Father’s Day

Tim Russert’s sudden death so near to Father’s Day got me thinking about the role fathers play in our lives. For Tim Russert and his son, the bonds of fatherhood were nurturing and strong. For others, myself included, the bond may have been important, but it was anything but nurturing.

My father died when I was 15 years old. I have many memories of him, a few are happy, most are complicated. Through my future daughter-in-law’s genealogy research I have learned a great deal about my father’s family and what appears to be a long history of broken family relationships. My father’s mother died when she was 29 years old; his father remarried a woman who despised my dad. Her dislike drove my father to run away to the circus when he was just 7 years old. He returned to his family briefly at age 14 just as the depression was starting.

His military records show that he only completed eight grade. My mother tells me this is true - that he took something like the GED test so that he could go to mortuary school. She says he was very anxious about passing the test. She had just met him - she was a book keeper at a funeral home where he was an apprentice. Their first dates involved picking up bodies.

By the time they married he was a funeral director. She worked at the funeral home until my oldest brother was born. After a few years, at her urging, he left the funeral industry - she always hated it and didn’t want us to grow up in a funeral home. He became a pharmaceutical sales rep, selling used medical equipment on the side. Our attic was filled with odd looking devices and there was a “drug room” in the basement where he kept his samples.

My dad was smoked unfiltered Pall Malls and he wore Old Spice. He was fastidious in dress and exceedingly well organized. My mother ironed my father’s business shirts, dipping the collars and cuffs into liquid starch, until they were stiff as cardboard. His collars and cuffs were always perfect white and pristine. She ironed his boxers too. Meals were on the table when he got home from work.

From time to time he suffered from debilitating depression and when he was depressed nothing pleased him. He would call my mother “woman” and complain about the soup being too hot or that she spent too much money or whatever was irking him at the time. When he was depressed he wouldn’t sleep, keeping my mom up into the wee hours of the morning talking about everything. I could hear them as I tried to fall asleep; if he was really upset or angry it would scare me and I would call out for my mom. During the worst of his illness he was paranoid he was being investigated. During those times he got pretty mean. Never physical, just mean.

My oldest brother was golden - he could do no wrong. My other older brother was also a favorite; my dad would often let him skip school so that he could ride along as my dad looped around northeast Ohio making calls on physicians.

I was often my father’s target. I could never do anything right. I always had my nose in a book which was not particularly valued in my home. I was awkward and fearful, given to “crying jags.” I remember my dad taunting me about my weight - saying “Judy needs clothes - let’s take her to Omar the tent maker.” He would continue until I ran from the table in tears. I don’t ever remember him apologizing.

I envy my friends whose fathers were their cheerleaders and champions. I think fathers teach their daughters what to expect in life from their partners. A father who believes in your worth is a gift beyond price.

Father’s Day

Memory in a grainy photograph
my troubled face
turned from your embrace
Daddy. I was four.

Daddy, washing the car,
a summer day caught there on film.
What do I remember anyway of that embrace
Or any other gesture in the years I grew from childhood to imperfection
and rebellion.
Fragments, only fragments, broken and chipped
Words and looks that define me still decades later as I look in the mirror
Only to see what is not perfect.

Daughter.
The word itself a too tight coat over a body loathed
No clothing kind enough to ease the pain of being me.
The seams still cut, the sleeves constrict, the buttons threaten to give way.
I am here still in some forgotten photograph looking to you
For mercy.

Daddy, tailor of my self esteem.
Please forgive me.

Copyright JAC June 10, 1997

Five Husbands and Shoes

I am looking at the word there on the screen and it looks odd - shoes - I double check my spelling of this simple word and am relieved to find, in spite of months of unemployment, my basic spelling skills remain intact.

Last month I posted that I would be purchasing all my shoes from Zappos effective May 18, 2008. I had anticipated my first purchase would be to celebrate employment, however, going to interviews and securing the perfect job is still in process. But, my divorce is final so to celebrate the settlement, and because all my summer sandals are falling apart, I am debuting the online interactive performance piece, Five Husbands and Shoes (© 2008 ) with a purchase of sandals.

Here is where you come in - given my obvious issue of making the wrong choices (this blog isn’t called One Husband) I am letting you, the readers of this blog, choose for me. Of course I may ignore your choice (do you really think no one warned me about the choice of 1-5?) but if you make a convincing argument I may listen.

Here are the choices:

Clarks Firecracker

FitZwell Fir

Think! Mizzi

Merrell Chameleon Arc Web

Voting ends June 17, 2008 - which would have been my 36th Wedding Anniversary had I stayed married to Husband No. 1. And yes I was young - very very young.

Best wishes to No. 1 wherever you are - in retrospect - you weren’t half bad.

P.S. Don’t vote for Think! - even though it is my favorite - it is out of my justifiable purchase range.

Taser International’s Legal Clout Takes A Hit

UPDATE: Attorney Peter Williamson, Williamson & Krauss, reports the first successful products liability verdict against Taser International

Full text is available in Comments to this Post.

In the case of Heston v. TASER, Intel., et al., the first products liability jury verdict against TASER, we were able to convince a jury in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California (San Jose) that TASER knew about the potential risks of its M26 model due to prolonged discharges but failed to warn about such risks.

Read more about the death of Robert Heston and Betty Lou Heston’s case against Taser International:

Jury awards against Taser International total $6.22 mln in damages for 15% Responsibility in Robert Heston’s Death - Update

Truth Not Tasers - article on opening statements

Original May 21, 2008 post

Taser International’s Legal Clout - Stunning

How powerful is Taser International? They are telling coroners how to rule.

In the words of Summit County Prosecutor John Manley “Taser is quite a force to be reckoned with and does everything to protect their golden egg, which is the Model X26.”

Manley knows. His department was involved in a challenge by the Arizona based stun gun manufacturer “targeting state and county medical examiners with lawsuits and lobbying efforts to reverse and prevent medical rulings that Tasers contributed to someone’s death.”

Medical Examiners say Taser’s campaign is tantamount to intimidation.

“Many medical examiners, who are charged with determining the official causes of death, view the Scottsdale-based company’s efforts as disturbing, the spokesman for the National Association of Medical Examiners says.

“It is dangerously close to intimidation,” says Jeff Jentzen, president of the National Association of Medical Examiners. “At this point, we adamantly reject the fact that people can be sued for medical opinions that they make.

In the Ohio case “Chief Medical Examiner Lisa Kohler said that her examiners rightly concluded Taser contributed to the deaths and said county lawyers will appeal the judge’s ruling. “I would not be going forward with this if I did not believe in the rulings,” she said.

via AZCentral.com.

Why does this matter?

Since Kevin Piskura’s tasering and death, in North America alone, 6 9 10 14 (updated June 30th), more people have died after being tasered:

340. April 24, 2008: Dewayne Chatt, 39, Memphis, Tennessee
341. April 27, 2008: Paul Thompson, 24, Greensboro, North Carolina
342. April 28, 2008: Jermaine Ward, 28, Jackson, Tennessee
343. May 4, 2008: Joe Kubat, 21, St. Paul, Minnesota
344. May 6, 2008: James S. Wilson, 22, Alton, Missouri
345. May 28, 2008: Ricardo Manuel Abrahams, 44, Woodland, California
346. May 31, 2008: Robert Ingram, 27, Raceland, Louisiana
347. June 5, 2008: Willie Maye, 43, Birmingham, Alabama
348. June 6, 2008: Donovan Graham, 39, Meriden, Connecticut

349. June 8, 2008: Quintrell T. Brannon, 25, Vincennes, Indiana

350. June 9, 2008: Tony Curtis Bradway, 26, Brooklyn, New York

351. June 23, 2008: Jeffrey Marreel, 36, Norfolk, Ontario

352. June 24, 2008: Ernest Graves, 26, Rockford, Illinois

353. June 27, 2008: Nicholas Cody, 27, Dothan, Alabama

via Truth Not Tasers

All were unarmed, many were under the influence and some were already cuffed and/or on the ground when they were tasered.

When otherwise healthy individuals die after being Tasered an autopsy can yield information on the cause of death. However, if Taser International has their way a medical examiner will not be able to include any reference that tasers contributed to death, without the threat and expense of a lawsuit by the company, even where there is a finding of fatal cardiac arythmia.

Safety and Money Do Not Go Hand in Hand

Promoting their device, Taser International has relied on “independent” research as proof that the device is a safe* alternative to disable suspects. But a 2005 investigation revealed that the “independent” research was not so independent after all.

Taser International was deeply involved in a Department of Defense study that company officials touted to police departments and investors as “independent” proof of the stun gun’s safety, according to government documents and e-mails obtained by The Arizona Republic and interviews with military officials.Taser started promoting the safety factor before the Department of Defense study was released

…

Taser trumpeted results of the study long before the actual report came out on April 1. In an October news release, Taser Chief Executive Officer Rick Smith said, “This comprehensive independent study further supports the safety of Taser” and “reaffirms the lifesaving value of Taser technology.”

That announcement had an immediate impact on Taser stock: It shot up 60 percent during the next month. Taser executives and board members sold 1.28 million shares for $68 million in November. Taser tied to ‘independent’ study that backs stun gun Robert Anglen, The Arizona Republic, May. 21, 2005

It should come as no surprise that names of Taser employees who participated in the study were removed from the published version. It should also come as no surprise that the money flowed both ways - “The company has also paid training fees and given valuable stock options to police officers involved in decisions to purchase the stun guns.”

Taser stock prices declined between 2003 and 2005 as the number of deaths linked to tasers increased. via AZCentral.com

This may well explain Taser International’s litigation campaign. It is a preemptive and defensive strike designed to protect the company’s bottom line. The golden goose bites the hands that feed it.

Victim’s Family Fights Back

The stark and disturbing amateur video captured by Paul Pritchard put an unforgettable face on the impact of tasering on a person in distress. Watch it closely - you see fear and suffering - and ask yourself, should use of this level of force EVER be considered.

You are watching Polish immigrant Robert Dziekanski die. As did his mother. As a result of the outcry over this video, and her efforts, a comprehensive inquiry is underway in Canada.

The would-be Polish immigrant, who did not speak English, had been wandering around Vancouver’s airport for hours confused, thirsty and hungry and waiting for his mother to arrive.
Police were called when he began throwing computer equipment and within seconds of their arrival, Dziekanski had been jolted with a Taser twice.

The video showed him screaming and writhing in agony before four officers pinned him to the floor in front of horrified onlookers.

Kosteckyj said he and his client have had the video analyzed and Cisowski believes her son — who had just taken his first-ever airplane flight — was in fear for his life in those last few moments.

His grieving mother, who had worked two jobs for seven years to save up money for son to join her in Canada gave testimony last week. via CTV.ca

The panel also heard testimony from cardiologists that taser jolts “almost certainly” cause heart problems and possibly even sudden cardiac arrest..” A senior police officer who trains others on how to use the Taser, also testified saying that “training from the company that manufactures the device suggests the Taser does not lead to cardiac arrest.” emphasis added.

* Testimony from Taser International before the inquiry suggests that Taser International now admits that tasers are not “safe” stating that Tasers not risk free, referring to them instead as “non-lethal” and clarifying that this does not mean safe.

via CTV.ca

Have you written a letter to your local government yet?

More information about Tasers:

Understand the risk:

Nobody really knows exactly why these people are dying, we only know that people are dying after they are Tasered,” said Cox. “When we started doing our first study, 70 people had died in the United States. Now it’s nearly 300 people who have died in the United States. They’re Tasered and then they die. We’re calling for a study to find out exactly why.

Cardiac experts have warned against taser use:

When 50,000 volts of electricity from a Taser surge across the body, it can instantly incapacitate a person — more safely than a blow from a police baton or a blast of pepper spray, its manufacturer contends.

But cardiologists are concerned that, in certain cases, the device might also interrupt the rhythm of the human heart, throwing it into a potentially fatal chaotic state known as ventricular fibrillation.

Rather than pump blood in sequence through its four chambers, a heart in ventricular fibrillation writhes uncontrollably, wiggling like a bag of worms. It is a common cause of sudden death.

Cardiologists also know that the window in which a jolt of electricity can halt a heart expands significantly when a patient is treated with certain drugs, or when the body is flooded with the fear hormone, adrenaline. Patients with underlying heart problems are also more vulnerable to the condition.

Amnesty International spoke out against taser use.

The degree of tolerable risk involving Tasers, as with all weapons and restraint devices, must be weighed against the threat posed. It is self-evident that Tasers are less injurious than firearms where officers are confronted with a serious threat that could escalate to deadly force. However, the vast majority of people who have died after being struck by Tasers have been unarmed men who did not pose a threat of death or serious injury when they were electro-shocked. In many cases they appear not to have posed a significant threat at all.

An excellent summary of Kevin Piskura’s story and related links is available at Mahalo.

From Truth Not Tasers a list of the dead in North America.

Taser use is banned in New Jersey, even by police. Thank you to Twisted Family Antics.

Wikipedia article on Tasers.

There Is A Reason It Is Two Buck Chuck

Most of us are blissfully unaware of the human cost of what we consume - whether it be cheap food, cheap clothing or cheap wine.

I am guilty of it too - right now a bottle of Two Buck Chuck sits on my counter.

Knowing what I do today though, I don’t think I will be able to drink it.

Photo Credits Sacbee.com

On May 16th 17 year old illegal immigrant Maria Isabel Vasquez Jimenez died. She had collapsed 2 days earlier after working 8 HOURS in the blistering heat tending vines for Merced Farm Labor, makers of Charles Shaw wine aka “Two Buck Chuck ” marketed by Trader Joe’s.

Vasquez Jimenez’s fiancé, Florentino Bautista, who was working with her, said temperatures reached more than 95 degrees on the day she collapsed. Workers had no shade, he said, no break long enough to go get water,* and no training to cope with heat.

He said it took 90 minutes to get Vasquez Jimenez to a clinic after she fell to the dirt in the field and that a foreman told him to tell clinic workers she became ill while exercising, not working.

Merced, not surprisingly, provides a different story and blames the delay in getting to the hospital on Bautista, however, it is not disputed that Maria was in a coma with a temperature of 108° when she was admitted. She was also 2 months pregnant.

Merced has been cited previously for failing to protect their workers. Cal-OSHA records reveal that Merced was cited in 2006 for “failing to provide employees with training to avoid heat stress” and “for not having an injury-prevention plan for its workers or enough toilets for them to use …” via The Modesto Bee

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, a strong proponent of California’s heat laws - the strongest in the nation, attended Maria’s funeral and called her death “preventable.”

*Workers had no shade and were not permitted to take a long enough break to get to the nearest water cooler, a 10-minute walk away.

More information: NPR

Wikipepdia entry - Bronco Wines, including reference to Maria’s death.

TAKE ACTION

United Farm Workers has a page where you can write a condolence note to Maria’s family.

American’s Friends Service League

Bush, McCain and the GI Bill - UPDATED

TELL THE PRESIDENT YOU SUPPORT THE NEW GI BILL

Check out John Stewart of The Daily Show on the New GI BIll.

Then go to GI Bill 2008 to tell the President that you support the new GI Bill. Our service men and women need our support.

Do it today!

May 27, 2008

The You Tube video I posted yesterday in honor of Memorial Day contained more than one gratuitous photo op of Bush with tears in his eyes. Either he is crying because he misses playing golf or he is a good actor because, when push comes to shove, Mr. Bush has demonstrated that he doesn’t care about our service men and women.

So lavish with other people’s sacrifices, so reckless in pouring the national treasure into the sandy pit of Iraq, Mr. Bush remains as cheap as ever when it comes to helping people at home. via NYT

While Bush and McCain give lip service honor to those who serve, they ignore the needs of service personnel once their tour of duty is over. The President and Mr. McCain oppose the G.I. Bill of Rights, a bi-partisan bill sponsored by Jim Webb, Democrat of Virginia, and Chuck Hagel, Republican of Nebraska which would provide full tuition and expenses to four year universities for veterans with at least three years military service since 9/11.

Husband No. 1, a Viet Nam vet, went to college on the GI Bill. His tour of Viet Nam had affected him deeply and I wonder, without the GI Bill, would he have gone on to the stable career he has enjoyed the past 33 years? Thirty-three years of being a hard working tax payer - I think the government’s investment paid off.

The post WWII GI bill has become “known as one of the most successful benefits programs — one of the soundest investments in human potential — in the nation’s history.” via NYT

I believe in the human potential of those who serve in Iraq; after such brave service they deserve not only our respect and gratitude, but also our investment in their futures.

The Acid Test

The acid test - a method where aqua regia, an acid that dissolves gold, is smudged on a metal to determine whether it is real gold; also a method by which relationships are tested.

The acid test of friendship is whether you are there when your friend needs you. And by being there I mean being present when your friend is going through things you would rather not see or think about, things that aren’t pretty, things like illness, unemployment and poverty.

Last night hundreds of my neighbor’s friends and colleagues passed that test. It was wonderful and restored some of my much battered faith in friendship.

But only some.

My personal experience makes me much more skeptical. With the exception of a few steadfast friends whose support and love have saved my life (and for this I am eternally grateful), the relationships that I counted among my longest and deepest have been conspicuously absent through the past five months. Months of unemployment, poverty and depression; months when I needed friends more than ever, especially the friends I had given fully and completely of myself when they themselves were in need.

One relationship is now reduced to text messages and emails; the other is any body’s guess.  In both cases I think my unemployment is an issue but no matter, for whatever reason, they have not been present.

As for family, mine clearly failed the acid test long ago. I have no doubt that if they could erase me from my mother’s memory their lives would be happier. My mom was pretty lucid tonight when she told me that my brother David’s wife was coming in and that I should not be there when she visited because it would be “uncomfortable.” I had planned on spending some time with her over the next few days - maybe bring her here for the day. She gently suggested sometime next week.

All I know is that if the tables were turned, as they have been in the past, whether family or friend, I would be there with whatever help I could offer.

We all say we believe that everyone should be treated well, but what we really mean is that we want to be treated well. If the cold shoulder or unkindness or misfortune doesn’t touch our lives we may think it tragic or wrong or unfortunate, but the over riding emotion is relief - thank G-d it isn’t happening to me.

I have been unemployed for five months and I am so tired. I am discouraged about finding work, let alone good work. As I wait for my divorce settlement to arrive I balance the fact that I will no longer have health insurance against the fact, that I will have enough to cover food, car payments and gasoline for a few more months of unemployment.

And for those of you who say why doesn’t she work at ____ (name any store/restaurant/market) - they aren’t hiring. And for those of you who are thinking - what about public assistance (even as you wrinkle your nose in distain) as a single woman, believe it or not, with almost nothing, I have too much to qualify.

My stomach is churning and I wonder how I will find the strength to get through the family drama and the increasing isolation I experience as the result of my unemployment.

One foot in front of the other, one day at a time - I am doing the best I can.

Yes We Can!

My candidate - Barack Obama.

Doing Good In The Neighborhood Revisited

Just a reminder the Balogh Family Benefit is June 4th, Wednesday at Suburban Temple from 7 - 9 PM. There will be desserts, music and a fabulous raffle. Check out all the details, including the line up of fabulous raffle packages, at Nosh On This.

I Want My Mommy

Life has a way of making you feel small and helpless even when you are big and strong.

When I was a little girl I was a soft hearted soul, or, in the words of my older brother, a cry baby.

My dad used to enjoy reducing me to tears by reminding me that he and my mom would both die someday. If I didn’t get upset enough by his teasing, he would ratchet it up a notch by taunting me saying

“You don’t love me as much as you love mommy - you won’t cry when I die - only when mommy dies.”

By this point 8 year old me would be on the floor by my mom’s knees crying “I don’t want you to die!”

My dad clearly had issues, and his taunting no doubt contributed to my life long fear of abandonment. A fear that increased that November day in 1968 when his heart gave out while I was sitting in Geometry class daydreaming about asking Gary Bodnar to the Christmas Formal.

If my father’s death defined my adolescence, love her or hate her, as I did in equal measure, my mother’s life defined my adulthood. Through rebellion, anger, make ups, marriages, divorces, and children she and I have done an elaborate dance of co-dependence over the past four decades.

She has saved my life and treated me badly. I have cared for her through serious illness with compassion only to turn around years later to reject her and, in anger and hurt, say the most unspeakable things.

I have waited for her to love me unconditionally, just as she waited for that same unconditional love from her mother.

My mother, I have been told, by my brother’s widow, to whom my mother signed over all her decision making powers just after my brother’s death, has vascular dementia. That she deigned to speak with me at all to relay this information, is nothing short of a miracle. When I objected to my mother’s decision to sign everything over to her, without consultation with the family, I became persona non grata to all of them.

My brother’s widow, rich, cold and formidable, made sure of this. My mother was complicit in the shunning, choosing holidays with the widow and her expensive dog, rather than with the black sheep daughter and her children.

That episode led to my anger and many unkind words.

Now our dance is coming to an end. In lucid moments, my mother tells me she regrets her decision. She tells me over and over again she is sorry. I tell her over and over again, I am sorry. I tell her I wish I had the financial resources to take care of her. I tell her I am grateful that the widow can take care of all the things that need taking care of now.

My mom tells me she feels safest when I am there. She tells me that the day we have just spent together has been the best she has had in months. I sit at her feet and cry a little and then remind her that her memory is shot so how can I be sure she is telling me the truth. We laugh a little sad laugh together.

My mom hears the widow’s truck in the driveway and her smile fades. She gets up quickly because she does not want the widow to see the little bag of paper towels and toilet paper she has packed up to give her unemployed daughter.

My heart falls; my stomach churns. The widow breezes in but does not stay. There is more to the beeze than meets the eye. In an offhand comment she conveys a fact that I should have known - my mother had overdosed on Aricept a day earlier. She was surprised (?) my mother (who lest you forget has dementia) forgot to tell me about the one sentence note that she put in my mom’s little purse. The note that said - C. took 2 1/2 aricept. You see I needed to know this because I was the one taking my mom to the doctor, to an appointment that was made the day before because she had become so weak.

No one thought to actually pick up the phone and communicate this fact - that my mom had taken 2 times the medication she should have.

The widow is packing away groceries, efficient and precise while I stand there feeling superfluous. My mom looks guilty; she seems to get more confused. The widow slices an orange and puts some grapes in front of my mom. My mom sits like a docile child while the widow dispenses her evening meds and tells her to eat a grape so the pills go down easy.

My head is spinning. Spinning that I did not know about the overdose - spinning at the thought that there is even more I do not know.

My mother asks the widow to stay and eat with us. The widow is too busy she says - she laughs a bit too loud and says “everyone needs me.” Then the widow goes across the hall to my mother’s neighbor, who is the widow’s mole, where she stays another 30 minutes while my mother frets about why the widow will not share a meal with us.

I put my mom at ease and try to break the tension with a little joke.

Once my mom sees that the widow has left the building she relaxes a bit. We sit and laugh and visit. Everything bad is forgotten. For the two of us now all that exists is this moment. My mommy, tiny, barely 100 pounds, sitting in her faded green chair with me at her feet. My head on her knee, her hand on my head. The unconditional love we have waited for is here, has always been here, will always be here.

That was yesterday; tonight I am at my home. My mom is with the widow. I wonder if she remembers that yesterday was her best day. I am afraid she will forget me. My heart hurts.

I want my mommy.

I’m Going Out Tonight

A day of divorce stress demands Goldfrapp.

I am pleased to announce that, after several hours of negotiation, for all intents and purposes, Marriage No. 5 ended this afternoon at approximately 2:00 PM EST. Pay no attention to the random man in the background - the one on the bench with his legs crossed, the one hiding behind the suit - I didn’t.