I want all the readers of The Angry Jew to join with me in welcoming Portland’s newest crime fighting tool.
And oh what a TOOL he is.
I wish to introduce Kristian Williams, who, if I have read his guest editorial in today’s Oregonian correctly, has volunteered to patrol Portland’s streets without a single weapon. No gun, no baton, no taser, no pepper spray.
That’s right, Kristian says we should take away all weapons from Law Enforcement officers here in the Rose City.
In his little rant, he closed his argument against police use of force by stating;
Aaron Campbell didn’t die because the police lacked shields. He died because the police had guns.
Maybe it’s time we take their weapons away.
Now, Kristian is no stranger to law enforcement, why, law enforcement is his passion. Kristian is a head of Portland Cop Watch, an organization whose focus seems to be insuring that police officers hands are tied when it comes to use of force issues.
if you take the time to review their website, much of which has not been updated between the years between major police use of force incidents, they seem to be part of movement who believes that only they can correctly interpret use of force statistics.
I assure you Kristian, many a potentially deadly encounter have been averted by an officer pointing his weapon at a suspect. If you had even 5 minutes of experience in law enforcement, you would realize that intimidation is a large part of gaining compliance. The fear of death is sometimes all that stands between a suspect reaching for a weapon. Many a time, just the sound of a round being jacked into a 12 gauge shotgun has been enough to convince an armed suspect to comply with officers demands and live to commit a crime another day.
Similarly, in 2007 Chief Sizer declared that when officers point a Taser at a person and pull the trigger halfway, illuminating a laser light showing where the prongs will hit, it is no longer considered a use of force by the Bureau. Portland Copwatch challenges the Chief to tell us what that action is, if not a use of force….
When a civilian sees an officer, arm outstretched, pulling on a trigger, with a red laser dot on their chest, the civilian does not know whether a 50,000 volt surge or a bullet will be coming their way.
Good.
I will tell you what it is Kristian, it is yet another step in the escalation of force continuum that allows officers to protect YOU without having to drop the hammer on a suspect.
In reading over the drivel you and your ilk put out, leads me to to a single conclusion.
Kristian, you have no idea what you are talking about.
But I am a reasonable man and I will tell you what, I am willing to meet you half way.
I will agree to listen to what you have to say and to support any suggestions you wish to make to improve the tactics and training of Portland’s finest, just as soon as you agree to spend one month patrolling our streets as a law enforcement officer.
And just to prove your point, you could allow us to take YOUR weapons away.
Most of the time I dismiss the rantings of the far right, and the far left for that matter, as political posturing and extremism, but frankly, they are up in arms and, for a change, I am thinking they might be right.
If what follows turns out to be true, it could very well be the “smoking gun” in the accusations of a socialist, appeasement agenda in the Obama administration.
Now take a look at this new logo that was recently unveiled for the Missile Defense Agency, the branch of the DOD tasked with developing new technologies to protect us from Americas enemies.
Now, at first glance, it might appear to be just a flashy symbol for protectors of our freedoms, but look closer…Do you see it? Do You? Come on it’s right in front of your face.
Fine, now, compare it to Obama’s 2008 campaign logo.
See! The same red, white and blue color scheme. The circular pattern. It’s right there, proof of Obama’s socialist agenda to take over America and deprive us of our beloved democracy.
But wait, it gets worse.
Now compare it to this logo,
Shocking I know, but what more proof could you possibly need that by aping the logo of an Iranian government agency, Obama and his cronies are clearly in bed with Muslim extremists.
After all, why would our government approve a logo that so closely mirrors the star and crescent of Islam if it were not for the fact that the Obama government is actually working with Muslin fundamentalists to bring about the downfall of The Great Satan.
Now, I have to admit, even with all this evidence, I was still skeptical of the far rights suspicions about the new logo.
It was only after I saw the last piece of the puzzle was the true depth of this insidious plot against Americas freedoms become clear to me. I want to apologize to all the right wing conservatives out there that I may have offended in the past. You have shown me the way. The truth about what is really happening in BarackHussein Obamas vision of America.
I present to you, my friends and fellow patriots, the last bit of proof.
Let us see Obama try to deny this one.
The Obama administration is channeling funds to Islamic extremists through Pepsico to the Iranian Space Agency in an attempt to assist them in developing technologies to defeat our missile defense systems.
I don’t know about you people, but I am running out right this minute to stock up on teabags and ammo for the upcoming revolution.
I took an unexpected trip back in time this morning. A Facebook friend that I went to High School with back in sunny Southern California sent me a link to my High School reunion page.
My memories of High School are sort of mixed. I wasn’t a cool kid, or a jock, I never worked hard enough to be a Brain, I was not totally committed to the geek lifestyle and my brief foray into the world of the drama nerds was less then successful.
I had a few acquaintances, fewer close friends and hung out with a number of different groups, learning fairly early the importance of being able to blend into any group I came across.
After High School came my stint in the Navy. I only kept in touch with a few people from school and fewer still when I returned. Occasionally I would bump into someone who was in my graduating class, but it never went anywhere.
So, when I got the invitation to join my High School Class reunion page, I was not really that enthusiastic.
I was up early this morning and killing time before my workout, so I figured I would surf on over and see what it was all about. Less then 1/4 of my graduating class had registered for the site. I filled out a profile so I could see the others and off I went, clicking on names that I recognized.
I found it kind of funny how my classmates fared over the last 30 years.
There seemed to be a disproportionate number of MIT grads with software or tech companies. There were a couple of lawyers, a few homemakers, and even a few people who had gone on to make it in “The Biz”. There were also more then a few who listed their occupations as CEO of this or that wealth building company, which I know from personal experience, means some one making their living off of multi level marketing. I listed my own occupation as “a writer who makes his living doing something else”.
I checked out some of the pictures that the woman who had put together the site had posted of our High School Days, alas I was not cool enough to attend any of the parties they were taken at, and I was never a jock, so no pictures of me.
Except for one.
You see, almost everyone listed on the site had their Senior Class photo posted on their individual pages.
So, without further ado, I present to you The Angry Jew, circa 1981.
If you were to find the best engineers in the world and ask them to design the perfect plug for a child’s airway, you couldn’t do much better than the hot dog,”
Dr. Gary Smith.
Dr Gary Smith and his cohorts on the American Academy Of Pediatrics want the food industry and the government to step in and put a halt to the shameless slaughter of innocents caused by this horrific food item.
Warning labels on the package simply wont do, even though some manufacturers have taken the proactive approach of placing choking warnings on their tubes of lips and assholes.
This is a must do project my friends, literally thousands, OK hundreds, Hmmm…wait a second, lets do the math.
10,000 children are rushed to hospitals each year food related choking incidents. Of those 77 die. Kids choking on hot dogs account for 17%, so we must rush to action to save those 10.78 children that perish each and every year.
So, how do we do it?
The AAP’s policy statement suggests cutting foods that present a risk to children in a way that changes their spherical nature, such as quartering grapes and slicing hot dogs into lengthwise strips.
Perfect, I can see it now…Ball Park Frank Strips…They lay there and do nothing while you cook them.
Then there is the problem of what to do about other dangerous foods.
The report cites popcorn, nuts, grapes, seeds and raw carrots as “high-risk foods.” Let us not forget other tube foods. Bananas, Pretzel Rods, String Cheese, Breakfast Sausage and Twinkies, just to name a few. All lurking in the shadows of Americas pantries and refrigerators, waiting for their turn to add to the horrific death toll.
We must act quickly if we are to save those 10 3/4 kids who will needlessly have their lives cut short.
That is why I will be contacting my elected representatives and calling for The Comprehensive Child Food Safety Act. This sweeping legislation will call for all children under the age of 8 to receive an intravenous diet. From ages 8 to 10, children may be moved to a blender diet while completing a federally mandated. two year “Safe Eating” program as part of their schooling.
Then and only then, will children be allowed to eat solid food, under adult supervision of course, until the age of 18.
I know this sounds drastic, but we owe it to our children, and our children’s children, all ten of them.
After all, what are our alternatives?
Do you really expect PARENTS to be responsible and monitor what their offspring are eating?
Chevron and Exxon are hard at work ensuring that Japan is not the only nation on earth to have a legacy of giant radioactive animals.
As part of the Gorgon Gas Project, officials at Chevron have began to transfer over 1000 mammals from their predator free homes on western Australia’s Barrows Island to the Montebello islands, famous for their radioactive sand.
So far, up to 245 golden bandicoots, 41 boodies (kangaroo-like marsupials), 84 spectacled hare wallabies and 88 possums have been moved, with a total of 1,000 scheduled for translocation by mid-March.
Sure, it's cute now
The island was irradiated back in the 50’s during nuclear weapons testing.
Chevron spokespeople have said they hope to move 1,000 animals a year over the next 12 years.
There was no word on when they expect the first giant mutant dingo to rise up and eat Perth.
Last year some of the employees from Providence St Vincents Hospital in Portland decided to get together and put together a fun video to help promote breast cancer awareness. The video, Pink Glove Dance, became a YouTube hit, gathering over 7 million hits and and 11,000 comments.
Well, now a group of the employees who participated in the video have been offered an audition on Americas Got Talent.
Since I have been a guest of “St V”s” on a number of occasions, I thought I would take this opportunity to wish them Good Luck.
Many thanks to Kwazy Kate, who turned me onto this feel good video a few months back.
So, this weekend Kwazy Kate decided it would be fun to run my tired, dead ass to the sparkling metropolis of Aurora, Oregon to tour the antique shops that are the main attraction in this two stoplight excuse for a town.
We hit a few of the smaller shops before hitting the biggest one in town.
I am not going to use the name, as for reasons that will quickly become obvious, I had to promise not to.
So, when we walked in, we were greeted by a woman who I can only assume was the owner, and she proudly pointed out that they had over 18,000 square feet of antiques, two basements and a second floor.
The place was set up like a flea market, with different people leasing space to sell their wares.
We had a grand old time wandering through the warren of nooks, crannies and corners checking out the various items for sale.
Near the end of our journey, Kate came across a small travel case that she became very fond of. She thought it would make a fine carryall for her more intimate items. (and that is all I am saying…if you want details you are going to have ask her)
At $15.00 it seemed like a pretty cool deal, until she turned the case over and found this.
Well with the woman who had greeted us standing just a few feet away, I could not resist.
We called her over and I showed her the “antique” case and quipped;
“So I guess you only have 17,999 square feet of antiques now.”
Time is getting short. The last time CCDG skated in Salem, it was a standing room only, sold out, capacity crowd, party kind of thing. Come join Kwazy Kate and The Brood, The Secret Alien and your not so humble Angry Jew in The Crash Zone for some rockem, sockem action.
Well, it has been about a month since my last update, so I thought I would catch you all up on what has been going on.
My attempt to go without meds has suffered a small set back. I am currently off work on a medical leave of absence that is expected to last one to two weeks. As upset as I am sure my employer is, no one is more disappointed them me.
The crappy part of it is, I have never felt better. Allow me to explain.
Once I got off the Zoloft, I felt relieved. I could think clearly and my motivation returned. I decided to go off the Ritalin I was taking for adult ADD, and I even started to exercise. Yes, that’s right, The Couch Potato Jew finally got off his ass and started to sweat, while moving for a change.
I have been hitting the treadmill for 45 minutes a day, three days a week. The other three days I do a mile, I am down to 17.40 minutes, and work out with some light weights. I take my laptop up to the fitness center here in my apartment complex, call up an episode of Stargate SG1 on HULU, throw on my headphones and off I go.
I also completed my sleep study. I showed up at the hospital at in the early evening, changed into my jammies, was wired up six ways to Sunday, and then told to go to sleep. Now take a good look at this picture and tell me, could you get a good nights sleep like THIS?
OK, now I am ready for a good nights sleep, NOT!
Well, to no ones surprise, my Doctor reviewed the results and told me I had severe apnea.
She prescribed a CPAP machine and I started using it three weeks ago.
Thats when things started to go to shit.
Now they warned me it would take me a few weeks to get used to sleeping with the mask on, and of course, as usual, I figured that it would take me no time at all.
I was wrong.
I was getting 4 hours of sleep a night on a good night. I don’t even want to think about the bad ones. I went back to taking my sleep meds, which helped a bit, but not much.
My CPAP Machine
Still and all I was dealing with it, figuring I would eventually get used to it.
Week 2 was not much better then week 1.
My work performance started to suffer. I started making stupid mistakes. Not that I was ever a math wizard, but I got to the point I could not even perform the simple calculations I needed to do my job. I was able to cover most of my errors, my long suffering assistant covered some for me and suffered the brunt of my mistakes. If I feel bad for anyone through all this, it is him.
Added to this, just because my life was not complicated enough, the Pilonidal cyst on my tailbone decided to make a repeat appearance. As much as I tried to make it through the weekend to go in and have it drained, the pain became too much and I had to leave midway through a shift on Friday night, which, needless to say, did not endear me to my employer.
Things came to a head during week 3, last week.
I don’t know if it was the schedule change, the lack of sleep, the lack off ADD meds or just some combination of three, but whatever the reason, I cracked. It was not depression, like I said earlier, I have not felt this good since my suicide attempt for this long a period.
Instead I suffered these huge anxiety attacks walking in the door. Simple mistakes compounded into larger mistakes. I had to do things three or four times and they still were not right. I tried everything I could think of, double checking and triple checking my work and still I would overlook things and flat out screw up.
I could see in my assistants eyes he was getting sick of covering for me, and with each mistake, my anxiety would build.
I did my best to try and stick it out, to make it through the week, thinking that if I could get back to my regular shift, things would be OK, but by Thursday, I was a wreck.
I went to my boss and explained that I had to take some time off work to get this under control. I was convinced that I was one mistake away from losing my job, whether this was true or that it was just an invention of my sleep deprived mind I could not say, but he was not happy.
I met with my therapist, Doc J, on Friday and he confirmed that it was probably best that I not be around heavy machinery until i got the sleeping thing under control. He also said that, while he understood and supported my desire to live medication free, he confirmed that I needed to get back on an ADD medication if I am to have any hope of improving my concentration and focus.
So that is where I stand for the moment.
I have done some online research onto the various ADD drugs on the market and have it narrowed down to 2 that I will be talking to Doc Ray about on on Tuesday. I also found an online forum for people who suffer from apnea and found some adjustment I can make to my mask and machine that should help me adjust to it better.
I actually got 6 hours last night and for the first time in a month, I feel like I have actually rested.
