Accountability

When I was about eight years old, my family lived on Kirtland Air Force base in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I was riding my bike around the block, and just as I rounded a corner I saw a very hysterical woman come rushing out of her house with a naked baby boy in her arms. As she hastily put the baby on the front lawn, a fire truck pulled up and a fireman rushed to the baby and immediately started giving him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. While the mother was wailing nearby, an older boy of about four or five came out, also not wearing any clothes, and started playfully dancing on the lawn, seemingly oblivious to what was going on. After a minute or two, the fireman gave up on resuscitating the baby and covered him with a blanket, at which point the mother lost it altogether. I have a vague memory of the older child asking someone something, but I can’t remember to whom, or what was said.

I remember going back home and telling my mom all about what I had just seen. A few days later, my mom told me that the baby was about two years old and had drowned after the mother left him alone in the bathtub. She also told me that she heard the older child was periodically locked in a closet as punishment, and that the mother also had an infant who had been hospitalized for malnutrition on more than one occasion. My mother was a nurse working at the base hospital at the time and may have had evidence of the latter supposition. I’m sure at the time my mother had explained what child abuse was, but all that stuck in my mind was what she told me about each of the children.

Slight segue here: I give my mother credit for not holding back when she explained everything to me. I talked to her the other night about this incident, and while she doesn’t really remember it, it’s something that is forever ingrained in my head. She told me that she would have had no reason not be honest about it, and may have figured that after what I had witnessed, I could probably handle details about child abuse and what was going on with the mother’s other two children. Personally, I think kids are pretty resilient and can handle more than most people think. I’ve heard too many stories from friends whose parents didn’t tell them something they should have known because they were “too young” to handle it, only to find out second or third hand as an adult to devastating consequences.

I never saw the mother or her kids after that, and I don’t know whatever became of them, nor do I know how the situation was handled. This was around 1974, and child abuse was still a taboo subject, so even if someone had witnessed any of the alleged abuse, it is doubtful anyone would have said or done anything.

We now live in a time where almost nothing is taboo, and Child Services are called frequently, sometimes erroneously, without hesitation. Unfortunately, no one called them for 10-year-old Ame Deal (read about her here and here). Unbelievably, neighbors said they had not called authorities “because they had not witnessed any physical abuse, although they would occasionally hear screams.” Yet the neighbors had witnessed her being forced to exercise barefoot outside in 103 degree heat. On one occasion, a neighbor heard screams from the same footlocker authorities found her body in while the girl’s aunt sat on top of it, using a laptop computer. When they were interviewed on the news, several neighbors mentioned specific situations that should have been huge red flags. Some of these neighbors should be held accountable for their negligence. Since they had no problem expressing what they saw and heard while being interviewed by the press, there should be no problem proving them negligent.

I don’t have children of my own, and one of the reasons I don’t, is that I know I do not have the patience to put up with them. People wrongly assume I don’t like children, but that certainly is not true. That’s not to say I would abuse them – I just know my limitations. I have often been told that my attitude would change once I had children of my own. There are too many parents out there who have children but shouldn’t. Not only do the children end up suffering, they often carry the abuse into adulthood and onto their own children. It makes me wonder if any of those parents were told that it would be different once they had children of their own.

Update:  I found a newspaper article about what I saw. I was actually seven at the time.

Albuquerque Journal

August 12, 1972

Boy, 2, Found Drowned in Tub

The bathtub drowning of a small boy Kirtland Air Force Base (KAFB) was discovered early Friday morning by the boy’s mother.

David Edward Gaby, two and one half years old, the son of Capt. Lewis P. Gaby, 1116 B 11th Loop SE KAFB was found by his mother at 11:15 a.m. in the family bathroom.

The Gaby’s have two other children, Lewis, 5, and a three month old daughter, Debbie.

Capt. Gaby is a project officer in the Theoretical Physics Branch of the Air Force Weapons Laboratory’s Technology Division.

Funeral arrangements are pending.

I Just Made You Say Underwear

Today's topic was submitted by...me! The topic is tact (or lack thereof)


Just over two weeks ago, on a particularly hot day, I was at my local AT & T store to get a new phone. There was a woman ahead of me buying a new SIM card. While waiting for the clerk to do whatever he had to do for her, the woman kept impatiently looking toward the front door.

Clerk: Is everything okay?

Woman: Yeah, my mom is waiting in the car and I’m just making sure she’s okay.

Clerk: If this is taking too long, she’s more than welcome to come inside where it’s cool.

Woman: That’s okay. She can’t come in because she’s only wearing underwear.

Desire Me

Today's post topic of consumerism comes from Denise. I hope this one makes you think...

There’s an old Buddhist saying that goes, "You need clothes to keep you warm, food to nourish you, and a roof to keep you dry. The rest is just desire." Buddhists believe that desire is the root of all suffering. If you desire something and don’t get it, you are disappointed. If you desire something and get it, the euphoria is fleeting and you move on to desiring something else, thus continuing the cycle.

Consumerism creates desire while at the same time fails to fully satisfy it. We buy one thing, especially the case with electronics, and it’s almost immediately obsolete. Manufacturers are constantly working on products to replace the ones we haven’t even bought yet. They know we are going to buy what they are currently advertising. They feed off our desire for their products and we feed off their ability to create those products. They keep telling us that we need these things; they don’t tell us why we need these things, just that we can’t live without them. Or so they’ve convinced us.

They bombard us with advertising that now shows up on the very products they sell us (smart phones, especially) to the point that we don’t even realize we need or want something until it is put before us. English writer G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936) said “There are two ways to get enough: one is to continue to accumulate more and more. The other is to desire less.” But when is enough, enough?

The problem with buying all these goods is that something new is always replacing something old, which means we are always discarding something. According to an EPA estimate, Americans create roughly 251 million tons (228 million metric tons) of garbage per year [source: EPA]. That number is only going to go up. In spite of telling us how to properly dispose of the batteries and other toxic components, many of these items end up in landfills, potentially adding dangerous chemicals to the environment.


“Everything that can be invented has been invented.”

Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. patent office, 1899 

Okay, it turns out Charlie never said that. But think about this: what if everything we ever truly needed to survive had already been invented? Not wanting for anything more, would we then be living rewarding, more satisfying lives? We wouldn't have to work for things we didn’t need, only the basic necessities of clothing, food and a roof over our heads. Imagine how much happier we would all be.

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Tear the Roof Off the Sucker!

Today's topic comes from Roslyn. She would like me to write about how many times the debt ceiling has been raised over the last ten presidential administrations. Roslyn must be mad at me for some reason...

Kennedy raised the debt ceiling 4 times.

Johnson raised the debt ceiling 7 times.

Nixon raised the debt ceiling 9 times.

Ford raised the debt ceiling 5 times.

Carter raised the debt ceiling 9 times.

Reagan raised the debt ceiling 18 times.

George H.W. Bush raised the debt ceiling 9 times.

Clinton raised the debt ceiling 4 times.

George W. Bush raised the debt ceiling 7 times.

Obama has raised the debt ceiling 3 times (soon to be 4 since we all know it’s going to happen).

That’s 74 times in 51 years, but actually 102 since 1917 when the debt ceiling was implemented. Prior to 1917 it was a pay as you go system. Every expenditure had to be approved by congress prior to the debt being incurred. Tired of having to approve every bill that had to be paid, Congress created the debt ceiling. The only reason this is an issue right now is because they are at an impasse. The raising of the debt ceiling has often been tucked into other bills without it being made a public matter.

By law, we cannot go above the debt ceiling. The Fourteenth Amendment prohibits Congress from defaulting on our debt, so if all other financial support is exhausted, then something has to give.  Either the President must allow Congress to break the law, or he must issue debt on his own authority and face the consequences.

  

There are other sources of revenue (selling assets, incoming taxes) that may work for a short time, but it’s much easier to raise the ceiling. I believe they will reach a deal before August 2nd. Otherwise, they'd miss their summer vacation, and I think that’s what they are actually concerned with!

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Language Barrier

Thank you, Angela for suggesting the topic for the day --  poor grammar!

Growing up, there was a commercial on the radio that started with the words, “Fair or not – people judge you by the words you use.” It was an ad for a product called Verbal Advantage, an audio learning method for improving your vocabulary. Whenever I hear someone say something grammatically incorrect, that phrase immediately comes to mind. The more I think about it, the more I think that people should be judged not only by the words they use, but how they use those words. Call me a snob, but what is the point of learning anything in school if you don’t use what you learned correctly?

When someone corrects a child, they are trying to teach them something, but from one adult to another, it’s considered rude, even if done discreetly. The problem is it’s difficult to correct someone without sounding like an arrogant ass. Although, if it was socially acceptable to correct someone, I believe instances that required correction would drop dramatically.

I’ve often heard that English is an evolving language, and while that is true to a degree, I don’t think it is an excuse to abandon the rules of grammar and spelling. It’s easy to blame the school system for the way things are, but that doesn’t explain why people from the same family or students in the same class are on opposite sides of the spectrum. Dependence on computers’ spell checkers and the catastrophe that was Hooked on Phonics certainly have had an impact on the situation. Add to that Twitter and texting shorthand and it makes one wonder what the next generation will have to offer.

I know some non-English speaking adults who came to this country as a result of a job transfer. Their employer will often require they take English classes either here or in their own country. The problem is, they’re learning one kind of English in the classroom and another on the street, which can be quite confusing. While the same can be said of most American students, I can imagine this makes it more difficult for non-English speaking adults who are still trying to learn the rules. For those foreign transplants who learned English as part of their education growing up, how will they actually know what is right or wrong when so many of their American peers don’t seem to know either?

I encounter many cringe-worthy incorrect phrases throughout the day, and I do try to refrain from correcting anyone (depending on the person), but I will occasionally break out my red pen (literally) and correct some misspelled words on job sheets and in our telephone memo book. Snobby I know, but no one seems to care, or notice for that matter, and it does give me a sense of satisfaction!

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What This Blog Is All About

It's all about reader participation! This means YOU!

Here it is in a nutshell: I have always wanted to write a blog, but I’ve never known what to write about. All the advice I’ve read says to choose a topic you’re passionate about. That’s fine, but I’m really not passionate about something specific enough that I think will sustain a blog through the long run. If I try to choose a new topic daily, again, who’s to say I would be passionate about enough random topics every single day to sustain the blog through the long run?

Here’s where you come in: The blog is going to be called “Pulled Out of a Hat” and the topics will literally be pulled out of a hat. The topics will be submitted by you and credited to you.

I will post something about submitting a topic daily on my Face Book page. You may submit the topic in the comments area of that specific post, or in the comments area of any post on this blog. Depending on the number of submissions I receive, topics could be carried over to the next day’s hat. The only guideline will be that the topic be seven words or less.

The topic can be about anything you want – even me. No subject is off limits. So if you might be put off by what other people submit, you don’t have to play, but you can always watch from the sidelines or walk away. Please note: I will try to be as inoffensive as possible, but the topics may be the issue. I will keep it professional, appropriately humorous and/or respectful, and informative.

Please try to stick around – this could be fun!

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