Teens 17 and younger between 8 am and 3:30 pm if they are not in school.

Teens 17 and younger on the streets after 10 pm.

Also, under Mayor Park’s version of martial law, police will have the right to stop and randomly search vehicle for drugs, weapons and open alcohol as well as checking pedestrians, bicyclists, skateboarders and whoever else the  for alcohol as well, not to mention arresting citizens who cannot produce a state issued ID upon demand. Residents are allowed, however to go to work, school, before and after school programs as well as to church.  The most controversial piece of this policy is that it excludes men and boys from wearing the colors red or blue.

I did some research to try and find out what they were going to do with all of the people that may be arrested under this policy (could their jail hold everyone) and to find out exactly what the consequence would be for wearing red and blue in East St. Louis, I is just hard for me to wrap my head around the possibility of arresting someone for what they are wearing; the 1st amendment of the U.S. constitution prohibits such misuse of power.  I called numerous divisions of the East. St. Louis police department, including the chief and assistant chief of police, various departments within City Hall and what I got were voicemails, I never was able to speak to a live person.

Looking at the big picture not only do I think that this is not the answer, I see what appears to be, numerous constitutional violations.  I am not a legal scholar yet, give me a year or so…it’s on my agenda, but to randomly stop and search vehicles without probable cause (occupancy does not constitute probable cause), is a direct violation of the 4th amendment, the one that guarantees citizens protection from such behavior.

Other cities, many much larger than East St. Louis have tried to impose laws against “saggin” the practice of wearing one’s jeans low on the hips or under the butt and have failed as courts have ruled that the way one dressed is guaranteed by the 1st amendment freedom of expression.  Attempting to govern what colors people can and cannot wear, falls under the same umbrella.  To my knowledge the SCOTUS has not ruled on a case such as this but I do expect for this to end up in the Illinois courts, very soon.

I could go on and on talking about constitutionality and legality but I’m going to stop there because the original intent of this blog is to discuss what I perceive to be the ineffectiveness of this policy.

Mayor Parks has said:

“For the right here right now what we’re dealing with is an almost war-like situation and we have to deal with a war-like situation like we’re at war, and that is to get individuals out of the environment where they can be hurt”.  (Source)

I think that the Mayor’s “save the children” media campaign grossly underestimates the intelligence of the people in his community.  East St. Louis is not the only city to have  and enforce truancy and curfew laws, and I’m hard pressed to believe that these curfews are random, I’m feeling very sure that they have been on the books but not enforced.  Announcing that young people will be arrested for these offenses is the same as announcing that the city has dropped the ball and now will have the police enforce the policy.  In the incidents of violence that sparked this initiative, none of them were perpetuated by juveniles.  The only juvenile that was affected is the 14-year old boy who is still in critical condition after being shot in his own yard while mowing the grass.  He was no t skipping school or hanging out late, enforcing the juvenile ordinances is about the city doing what they should have been doing all along.  People should not be fooled by the pretty packaging.

East St. Louis is a city that was once very prosperous but as industry moved out of the area and people became hopeless and complacent, the city took a turn for the worse and became one of the top 5 most dangerous cities in the United States.  In criminology, In sociology, the “broken-windows theory” holds that if a neighborhood or city doesn’t fix its broken windows and graffiti, the environment will continue to descend into crime, chaos and violence and I think that this is a large part of the problem in East St Louis.

Harassing a city’s citizens and violating their Constitutional rights is not the way to rid an area of crime, it is a way to make citizens angry, resentful, volatile and feeling forced into noncompliance.   I think that if the city truly wants to start ridding the area of crime, the city has to show the citizens that it has faith in them and appeal to their sense of community.  Many of the dilapidated and burned out buildings are owned by out of town people or conglomerates that purchased these properties for pennies on the dollar at auction and have not done anything with them since, including cut the grass.  The city could notify these property owners that if vacant homes in a serious state of disrepair are not torn down, the city will contract someone to do it and then sue the owner to cover the cost.  The same system can manage properties where the weeds are waist high and littered with garbage.  The absentee owners of those properties will not be responsible until they are held accountable.

The buck does not stop with the city.  The biggest force against crime in any community is the citizens.   A newspaper headline following the nightclub shooting in East St. Louis that left an 18, 19 and 21 year old dead reads:  ”Witnesses Not Cooperating After East St. Louis Night Club Shooting” (Source) and in the same article, people talk about how horrible the incident is (the shooter has since been arrested by the way) is.  No community can expect their government to do their job for them, the people in that community have to accept responsibility for their quality of life as well.  I know it sounds idealistic, and that fear often grips a community but at some point, a community has to accept that it will forever live paralyzed by fear or refuse to be repeatedly victimized further and deal with its own quality of life issues.  Community members cannot reasonably expect agencies to advocate for them while they don’t do anything to address the problems themselves, cleaning up areas such as East St. Louis is a team effort.

I really think that East St. Louis Mayor Parks is bowing to the pressure to “do something”, I think he is allowing his panic button to be pressed and has come to an impractical solution to a very real problem.  I think that the next blog that will be written on this issue may have to discuss how the city is going to collect all of the fines and bail money that is surely going to be generated by this squeeze.

“Not meshing” is an understatement, the once closely bonded relations started to become toxic.  I can’t speak for the other person, but I can say that I stayed in the friendship because I really felt that she’d always need a friend, no matter how difficult things got, I sincerely wanted to be there for her.  A few more years went by and being in that friendship got so toxic and hurtful on both sides, it was like we were swimming in a bath of sulfuric acid.  After a huge blow out a few years ago, we finally called it quits.  She doesn’t talk to me and I most definitely don’t phuck with her.  After many years of lies, accusations, mistrust and so many other things that have no place in any relationship, let alone a friendship, it was over and instead of feeling angry or sad, I felt a sense of relief.  Finally.

The thing that sucks the most is that our families and friends were caught in the crossfire.  I know that her parents really reached out to me when I was younger and needed someone to be there.  Like many teens, I had some tension at home and it was nice to have parental figures outside of the loop that could help me think with a clear head.  I miss them, and the mutual friends that we have, I am in contact with them and even though I do wonder about how my friend and her kids are doing, I dare not ask any of them.  Even the thought of hearing about her life floods me with a sick feeling of impending doom, knowing that the propensity to hear about some high level of unnecessary drama exists, that I tend to just pass on asking any questions all together.

Do I wonder if she ever thinks about me?  I guess I’d be lying if I said I didn’t but I don’t want her to ask.  Things had gotten so bad that I just assume she not even say my name.  Sounds harsh, huh?  Life is harsh sometimes, it’s just the world that we live in.

I did a lot of thinking about this and what I came up with is that it is fine to wonder about people in one’s past, hoping that they and their families are healthy and prosperous, but it is also okay to leave them right where they are, when one feels that everything else that comes along with them is a disturbance to one’s own sense of balance.  Sometimes, you can wonder about the past and still know that the past being in the past is the best place for it.

According to reports from Maine’s Department of Corrections, inmates performed 39,201 labor hours in 2011, a sharp rise from the 22,890 hours that inmates worked in 2010.  Maine’s DOC places a $10.00 per hour value on the labor and admits that some of the jobs are considered to be skilled labor jobs that would normally pay much higher if the jobs were performed by workers in the private sector and “tax payer” savings could actually be in the millions of dollars each year under this system.

I am not opposed to inmates working, however, I am against a system that boasts about exploiting inmate labor when the private sector unemployment is substantial and the jobs could be given to qualified applicants in need of work.  The state admits that the value of many of the jobs have been undervalued, meaning that inmates are being paid pennies on the dollar to perform jobs that they would have to pay others well above $10.00 per hour to do.

Corrections Commissioner Joe Ponte said in an interview ““It’s a good service, both for the community and for the inmates and crews that go out, the inmates feel good about giving back to the community.”

“There is a lot of misperception about the work crews,” Ponte said. “Some criticize that they are taking away jobs. I don’t see it that way.”

I think that Ponte needs his eyes checked and that the DOC’s department of public relations needs a raise for making this modernized version of the convict leasing system palatable to those who simply don’t know any better.

Sen. Stan Gerzofsky, D-Brunswick, the Democratic senator on the Criminal Justice Committee stated “ work crews are beneficial to the inmates and gives them a chance to use their skills and acquire new ones. He said the program is a win-win for the department because it improves morale of inmates while helping communities.”

Again, a polite golf clap for the DOC public relations department, please.

In all fairness, Maine is not the only state that is using inmate labor in an attempt to balance cutbacks and increase inmate morale (which helps the prisons run a bit more smoothly), but I hardly see how the community benefits in the long run when so many people are still unable to earn a living wage as those jobs are basically being done by inmates for next to nothing. Who can compete with that?

What are your thoughts on the program?

Source Article

When I was in Arizona recently, I took the kids to go get haircuts.  I was talking to the lady who was cutting my daughter’s hair when she began telling me her story.  Six months ago, her mother passed away unexpectedly while undergoing cosmetic surgery.  Three weeks after her mother passed away, her father met a woman at a social function, began dating and is now getting remarried in November, three weeks before her late mother’s birthday.  The hairdresser learned of the upcoming wedding on Facebook through one of  her brothers and according to her, her father told the boys and not the girls initially because he felt that the girls would not approve and he didn’t want to upset them further.  The hairdresser’s brothers are excited about the wedding and that their father is moving on while the girls think it is all too soon for their liking.  That said, the father does not communicate as openly with with the girls as he does the boys and she is feeling left out and also feeling like she has lost both parents.

It is easy to speculate that during his 50+ year marriage, that the father had some kind of ongoing relationship with his bride-to-be but there are other things to be considered.  The first possibility is that the marriage is a “knee jerk” reaction to his wife’s death and fear of being alone in his golden years (the father is 74), from what the hairdresser said, her father justifies the hasty marriage by saying that he doesn’t have much time left on this earth and if he is going to get married, there is no time to waste.  It would not be far fetched to say that his wife’s passing has put him in touch with his own mortality and a deep fear that many people have is the fear of dying alone.

Something else that may be troubling the hairdresser is that her father’s behavior is outside society’s descriptive norm.  In sociology, the descriptive norm is when people act they way they are “supposed” to, based on the norms of society.  Descriptive norms are not like laws and are unwritten.  The descriptive norms for grief may include isolation, crying, anger and the like.  It has become very stressful to the hairdresser that her father is not grieving in the way that would be expected of a man who has recently lost his wife of 50+ years.

So, what is next for the hairdresser, how does she process her own grief with all of the other emotional things going on in her life?  First, she may have to accept the fact that her father is grieving (a fact that her father may not have even truly accepted) and that she does not understand his grieving process since it doesn’t coincide with the manner of grieving that we would expect in this type of situation.

Secondly, although she doesn’t like, approve or understand her father remarrying so soon, she has to accept that he is going to marry.  She can talk with her father about her feelings while still being mindful of his.  If she raises a stink about the marriage or refuses to accept or be a part of it, then she is making the choice to feel more isolated from her father than she feels now.  She has the right to her feelings but her right does not trump his right to have feelings of his own.  If she wants to resume the close relationship she has with her father, she may have to accept his choices.  Acceptance and approval are not synonymous.

Lastly but probably most importantly, it is imperative that she not try to handle all of this alone.  The use of one’s support systems is very important when handling emotional issues but in her case, it seems as if many of her support systems are entangled in her emotional mess.  It would be a good idea for her to seek out someone who is removed from this situation and can remain neutral such as a psychologist.  Since psychologists don’t prescribe medications, that may be a good place for her to begin some kind of “talk therapy” to help her work through the feelings she is experiencing at the moment.  I may or may not ever see this woman again but my prayers are with her and I’m rooting for her and her family.

As I posted before, I finally completed my Masters Degree in Criminal Justice.  I love my field and now I am trying to find a teaching gig that will allow me to share my experience and knowledge with others.  That is easier said than done.  When I was looking for jobs in my field before I got a degree, it seemed as if everyone wanted at least a Bachelor’s degree, so I got one.  Once I got my BA, it seemed that most of the jobs that I wanted required a Masters Degree.  Now, I have one and you know what?  You got it, most of the jobs I have been looking at, require a Ph.D.  I’m not opposed to getting one, now I’m not going to lie to you, I was at first because I suck at statistics and being able to run stats is a major part of the program.  My awesome friend Renee offered her services to help me through that, so, I’m a lot less apprehensive about that part now.  The part that I am very apprehensive about is getting published in professional journals.  I love to write but it’s very different writing for an academic audience versus writing blogs for entertainment.  I’ve gotten a piece started and the one thing that I am VERY happy about is that it doesn’t have a deadline.  I’ll make it happen though, it’s what I do, so I’ll suck it up and the worst thing that can happen is that it’s rejected…even then, I know how to try again.

Next, I have returned to the gym, I have a fantastic trainer who works me to death.  Last week, I had done more ab work than normal, so this week, I managed to pull a ligament and some lower ab muscles………oh joy.  When I went to the doctor to make sure everything was cool and to get an annual check up, I learned that I was very dehydrated, enough where they could not take blood….seriously?  Maybe I need to pay more attention to what I drink as I do what I eat.   So, I’m laid up for a few days… you’d think since I have some “down time”, I’d work on that article, but no…I’m writing this blog instead.  It’s a lot more fun…ha!

I’m not sure if I mentioned that Miss Stang’s Boutique went down a few weeks ago, due to a dumbass error on my part.  I inadvertently deleted all of the products in my webstore.  I had a backup excel file just in case something like this happened, little did I know that the excel file that I had was attached to the database, so, when I deleted all of the items in the webstore, they deleted from the backup file as well.  Again, I have great friends that come through in a pinch, thanks Sarah for hookin that up……. in the meantime, I am working on restoring all images to the products…..I’ll tell you, if it’s not one thing it’s another.  Now you kind of know why I’ve not been around very much.

I could keep going but I think I’ll pass, I think I’ve even bored the sh!t out of myself with this entry…….but at least I got if off my chest.

I got a copy of the book and flipped through it, the first thing I noticed was that it was not going to be a difficult read, so I glanced at the first few pages.  The next thing I knew, i was a few chapters into the book and I had to make myself put it down so  I could get back to work on my project.

The excerpt from the Ghetto Ballerina website reads:

It doesn’t take Chanel a long time to discover that jealousy is a major dilemma, when you are living the fast life and you are on top of your game.  A cruel twist of fate shows her that not even family can be trusted all of the time.  Where there is jealousy and hate, scandal is always sure to follow….. Chanel’s boyfriend, Nate, shows her all of the finer things in life, while Duke, who is her man on the side, encourages her to stay out of the streets and concentrate on going to school.  The two men in her life collide paths in a deadly way and Chanel is forced to take sides with one of them.  Her decision determines which one of her men lives and which one doesn’t live to see another day.

After reading this story I’m sure you’ll agree that every good girl has a little bit of bad in her..

Chanel is a character that is fully developed and embodies the urban surroundings in which her story takes place.  The dialogue in the book is written in an urban dialect but not to the point where it is hard to understand.  The use of slang is appropriate and doesn’t require one to speak fluent “hood’ to understand.  Tenia brings forth this story in a style that does not lose the reader, regardless of background, she has found a balance that makes it very easy for people of all walks of life to see into Chanel’s world, understand her struggles and tap into her emotions.

Ghetto Ballerina‘s mixture of sexy, humor and suspense makes the book very hard to put down, and more importantly, makes the reader wonder what Chanel is going to encounter next.  The story is said to be one of trust, betrayal and revenge but in actuality, it is so much more than that.  If you want to know how much more, read the book.

Ghetto Ballerina can be purchased from Amazon.com and the last I checked, new copies are 9.99, used ones are 6.99 and it is available for Kindle readers for 8.99.

Links:

Official Ghetto Ballerina Website (link to the book on Kindle is here too)

Ghetto Ballerina on Amazon.com 

Author Tenia Jamilla on Facebook

The main campus for my school where the May commencement was held is about 100 miles from where I live, we have a brick and mortar campus here but the big ceremony was held at the main campus.  I go up the day before so I didn’t have to get up hella early to be at line up by 11:00 am.  So, on my way up on Friday, I stop at Culver’s to grab a bite to eat.  They had a 3 piece fish dinner on the menu for like $11.00 and some change.  I wasn’t interested in all of the carb laden side dishes that came with the dinner, so I asked the girl at the drive-thru if I can just get a couple of pieces of fish.  She said that I could and that I could get just 2 pieces of fish for about $9.00 and change or 3 pieces of fish for about $13.00 and change.   I was floored that I could get a whole meal for $11.00 and change but to just get fish was WAY more, so I asked the girl at the window why that was….. her answer?  Because they had to ring each piece separately.  Seriously?  Needless to say (but I’m going to say it anyway), I got a burger and kept it movin.

The rest of Friday came and went without too many more uncontrollable irritations, so I worked on my project, hit the rack and got up the next morning for graduation, Show Time!  Now, I have nothing against math majors, however, I think that having the head of the math department give the commencement address is a little odd at best, especially when there may have been one graduate from that department.  The head of the department admitted that she had never given a commencement address before and in writing her address, she thought it would be a good idea to speak directly to the graduates versus writing a speech designed to impress her colleagues and her boss.  I’m thinking that she should have gone with the speech designed to impress her boss and colleagues instead.

I think that the intent of her speech was to promote financial responsibility and the importance of saving money.  She began by letting us know that a lot of little things can add up to big things, duh, I know, right?  The way she explained that concept was by saying “I make under 70k per year, but if you add up the total of a few professors that make under 70k per year that eventually, you’ll see that the school pays out more than 100k per year in salaries because it all adds up”.  That’s just fan-effin-tastic.  She stood in front of hundreds of people who are now probably up to the top of their head in student debt and announced that in the grand scheme of things, she doesn’t make any money.  That’s what we wanted to hear, I thank her for that.  She did share with us one of her money saving tips, she let us know that she washes out zip-lock bags and sets them atop of the handles of wooden spoons for them to dry so she can reuse them.  I thank her for that too.

Just when I was thinking that this address could not be more irrelevant and even less motivational, she goes on to tell us of a trip that she once took with her husband to some island where “The black people were so dark, they were the blackest people in the world and they had never seen white people in person before”.   Oh for crying out loud, and since they had never seen white people in person before, she said they were so taken by her straight hair that all the children wanted to do was to play with it.  The people of the islands were thankful for the crayons she sent them for the school when she returned home, so I think that the moral of that train wreck was that if you help one person in your life, you’ve made a difference. Now look, I have completed 3 degree programs now and I was much happier that speech was over than I am that school is over for me (for the moment).

After graduation was over, I was pretty sure that I had seen and heard all of the randomness that I could fit into one weekend, until a woman almost took out the front end of my car by barrel assing through the McDonald’s drive-thru when I stopped for iced coffee.  What was her hurry?  They gave her the wrong .39 cent pie……….. yes, really.

Anyway, I did some digging to see what could be going on with me, and it seems that I’ve been afflicted with something that usually happens to teenagers when they are about 17 or 18 …  I found something that sounds almost exactly like me:

A common disease which plagues high school seniors at one point during their last year in high school. Before they graduate, they are overcome with a lazy and indifferent attitude; uncaring of their studies. There are many different causes of the disease, but it can often be contagious between close friends. Often results in a change in personal style; from anything beforehand to sweats and baggy shirts. Hair is barely ever brushed; or for women, is up in a messy bun or ponytail. They might have many absences and a generally dismissive outlook towards any type of school assignments.

Source:  Urban Dictionary

It’s official, I have Senioritis!

I am in the final 3 weeks of school before I finish my MSCJ (Master’s of Science Criminal Justice) and I can’t focus.  I have two undergrad degrees and neither time did I struggle writing my final papers but my master’s thesis is killing me.  Not because it’s hard, and I love school but GOOD LAWD !

I have a great support group and they’ve said “Hang in there, it’s almost over” and “You got this!” …. both of which I know are true but…GOOD LAWD!

I have thought about different ways that I could get through this, I like to think that I have a great set of coping mechanisms.  My first thought is that I could drink, I dismissed that because if I start drinking, I am entirely capable of missing the last 3 weeks of school altogether, so that was no good.  I have some friends who have successfully completed college high, but knowing me, I would spend the last 3 weeks of school either sleeping or eating foods that would cause my personal trainer to inflict serious bodily harm on me and I refuse to pay him to do that.

Since I couldn’t come up with an alternative method of coping with my senioritis, I thought that a 12 step program for stressed out master’s degree candidates would help me, until I read the steps:

Step 1 – We admitted we were powerless over our senioritis – that our lives had become insane.

Step 2 – Came to believe that only graduation could restore us to sanity

Step 3 – Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of anti-anxiety medications as we understand them.

Step 4 – Made a searching and feverish inventory of all of our research notes.

Step 5 – Admitted to our professors, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our research theories.

Step 6 – We’re entirely ready to have Microsoft Word remove all these defects of spelling and grammar.

Step 7 – Humbly asked APA formatting to remove our shortcomings

Step 8 – Made a list of all persons we had thought of harming, and became willing to make good on those promises if they interrupt our research or the reporting of our findings.

Step 9 – Made direct amends to such people who have previously interrupted our research or the reporting of our finidings…….at some point.

Step 10 – Continued to proofread our work and when we were wrong promptly ignored it

Step 11 – Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood God, praying only for knowledge of God’s will for us and the power to carry that out

Step 12 – Having had a graduation as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to other students, and to practice these principles in all our affairs

After reading the steps, I decided that turning over, asking, making amends, removing defects and all of that, in addition to my research and the reporting of my findings in my thesis was just undertaking more than I can deal with at the moment.

So, after all of the research I’ve done on my senioritis and the various ways that it can be managed, I decided that the best treatment for this disorder was to just got off my ass and make it happen……….I got this.

Am I angry with Zimmerman, sure, I tend to be angry when people can’t seem to use problem solving skills that do not involve taking the life of another but now that he has been arrested, I think that those whose focus is still strictly on Zimmerman and his actions are missing the greater point.

The media and special interest groups have done a great job at getting the public to focus on the Zimmerman-Martin “floor-show” instead of aiming the camera and computer keystrokes at the “man behind the curtain” that made is possible for this whole thing to get incredibly out of hand.

Now that Zimmerman has been arrested, I think that the core public focus in this case should be on the poor decision making of the people who allowed Zimmerman to walk away from the incident without having to be accountable or responsible for his actions.  It is my understanding that it is not the responsibility of the police to interpret the law, rather to enforce it.  It is up to the ELECTED county prosecutor to evaluate the case based on the facts, not based on how difficult the case may be to try in court or to fold like a house of cards because a defendant’s family may have a lot of political pull.  I think that civil servants have an obligation to do what’s right, and not what’s popular or to one’s political advantage.

Many believe that Zimmerman was charged based on public outcry and political pressure in an attempt to take the lid off of a boiling pot.  That may be the case to an extent, however, that could have been done with a lesser charge if that was the only motive.  I think that the special prosecutor chose the 2nd degree murder charge based on the inconsistencies of Zimmerman’s story and the facts of the case.  The facts of the case are often based on evidence that the public does not have access to, basically, they know something that we don’t, but it does call attention to the question, if the special prosecutor can find enough evidence to substantiate a 2nd degree murder charge, why couldn’t the county prosecutor?  THAT….. is an issue.

With as much information and misinformation that has been distributed in this case, there are only four things that the public knows for sure and those are:  Trayvon Martin is dead, Zimmerman pulled the trigger, the case was under investigated allowing Zimmerman to walk, and he’s now been charged with 2nd degree murder and awaits trial.  That’s IT!  The only people who will know the facts of the case will be the jury that is called upon to serve as the fact finders in this case.   Let the jury to its job.  To continue putting the focus on Zimmerman, and calling for a conviction or by some groups, his death, is displaying the same lynch mob mentality that others have been accused of displaying.  I am concerned that many will only feel that justice is served if Zimmerman is convicted and sentenced to the maximum allowed by law.  I think that justice, in this case, is having Zimmerman’s case formally heard in a criminal court.  Justice is having a jury of 12 competent people to make a decision on a case.  Justice should not be a legal reinforcement for the court of public opinion.

Do I think that Zimmerman is guilty?  I will say that I KNOW that Zimmerman is guilty of pulling the trigger…without being able to review the evidence ( and I WILL be glued to this trial when it begins), I can’t make any other claim.  As the trial unfolds, I am sure I will form an opinion one way or another.  I just wanted to see the case get to court.

Back to the system of foolery that allowed the case to reach this magnitude, a system like that is not just a threat to “black folks”, it is a threat to the public safety of “all folks”.  Allowing the people involved in the original investigation of this case to hold their elected positions is doing a disservice to all of the citizens in that community, Black, Hispanic, poor or politically unconnected.  Those elected officials are the one’s whose ability to serve the public is very much in question.  I think the voters in that area need to decide how truly angry they are.  Are they angry enough to recall officials or vote them out of office?  Only time will tell, but I do know that many feel it’s easier to “pick on Zimmerman” than it is to fight the system.  It’s time that people stop being bullies (he’s been arrested, there is nothing more that can be done), snatch that curtain down and handle business………that’s just my two cents.

**Update – As I type this, I have just read that Zimmerman has been granted 150k bail and he’s apologized to the Martin family.  According to the article in the Atlantic Wire , there are things that must be put into place before he is allowed to leave.

So, I decide to order cable online…..oye.  I choose the tv-internet bundle for 79.98 per month (I needed a faster speed to work on my new online jewelry shop MissStang’s Boutique – yup, that’s a plug).  I hit the button to chat with an online representative… it’s not long after Mr. Duc takes the chat and I figure out right away that we’re not in Kansas anymore, okay, this customer service exchange is not even happening in the United States, I’m chatting about cable service with China.

I tell the guy the plan that I want and he thumbs through some things, only to tell me that the package is not available in my area.  I was totally confused since I had entered in all of my address information and I was over this conversation and ended the chat.  I went back into the order area of the site and placed the order for what I wanted (that 79.98 bundle for 24 months), I got a reference number and then went back into the chat to set up installation.

Me:  Hi I needed to set up installation for order #_________________
Me:  Also, would you please verify that is a 24 month price please?

Sara:   I would love to assist you, but first I would like to ask you a few questions to ensure that I give you the most accurate information as it pertains to your specific request.  To get started, may I have your full address including zip code ?

So I give it to her….

Okay, now here we go, ready?  Pay attention …….