The People Demand It!

So this is the last post for me on The People Demand It!

Thanks to everyone who has read the blog over the last year, and thanks to Peter and Sarah, Dale and the other bloggers on GE.  It has been a great year working with GlobalErie, and I have hopes that the network will grow.  I am stopping my blog due to time constraints, and for a few other reasons.

Keep reading GlobalErie, as it is a nice balance for a “one newspaper town”.

Cya,

Ian

You won’t hear this at any other Erie news outlet:  Richard Gibbons is out as CEO of Emergycare.

Apparently, he “resigned” as of yesterday.  Gibbons oversaw Emergycare during a time of paramedic shortages. (reread this post from September)  According to several sources, Gibbons was escorted out of the Emergycare building at 1701 Sassafras Street yesterday.  His interim replacement is William Haggerty

I called Emergycare’s office to confirm the reports.  A unidentified woman answered the phone, and I told her who I was and that I was with GlobalErie.com.  I asked her several questions, and she confirmed that Gibbons resigned as of yesterday as CEO of ECI.  She said she could not comment on why Gibbons is gone.  I asked her if she could confirm or deny that Gibbons was escorted out of the building, to which she replied in a very angry tone “What is this call about?”  I explained again to her who I was with, and she promptly hung up on me.

So what does this mean for Emergycare and Emergency Medical Services in Erie?  Will the paramedics and EMTs at Emergycare finally get the raises they deserve?

Only time will tell.

I run across some decent articles every now and then and feel like sharing them, so I thought maybe once a week I could kinda bring’em all to one place.

This first one is from the blog Firefighter Close Calls.com.  The firefighters in the audience are familar with Billy Goldfeder’s comments, he’s not the most politically correct man in the universe, but he is very honest.   The article deals with the death of Firefighter Michelle Smith of the Delaware City (Delaware) Fire Company, after a man ran through an accident scene and ran her down.  Even if you’re not a firefighter, this is a very good read as it pertains to lax attitudes toward people who commit crimes.  The man who ran over Firefighter Smith was a career criminal who previously became a parapalegic after a previous high-speed crash.  Well, I’ll let Billy tell it…

 This isn’t the first time that career criminal Joseph Taye was involved in a hit and run….why, just one year ago, the paraplegic Taye…yeah, paraplegic… (Taye was paralyzed from the waist down in July 2005 when he was shot outside a bar) was involved in another previous hit and run crash in Maryland that left two women injured, one seriously. When police found the wrecked silver 2004 BMW after that late-night crash Nov. 30, 2007, they discovered a 4 foot wood stick in the rear seat area.   Incredibly but I guess, not surprisingly for a career criminal, Delaware State Police found a stick just like the other “I drive because I WANT to — stick” last Saturday, inside the same BMW, after that crash that killed Firefighter Smith in the Line of Duty. In both crashes, the cops think that career criminal Taye was using that stick to operate the brake and gas pedals…the BMW was not even equipped with handicapped devices that would allow a person, career criminal or not, whose legs are paralyzed, to drive. Even one with a suspended license.   You see…Criminal Taye blew off the law and drove anyway-because he must have simply “wanted to…”

I love Billy.

The City of Philadelphia is planning to close seven fire companies, even on the heels of a deadly fire that killed seven people in that city.  Philadelphia officials are claiming that the closure of these companies will not affect service, and that the poor economy is forcing them to make this decision.  How come whenever the economy is bad, the first services that are attacked are public safety?  These are essential services, how come social programs and the garbage department aren’t ever cut?  Because things like welfare people use everyday.  If you’re lucky, you’ll never have to use the fire department.  The same thing is happening all over the country (it has already happened in Erie).  Local officials say that since funding gets cut from the feds and the state, public safety must suffer.  But here is how Governor Tim Pawlenty (R-Minnesota) feels about that:

 Any city council member, any mayor, any city administrator that says their first course of action is going to affect public safety, I would politely suggest to them that they have misplaced priorities.

Makes sense to me.  Read it all here.

From one governor to another, National Review’s Rich Lowry has a great article on the Blagojevich mess in Illinois.

It’s been real, have a good start to your week!

Yesterday, while working on the crossword puzzle in the Richmond Times-Dispatch, one of the clues was “Pennsylvania Port City”.  Four letters.  Hmmm.  Let me think about that.  Erie?

This is the fourth time in the last year that Erie has been featured in the crossword puzzle, which I find very strange (my co-workers find it strange as well!).  The first time it appeared, about a year ago, was as “port city in Pennsylvania”, then as “Pennsylvania Great Lake”, and thirdly as “northwest Pennsylvania county”, and finally as “Pennsylvania port city”.

I only read the paper and work on the crossword puzzle at work, not on my days off.  So who is to say how many times Erie has been featured in the crossword?  The writer of these puzzles has to be from Erie, right?  Any clues?  I would love to know.  I suppose it is good PR for Erie.

Oh, and Happy New Year!

A great fake-car ad from one of my favorite bloggers, Iowahawk.  Enjoy!

To All My Liberal Friends: 
Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low-stress, non-addictive, gender-neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasion and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all. I also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2009, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make America great. Not to imply that America is necessarily greater than any other country nor the only America in the Western Hemisphere. Also, this wish is made without regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical ability, religious faith or sexual preference of the wish. 

To My Conservative Friends: 
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

“Survival Panic!”

What the hell is survival panic, you ask?

Well, apparently since our lives and economy are based on spending, you feel a void when you have to tighten your belt and spend less.  This results in “survival panic”, says Gaietona Vaccaro, who is a deputy clinical director for Moonview Sanctuary (?), where patients receive treatment for emotional and behavioral disorders.

Here is a snippet from the story on CNBC.com:

The U.S. recession that took hold in December last year has threatened personal finances in many ways as home prices fall, investments sour, retirement funds shrink, access to credit diminishes and jobs evaporate.

It is also a rude awakening for a generation of shoppers who grew up on easy access to credit and have never had to limit purchases to simply what they needed or could afford.

there’s more!:

“People that have been … identifying with and defining themselves by their material objects and expenditures are losing a definite piece of their identity and themselves,” he said. “They have to learn how to replace that.”

Depression Trigger

Beth Rosenberg, a New York freelance educator and self-professed bargain hunter, said she stopped shopping for herself after her husband lost his publishing job in June.

She is now buying her son toys from the popular movie Madagascar for $2 at McDonald’s, and is wearing clothes that have hung untouched in her closet for years.

She said it has been stressful to stick to an austere budget after she used to easily splurge on $100 boots. “I miss it,” she said of shopping.

Oh my!  She has to wear clothes she already has!  Oh no!  Maybe if she hadn’t spent all that money in previous years, then she would have some around during tough times.  I remember my grandmother telling me to save my money for when times were tough, since she had lived through the depression.  Apparently some other people’s grandmothers never gave them the same advice.

This follows a story on MSNBC.com about “Layoff Survivor Syndrome”:

Typically ignored in the drama of downsizing, layoff refugees get to keep their jobs, only to face rising workloads, sinking morale, ongoing anxiety — and the uncomfortable feeling that they ought to be grateful for it all.

What?  Am I losing my mind?  If other employees get laid off, and I keep my job, I’m supposed to feel guilty about it?  This just completely blows my mind.  Things must be pretty bad out there if even the person who has a job doesn’t want it anymore, like this woman:

“If I hear ‘At least you have a job’ one more time, I’m going to physically injure someone,” said a 45-year-old software engineer at a Northern California firm who didn’t want to be named for fear of further jeopardizing her job. “Yes, you still have a paycheck coming in, but sometimes I wonder if it’s worth the stress.”

Ms. Software Engineer, you should quit your job and then you won’t feel guilty for having one, and…you won’t have any stress.  She must have Layoff Survivor Syndrome:

Organizational psychologists call it “layoff survivor syndrome,” the collection of emotional, psychological and physical reactions long documented in workers who remain on the job. Being left behind, they say, can sometimes be as distressing as being let go.

Stories like these make me want to pull my hair out (what little I have).  I’m going to keep them coming, because they frustrate the heck outta me, and this is the only outlet I have!   By the way, what is an “organizational pyschologist”?  Someone must have invented that job.

Your nine-year-old dies in a drowning incident at a City of Erie park.  Your 15-year-old nephew is shot to death in a shooting incident, and you’re caught in a mob at the shooting scene, and you get elbowed in the face by a cop and lose a few teeth.  So what do you do?

Sue the City of Erie, of course.

Because it wasn’t your fault.  It wasn’t your fault that no one else was being responsible for your nine-year-old child, and he wandered into the city park and drowned.

It wasn’t your fault that you were at a crime scene where your nephew was shot and killed (after he participated in an armed robbery), and there were other people running around with firearms, and the police were trying to control the crime scene when you were elbowed by one of them.  The police officer was completely “unprovoked”, of course.

Leonard Jordan was just surrounded by a “confluence of events”, says his lawyer.

Ok, I’m done being facetious.  But seriously, isn’t that the problem with our society today?  No one wants to take responsibility for anything.  It’s always “someone else’s fault”.  Maybe I’m just old-school?  Am I wrong here?     Just reading that Erie Times article got me pretty steamed.  You can also read/watch WJET’s coverage here.

________________________________________

On an unrelated story, I was watching the coverage of the arrest of the Governor of Illinois, Rod Blagojevich.  You know, Illinois - “the most corrupt state in the Union.  If it is not the most corrupt, it sure as hell is in the running”.  The same state that our new President-Elect is from.  Anyway, watching the press coverage, I was hard pressed to find out what party the Governor was affiliated with.  If he had been a Republican, the headlines would have screamed it.

Just another observation.

I found this story on firehouse.com, concerning career v volunteer fire department staffing in Lockport, NY - just outside of Buffalo.

While reading it, I immediately thought of the “maybe we will get a career fire department, or maybe we will stay volunteer, or maybe we will have both” situation in Millcreek Township.  I also thought of the union’s fights with the City of Erie during contract negotiations.  Here are some excerpts:

(Lockport Fire Chief) Passuite said that as far back as the 1980s, he envisioned regionalism, with a large fire district including the city and Town of Lockport and combining the city’s pros with the volunteers in the town.

That hasn’t happened, however, and isn’t even being discussed.

Sounds familiar.  I think the best statement in the article, is this one from the same guy:

Lockport Chief Passuite annually asks the Council to hire more firefighters, but the Council almost always turns that down.  “I don’t think I’d be in favor of changing it, but it’s a fire department,” he said, “and if it’s not adequately staffed and maintained, it becomes a liability, not an asset.

I think that is true whether it is paid or volunteer.

Read the whole article, and let me know what you think of how it applies to the Erie area and it’s fire service.

But you can drink the soda!  Er, I mean, pop!

A Frenchman has invented a soda named after Barack Obama.  Affectionately known as “La Obama Soda”.

Don’t do it.  Put the can down.   Here is another story in Spanish, if you are interested.

Do hope and change come in different flavors?  I have a craving for a Hope and Change Root Beer to wash down the crap sandwich of all these bailouts that Congress wants to give out.  And don’t worry about those either, we are just going to keep giving money out until the country is completely bankrupt.  Don’t sweat it.