God, I know I'm gonna regret this in the morning and I SO wish I were talking about a huge hangover, but nope, not me, I'm about to ... what's the phrase eat my own foot? bite myself in the a**? AH HA .... RANT! Sooooo, I am a hard core Constitutionalist (with a heart), I have no political home, a poor, wayfaring stranger in a dark land divided ... and freedom of speech (oh for shock) is near and dear to my heart (whoda known) hardcore to the right, swimming in the Atlantic right wing Christian republican BUT (y'all see that comin'?) BUT if the FBI paid the Geek Squad to inform on child pornographers .... sorry .... we don't have the Constitutional right to break the law and the law is, kiddie porn just ain't right. Right? Our children, the generation we are entrusting the future of the human race to, are off limits. Right?
I agree, kids are off limits ... but here is the rub ... and here is where EVERYBODY is going to hate me and shout my battle cry RANT .... if the FBI is paying for information a) are the employees fishing on devices looking for shit to sell? and b) doesn't this, by extension for evidence purposes, make Geek Squad agents of the FBI - aren't they acting on behalf of the FBI to circumvent compliance with the 4th Amendment requirements regarding probable cause and unreasonable search?
Not knowing all the facts, just taking this situation as reported on both left and right news, I'd be willing to bet the case at bar, Rettenmaier, will be tossed but worse, it's going to throw open the door to reopen cases over the past decade involving searches and seizures based on information found on electronic devices
Because of the FBI's serious lapse in judgment are we now going to see known offenders go free? Would a little bit more surveillance and good old fashioned leg-work have spared the taxpayers the millions this is going to cost in legal and court fees? Do our children mean so little to them that they are willing to risk cutting corners and bypassing the Constitution to achieve their goals?
This isn't a matter of stumbling upon child porn or electronic contraband or information about some ongoing crime ... this was buried information that required special software to access in a place on the drive where Geek Squad would have had no reason to be dicking around. Taken as reported, in my opinion: "the glove don't fit, I'd have to acquit".
In a civil suit, I'd have to see a WHOLE LOTTA evidence before I'd blame Geek Squad for employees selling information to those sneaky SOBs at the FBI ... policy manuals, notes and videos of training sessions, YEARS of employee reprimands and discharges for similar instances, something showing those specific employees had signed that they understood the policies, procedures used by employees, oversight by managers ... if Geek Squad had good labor and employment counsel on staff or on retainer they should have this one. If not and somebody decides to sue them and they don't have a shit ton of paperwork to cover their behinds ... y'all can get rid of your Geek Squad stock now.
My reason for siding with the perv is pretty simple ... what is to keep them from digging into devices for hate speech, private expressions -- there are still some pretty archaic laws on the books in most states (regarding premarital sex, "deviant" sexual behavior and I'd imagine other stuff) what will keep the thought police from taking another inch? or going an inch too far ... or some backwater berg from using a precedent like this to enforce some of those ridiculous "private matter" laws? These are dangerous precedents to set.
Our forefathers put a LOT of thought into an enduring document. I'm not saying it should never change. It's a living, breathing, growing, changing, fluid concept. Our Constitution is brilliant and we should NEVER tamper with it lightly...and we must NEVER pick and choose to whom or in what situations it should apply.
Thursday, March 8, 2018
Thursday, March 1, 2018
GRANDMA'S STINGY AND GREAT GRANDMA'S CRAZY
I am becoming my grandmother when it comes to money and I remember saying as a kid I'd never be that tight with money, ever. Now, I watch pennies LOL, well not QUITE that bad, but close. To my great consternation, my bank is adding a $3 fee to the fee foreign ATMs already charge -- and I was thinking SIX f*cking DOLLARS are you kidding me? a vision appeared of my grandmother .... that woman could tell you TO THE PENNY what she paid for a sack of flour and can of lard back in 1957 and my paternal grandmother was not a dainty southern belle either. She was a big, tall, strapping woman, probably 5'10" in flats and she towered over us in her Sunday "pumps"... speaking of which, I am pretty sure if she earned $57.84 (the average weekly wage for women in 1957) she NEVER rounded up to 6.00 or even $5.80 in favor of the Lord in her Sunday tithe, God got His rightful $5.78.
And that flour and lard? I can STILL hear her voice in a thick not quite South GA, not quite FL dialect
"back, well 'hun I b'lieve it'da been nineteen hunerd and fifty seb'n, Debbie Jean, mmm hmmm, nineteen and fifty seb'n" she'd slap her knee and continue with this strange exclamation -- never did figure out the source "peeeee-heeeeee (yeah, that one) I paid a quarter and two pennies (holding up two fingers for added illustration), two WHOLE pennies. Can you b'lieve that? ummmmm ummmmm ummmm." (I can translate if necessary LOL)
Mamee was a trip. ... and STRONG? People think Southern women are steel magnolias? I guess some were and are but not Mamee, other than her incredibly green thumb and seriously, if she could have touched the clouds they'd have turned green , there was NOTHING flowery about her. Large thick hands and feet, broad shoulders, wide hips MADE for bearing children, she was a ROCK, immovable in a storm and she raised her children with an iron fist (except one who came along late, VERY late in life ... he was a little older than me and the same age as my cousin, the son of their first born Inez and like most last, late children he was spoiled rotten. Again, I digress (good weed does that ... )
I am so sorry that my niece and nephews never really got to know her or my grandfather, and now my great nephews, nieces, the whole passel of them don't get to hear these wonderful stories about my grandparents (a little on both sides but heavily on my deeply damaged father's side). The rift was so great, the family so fractured by mental illness (both diagnosed and undiagnosed) that the GOOD stories, the ones worth remembering and passing on, are all but dying.
Sure there was some shit, dirty laundry, creepy uncle stuff but there is also some rich, rich history there too. I don't see the point in sharing far and wide, down through time, the dirt ... share it with a trusted few "family historians" and let THEM decide which generations and who to share it with ... it could be vital information in diagnosing dementia, Alzheimer's, pedophiles, heck, you never know we may one day be able to genetically manipulate violent behavior --- (God, we'll be bored to death) but seriously, a plethora of illnesses down the road. It's high time mental came out of the closet and joined everyone else in the light ... but that's another blog/post.
Heaven forbid I or one of my kin -- the more distant the better -- goes on a shooting rampage ... we will need to blame it on someone so RIGHT NOW, this instant, if I decide to go out making a statement by doing something so completely insane as to slaughter a bunch of innocents, I'm blaming my great great grandmother ... damn I remember her but sooooo very vaguely. She was already suffering from ??? dementia ??? when I was old enough to know who she was ... but bless her heart, I remember her being chastised because she had two different shoes on when we were getting ready for church one Sunday. I could NOT have been more than 4 or 5 years old --
AHHH, I digress --- I'M BLAMING NANA -- she died in in one of the "old school" state mental hospitals at Chattahoochee FL, which to this day has a horrid reputation for patient handling, abuse and neglect. Truthfully, I was too young to comprehend the magnitude of what was transpiring, but I so remember the bitterly divisive arguments among the children (her grandchildren - my aunts, uncles and father, wow it just occurred to me that it was aunts and grandmother, my father and grandfather, my grandparent's youngest was my age). I don't think that family was ever the same. My father used to say it changed him but BS, he was mean as a pit viper LONG before that. I hated him but I loved him ... I was 40 before any of it made any sense.... secrets. (another story LOL) ... but to this day I wonder what Nana had and what or how it might impact future generations ...
Aging, it's a HUGE looming scary problem for baby boomers and worse, we are now the meat in the stew, our kids are going to be asking "What are we going to do about Mom/Dad?" (lightbulb: a blog on retirement communities)
After being accused or ranting (I am SO proud because I know if it pissed someone off someone was paying attention) I've decided to do this blogging thing again ... took me forever to find one it's been so long... now I have to figure out how to share these things.
And that flour and lard? I can STILL hear her voice in a thick not quite South GA, not quite FL dialect
"back, well 'hun I b'lieve it'da been nineteen hunerd and fifty seb'n, Debbie Jean, mmm hmmm, nineteen and fifty seb'n" she'd slap her knee and continue with this strange exclamation -- never did figure out the source "peeeee-heeeeee (yeah, that one) I paid a quarter and two pennies (holding up two fingers for added illustration), two WHOLE pennies. Can you b'lieve that? ummmmm ummmmm ummmm." (I can translate if necessary LOL)
Mamee was a trip. ... and STRONG? People think Southern women are steel magnolias? I guess some were and are but not Mamee, other than her incredibly green thumb and seriously, if she could have touched the clouds they'd have turned green , there was NOTHING flowery about her. Large thick hands and feet, broad shoulders, wide hips MADE for bearing children, she was a ROCK, immovable in a storm and she raised her children with an iron fist (except one who came along late, VERY late in life ... he was a little older than me and the same age as my cousin, the son of their first born Inez and like most last, late children he was spoiled rotten. Again, I digress (good weed does that ... )
I am so sorry that my niece and nephews never really got to know her or my grandfather, and now my great nephews, nieces, the whole passel of them don't get to hear these wonderful stories about my grandparents (a little on both sides but heavily on my deeply damaged father's side). The rift was so great, the family so fractured by mental illness (both diagnosed and undiagnosed) that the GOOD stories, the ones worth remembering and passing on, are all but dying.
Sure there was some shit, dirty laundry, creepy uncle stuff but there is also some rich, rich history there too. I don't see the point in sharing far and wide, down through time, the dirt ... share it with a trusted few "family historians" and let THEM decide which generations and who to share it with ... it could be vital information in diagnosing dementia, Alzheimer's, pedophiles, heck, you never know we may one day be able to genetically manipulate violent behavior --- (God, we'll be bored to death) but seriously, a plethora of illnesses down the road. It's high time mental came out of the closet and joined everyone else in the light ... but that's another blog/post.
Heaven forbid I or one of my kin -- the more distant the better -- goes on a shooting rampage ... we will need to blame it on someone so RIGHT NOW, this instant, if I decide to go out making a statement by doing something so completely insane as to slaughter a bunch of innocents, I'm blaming my great great grandmother ... damn I remember her but sooooo very vaguely. She was already suffering from ??? dementia ??? when I was old enough to know who she was ... but bless her heart, I remember her being chastised because she had two different shoes on when we were getting ready for church one Sunday. I could NOT have been more than 4 or 5 years old --
AHHH, I digress --- I'M BLAMING NANA -- she died in in one of the "old school" state mental hospitals at Chattahoochee FL, which to this day has a horrid reputation for patient handling, abuse and neglect. Truthfully, I was too young to comprehend the magnitude of what was transpiring, but I so remember the bitterly divisive arguments among the children (her grandchildren - my aunts, uncles and father, wow it just occurred to me that it was aunts and grandmother, my father and grandfather, my grandparent's youngest was my age). I don't think that family was ever the same. My father used to say it changed him but BS, he was mean as a pit viper LONG before that. I hated him but I loved him ... I was 40 before any of it made any sense.... secrets. (another story LOL) ... but to this day I wonder what Nana had and what or how it might impact future generations ...
Aging, it's a HUGE looming scary problem for baby boomers and worse, we are now the meat in the stew, our kids are going to be asking "What are we going to do about Mom/Dad?" (lightbulb: a blog on retirement communities)
After being accused or ranting (I am SO proud because I know if it pissed someone off someone was paying attention) I've decided to do this blogging thing again ... took me forever to find one it's been so long... now I have to figure out how to share these things.
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