Drops in the bucket and other precipitation

Someone must have found out I'm a Billy Joel fan because they wrote some lyrics about me and this site here to the tune of "Uptown Girl". It looks like "B" has returned from beneath his or her rock to grace the day with his or her presence and some might say, song writing talents!

Even trying to pinpoint where I live in Riverside ("up on Central") a street I frequently walk down because it's near the Plaza, which is pathetic and probably intended to frighten me in his or her latest diatribe about my alleged attack against "The White Man". The downside of this blog is that it's attracted a who's who collection of cyber harassers or cyber harasser wannabes beginning not too long after it was started several years ago. Many of the comments here and elsewhere that have been written about me and this blog would make any social psychologist a very happy camper or an unhappy one depending on how you look at it. Occasionally I have heard insights from behavioral specialists who had read them and their insights have been interesting, if somewhat unnerving.



I've actually been blamed for both former councilmen, Dom Betro and Art Gage losing their elections. No folks, I didn't cost either man his reelection, nor did Craigslist. The fact is, that whether you accept it or not, the candidates they ran against simply received more votes than they did. The lyricist doesn't seem to be from the camp of either politician especially if the earlier attempts at incorporating other performing artists' lyrics for harassment purposes is any indication.

I've also been harassed and called a wide variety of slurs and other demeaning and derogatory terms for criticizing the police department, supporting the department's strategic plan imposed by former State Attorney General Bill Lockyer, supporting the city's review board, speaking at meetings, writing about this city and probably even for breathing. Blaming me for the consent decree, the strategic plan, the civilian review board, the internal affairs investigation, the death of a 10-year-old boy by a gang member because criticizing police practices means of course condoning or supporting gang violence, their own shortcomings and all kinds of things.

I've had people tell me what I'm wearing, when and what I'm doing. I've had numerous comments on where I lived and that the only important thing was where I lived. I've had people post pornographic comments here, usually ones advocating violence against me or other women. I've had abuse, threats, false information about DUI convictions and even some one advocating that liberals like myself on some "list" to be "checked" which essentially meant to be shot. Posters haven't liked the way, I dress, wear my hair, smell, talk, walk or the fact that I do walk and have speculated about everything from what underwear I wear to how I spend my Saturday nights. One said all I needed was a "big bang" or that I needed to be part of a "chain" or that "all Mary needs is some dick". One individual thought I sounded "taller" on the radio.

Some charming individuals called my mother's uterus "filthy" and stated that mine needed to be "sewn shut". One anonymous individual said that his supervisor told him not to post on the "crazy lady's" blog even though the comments and I were hilarious, because it would make them look bad.

Don't call the police if I need them. I can smell your "funk" from a mile away. Hairy-legged, bra burning, "I heard you were an old hippy" and where one of them wrote, that he or she was actually one of my "crack cocaine addicted boyfriends" on specific streets "with crack up the ass". Racist and sexist stereotypes, not to mention verbal black face abounded. Black people are crack addicts on welfare spending their money at places like Western Liquor Store on fried chicken, malt liquor and lottery tickets. Latinos are "parasites" who subsist on heroin and methamphetamine and of course, are always gang members. Mexicans are all filled with candy and when police officers beat them, they do it to see candy spill out like they would pinatas at a birthday party.

Latinas are "hot" when marching at immigration rights rallies and so are female police officers who of course, are all "lesbians", who are forcibly kidnapped by the police chief and conscripted into forced service as police officers where they put all the real police officers (read male ones) in danger.

Also, slurs against the disabled like the term, "village idiot" by someone who clearly believed that being disabled meant the same thing as not being human.

None of these individuals used their names, of course for obvious reasons. Cowardice being a big one. These are people who spend much of their time under the rocks, being emboldened to harass because as one person told me, they are empowered by their invisibility. How they act in public is anyone's guess because for one thing, it's only known to them who they are and where they come from.

So if "B" thinks he or she is unique, hardly! He or she is joining in on a proud tradition, which is called harass the bitch/skank/cunt/schizoid/tramp/idiot/spawn of Satan/Daughter of Lucifer/whore who dares to blog about Riverside. The blogger who received an email from the city's ISP, which for those who don't know is "riversideca.gov" or #192.248.248.66/67 about noticing that she's cut her hair recently, it's greasy and that then asks her if she hates her mother or herself. The blogger who can't walk down the street without getting neck strain from turning her head so much.

Blogging often means getting harassed. Blogging in or about Riverside definitely means getting harassed. He or she is simply a member of a group of cowardly, emotionally charged, immature individuals who are so upset or threatened by this blog that this is how they choose and have chosen to vent about it. Only he or she chooses to make a well-known performing artist his or her accomplice without his or her consent.


I had a very interesting email exchange with the head of a local government watchdog organization who wrote a piece about anonymity and the internet and he made an interesting point after I explained to him what many female bloggers face when they write on the internet, including Kathy Sierra who's only the most well-known example, when our identities are known by those who hate us, first for being women who blog, then for being people who blog.


(excerpt)


In that case the harassers would be shamed into silence. It is their anonymity, after all, that allows them to threaten and offend. They are, by and large, cowards who are empowered by their invisibility.



How true. "B" or whatever he or she really calls themselves is just another example of that just like a host of other nameless or nicknamed harassers out there. A coward who both wants attention and doesn't want this woman to blog. Perhaps this is the individual who's been getting posts linking or mentioning this site removed from Craigslist as well. Perhaps it's someone I would recognize on sight. Perhaps not. Statistics on cyber-harassers state that it's a fifty-fifty proposition whether they are individuals you know or not.

But I'm not going to stop blogging because of harassment, because I enjoy blogging, many of my readers support it and because you can't let these harassers achieve what they want which is to silence your voice. If they succeed, they'll just go target someone else, all the while claiming that it's their mission to do so because for one thing, they really have nothing better or else to do. Without their harassment, who would they even be?

But even while they refuse to identify themselves, they demand to be treated as individuals. when except from a personal safety standpoint, they shouldn't be taken seriously at all.




Song lyrics by aspiring musicians aside (and by the way, I hope this person had legal permission to desecrate Joel's hard work), Inland Empire Craigslist has an interesting ongoing discussion on plans to renovate both the downtown and the Riverside Plaza. Some very interesting ideas that perhaps the politicians should consider.



As for cyber harasser (soon to be assigned a lot number), who's piggybacking off of a performing artist's hard work simply to harass someone into not blogging, what do your actions exactly say about you? Not much better than the unidentified individual here who cribbed the use of a real name of a well-known New York City Police Department whistle blowing officer to harass me in 2005.








It might have been the shake without the bake but Big Bear was hit by a 4.0 earthquake yesterday morning at 4:15. Information from it the United States Geological Survey is here.

Did you feel it? Fill out the survey here.


What's the fastest growing county in the state? Riverside County, of course.


California has seven cities included in the list of the 25 cities in the nation with the highest rate of foreclosures including five in the top 10.


They are as follows.


1. Stockton

3. Riverside/San Bernardino

6. Sacramento

9. Bakersfield

10. Oakland


Loss of property values nationwide: $223 billion


The construction industry including that in the Inland Empire has been hit really hard so far by the housing market's collapse. Housing values might rebound some time between 2010 -2012 but that's a while off yet.






Meanwhile, back in Riverside, Columnist Dan Bernstein with the Press Enterprise is taking on the land sale approved by the Riverside County Board of Supervisors involving what was supposed to be park land in Jurupa.


(excerpt)


The Jurupa Community Services District broke the law when it sold the surplus land to Rep. Ken Calvert and his Pips. So said the RivCo Grand Jury. Now we know what the supes think of the grand jury. Bupkis.

If the surplus land had been offered first to public agencies -- as state law requires -- the Jurupa Area Recreation and Park District would have snapped it up. It had already told the community services district it wanted that land for a park. But Calvert and his Pips got there first. They have a thing for storage units.

So the Jurupa park district decided to try to snatch the land through eminent domain, which required the supes' blessing. The supes unanimously instructed the park folks to buzz off. But not before Tavaglione noted, "The community deserves better."

Too bad the community that deserves better had to go up against the big boys, the career backscratchers, including Calvert, who comes off as such a helpless little congressman. "I feel like I'm in the middle of a circular firing squad." Awww.

Calvert's such a tiger when it comes to illegal immigration. But an illegal land deal, from which he and his pips are poised to benefit? Meow.

"If I had never been a part of this," Calvert said recently, "this would never be a story."


So Bernstein rewrites the saga about Ken-Doll in lieu of the congressman and uses the same words in the same column.


Bernstein also saves some words at the end of his column to address statements by Councilman Rusty Bailey about the demise of "Restaurant Row" at the Riverside Plaza.




Riverside's downtown public library hosted the teddy bear tea, which is an annual event for children.



(excerpt, Press Enterprise)


As one can imagine, a room full of toddlers didn't always sit still for the stories Sue Struthers was reading, and their bears were active too.

Bears were hugged, kissed, pulled, thrown, shared -- and not shared -- during the story portion of the tea.

"We love the chaos," said Riverside Children's Librarian Megan Bond. "It's amazing to see how happy they all are."

More than 70 children and adults paraded into the main branch of the library with brown bears, panda bears, Care Bears, pink bears, well-worn bears, along with a couple of stuffed dogs and a bunny with a Santa hat. They also sang songs and went on a bear hunt in the library, with each child "finding" a goodie bag filled with gummy bears, bear cookies and stickers.




In Los Angeles, the police commission is demanding that hundreds of Los Angeles Police Department gang and narcotics officers release their financial records, according to the Los Angeles Times.



Not surprisingly, the Police Protective League, the labor union, has filed a law suit asking for an injunction and the article stated that some officers have asked for reassignment in protest. The release of these records which include real estate holdings, outside income and debts was also included as a provision under the city's consent decree with the Department of Justice that it entered into in 2001 as a result of a patterns and practices investigation stemming from the Rampart scandal.


This earlier article by the Times outlines the commission's proposal which was met by immediate reaction from those inside the police department.


(excerpt)



Because it will be discussed in secret, commission President Anthony Pacheco declined to comment further on the proposal, other than to acknowledge that the issue has been "complicated."

For years, commission members, department officials and leaders of the Los Angeles Police Protective League -- the union representing some 9,000 officers -- have been at loggerheads over the idea. Union officials have resisted, arguing that a blanket requirement for all officers in the units would do little to combat corruption and would invade their privacy.

But Assistant Chief Sharon Papa said, "It is a final piece of the puzzle that we have not yet implemented. We need to move forward on this issue if we are ever going to be in compliance" with the decree.



Papa declined to say whether Chief William J. Bratton, who is on vacation, supported the proposal.

Last year, Bratton sided with officers, calling financial disclosures an "incredible burden." He said he would have been satisfied with a compromise plan devised by the union and department officials that was thrown out by the federal judge overseeing the consent decree for not being strict enough.

A new round of negotiations on the proposal recently broke down over whether officers currently assigned to the units would be exempt from the disclosure, according to Tim Sands, president of the officers union.





The Office of Independent Review with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department found that misconduct occurred with the handling of actor Mel Gibson's arrest but not in the case involving Paris Hilton's premature release from her jail sentence for undisclosed medical reasons, according to the Los Angeles Times.


(excerpt)


The long-awaited report revealed three deputies were disciplined for their handling Gibson's release from custody. Moreover, a supervisor sought to censor Gibson's arrest report, which contained an anti-Semitic rant by the actor. But a captain overruled that decision, according Mike Gennaco, head of the sheriff's office of independent review.

More details about the finding will be revealed at a news conference this afternoon.

Gennaco's report also looked at how the department handled the high-profile jailing of Paris Hilton after she was sentenced for a probation violation. His report found no misconduct on the part of officials.







The San Bernardino County District Attorney's office backed the actions of a sheriff deputy who shot and killed a man in Mentone.


(excerpt)


Deputy Briscoe was now struggling with the suspect over control of the firearm," Guzzino wrote. He "felt he was over-powered by the suspect and might lose control."

The deputy's first bullet didn't stop Dyrness, Guzzino wrote, and a second shot wouldn't fire because the man had his hand on the gun's slide area.

After freeing the gun, Briscoe shot Dyrness once in the chest and killed him.

Bailey returned home to find her boyfriend lying dead on the front lawn

Dyrness' blood-alcohol level was .14 at the time of his autopsy, nearly double the .08 limit for driving, and traces of marijuana were found in his system.

"He was combative with Deputy Briscoe verbally and physically from the initial handcuffing procedure," Guzzino wrote.

"This conduct gave Deputy Briscoe no choice but to use deadly force."




The 40th anniversary of the collapse of the Silver Bridge in Point Pleasant, West Virginia was just commemorated by residents including those who remembered that fateful day when a critical single part of the bridge snapped, causing the whole structure to fall apart into the river in a matter of seconds, taking much of the rush-hour traffic with it. Forty-six people were killed and the Dec. 15, 1967 disaster caused the federal government to reexamine the process for constructing and inspecting suspension bridges.


Witnesses like Stephen Darst shared their experiences many years later.


(excerpt, Star Tribune)


"It sounded like a jet airplane," he recalled, looking out at the river. "I had nightmares for a long time after that."

Like most Point Pleasant residents old enough to remember that day, Darst, now 70, has vivid recollections of Dec. 15, 1967. He not only saw the bridge fall but had driven across it hours before, and he remembers a feeling of unease.

A traffic light had been malfunctioning all day, causing cars and trucks to back up on the bridge, which had linked Point Pleasant and Kanauga, Ohio, since 1928. Darst said he felt anxious waiting in traffic and eventually pulled out and sped off the bridge by driving in the opposite lane.

"I could feel something was wrong. Something was in the air," he said.




In the air in New Orleans, is the strong odor of pepper spray and ozone from taser discharges as as individuals trying to attend a city council meeting on proposed demolitions of low-income housing were pepper sprayed and tased, according to Yahoo News. Up to 80% of the lower-income housing was going to be replaced by mixed-income housing.



(excerpt)


One woman was sprayed with chemicals and dragged from the gates. She was taken away on a stretcher by emergency officials. Before that, the woman was seen pouring water from a bottle into her eyes and weeping.

Another woman said she was stunned by officers, and still had what appeared to be a Taser wire hanging from her shirt.

"I was just standing, trying to get into my City Council meeting," said the woman, Kim Ellis, who was taken away in an ambulance.

"Is this what democracy looks like?" said Bill Quigley, a Loyola University law professor who opposes demolition, as he held a strand of Taser wire he said had been shot into another of the protesters.

Quigley said he would explore legal action over the incident, which he believed violated public meetings laws.


Many of those pepper sprayed and tased had been waiting for hours to attend a meeting where city officials were going to decide on the fates of the residences where they had lived before Hurricane Katrina hit close to the city in 2005. Man-made failures in the city's levee system which was supposed to withstand up to a Category Four hurricane, stronger than Katrina which was Category Three when it hit land is what has caused the problems with flooding that killed at least 2,000 people and drove hundreds of thousands of people out of their homes. The city's through its deals with developers is taking advantage of a human catastrophe to gentrify its city, pushing out the poor and predominantly Black individuals and families out of the city.

So now these individuals are losing their homes and are being forced away from attending a meeting where their homes, their lives are being discussed, deliberated and decided upon. That's not democracy in action.