ugly."
"... On my way."
So after amping up a bunch of cadets by screaming out of the training center lights and siren, I get to the staging area, load up on crowd-control grenades... and sit and wait.
Thankfully, the folks in Savannah are, by and large, fairly level-headed when it came to this. Local religious leaders kept the crowds from getting too ridiculous. They had a couple protest marches to the nearest precinct to the incident (almost literally around the corner), held signs and chanted, but made their statement without it getting ugly. There were a handful of folks who were trying to agitate further, but were generally told to sit down and grow up by the folks in charge.
Then we hear that Al Sharpton (and presumably Jesse Jackson) are supposed to be coming in, because it was a white officer, and a black suspect. They can't be bothered to come out for the WAVE of shootings that we've been having that have been black on black, but they magically appear for this?
Ignoring the fact that, by accounts from officers who were there (and according to the GBI's initial investigation), the suspect had a pistol in his possession that he'd aimed at the officer, these folks are going to continue to agitate for a while. Allegedly, we have several New Black Panthers going around to various restaurants in the city and causing scenes after they receive "bad service."
The fun part's going to come when the officer is cleared by the investigation.
"Charon, we're mobilized. Get your shit and get over to the staging area."
"... Are you serious? *grabbing binders, coffee mugs, biography I'd been reading and scurrying for the door*"
"Shooting on the west side. Crowd's getting ugly."
"... On my way."
So after amping up a bunch of cadets by screaming out of the training center lights and siren, I get to the staging area, load up on crowd-control grenades... and sit and wait.
Thankfully, the folks in Savannah are, by and large, fairly level-headed when it came to this. Local religious leaders kept the crowds from getting too ridiculous. They had a couple protest marches to the nearest precinct to the incident (almost literally around the corner), held signs and chanted, but made their statement without it getting ugly. There were a handful of folks who were trying to agitate further, but were generally told to sit down and grow up by the folks in charge.
Then we hear that Al Sharpton (and presumably Jesse Jackson) are supposed to be coming in, because it was a white officer, and a black suspect. They can't be bothered to come out for the WAVE of shootings that we've been having that have been black on black, but they magically appear for this?
Ignoring the fact that, by accounts from officers who were there (and according to the GBI's initial investigation), the suspect had a pistol in his possession that he'd aimed at the officer, these folks are going to continue to agitate for a while. Allegedly, we have several New Black Panthers going around to various restaurants in the city and causing scenes after they receive "bad service."
The fun part's going to come when the officer is cleared by the investigation.
That sounds like a justified shooting - suspect armed with a pistol, and it sounds like your department is performing due diligence in handling it. But I can really understand why people are so tense, because of the shootings in Ferguson, St Louis, Utah, etc, where the police are NOT following procedure, the official reports are changing - or aren't done at all - and still contradict the evidence. So when you have a series of questionable white officer, black suspects shootings followed by attempted cover-ups or at the very least, badly mishanded cases, you can't be surprised that people are suspicious and quick to assume the worst.
As for "Why didn't they come for the black-on-black shootings?" Because I'm guessing that a lot of those were involved with gang activity and the drug trade, which are not civil rights issues. Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson made their name representing black people against white authorities, so that's what they're going to focus on.
If your department follows procedure, files a proper incident report, and demonstrates transparency over the affair, it should blow over. These other situations? No incident reports, no interview with the officers involved for over a week in some cases, missing and contradictory information, and no effort to do anything but cover the officers' asses. THAT is why people are upset.
As for "Why didn't they come for the black-on-black shootings?" Because I'm guessing that a lot of those were involved with gang activity and the drug trade, which are not civil rights issues. Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson made their name representing black people against white authorities, so that's what they're going to focus on.
If your department follows procedure, files a proper incident report, and demonstrates transparency over the affair, it should blow over. These other situations? No incident reports, no interview with the officers involved for over a week in some cases, missing and contradictory information, and no effort to do anything but cover the officers' asses. THAT is why people are upset.
Up-chuck!
figmentPez
Staff member
Always remember to remove the chuck key before turning on your lathe. I sported a nasty bruise on my sternum for a week from the one time I forgot.
what
We achieved a 6.5, people. That's pretty good.
@Tinwhistler we expect more effort from you next time.
--Patrick
@Tinwhistler we expect more effort from you next time.
--Patrick
sorry man, i know you are one of the people with a lot on your plate. I hope the prognosis is good.
I'm going to type this out and probably delete but it's going to be a doozy. For me anyway.
I don't have the best relationship with my dad. I know, what son does right? He left when I was 11 years old and just starting puberty and I'm pretty sure the point where a boy needs his dad the absolute most. We'd moved from small town northern Alberta to a suburb of Edmonton (for my mom's government job). He'd gotten a few jobs but none that he was happy with or that paid as well for doing as little as his old one in the north. He and my mom fought and then, he left, to get "work" up in the NWT. He'd already met someone here from up there. He took the car, the credit cards and pretty much all the money we had as a family. Our family would struggle for the rest of my childhood financially, whereas we were squarely middle class well off before (I know, boo hoo). I didn't really see him for the next 4 years. One weekend a year, maybe, for Christmas or something, where he would show back up and act like he was still the big patriarch of the family. My mom let him come back for our sakes mostly, but it was plain as day that him being around made her miserable.
By 14 I'd become the bad influence that other parents didn't want their kids around or they would try to help me by inviting me over for family dinners and take pity on the poor kid from that "broken" family. I went from being a lifelong honours student to one who did the bare minimum to pass a class. I don't know how my mom held it together at all. She was supporting three gigantic, monster eating machines in the form of my two brothers (who were 8 and 10 now) and I, while working 60 hour weeks and still trying to be there as much as possible. She also did everything she could to make sure we didn't particularly "want" for anything that wasn't too out there. She knew that once summer hit, that she wouldn't be able to do anything about the shit I would probably end up in. So, my brothers would stay on my grandparents farm and I would stay with my dad up in bumfuck NWT where I couldn't cause as much trouble (she would be wrong about this).
I was livid that I would have to spend my summer with dad and the woman that broke up our family where I didn't know anybody. The woman (whom I have nothing but complete contempt for to this day) was an awful, manipulative, masochistic, dreadful bitch as I would come to learn over my two months. She got me my first job up there working at the grocery store that was run by a friend of hers (who she was probably fucking, 10 years into that relationship, my father found out she had slept with most of the men in town) to keep me out of trouble. She would do shit like make me make their bed (while leaving out their lube and used condom wrappers in their bedroom) or we would go out for dinner and get back late (where I would have to be at work at 6 am) and tell me that I needed to roll paper logs for the fireplace before I went to bed and then lie to my father that she'd asked me earlier but I just ignored her (fuck, this still makes my blood boil that she would lie to his face in front of me and he would take her side). It got weirder too but I'm not going to post any of that. Needless to say I only truly hate one person alive right now.
My dad worked out of town a lot and she traveled for her job a lot so, basically, at 14 I was left to my own devices for up to a week at a time. I was a one man crime spree in this town. I stole an incredible amount of stuff, from my dad, from her, from the local electronics store, from my job, from the convenience store down the block, stuff I didn't want or need. Hell, I stole my Playstation from a rack in that electronics store. A WHOLE GOD DAMN PLAYSTATION. I never got caught. I didn't really make any friends there. Everyone I worked with was older than me and I was too shy (I had an undiagnosed anxiety disorder) to go the youth center like my dad kept egging me on to do. I would just come home and play Command and Conquer on my fresh new Playstation (that I bought with my work money dad, I swear) and go to bed. At work I would go on to dislocate my shoulder, this doesn't matter now, but it will.
Well, by the middle of August I was kind of a mess. I was sullen and miserable at the shit I was going through with my dad's girlfriend, I was eating nothing but junk I would buy going to and coming home from work. One day she decided I needed to mow the lawn (which I had mowed 4 days earlier). I was pissed off and I told her that I wasn't going to, it hadn't even begun to grow back. She told my dad that she asked me politely to mow the lawn and that I told her to fuck off. So my dad yelled at me and sent me out to go mow the lawn. I'm enraged, trying to start the piece of shit lawn mower they had, reefing as hard as I could on the pullstring. My dad comes out and yells what's wrong with me and why do I have to keep making things so miserable here. How because of me, she had to begin going to counselling. I told him to fuck off (first time I'd ever sworn at my parents, I know, ooooooooooh) and he shoves me as hard as he could and I go tumbling head over heels right over my barely healed shoulder. I screamed in pain and jumped up and got as close as I ever would of fighting my dad. He said it couldn't possibly hurt that much and I reminded him of the injury I got at work and that I don't always lie to him about everything that's going on.
He would end up driving me home early a day or two later. These two months caused me and him not to speak again until I was 20 years old. I'm not gonna lie to you Halforums, 11 years ago, I was a mess. I weighed about 330 pounds, I was deeply rooted in depression and barely functional. I had moved out of my mom's house at this point and had to move back in because I couldn't support myself. By this time, my dad had been dumped by her and had become kind of a born again. This was when he tried to reconnect (not successfully) with me. My mom was at wits end what to do for me. Though, over the course of the next few years we did begin to mend fences. I still harbour a lot of resentment towards my dad and yet to this day, when I'm playing a video game or I'm reading some garbage sci-fi novel (he's the one that got me into all this nerdy shit in the first place when I was young. Watching OG Star Trek was how me and him initially really bonded when I was a boy) I still narrate in my head how cool dad would think this is.
After all that trash between us, all I can think about right now is that my dad is dying and I'm never gonna be able to share anymore nerdy shit with him again.
Holy shit, I have no idea how coherent this is. It's TLDR even for me to go back over it.
I don't have the best relationship with my dad. I know, what son does right? He left when I was 11 years old and just starting puberty and I'm pretty sure the point where a boy needs his dad the absolute most. We'd moved from small town northern Alberta to a suburb of Edmonton (for my mom's government job). He'd gotten a few jobs but none that he was happy with or that paid as well for doing as little as his old one in the north. He and my mom fought and then, he left, to get "work" up in the NWT. He'd already met someone here from up there. He took the car, the credit cards and pretty much all the money we had as a family. Our family would struggle for the rest of my childhood financially, whereas we were squarely middle class well off before (I know, boo hoo). I didn't really see him for the next 4 years. One weekend a year, maybe, for Christmas or something, where he would show back up and act like he was still the big patriarch of the family. My mom let him come back for our sakes mostly, but it was plain as day that him being around made her miserable.
By 14 I'd become the bad influence that other parents didn't want their kids around or they would try to help me by inviting me over for family dinners and take pity on the poor kid from that "broken" family. I went from being a lifelong honours student to one who did the bare minimum to pass a class. I don't know how my mom held it together at all. She was supporting three gigantic, monster eating machines in the form of my two brothers (who were 8 and 10 now) and I, while working 60 hour weeks and still trying to be there as much as possible. She also did everything she could to make sure we didn't particularly "want" for anything that wasn't too out there. She knew that once summer hit, that she wouldn't be able to do anything about the shit I would probably end up in. So, my brothers would stay on my grandparents farm and I would stay with my dad up in bumfuck NWT where I couldn't cause as much trouble (she would be wrong about this).
I was livid that I would have to spend my summer with dad and the woman that broke up our family where I didn't know anybody. The woman (whom I have nothing but complete contempt for to this day) was an awful, manipulative, masochistic, dreadful bitch as I would come to learn over my two months. She got me my first job up there working at the grocery store that was run by a friend of hers (who she was probably fucking, 10 years into that relationship, my father found out she had slept with most of the men in town) to keep me out of trouble. She would do shit like make me make their bed (while leaving out their lube and used condom wrappers in their bedroom) or we would go out for dinner and get back late (where I would have to be at work at 6 am) and tell me that I needed to roll paper logs for the fireplace before I went to bed and then lie to my father that she'd asked me earlier but I just ignored her (fuck, this still makes my blood boil that she would lie to his face in front of me and he would take her side). It got weirder too but I'm not going to post any of that. Needless to say I only truly hate one person alive right now.
My dad worked out of town a lot and she traveled for her job a lot so, basically, at 14 I was left to my own devices for up to a week at a time. I was a one man crime spree in this town. I stole an incredible amount of stuff, from my dad, from her, from the local electronics store, from my job, from the convenience store down the block, stuff I didn't want or need. Hell, I stole my Playstation from a rack in that electronics store. A WHOLE GOD DAMN PLAYSTATION. I never got caught. I didn't really make any friends there. Everyone I worked with was older than me and I was too shy (I had an undiagnosed anxiety disorder) to go the youth center like my dad kept egging me on to do. I would just come home and play Command and Conquer on my fresh new Playstation (that I bought with my work money dad, I swear) and go to bed. At work I would go on to dislocate my shoulder, this doesn't matter now, but it will.
Well, by the middle of August I was kind of a mess. I was sullen and miserable at the shit I was going through with my dad's girlfriend, I was eating nothing but junk I would buy going to and coming home from work. One day she decided I needed to mow the lawn (which I had mowed 4 days earlier). I was pissed off and I told her that I wasn't going to, it hadn't even begun to grow back. She told my dad that she asked me politely to mow the lawn and that I told her to fuck off. So my dad yelled at me and sent me out to go mow the lawn. I'm enraged, trying to start the piece of shit lawn mower they had, reefing as hard as I could on the pullstring. My dad comes out and yells what's wrong with me and why do I have to keep making things so miserable here. How because of me, she had to begin going to counselling. I told him to fuck off (first time I'd ever sworn at my parents, I know, ooooooooooh) and he shoves me as hard as he could and I go tumbling head over heels right over my barely healed shoulder. I screamed in pain and jumped up and got as close as I ever would of fighting my dad. He said it couldn't possibly hurt that much and I reminded him of the injury I got at work and that I don't always lie to him about everything that's going on.
He would end up driving me home early a day or two later. These two months caused me and him not to speak again until I was 20 years old. I'm not gonna lie to you Halforums, 11 years ago, I was a mess. I weighed about 330 pounds, I was deeply rooted in depression and barely functional. I had moved out of my mom's house at this point and had to move back in because I couldn't support myself. By this time, my dad had been dumped by her and had become kind of a born again. This was when he tried to reconnect (not successfully) with me. My mom was at wits end what to do for me. Though, over the course of the next few years we did begin to mend fences. I still harbour a lot of resentment towards my dad and yet to this day, when I'm playing a video game or I'm reading some garbage sci-fi novel (he's the one that got me into all this nerdy shit in the first place when I was young. Watching OG Star Trek was how me and him initially really bonded when I was a boy) I still narrate in my head how cool dad would think this is.
After all that trash between us, all I can think about right now is that my dad is dying and I'm never gonna be able to share anymore nerdy shit with him again.
Holy shit, I have no idea how coherent this is. It's TLDR even for me to go back over it.
I have to say, you did better than I did.
(rather cathartic to delete a bunch of crap that has everything to do with me, and nothing to do with you)
Good Luck Frank.
Had a dentist appointment this afternoon wherein they were supposed to pull three teeth and surgically remove a fourth. Instead, they were able to pull only one of the teeth, and it took 2 hours in the chair. They started working on a second, but they were never able to get it number due to infection, so now I get to go back on Thursday morning and try again. Really can't blame the dentist for any of this though, the one tooth that they were able to pull had fused to the upper jaw and they had to break the jaw (and take some of it with the tooth) to get the damn thing out. Oh, and my jaw kept locking open, to the point that they had to push it down and back in to get it close, 5 times. It was not pleasant. And now the 87 shots of anesthetic they gave me to try to get my bottom wisdom tooth out are wearing off. Yippee.
Dave
Staff member
I'm not going to give hugs because it won't help. What your dad did in the past is shitty as fuck and the fact that you are even trying makes you a better man than I. I would have told him to fuck off and never spoken to him again. Having said that, I also watched my father die and it sucked. (Holy shit was that three years ago already? Damn.) But look what you've done. You might not see it in yourself, but you have become a successful individual. Maybe not a Bill Gates or Warren Buffet kind of successful, but you've got a career, a wonderful woman, and you've put your head back on straight when you're not drinking heavily (*cough* *cough*). Hell, man, you got up in the middle of the night to help save a life! You're the fucking man! You are as unselfish as he was selfish. You are as caring as he wasn't. You are the person he could have been but didn't try to be, for whatever reason.
He was the bad example. His actions caused you to see the pain that others can cause and you've worked to overcome this. Like my asshole brother, your father is now reaping the seeds of discord he's sewn with his family over decades of abuse and neglect. And now the onus is on you to choose which actions you take. You can wallow in and focus on the resentments, or you can rise above and forgive - truly forgive - for the things that happened. Everybody makes mistakes and it's hellishly difficult to know when you are making them or know how to make them right once you do. How can you go about telling your son why this happened or that happened when all the kid knows is that you weren't there for him when he needed it the most? Do you have the words? Do you even try?
Again, your father took the path of least resistance and what was best for him. He still isn't making the hard choices for anyone but himself. But you...You, man. Look at the man you've become. Yes, you have faults. We all do. But when you made a mistake you owned up to it. You did the difficult thing and made things right! Go to your dad. Spend time with him. Talk. Let him know how you felt. Tell him you know you weren't the best kid but let him know that it's possible to change. Let him explain. And no matter how shitty and selfish his answer is, remind yourself that there's nobody here telling us how to be adults. Some are good at it and some suck. I think we know where your dad is on that spectrum. Listen. Listen hard. And forgive. Take the hard path that your dad never could. Show him the man you've become. Let him go knowing that no matter how many wrongs he'd done, he did something right. He had a hand in making you the man you are. Let him go knowing he did something good.
And as you hold his hand and he goes, kiss his brow and walk away fully appreciating the gift you've given.
He was the bad example. His actions caused you to see the pain that others can cause and you've worked to overcome this. Like my asshole brother, your father is now reaping the seeds of discord he's sewn with his family over decades of abuse and neglect. And now the onus is on you to choose which actions you take. You can wallow in and focus on the resentments, or you can rise above and forgive - truly forgive - for the things that happened. Everybody makes mistakes and it's hellishly difficult to know when you are making them or know how to make them right once you do. How can you go about telling your son why this happened or that happened when all the kid knows is that you weren't there for him when he needed it the most? Do you have the words? Do you even try?
Again, your father took the path of least resistance and what was best for him. He still isn't making the hard choices for anyone but himself. But you...You, man. Look at the man you've become. Yes, you have faults. We all do. But when you made a mistake you owned up to it. You did the difficult thing and made things right! Go to your dad. Spend time with him. Talk. Let him know how you felt. Tell him you know you weren't the best kid but let him know that it's possible to change. Let him explain. And no matter how shitty and selfish his answer is, remind yourself that there's nobody here telling us how to be adults. Some are good at it and some suck. I think we know where your dad is on that spectrum. Listen. Listen hard. And forgive. Take the hard path that your dad never could. Show him the man you've become. Let him go knowing that no matter how many wrongs he'd done, he did something right. He had a hand in making you the man you are. Let him go knowing he did something good.
And as you hold his hand and he goes, kiss his brow and walk away fully appreciating the gift you've given.
This all reminds me of a surprisingly heartfelt post from Tycho at Penny-Arcade, about his relationship with his father, and the discovery that his father had cancer.
http://www.penny-arcade.com/news/post/2013/10/09/the-intrusion-of-actual-life[DOUBLEPOST=1411442726,1411442637][/DOUBLEPOST]
At our core, we're all fucked up people, leading fucked up lives on this little rock, doing the best we can and sometimes fucking it all up. Sometimes it isn't worth it to hold on to anger of the past, since it's... you know... past.
I feel for you man, and I understand.
http://www.penny-arcade.com/news/post/2013/10/09/the-intrusion-of-actual-life[DOUBLEPOST=1411442726,1411442637][/DOUBLEPOST]
At our core, we're all fucked up people, leading fucked up lives on this little rock, doing the best we can and sometimes fucking it all up. Sometimes it isn't worth it to hold on to anger of the past, since it's... you know... past.
I feel for you man, and I understand.
Frank - hope your time with your dad heals some of the wounds.
"That's funny, because I didn't think you looked dumb, until you said that."
Feel free to use that next time, free of charge
I am glad you guys support me! the issue is I have to dig this stuff up once a millenia because most people just go , "ok, cool, ill keep it in mind." this new hr lady wants proof of it. background is the proof is from when i was a little boy and all this was diagnosed, we are talking paperwork from the early 90's.